January 15, 2013
The fact that China has reinvented itself as a free market powerhouse of the 21st century doesn’t change the blunt force that it is still an Orwellian nightmare for those who dare to express views counter to those of the official communist party line. Dissidents are routinely held for the crimes of peacefully asserting their civil rights, distributing political writings or for Tibetans, the simple act of exercising one’s cultural identity, which has increasingly become viewed as a revolutionary act of separatism in the eyes of ‘the Party.’ Many of these offenses are officially processed through a non-independent judicial system with a conviction rate of 98%, frequently under the trumped up and ambiguous charge of “endangering state security” or “state unity.” However, for convicted dissidents, it is a decidedly unambiguous experience to be put away not for the act of endangering social unity, but questioning and therefore endangering the singular authority and legitimacy of the communist party.
To date ____ Tibetan monks, nuns and lay people have publicly lit themselves on fire to protest China’s oppressive colonial policies in Tibet and to call for the return of the Dalai Lama. ____ of the self-immolations were in 2012 alone and ____ of the total resulted in fatalities. Given relatively little attention in the U.S., the general lack of media coverage underscores the larger trend that many Americans have either grown fatigued of the Tibet question, or feel that given the present prowess of China, the debate is a forgone conclusion – game over, China won. Even in a time when the Dalai Lama sells out entire arenas for speaking engagements in the Americas and Europe, the Tibetan conflict is seen largely as a separate issue for followers who see him more as a personal teacher and not one having his own political history.