Tussling with Tibet

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16 August

Many years ago, a friend strongly urged me to read a book about the 14th Dalai Lama and how China had overrun Tibet. It was a small book, I liked my friend, so I did. I felt anger, and hurt for the Tibetan people and what had become of their culture

Nothing I have learnt, then or since*, prepared me for the level of content portrayed in When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun (2010**) : the politics of whether the Tibetan Government in Exile should still be seeking independence, or, as the Dalai Lama announced in Strasbourg in 1989, autonomy, alone are complex.

Dragon succinctly shows, by choice of speaker and judicious interviewing and editing,  how the stances operate not merely to create division between those advocating each aim, but differences of approach in how best to achieve them. Some say that one should claim independence in the hope of being granted autonomy, others that, in accord with the constitution of the People's Republic of China, there is a right to autonomy. Others still say that independence had always been fought for, but had not achieved anything, or that those who claim autonomy have not a single lawyer amongst them to argue for it.

Before Dragon, it had been tempting to believe that everyone (except the Chinese government) accepts that the forces of occupation had not, apart from in some bogus sort of way, been invited in to liberate the Tibetans from serfdom. However, we even hear some Han Chinese in dispute with protesters in San Francisco, who are campaigning for a free Tibet, and hoping to embarrass the Chinese government on the world stage at the time of the Olympic Torch, prior to Beijing 2008.

The Han Chinese want to challenge Tibetans as to whether they have ever been to China or Tibet (the Dalai Lama had left in 1959, and others had left whilst they still could), and so whether they have a right to a voice (an argument used both for and against, as far as I could tell). None of this stopped Bishop Desmond Tutu from making a personal appeal for how the Dalai Lama deserves respect as a great human-being, or Richard Gere from endorsing the justness of the cause, but the Chinese wanted to say that the Tibetans do not pay tax, and that, unlike the Tibetans, they can only have one child.

Looking beyond the issues, there are gorgeous views, some in stunning time-lapse, of Tibet (the mountain and the monasteries), shots of its people, and scenes on the street in Tibet and in China, and of protests in Delhi, again at the time of the Olympic flame. (We likewise see Beijing and its Olympic buildings and new shopping centres / malls, and there is a contrast with the 2008 Tibetan Olympics (presumably held in northern India).)

Again, there is disagreement about how the protests had been mounted, and whether it would have been possible (and, if so, why it did not happen) to register an incident, by extinguishing the torch, to bring international attention and pressure to bear on Tibet.

Inevitably, with a subject where genocide is alleged, there are shots of corpses and wounds and footage of people being hurt or telling how they had been tortured. As this is a complete view of the Chinese occupation, we are in doubt how difficult it is for people to envisage change, not least those who are settled in India and, between marches and commemorating dates such as 10 March, have to get on with their lives. Some spoke of being accepted in India.

Amongst other things, dance, music, chant, Buddhist tradition and garb, and lovingly composed shots, for example water streaming off the edge of a roof, make for a richness of feel to this thought-provoking documentary. It does not tell you what to think, but makes clear how many people are thinking in different ways about Tibet under Chinese rule.



End-notes

* In more recent times, I have also seen folks such as Michael Palin visiting Lhasa, and meeting the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, India (and also heard Palin narrating his own book of Himalaya).

** Though the credits say 2011...


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)