Red Sea, Black
Grief
Reflections
on the Rally in Dundas Square, Toronto, Canada
SHENG Xue
[Author's Note: The night of March 28, I
flew back home to Toronto from Hong
Kong. On March 29, at 11:30 in the morning, I attended a press
conference held by the Toronto-based China
Rights Network in front of the Chinese consulate in Toronto. There were about ten Chinese, and
ten Westerners and Tibetans present. The Chinese consulate arranged a cameraman
to film all the participants from one of the windows on the second flour, more
accurately, the fourth window from the right.
As one of the speakers I expressed my viewpoints
on the pro-Chinese government and anti-Tibet demonstration named "Maintain the Truth
about Tibet
-- Safeguard the Integrity of the Motherland" hold by Chinese Students
and Chinese Canadians in the afternoon of March 29:
Firstly, I am a Chinese and I am proud of being
a Chinese. I also am a Canadian citizen and I am proud of being a Canadian as
well. Above all, I am an independent individual with human dignity and free
will and stand under no constraints or manipulation by any political power.
Secondly, I respect the rights of these
demonstrators in organizing assemblies in democratic nation, since any attempt
to practice democracy is beneficial.
Thirdly, When they say: maintain the truth”,
they need to fight for right to know truth first and they need to have a
channel to find truth. I appeal to the Chinese government, the
Chinese embassies and consulates, as well as the leaders of local Chinese
organizations and communities, to stop misguiding, manipulating, and misleading
the young Chinese students.
Fourthly, I hope that the organizers and
participants of the demonstration can fight for the same rights of free
assembly for the Chinese in China
and Tibetans in Tibet.
Only in this way can they rightly be considered proud Chinese.
There immediately appeared on the website where
the press release was published five to six hundred posts questioning,
accusing, satirizing and even simply cursing me. Some said that I was taking
the risk of “dying with no space for burial”.]
On the afternoon of March 29 at Dundas Square
in Toronto, Canada, a sea of red, five-starred
PRC flags and posters with patriotic slogans overwhelmed my eyes. It was
a scene I had not witnessed (see attached photos) since the height of the
Cultural Revolution in China
when tens of thousands of young Red Guards were greeted by Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square. People enthusiastically waived the Red
Flag, chanted "Long live China!",
and loudly sang a popular verse from the Chinese national anthem "March of
the Volunteers", about “the Chinese nation facing its greatest peril”.
Some old overseas Chinese, new immigrants, as well as visa students shed
tears. Somewhat different were the reactions of the leaders of the Chinese
communities, who calmly but uneasily trotted through the crowd.
The rally's name was "Maintain the Truth about Tibet --
Safeguard the Integrity of the Motherland". The core of the
demonstrators believed that the western media as a whole discredited the
Chinese government in reports about the Tibet disturbances. They
claimed that western societies are hostile to China and many in the
West are naive and ignorant. They argued that, in order to maintain
national integrity, it was necessary for the Chinese government
to deploy military force.
This demonstration, called the "3.29
Assembly", was widely reported by many Chinese media and websites.
By general estimation, one or two thousand people attended. The organizer
of the demonstration only provided a web name "Black
White”. This man, "Black White", spoke loudly during
the demonstration about Tibetan history. He fervently insisted
that Tibet has been
part of the Chinese territory since ancient times, and angrily protested the
West's support of Tibetan independence in order to split up China. He urged those at the demonstration to tell
the truth about Tibet
to the Canadian public and wake up the people of the West.
Another speaker said during an interview that China's
population includes 56 different ethnic groups, and all of them are living
a happy and harmonious life together. He explained that there is absolutely no
repression of any ethnic group or extermination of any culture. Before
and after the demonstration, a local immigrant service website forum
exploded with several thousand related posts. Many displayed anger towards
western media and western society on the Tibet question.
However, they - the demonstrators and
spokespeople - have intentionally avoided some basic facts.
