Journey to Harmony: OneWorldOneDreamFreeTibet2008

This Way to Racist Park

dherman — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:54:00 GMT

Tibet Activists Expose Colonialst Mentality at Olympic Park

Her screams were faint at first, but soon they filled the air. "Free Tibet! Free Tibet!" I looked up and saw a thin, young woman and another slightly older man on the walking bridge adjacent to the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park at the southwest corner of the main Olympic Park. As the two unfurled a bright yellow banner with the words "Free Tibet" in thick black, two security guards started rushing across from the staircases at their respective ends of the bridge. By the time they had reached the activists and started to wrestle the banner from their hands a group of reporters and curious tourists had already gathered along the street below. The guards seemed confused. They were screaming things and tugging at the banner while simultaneously trying to use their walkie-talkies to communicate with their superiors.

Suddenly an even larger commotion erupted right out in front of the entrance to the park. The media clamoring at the base of the walking bridge made a collective dash for the park. Five other activists had appeared at the gate and created a chain of bodies and metal as they locked themselves and their bicycles to the entrance. Their white shirts sported FREE TIBET in big, bold, black hand-fashioned lettering, and two had a banner that read "One World One Dream Free Tibet" while another unfurled the outlawed Tibetan Flag. As they began to chant slogans such as "Free Tibet", and "One World One Dream Free Tibet" the Public Security Guards tried desperately to block the activists from the view of the journalists and tourists who all aimed their lenses at the spectacle. A park guard came flying by and ripped the Tibetan flag from the hands of the rather cooperative activists and slid by the group shouting loudly in Chinese. However, the distraction worked. By the time the two activists were addressed on the bridge, the lock down at the gate was complete.

The Chinese authorities, who have been steadfast in their declarations of allowing "sanctioned" protests and unfettered access to the media during the Olympics had no choice in this instance as the seven activists took them totally by surprise. However, this doesn't mean authorities simply let it happen. While the two actions unfolded I watched a Western man in a pink collared shirt get knocked to the ground just inside an archway serving as an exit. As he scampered to his feet he started to scream at the guards and stood them down. The guards were unimpressed with his declarations of innocence and forcibly removed his shoes. The man, who later turned out to be John Ray- a British journalist for ITN- made a mad dash for the street, but the guards, who were now assisted by uniformed police and plainclothes officers, grabbed at him and dragged him into an adjacent teahouse.

Back on the bridge, officers began cuffing the activists and two others popped open colorful umbrellas to block the telephoto lenses pointing up from the street. In front of the park a Tibetan-Japanese woman tearfully spoke about the motivation for the action to a group of reporters. "We are proud to be Tibetans and we will never give up because we have truth on our side. We are so very lucky to have all of these Western supporters who fight for us because this is a non-violent war. We will continue, and we will be strong. We won't give up!"

I was on the scene to bear witness to the way in which the security forces reacted to non-violent direct actions that challenged China’s occupation of Tibet. I have been in Beijing clandestinely reporting on the Olympics and the existence of protests calling for an end to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, which were not being reported by the Chinese-controlled media. The heavy-handed approach to these protests has been quite indicative of the attitude and mentality of the Chinese administration when it comes to the issue of Tibetan independence. There was no mention of this action on the CCTV news in Beijing today.

As a student and teacher of Asian history, who has witnessed first hand the impact of the continued Chinese occupation of Tibet, I felt it was my duty as a person of conscience to speak out for the six million Tibetans who continue to be silenced. At this critical time the only way I felt I could accomplish this was by coming to Beijing, risking arrest, and reporting back on the realities on the ground. People outside of China need to know what is really happening while the glitzy and ultra-hyped Olympics unfold. It is simply not enough to have conviction. What truly counts is how you put this conviction into action. In March, with their lives hanging in the balance, ordinary Tibetans, monks and nuns began speaking out against the ongoing repression and brutal occupation orchestrated by the current Chinese administration. The least I could do as a free person was join in their chorus.

