Free Tibet Speech

Below is a short speech I made on Tibet at the University of the Witwatersrand last week. Btw, I'm not a Buddhist, died black in materialism.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Tibetan Photo Exhibition hosted by Students for a Free Tibet. Thank you for coming, and I hope that you enjoy these excellent representations of Tibetan culture.

My name is Tristen Taylor, and I am a South African human rights campaigner. I have been asked by the Office of Tibet in South Africa to briefly discuss human rights abuses in Tibet.

The situation in Tibet continues to deteriorate in regards to the basic human rights of the Tibetan people and the prospects for self-rule or independence are still remote.

In 1950, the People’s Republic China invaded the independent nation of Tibet, with the public aim of abolishing feudalism within Tibet. It was assisted in this invasion—an invasion that killed between 400,000 and 1.2 million Tibetans—by Tibetan communists, also seeking to end serfdom within Tibet. In a sign of the repression that has come to dominate Chinese oppression, many of these Tibetan communists were arrested by the Chinese for advocating a free and independent Tibet.

In 1959, His Holiness the Dalai Lama was forced to flee from Tibet, and throughout the reign of Mao Zedong the predominantly Buddhist religious and cultural institutions of Tibet were systematically attacked and destroyed; approximately 6,000 monasteries were destroyed. Detention, forced labour in re-education camps, executions, torture, forced relocations and extra-judicial killings became depressingly commonplace. These crimes are still being committed today. Right now, as I speak to you, it is a crime to possess a picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Tibet.

Today, several key human rights are being violated in Tibet by the Chinese Government.

The right for workers to organise and assemble is denied to Tibetans and other Chinese workers. There is one trade union in Tibet, subordinate to the Chinese Central Government, and its current aim is to facilitate business, not stand up for the rights of workers. Tibetan workers must be allowed to form their own independent trade unions.

The right to religious freedom is being denied on a whole-scale and systematic basis. Monks are permitted to practice Buddhism only if they do not challenge China’s rule of Tibet, renounce the Dalai Lama, and stay within proscribed boundaries. Recently and in a widely distributed film clip, Chinese soldiers shot and killed monks as they were attempting to flee to India. Tibetan civil servants are not allowed to practice Buddhism.

And, Tibetan Muslims have been forced into exile for practising their faith as they see fit, not as Beijing wishes Islam to be practiced. Tibetans must be allowed to practise their religions as they desire.

Tibetans human rights are being violated by China’s current policy of forced land evictions and the destruction of the Tibetan herding economy. Tens of thousands of Tibetans have been forced off their land, forced to slaughter their herds, and relocated to Chinese built and controlled urban settlements, where they have sunk into poverty and dislocation. This Chinese policy aims to reinterpret Tibetan society into a more acceptable society; i.e. turn self-sufficient Tibetans into low-wage construction and service workers, marginalised and dispossessed. Over 350 people a day die in Chinese factories.

The right to a clean and healthy environment is being made a mockery of by the Chinese State. Currently, China uses Tibet as its industrial backyard, locating heavy and polluting industry within Tibet. In particular, aluminium smelters are poisoning harvests and grasslands with fluoride emissions. With over 150 millions tons of oil located in the Tibetan basin and one-third of China’s copper reserves, China is seeking to exploit Tibetan natural resources for use in China’s eastern provinces. This is an example of the brutal colonialism that we Africans only know too well. China will exploit and use Tibet’s resources to enrich itself; little of this wealth will remain in Tibet.

As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has pointed out, there is a form of Apartheid existing in Tibet. The Chinese Government brings Han Chinese migrants into Tibet, drastically changing the demographic dynamics, and favours Han Chinese in the business and political realms. For example, the powerful Central Communist Committee of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, is dominated by Han Chinese. An overclass of Han Chinese has emerged in Tibet; a racial power relationship eerily similar to Apartheid.

At the heart of all these human rights abuses is the fervent desire of Tibetans to democratically administer their own country. This right is well-recognised within international relations. If Kosovo, Palestine, Ireland, Catalonia and Kurdistan can all have either independence or self-rule, why not Tibet?

We can understand this desire for freedom in Africa. For hundreds of years we have been exploited and colonised by foreign powers in the name of civilisation. Our resources have been stripped and provide the basis for Europe’s current development. Our labour, rubber, gold, oil, timber, and diamonds have made Europe wealthy and Africa poor. We have been trapped in foreign, illegitimate debt for generations; food and medicine has literally been stolen from our children’s mouths.

It is in the spirit of solidarity against repression and colonialism that all South Africans must support Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s call for China to recognise the inalienable right for Tibetans to administer their own affairs. Like millions of ordinary people across the world supported our struggle against Apartheid, we millions of South Africans should support the Tibetan struggle for democracy and freedom.

Thank you very much.