The Sun-Herald

Mixed emotions as Tibet comes to Homebush

I was one of the thousands who flocked to the Dalai Lama's teachings at Olympic Park this week to enjoy the uplifting atmosphere that always surrounds the Tibetan leader. But even his feelgood effect couldn't obscure the increasing urgency of his people's crisis.

At the Sydney Showground Tibetans who had travelled from all over Australia told me that being close to their beloved leader had brought them their first real dose of comfort since the unrest in Tibet began on 10 March.
I last encountered these Tibetans en masse at their peaceful demonstration for the Canberra leg of the Olympic torch relay in April. That day they ran the gauntlet of thousands of aggressive, sometimes violent Chinese bussed into the capital with the aim of stifling the Tibetans' freedom to protest. It was a harrowing spectacle during which I witnessed several Tibetans - including children - being harrassed, assaulted and provoked, and so it was a treat to see them having some fun this time.
Of course they were joined by the usual roll call of celebrities, bigwigs and well-wishers who gravitate toward the Dalai Lama and all things Tibet. As I wrote in today's Sun-Herald News Extra, at times I felt as if I was at one of the social functions I report on for the S section. Everyone from Rove McManus to Anita Keating had turned out, and although I fear the glamourisation of the Tibetan cause often does it more harm than good (two words: Sharon Stone), the star-studded crowd added to the festive feeling.
But behind the conviviality, the spectre of Tibetan suffering still lurked. The shadows cast across the Showground by the grand arches of the Olympic Park stadiums - those monuments to a previous peaceful and happy Olympic Games - seemed to me a symbolic echo of the emotional shadow that the Beijing Olympics represents for Tibetans. Almost three months after the unrest began and with the Games only weeks away, the global attention drawn to the Tibetans' plight by the torch protests is in danger of fading, while their situation remains dire.
Nearly all I spoke to at Homebush are still desperately worried about relatives inside Tibet. One man hasn't heard from his father in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, since Chinese police stormed into his house there shortly after the troubles erupted. Arrests and disappearances continue to occur in Tibetan areas. Telephone and email contact with what is essentially a locked-down area is practically impossible and even when it's not, Tibetans outside Tibet are afraid that any contact with those inside will put their families at risk. "People there who have relatives overseas are being scrutinised and questioned, sometimes arrested," said one Tibetan. "Just one phone call could mean serious trouble for them."
The Dalai Lama himself is firmly pro-Beijing Olympics and has urged his people against further protests - even when the torch is paraded through Tibet this week. "Millions of Chinese people feel proud of it," he said at a private reception on Wednesday. "So we must respect it."
He is still optimistic that talks between his representatives and the Chinese leadership will resume before the Olympics begin and he appeals for his people to follow a similar path of diplomacy. "The Tibetan issue must be solved between Tibetan people and their Chinese brothers and sisters," he said. "The time has come to set up friendship between Han Chinese brothers and sisters and Tibetans. Here in Australia I think it would be really worthwhile. Usually it is lack of communication, remaining distant, then when something happens ... official media can create some picture that we are anti-Chinese."
He has remarkable faith in the good nature of a nation whose government's reaction to him has always been relentlessly vituperative. Offically issued insults from China include: 'criminal,' 'traitor,' 'demon,' and the almost comically melodramatic: 'wolf in monk's robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast.' Still, His Holiness remains optimistic that in China compassion and tolerance will eventually prevail.
I must admit I find it hard to share his optimism after witnessing the unbridled hatred directed at the Tibetans by those Chinese in Canberra. The arrogance with which they assumed the right to harrass Tibetans on Australian soil was of grave concern, and this eagerness to export their totalitarian government's suppression of human rights into other countries should worry us deeply.
Before the Dalai Lama's arrival here, Chinese foreign minister spokesman Qin Gang issued a stark warning to Australia "not to allow the Dalai to engage in separatist activities on Australian territory." This attempt to influence Australia's policy towards the Tibetan leader is an astonishing piece of hypocrisy from a country that condemns international criticism of its woeful human rights record in Tibet - and in fact any criticism at all- as unwelcome interference in its internal affairs.
The presence of those Chinese flag-waving, snarling crowds at every stage of the torch relay around the globe was a sinister demonstration of the Chinese government's long reach into free Western societies. China already meddles as much as it can in the domestic policy of neighbours too dependent on its financial clout to defend their sovereignty. One example of this bullying is currently on display in Nepal, home to about 20,000 Tibetan exiles. Almost every day since 10 March the Tibetans' peaceful protests in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu have been broken up by local police using extreme force. On Tuesday 239 Tibetans were rounded up there; yesterday another 182. The protesters constantly report beatings and sexual assaults. Chinese police and embassy officials have been seen - and photographed - at these crackdowns directing the Nepalese police, while China has repeatedly told the Nepalese government it "will not tolerate" the protests and has urged it to quash them with even greater force. Nepal, a poverty-stricken nation, needs China's support too much to do anything but aquiesce.
While the rest of the world is always swift to condemn the self-serving interference of countries such as America in other countries' domestic affairs, China has largely escaped criticism for identical behaviour. Some commentators believe that this could be a dangerous oversight.
John Wu, a Tibet scholar from the University of Sydney, writes in the latest issue of Australia's Tibetan Voice magazine: "The implication of a totalitarian state's political and ethnic machinations beyond its geographical boundaries is a phenomenon that no Western government can afford to ignore." Wu believes that the influence of the Chinese government upon the Chinese community here, displayed so graphically in Canberra, poses a threat to Australia's largely harmonious multiculturalism and could be a serious problem "if hostilities were to one day arise between the West and China after the manner of the Cold War."
At Homebush, Melbourne Tibetan Sonam Rigzin told me he believes that China's government "poses a huge threat to world peace." The free world, he says, has failed to grasp the extent of Chinese imperialism - even after the nationalistic displays at the torch relays. "We should wake up to the fact that China presents an imminent clear and present danger," he said.
"It's not an exaggeration to say that they want world domination. And while they have as much right as any other country to be a superpower, that power wielded by a dictatorship to suppress human rights and religious freedoms is a major worry."
This possibility, says Sonam, imbues the Tibet issue with an even greater sense of urgency. A more compassionate, tolerant attitude to Tibet could be the first step in China's transformation to a benevolent, mature superpower. "By freeing Tibet, you liberate China too. The Tibet issue is almost negligable, really. We understand impermanence - we accept that perhaps we are facing our demise. But this is bigger than us. The rest of the world can use Tibet to urge China to change its ways before it's too late. That's the greater issue here - and there is still time to solve it now, before China becomes so powerful that it doesn't need to listen any more."
As we spoke, nearby Tibetan monks were creating an intricate, beautiful sand mandala of the Buddha of Compassion. At the end of the teachings today they will sweep it away, because to Buddhists sand mandalas symbolise the impermanence of all things. As Sonam says, Tibetans are reconciled to this notion and they know that like everything else, this black period in their history will end.
It is up to us to help ensure that ending is a happy one.