As I inched closer to the scene at the entrance I was nearly run over by a police van as it screamed up onto the front entrance. I then proceeded to walk directly up to the line of protesters and guards and photographed the scene. By the time I popped off a few shots I was surrounded by guards and within the perimeter of a hastily constructed police limit line of tape. There were several plainclothes Chinese photographing those who were documenting the event, and when one journalist who was right up on the line of protesters was knocked to the ground, I slipped underneath the line and stepped behind the crowd before I could be detained. As I slipped away I saw an Asian man with a camera being chased after by a guard and grabbed from behind. His camera was taken away, and he was physically forced into an unmarked sport utility vehicle several store fronts down from the entrance to the park. His whereabouts and identity are still unknown.

Construction for the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park began in 1992 when Beijing bid for the 2000 Olympics. The original signs in Chinese directing people to the park translated into the English "racist park", but the characters were changed when someone pointed out the negative connotation in the West. However, "racist park" is a fitting description for this deplorable and shocking display of the paternalist and colonialist Chinese attitude toward Tibet. They have created a zoo-like atmosphere and have relegated Tibetan culture to nothing more than a road side attraction.

A key priority for the Chinese government in its Olympics propaganda has been to portray a picture of harmony between Han Chinese and Tibetans, as well as depict Tibetans as one of many Chinese ethnic minority groups who are “happy” under Chinese rule. We have seen this through the direct provocation of running the Olympic Torch's "Journey to Harmony" route directly through occupied territory and up to Tibet's Mt. Everest; through the use of the Tibetan Antelope as one of the five Olympic mascots; and in outlandish and insulting fashion this "Culture Park" has been used as a tool to convince Chinese citizens as well as the rest of the world of the legitimacy of its rule in Tibet. Put simply, the park is an abomination.

While the Chinese are charging Olympic spectators the equivalent of $12 USD to "experience" Tibetan culture inside the official Olympic Park they are simultaneously obliterating its very existence inside the so-called Tibetan Autonomous region. For the six million Tibetans inside the occupied TAR and other provinces of China, daily life is characterized by an atmosphere of extreme fear.

The Chinese government is actively waging an Olympics propaganda campaign to showcase Tibet as legitimately theirs and Tibetans as "happy" under Chinese rule, but the reality is much different. While Tibetan song and dance is on display in Beijing, in Tibet their culture is under siege and Tibetans are being forcibly kept from speaking out about their repression at the hands of the Chinese authorities.

As part of this crackdown, there has been a dramatic increase of troops in sensitive areas in eastern Tibet. Two Tibetan women were shot last Saturday (August 9th) in Ngaba, eastern Tibet (Chinese: Aba, Sichuan). One was injured in the hand and one in the leg. They are currently in the Ngaba County Civil Hospital. Since August 3rd, troops have increased from 2,000 in the town and surrounding area to 10,000 in the town alone. On March 16th, Chinese paramilitary troops fired into a crowd of peaceful protesting Tibetans in Ngaba, killing up to 13 according to eyewitnesses.

While this action was strong and successful I feel a little overwhelmed by the fact that the world wouldn't have paid it much mind if it wasn't for John Ray, the reporter from ITN, being manhandled and briefly detained. Seems someone has to be killed or a Westerner needs to have his or her rights violated to catch the eye of the world. Meanwhile these types of violations happen everyday in Tibet and will continue long after the spotlight of the Olympics fades over Beijing. What will Tibetans do then? If they break rank with their religious precepts of non-violence and follow in the footsteps of history by taking up arms will others come to their aid? It is clear that they cannot climb this mountain alone, but what seems even clearer is that the few world leaders who claim to have China's ear are simply not speaking loud enough. Or perhaps they can't hear them over the roar of the overly jubilant Olympic crowd.

