Cherish the Tibetan People - Siddiq Wahid
Siddiq Wahid, a Muslim from Ladakh, a region of India with a large ethnic Tibetan population, writes about the current and historical situation in Tibet:
Over the last ten years, I have been ‘fortunate’ to visit Tibet five times. Only the most subjective of minds can deny that Tibet, despite being so removed from the center of power, has been a beneficiary of China’s economic boom. The physical infrastructure in Tibet is more advanced and more widespread than anywhere in Southasia; the roads, the power supply and the communications systems are admirable progress. Similarly, the entire desolate stretch of alluvial fans between Gyantse and Shigaste, which used to be a trans-Himalayan desert plateau, is filled with lush green fields of barley and wheat that are watered by well-planned irrigation systems; and the markets of Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyantse are filled with department stores that are stocked with global goods. Yet the Tibetan people today have risen up as one, to say that none of it is enough. An elderly relative of mine, who lived in Lhasa before he made his escape in the late 1950s, made the same observation after visiting Tibet in the late 1990s. He tellingly added, “But nothing tastes quite the same.” Why is that so?
The Tibetan uprising of 2008 cannot be understood in the context of the simplistic paradigm of violence and non-violence in the Gandhian sense, as a friend and acute observer of political events, Maj-General (retired) Vinod Saighal, recently put it in a private communication. It is a cri de Coeur, a cry from the heart, that says, our stomachs may be full, we may have excellent roads and we may witness all the other benefits of that secular faith (I use the word advisedly) called “progress”, but our spirits must be free and we must allowed to determine our future without fearing that our way of life will become extinct by the assertion of a brutal hegemonic homogeneity; for that, we are willing to be beaten, to be tortured and to die. It is a cry that will be recognized by all today who are coerced into accepting the argument of the inevitability of that uniquely post 20th century mutation of the ideology of faith in progress and the abandonment of the cry of the body to be in tune with its spirit; to be able to recognize itself.
Origin: Siddiq Wahid, Phayul.com
POSTED COMMENTS: 2 Responses
Too bad, so sad. But some ways of life will become extinct in the same way as slavery system did.
Dear Siddiq (your real name?)
Are you really a muslim of India?
If you are, then you should be crying for the Kashmiris who have been oppressed by the Indian Army for decades.
Read the book: ‘Rape: Weapon of Terror’ re the atrocities the Indian troops in Kashmir.
More than 60,000 Kasmiris have been killed and the real figure could be higher.
Their Cri de coeur and tears ( and that of the tribal peoples of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland etc.) is completely ignored by the West because of their anti-muslim bias.Any legitimate struggle by a muslim group is labelled as ‘terrorist’,but if muslims agitate in Russia or China, the West labels them as ‘freedom fighters’.
India is winning the propaganda and PR War cos the West still thinks that present India still comprises of gentle and peaceful Gandhis, and USA & Britain needs to use India to contain China.Their dirty ‘divide-and-rule’mentality to which the Indians laps up eagerly, not knowing that she herself is a victim of this sinister Western technique in politics.
The Sino-India border conflict in 1963 was the result of the dirty British policy of slicing Southern Tibet from China and giving it to the British Colonial government of India ( which India later vehemntly claimed as her national sacred land) in the Simla Convention over the vehement protests of the Central Chinese government.India renamed Southern Tibet as Arunuchal Pradesh.
Herein lies the utterly shameless hypocrisy of the Indians. Thay are occupying Southern Tibet even now and hurl condemnations of Chinese ‘imperialism’ and ‘aggression’, in chorus together with their Western counterparts and masters.
The whole Accession of Kashmir to India was a farce, a cruel one which took so many Kasmiri lives. Google Kashmir crisis, and you will see that THE INDIANS CANNOT FIND THE ORIGINAL INSTRUMENT OF ACCESSION ( it never existed!), that the British ( Mountbatten) favored the Hindus, that more than 80% of Kashmiris never wanted to join India ( they are muslims), that the so-called accession was made on the basis of one man’s decision - ie the Chief Minister of then Kashmir, a Sikh, and that A PLEBISCITE OR REFERENDUM SHOULD BE UNDERTAKEN ( Mountbatten also said this)under the aegis of the UN, but INDIA NEVER ALLOWED THIS PLEBISCITE TO BE CARRIED OUT.
Read please Neville Maxwell’s Book on ” India’s China War”. It’s on the Net. Just Google Sino-Indian Border Conflict.This eminent British Historian puts all the blame on the intransigence of the then Indian Prime Minister Nehru and his clique and the emotional jingoistic Indian media.After Nixon and McNamara read this book, they regretted that USA had always misunderstood China as the “agressor’ in the Sino-India cobflict,while objective Western scholars like Maxwell and Alistair Lamb put the blame squarely on Indian aggression, rejecting China’s steady appeals for negotiations.
Read also Gregory Clark’s (ex-Australin Diplomat)article on the Indian “Rediffusion’ Website.There he blames India too for her cocky arrogance and intransigence in the conflict.
Google Nagas or Nagaland, Assam Insurgency in Northeast India, or just Insurgencies in India, and you will see that India, far from being a Gandhi-like nation, has committed and is still committing atrocities on her tribal peoples who never considered themselves as part of the Indian nation.
IF INDIA DID NOT ADD HER HYPOCRITICAL VOICE TO THE WESTERN CHORUS OF CHINA-BASHING, I WOULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN THIS ARTICLE.
INDIA, you are too self-righteous and cunning, deluded in your own sense of perfect righteousness ( It’s always the Chinese and Pakistanis who are aggressive).
You can do no evil - that’s the position of megalomaniacs .
Brother, you can notice the speck in your brother’s eye but CANNOT SEE THE PLANK COVERING YOUR OWN.
BE MORE HUMBLE AND JOIN THE RANKS OF ALL OTHER NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS.
You are not `saints or gods ( some think they are of the Aryan stock), just plain humans who are capable of both good and evil.
Isiah: God looks down from the Heavens and sees that NO ONE is good.All have turned away from Him.
Do you Indians think you are not mere fallible humans, but gods and saints?
Would our readers please google ” Dalai Lama + Nazi”, ” Under the Holy Cloak of the Dalai Lama” and the TRIMONDI book re sexual abuse by the senior Lamas ( a British, June Campbell, is suing a high Lama for sexually abusing her for years), then you will understand that NO ONE has a claim to holiness, not even your Dalai Lama.