Why did the Chinese government expel all
reporters and media when the events of March 10 and 14 took place? Why, instead
of letting the media directly obtain the truth and report the complete picture
of the events, did they ask these young students and patriotic overseas Chinese
living thousands of miles away from China, to make such an effort to
organize demonstrations to tell the world "the truth"
about Tibet? The overwhelming majority of these demonstrators has
never been to Tibet
themselves and quite possibly doesn't personally know a
single Tibetan.
For over 50 years, have people within China been able to freely and openly
discuss the issue of Tibet?
Do the Chinese have normal channels of communication to get informed of the
true history and present situation of Tibet?
In Mainland China,
do the Han Chinese and the Tibetans have the right to assemble in
public to express their opinions and perspectives like they do in Canada?
They have lived their lives in a society where news media are controlled and
correspondence is blocked. So how is it possible that, under these
circumstances, they can better grasp the truth about Tibet than the western public can
in a society where the flow of information is unimpeded, where there
is freedom of speech, freedom to do research?
Why, indeed, do the Tibetan lamas need
large-scale demonstrations to deliver their petitions? Why did their peaceful
petitions and assemblies require armed suppression, which
deteriorated into violent disturbances?
Moreover,
who is this "western media"? In the West, each
outlet of media has its own, individual political stand. The US has the Wall
Street Journal with a relatively right-wing standpoint. They also have
"The New York Times" with a more liberal stance and a comparatively
left-wing perspective. Extreme-left Maoist magazines are also permitted.
Even the People's Daily overseas edition and the China Central Television
(CCTV) programs are available without censorship.
Western media are multi-faceted with
diverse management, and are nearly all publicly listed and transparent
companies. In western nations, unlike China, a government-dominated media
monopoly, such as that of the CPC, is impossible. In China, most
newspapers, magazines, radios and televisions are controlled by the Party
and the government. No other voice is allowed.
Every media outlet can make mistakes, and the
western media is no exception. Their biases can sometimes result in big
mistakes. However, their mistakes will be corrected through the mechanism
of competition, checks and balances, and through public review. Those who
aren't truthful and objective lose credibility, advertisers and readership,
which may ultimately lead to their commercial demise. A unified political
influence or a special-interest group does not dominate the western
media. Western media, while skeptical and vigilant about those
in power in government and in society, are at the same time
being scrutinized by the people.
Western media cannot be forced to be the
mouthpiece of a political party or the megaphone for a government like China's media,
who at times collectively fabricate stories to support the political agenda of
the government. This monopoly of media and the resulting false reporting,
without any restraint or surveillance, can only bring disaster to the nation
and its people. The Anti-Rightists Campaign, the Great Famine, and the Cultural
Revolution are some of the most obvious examples.
The dauntless spirit of these hot-blooded,
indignant Chinese youth who want to use the "truth" to "awaken
the western populace", reminds one of the 60s when the young Red
Guards wanted to plant the red five-starred flag all over the world to
liberate the world's population. They act as if, over the last 50
years, China was a democracy
where Chinese citizens could speak freely and China was a society where they
lived incomparably happy lives, while the entire western world was
portrayed as evil and despotic. In coming to Canada, they believe they shoulder
the huge responsibility to liberate the Canadians from an information
blockade, opinion control and obscurantism. What a joke! If those
80 million people who died under Chinese Communist Party rule had the right to
speak, they would send out a roar that would certainly instill fear in this
group of brave warriors and scatter them from the Square.
However, these protesters whose blood is boiling
with anger are obviously not interested in taking advantage of the
opportunity of a society where information flows freely, to get to know
the true history and present situation of Tibet,
information which has been kept secret from them in China.
The recent Tibetan uprising started as a result
of Tibetans inside and outside of Tibet commemorating the 50th
anniversary of the uprising on March 10.
On 10 March, 1959, Tibetans rose up in revolt against
Chinese Communist Party rule. The CPC army suppressed the revolt, killing
80,000 Tibetans, and the 14th Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans took refuge
in India.
More than 6,000 Tibetan temples were nearly all destroyed during the
Cultural Revolution. According to the deceased Punchen
Lama's memoirs, of the original more than 600,000
Buddhist lamas, 110,000 were persecuted and killed, and 250,000
people were compelled to return to secular life.
