The Chinese citizen Tang Danhong is a poet and film-maker who lives outside her country. (Read on to discover where.) She seems to be someone who takes Buddhist teachings, especially regarding nonviolence and reincarnation, very seriously. On March 21, she published an intriguing essay about the current tragedy of violence and counter-violence in Tibet. (Chinese here, English translation here.) The translation is titled Tibet: Her pain, my shame.
Hat-tip to Tim Johnson of “China Rises.” See his commentary on Tang’s essay here.
Tang has apparently spent quite a lot of time in Tibet. Here is what she writes at what I consider the argumentational/emotional crux of her essay:
- Why can’t we [i.e. the Han Chinese] sit down with the Dalai Lama who has abandoned calls for “independence” and now advocates a “middle way,” and negotiate with him with sincerity, to achieve “stability” and “unity” through him?
Because the power difference of the two sides is too big. We are too many people, too powerful: Other than guns and money, and cultural destruction and spiritual rape, we do not know other ways to achieve “harmony.”
……
Not long ago, I read some posts by some radical Tibetans on an online forum about Tibet. These posts were roughly saying: “We do not believe in Buddhism, we do not believe in karma. But we have not forgotten that we are Tibetan. We have not forgotten our homeland. Now we believe the philosophy of you Han Chinese: Power comes out of the barrel of a gun! Why did you Han Chinese come to Tibet? Tibet belongs to Tibetans. Get out of Tibet!”
Of course behind those posts, there are an overwhelming number of posts from Han “ patriots.” Almost without exception, those replies are full of words such as “Kill them!” “Wipe them out!” “Wash them with blood!” “Dalai is a liar!” — those “passions” of the worshippers of violence that we are all so familiar with.
When I read these posts, I feel so sad. So this is karma. ……
And here is what she writes at the end:
- Tibet is disappearing. The spirit which makes her beautiful and peaceful is disappearing. She is becoming us, becoming what she does not want to become. What other choice does she have when facing the anxiety of being alienated? To hold onto her tradition and culture, and revive her ancient civilization? Or to commit suicidal acts which will only add to Han nationalists’ bloody, shameful glory?
Yes, I love Tibet. I am a Han Chinese who loves Tibet, regardless of whether she is a nation or a province, as long as she is so voluntarily. Personally, I would like to have them (Tibetans) belong to the same big family with me. I embrace relationships which come self-selected and on equal footing, not controlled or forced, both between peoples and nations. I have no interest in feeling “powerful,” to make others fear you and be forced to obey you, both between people and between nations, because what’s behind such a “feeling” is truly disgusting. I have left her (Tibet) several years ago, and missing her has become part of my daily life. I long to go back to Tibet, as a welcomed Han Chinese, to enjoy a real friendship as equal neighbor or a family member.
The fact that there are ethnic-Han Chinese who are Buddhists and who have respect and affection for Tibetan Buddhism is one that is too often ignored in the west. As is the fact that some of the nationalists in the Tibetan diaspora advocate the use of violent means; some are considerably more hard-line than the Dalai Lama, seeking full independence instead of– as he demands– real autonomy for Tibet as a part of the Chinese state; and some are harshly and openly critical of the Dalai Lama on many counts.
When I was in Beijing in April 2004, I learned a lot about the complex links that had grown up in earlier centuries between the dominant culture in imperial China and Tibetan Buddhism. (You could almost compare it to the appropriation by the conquering “west” of that very specifically Palestinian-origined– though intentionally “universal”– religion, Christianity… And there, too, many of the appropriators, having taken what they want from the appropriated culture and teachings, turn round to spit on and excoriate the earliest communities of believers, the indigenous Christians of Palestine and its neighboring countries.) And modern China also has its own very complex relationship with the memories and norms of imperial China– nowhere near as dismissive and “we can completely make the whole country over as if from nothing” as in the days of Mao’s Cultural revolution.
Thus, between today’s Han Chinese and today’s Tibetan Buddhists there are long skeins of historic affinities, of old pleasures and old resentments– in short, of relationship— that are considerably more tangled and interesting than the simple manichean view too often portrayed in the west.
I also recall that when I had the huge pleasure of working on my 2000 book The Moral Architecture of World Peace, one of the key points the Dalai Lama made in the conference on which the book was based was that he strongly valued anything Americans could do to help inform Han Chinese about Tibetan Buddhist culture.(p/102.)
But back to Tang Danhong… At the bottom of the “China Digital Times” English translation of her essay it tells us that she “moved to Israel from Chengdu in 2005, and [is] currently teaching Chinese language in Tel Aviv University.” It would be so fascinating to talk to her! Do you think she speaks English? Can any JWN readers get contact information for her, for me? (If so, send it here.) I would love to know how she would compare the Israel-Palestine situation to the China-Tibet situation. You might recall I wrote some of my own thoughts on the matter here.