Outlawed Tibetan Flags Fly in Beijing

dherman — Fri, 8 Aug 2008 01:26:00 GMT

Outlawed Tibetan Flags Fly in Beijing:

Just an hour before the Opening Ceremonies were to kick off at the auspicious time of 8:08pm on 08/08/08, Chinese officials used force to subdue three activists who boldly removed sweatshirts to reveal Team Tibet T-Shirts and each draped themselves in the outlawed Tibetan national flag.

Within an estimated forty seconds, officers, both uniformed and plainclothed, tackled the two Americans and one Argentine-American activist to the ground and removed the flags from their person. Quickly, but not quick enough to avoid the ever present flash of cameras, the three were arrested and removed from the scene outside the Beitucheng subway stop at the base of the New Line leading up to the famed Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium.

The action, which was orchestrated by Students for a Free Tibet, and a follow-up to the dramatic banner hanging outside the Nest during the days leading up to the Opening Ceremonies, defied the intense and tight security measures authorities had taken. Although the bold move only lasted for less than a minute, the heavy-handed and violent reaction by authorities on the scene further solidified SFT and other human rights organization's assertions that the Chinese authorities are not willing to allow any type of dissent when it comes to Tibet or other sensitive matters.

In 1968 John Carlos and Tommie Smith inspired the world with their courage and character by standing up for civil rights by simply raising a clenched fist when accepting their medals at the Olympic ceremonies in Mexico City. Forty years later, this same spirit has been honored and exercised by these Tibetan supporters whose actions give voice to those silenced for speaking out for fundamental human rights and freedoms in Tibet.

Earlier this year Tibetan monks inside Tibet marked the 49th anniversary of the failed Tibetan Uprising on March 10,1959 by demonstrating in similar fashion along the streets of Lhasa, Tibet. They were met with an even more violent reaction to the calls for a Free Tibet and fundamental human rights. When scores of monks and nuns were beaten and arrested ordinary Tibetans responded with pointed violence of their own as they set their sights on Chinese-owned businesses and property. This reaction was met with an even higher degree of physical violence from a police and military force in Lhasa. But this only spurred on more protests in other parts of Tibet, and even areas of China including Beijing. Once the news made it abroad the world was up in arms over the brutal response by Chinese forces on unarmed civilians. World wide protests and acts of solidarity similar to the ones carried out by these three activists in Beijing increased global awareness of the ongoing abuses the Chinese authorities have perpetrated on the occupied Tibetan people.

When I emerged from my subway line to transfer to the 8 Line up to the Olympic Stadium I felt completely surrounded by officers with automatic assault rifles, uniformed police with attack dogs, as well as plain clothed officers who were giving away their affiliation with their cold and hard scanning stares of the crowds. It was a very intense scene, and all those who were exiting the trains were ushered through the type of security checks normally found in airports. While the level of control and security was quite overwhelming I simply moved with the crowd and exited the station. Once I reached street level the limit-line tape blocked off desolate streets lined with soldiers and more uniformed officers.

There were huge crowds of foreigners who were exiting to make their way through even more screening to enter the Olympic Park, and for a time I simply blended in with the lot, but eventually I broke away from them and moved back towards the area where the activists eventually made their stand.

It didn't take very long for the bulk of the officers on the scene to react to their flags. As they moved around and tried to keep the flags out as long as possible, the crowds of Chinese who lined the streets at the limit-line tape screamed at the activists but none acted out. Not that they needed to as they got to live vicariously through the rough actions of the officers who swiftly tackled the activists to the ground.

Within as much time as it took them to take off their shirts and wrap themselves in the flags the officers had them cuffed and taken off the scene. It was extremely eerie how quickly the crowd returned to normal. A few moments later it was as if nothing had happened at all. Almost as if it were a false alarm when when you think it is about to rain. You feel the first drop, look up, wait for another with an open palm, but then nothing.

Several journalists were on the scene, but everyone was ushered away from the corner of the action. Some of the media who had taken photos were questioned and lightly harassed, however, on the whole the event was simply smothered by the level of excitement in the Chinese crowd as Beijing moved within an hour of the Opening Ceremonies.