In 1989, three months before the Chinese Communist
Party carried out the June 4th suppression in Beijing,
the CCP used the PLA to suppress Tibetan demonstrations in Lhasa. During
this event the Tibetan death and injury toll was serious, and
more than 3,000 Tibetans were arrested.
The Tibet government in exile indicates
that, in the 30 years between1949 to 1979, the number
of Tibetans killed, beaten to death, died in detention, and starved to
death reached 1.2 million people. The pro-communist Ngapoi
Ngawang Jigme estimated
that the casualties are not that high, but he also admitted that the number
is at least around 300,000 to 400,000.
Even after nearly 30 years of so-called reform
and "open" policy, today in Tibet almost all leadership of
administrative jobs are held by Han Chinese. In rapidly modernizing Lhasa,
almost all the good local jobs are in the hands of Han Chinese.
Many of those who are so indignant concerning
national sovereignty questions are fond of saying that such and such place
is "Chinese territory since ancient times." They do not care to
define when "ancient times" actually begins; neither do
they pay attention to when the concept of "China" was
established. On the Tibet question, they pretend not to have heard
what the Dalai Lama has been saying for almost twenty years --
that he "only seeks autonomy, and does not pursue
independence."
In any nation there is a process
where the concepts of sovereignty, territory, and borders begin to
form. This involves an evolution of history, the attitudes of the people,
and competition in the political arena. Nowhere in the world is the
phrase "since ancient times" considered a defined period.
The
map of today's China
evolved over the past few millennia, during which the changes in political
power and territory took place in a very diversified
way. Obviously, in order to determine and discuss an area's political
formation, social system and lifestyle, one must at least
consider the fundamental factors of historical evolution, cultural
norms, as well as the people's attitudes. But among these factors,
internationally, the people's desires tend to take a more and more important
position.
The
despotic, cruel nature of governance can be observed in the Han areas of China, but it
is even more pronounced in Tibetan areas. The Chinese Communist Party's
control in Tibet over local language, culture, religious belief, environment,
ecology, and even survival amounts to simple, brutal persecution.
We must ask those Chinese in Canada who
profess that they must guard the unity of the motherland: who
do they think the Tibetans are? Do they respect Tibetans? Do they
understand the Tibetan culture and Buddhist religion? Do they deeply love
Tibetan rivers and mountains? Are they concerned about
Tibetan living conditions, freedoms and human rights?
These critics use Tibetans' miseries to bolster
their own concept of Greater China's power. They are like the
pride-filled male offspring of a rich and powerful family who have no respect
for challenges faced by ordinary people.
For decades the Chinese government has employed
information control and censorship tools to rewrite and distort their
historical role of brute force to terrorize and control Chinese
society. Again and again, when required by political circumstances, they
have forced and misled successive generations of Chinese people to help
them maintain their political power and benefits.
In fact, in the nearly sixty years since the
Chinese Communist Party gained political power, from the first generation of leader
MAO Zedong, second-generation DENG Xiaoping, third generation JIANG Zemin, to the present fourth generation of HU Jintao, one can say that each of them, in every sense
of the word, was a traitor. They used their power and sold
off one quarter of China's
precious territory – more than 3 million square kilometers. This area
that was sold is one hundred times as great as Taiwan's land mass.
The sale of China's land is still secretly
continued. Over the past several years, JIANG Zemin
and HU Jintao redraw the boundary of the northern
part of China
once more. The Chinese government transferred to Russia an
area equivalent to thirty-nine Taiwan territories.
The demonstrators in the centre of Toronto, in order to show their patriotism and
indignation, pledged with freely flowing tears to fight to the death to guard
the motherland's territorial integrity, and firmly oppose splitting China.
But did they ever say a word about the Chinese Communist Party's selling off
the Motherland? If they didn't, they are clearly currying favor with
the powerful and are guilty of hypocrisy.
These
young and old Red Guards, with their ignorance, cowardice, bias and hatred,
surrounded by a sea of red Chinese Communist Party flags, have once again
contributed to the deep, dark sorrow of the Chinese people.
April
4, 2008.