In Tibetan areas, parallel worlds now collide

[whirlygigspin]

By Howard W. French Published: March 20, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/20/asia/20tibet.php?page=1


GABU VILLAGE, China: For farmers whose lives in this traditionally Tibetan area revolve around its Buddhist temple, an aluminum smelter that belches gray smoke in the distance is less a symbol of material progress than a daily reminder of Chinese disregard.

"Look at the walls of our temple, they have all gone grimy with the smoke that pollutes our air," said a 40-year-old Buddhist peasant named Caidan. The big factory, said a man sitting next to him, benefits only members of the Han Chinese majority.

"Tibetans get the low-income and the hard-labor jobs," the man said. The Han, he said, "are all paid as technicians, even though some of them really don't know anything."

In Tibet and the neighboring provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan, Tibetans live in closer proximity than ever with the Han, who have flooded in with a wave of state-driven investment. But they occupy separate worlds. Relations between the two groups are typically marked by stark disdain or distrust, by stereotyping and prejudice and, among Tibetans, by deep feelings of subjugation, repression and fear.

"...Even among long-term residents in Lhasa, Han Chinese said they had no Tibetan friends and confessed that they tended to avoid interaction with Tibetans as much as possible."

[Kutjara]

1. Tibet is a study in slow-motion cultural genocide.

The Chinese are systematically destroying Tibet, transforming it into an "industrial park" for their own benefit. The ruination of Tibetan culture, spirituality, and even language is not accidental; it is a deliberate strategy to undermine Tibet's identity and ability to self-determine. It can be thought of as a kind of reverse ethnic cleansing. Instead of eliminating the people you don't like from the country, you eliminate the country right out from under the people. The Tibetans will then have no choice, so the reasoning goes, but to become Chinese.

It is a tragedy of global scale. A unique and vibrant culture is being ground to ash under ideology and greed, and is perhaps the most visible reminder of what every one of us on this planet loses daily as our lives become more and more consumed by the Vast Machine.