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March 28, 2008
Comments on Tibetian Buddhism, Media censorship and Nationalism
By Shu-li Huang from Ann Arbor Buddhist Society
I thought I would not join this conversation. Inevitably, I broke my silence by sending out this email. Two questions are up front:
(1) Does anyone believe there is an ethic political regime in the world?
(2) Can anyone approve any violence toward a group of people?
If not, let's stop arguing whether the Chinese government is making an inevitable decision or not. The point is that "people are dying in Tibet and there is no reason to legitimate this kind of violence." I don't feel sorry for the Chinese or the Tibetan. I rather give my blessing to those people who are suffering. (ps. No one is suffering because he or she is a Chinese or a Tibetan. Everyone is suffering because humanity is in crisis.) What I learn from Buddhist teaching is: There is no "good killer" in the world. People all have to pay back, if not in this life, in the near future.
What happened in Tibet is nothing about Buddhism but everything about nationalism. We have a conflict between Tibetan nationalism and Chinese nationalism, Tibetan regime and Chinese regime. Ironically, both sides are making nationalist claims to legitimate the violence. Do we really need any kind of nationalism in the world?
I am not interested in accusing China or pitying Tibet. Viewing this event as a political outrage, rather I am interested in Hu Jintao and Wu Jiabao's next move. I believe that their political career is in crisis. I can only pray that they will respect Tibetan as human beings and will always put humanity in their minds.
Few words on Media control: partial truth is never the same as truth. More reports do not equal to more facts.
More words on Cultural destruction: No culture can be destructed. Culture is here and now. Both Tibetan and Han have equal right to access any part of the world. As long as mutual respect is grounded, they are jointly inventing Tibetan culture for our contemporary and our world. I believe that the Tibetan people will welcome Mengfu as well as Yang Zhi equally.
It is true that there is a dis-consent between Dalai Lama's choosing and the government's favor. However, I doubt that the majority of Tibetan would ever dare to judge who is the real Panchen Lama. Not because they are afraid of Chinese government, but because they understand that they are not wise enough to realize the ultimate "truth", to judge their spiritual leader. The Tibetan never reach the consent on who is the real reincarnation figure of 大寶法王. For me, BBC's report is also distorted. In media, pro-China and anti-China are both distorted.
Don't give me wrong, I do not claim that China should not be accused for its media censorship policy. In contrary, I think China's political leaders are very unwise to keep an out-of-date media censorship policy. This only shows their leadership is out of date. The problem of Chinese leadership is that: They have been used to lie to themselves as if there are only Chinese people in the world. Nowadays, they are forced to confront others. Unfortunately, they choose to keep "non-Chinese" out of their own game and waste out "those non-Chinese" who have been part of this game. Their inability to talk to the world in turn put their leadership in crisis.
Posted by google at March 28, 2008 10:33 PM