A few plain clothed police officers seemed interested in my presence. I started moving back towards the subway entrance and decided it was time to leave. After purchasing a ticket and entering the subway to head east I felt the burning sensation of eyes in my back. I did my best to ignore it and opened up a book and boarded the next train that pulled into the station. Once I boarded the men from the street level entered the train car. I remained calm and got off at the next stop, but then quickly swung around and merged with the crowd to reenter the same car. By the time the train pulled out of the station they were no longer on the train. At the next stop I hopped off and took the west bound train that was waiting across the platform to the university district on the west side of the city without hassle.

I ended up watching the beginning of the Opening Ceremonies on a local bus that was headed to the southern part of the city. By the time the major opening sequence had concluded I had reached the front gate of Tiananmen Square. I hopped back on a tube and made my way home. Upon returning to my hotel the hostel across the way was swollen with Westerners glued to the huge projection screen broadcasting the ceremonies. Although I had made it back safely it was just the beginning of a very long and emotional evening of being surrounded by westerners who watched Han Chinese dressed in ethnic Tibetan clothes celebrate the diversity of the host nation without so much as batting an eye of suspicion or wonder. Guess all it takes to suppress awareness and morality is some glitz, fireworks, and a sixer of Tsing Tao.

Gallery: Beijing2008

dherman — Wed, 6 Aug 2008 22:17:00 GMT

Olympics

Beijing Fading?

dherman — Wed, 6 Aug 2008 22:14:00 GMT

Beijing Fading: A Decade of Promise?

It's been a decade since I was in Beijing studying the language and culture of China. It's amazing to think of how much has changed in me as a person since first getting on a plane and jumping head first into a culture as ancient and deep as that of the "Middle Kingdom," but while many things change some simply stay the same.

My studies of Chinese culture and society have surely not slowed in the years since spending a summer in Beijing. You'd have to live underneath a rock or in a cave somewhere to avoid the constant media message of a surging China, both economically and politically, and yet the thing that has stuck with me the most in the past decade has been the way things seemed to stay the same for the Chinese. In analyzing their history one would come to the conclusion that the current leadership of the People's Republic of China is simply nothing more than another dynastic family holding onto power the only way they know how- by applying it.

Perhaps all the statues of Sun Yat Sen that revere him as the "Father of the Republic" are the equivalent to our own glorification of George Washington, and by that rationale Mao is China's Lincoln, Deng their Nixon, Jiang their Clinton, and Hu their Bush. But how much can a modern nation expect to depart from its ideological roots? What is change? How do we truly measure it? Does a society in change need to be held, cradled, nurtured and protected by those around it like an infant to ensure that it grows up right? Once it does change, how do we judge whether the change is good or bad? By what standards do we assail such judgment? From whose perspective?

After being back in Beijing for a week now I think I can comment on the Beijing that has replaced the one I came to love and hate on equal footing.

The China that I encountered a decade ago was still in the process of distancing itself from the Tiananmen Square masacre. A Beijing where thousands of dissident voices rallied together to create one epic chorus calling for change. Change from the dark and seedy lives steeped in poverty and disease, change from the age old process of simply being told how to live, how many babies to have, what job to report to, what language to speak, and what politic to unquestionably press to one's heart. We all know how the story ended. We all know because we saw at least a smidgen of what the leadership did not want the world to see. We all saw the tanks, we heard the machine guns, and the scene of that man standing off a line of tanks is etched in our brains just like the image of Kirk Gibson pumping his fist as he rounds the bases into World Series history will always be there. The fact that the former should hold a greater place and relevance than that of the latter is of no major
consequence. Nonetheless, it will always be there for me. I was just a little child when I saw it, but I remember everything about it the way my dad remembers seeing Vietnam on the TV. It stays with you.

It clearly it stayed with the leadership too as a decade later Tiananmen Square was still closed on the anniversary of that defiant call for democracy and change. However, Beijing had already begun to change. China had already begun to embrace the reality of what it had to do economically in order to maintain its hold politically. The China we have today is in direct response to Tiananmen, just perhaps not the way most of those students and citizens had hoped for.

They called them F.E.Zs or "Free Economic Zones". Only the major cities had them. They considered them "experiments in capitalism", and allowed private businesses to exist via permit as long as their owners didn't challenge the leadership and their hold on society. Foreign investment flowed in like a raging river. It was swift. The Hard Rock was there for our weekend enjoyment, McDonald's was like a nightclub behind the velvet rope, the Colonel (KFC) already had his 100th franchise in the former imperial gardens of Beihai Park adjacent to the Forbidden City. Fresh veggie markets still lined the streets, meat stick hawkers still dominated the corners, the bicycle was still numero uno in transport, but all our counterparts at the university triumphantly commandeered their motor scooters, proudly wore their beepers on the outside of their belts, and most worked for American and European franchises where they made more money in a night than their daddies were making in a week, and in some cases a month, of sixteen hour work days.

The Hutong were vile places where ten to fifteen would stack up in little cement prisons; where the wash was done right next to where the cooking occurred; where the streets were muddied with human waste and around every corner your face was slapped with the stench of urine. Around the corner from each shadowy Hutong was a pillar of Chinese excellence, be it culinary, performative or architectural, and even a decade ago one could simply side-step the grim reality of what life was really like for the average Beijinger. I almost side-stepped it myself. Almost walked right past it, never glancing seriously at the country I was "studying". If not for the need to break free of the monotony that was our academic regiment and site-seeing itinerary I might have missed it altogether. But I didn't. I took that walk down the dark alley just round the corner from the Peking Duck House where George H.W. Bush and the lot used to be pampered to the finest Beijing had to offer after visiting the Chinese Opera. What I saw changed me. As I think back, it was that night and that silent ride home in a cab after a seemingly endless hour of wandering through the labyrinth of poverty in that Hutong that flipped the switch in me.

So, we were talking about change. Change? In the past decade China most certainly has changed, but for whom? The China, or at least the Beijing, that people attending the Olympics will walk away with in their minds will be a very different Beijing than the one that has continued to stir within me. They will walk away with exactly what the leadership wants them to walk away with- an image of extreme efficiency, cleanliness, organization, modernization, and prosperity. But where did all the people from the Hutongs go? It's not as if they have all suddenly entered the middle class and can now afford to buy Prada and shop in the malls that seem to be everywhere. What's really behind all those glitzy "One World One Dream Beijing 2008" billboards absolutely everywhere you look?

Will those here for the Olympics interact with any of these Chinese or will they walk away with a sense that China deserves its rightful seat at the political and economic table with the rest of the 'modern' world. Will they venture twenty kilometers out of the city center and see the real China where people still live in the garages where they work or will they walk away mesmerized by the glitz and flamboyance of the spectacle that is the Olympics "Chinese-style"?

Considering the four hours I spent as the only Western face on the local buses that took me out past the fifth ring in search of the Marco Polo Bridge I have the feeling that they will walk away not seeing any Hutong other than the ones that promote traditional architecture or have been refurbished to the point of being suitable enough to sell tourists little trinkets, bamboo hats, and knock-off bronze Buddha statues.

Unfortunately my gut is telling me they will walk away feeling that the world shouldn't be so hard on China for its human rights record, or their state stranglehold of the media. They will walk away from Beijing thinking that perhaps it is okay that China is on the Human Rights Council; that it is understandable and responsible that China has a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council; that China should be celebrated for its progress and superb performance as a gracious Olympic host. They will not walk away with a mindset that will see China's epic rise as a zero-sum game for a major chunk of the host's very own citizens. They will simply swallow the red pill, enjoy their vacation, support their nation's effort in the games, and get on the plane none the wiser to the realities and impacts of current policy in China. They will not see the face of the losers in the equation. They will only see the winners because they are the only ones who are on display. I know this because part of me will walk away just the same.