Por Yang Jianli* (watch news here)
November 18, 2012
Nearly 80 Tibetans** have set themselves on fire in the past 3 years for the cause of the freedom of his people. This month only, the world witnessed more than 15 tragic and heroic self-immolations. We all have a strong feeling that they won't stop.. Even as I speak, more could be happening.
The martyrdom of so many devout and peaceful Tibetan people has overwhelmed me with grief. like chinese, I stand before you embarrassed, ashamed and humiliated. Embarrassed by the unspeakable suffering that the Chinese government has systematically inflicted on the people of Tibet. Embarrassed by the general apathy of the Chinese public. Humiliated because I am a proud man: a proud man brought to his knees by the weight of his grief, the force of his anger, and the unbearable feeling of helplessness, in the face of such powerful evil.
However, I draw strength and inspiration from you, my dear Tibetan brothers and sisters; you inspire me through your resistance despite serious attacks on your language, its culture, your religion, your land, their spirit and even their lives. And I draw strength and inspiration from good people like you, the participants of this international conference; His tireless efforts have kept the cause of Tibet alive and the global support network for Tibet, increasing. And I draw strength and inspiration from the words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, “Tragedy should be used as a source of strength.”. No matter what kind of difficulties, how painful the experience is, if we lose our hope, “That is our real disaster.”.
Yeah. We must draw hope from these saffron flames of martyrdom. We must not lose hope. But hope alone does not defeat evil. We must have a tool more powerful than evil. His Holiness tells us “in our fight for freedom, "The truth is the only weapon we have.".
My dear brothers and sisters, The time has come to unite in a campaign for the truth.
no evil, no matter how strong it is, can withstand the force of truth. Wherever evil lurks we must blind it with the light of truth. Wherever the conscience sleeps, we must wake her with the sound of truth.
With the burning flames of Tibet, we should see the truth. These brave martyrs sacrificed their lives in the most painful way; They did it in protest against the Chinese government. This government has led one million Tibetans to death, to the destruction of thousands of temples and monasteries, the dilution and destruction of Tibetan language and culture, the irreversible damage to the natural environment of the Tibetan plateau, and the more than five decades of exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Every moment tensions rise, instead of showing concern and trying to treat the root causes, the Chinese regime responds with increased force and oppression. The increasing repression of Tibetans, especially nuns and monks, the intensification of cultural genocide and the ever-increasing ethnic oppression, have made the situation in Tibet lately unbearable for Tibetans.
Let's listen to the flames. Yeah, there are voices in the flames: “¡Free Tibet!” y “¡Let the Dalai Lama return home!” When we hear the voices, our consciousness allows us no alternative but to act as its transmitters, your amplifiers, to awaken the moral conscience of more people, to let more people know the truth about these tragedies, and to allow more people to experience the desperation of these Tibetans and the desire to be reborn in the flames.
brothers and sisters, the time for a campaign for the truth has come.
We must pressure Western governments to tell the truth. The grassroots movement is very important but by itself it is not enough. The Chinese government is generally unresponsive, If world leaders remain silent, because the only language they can understand is that of power. They do not understand that in democracies power ultimately belongs to the people. We must take advantage of our democratic mechanisms to pressure our governments to represent our will regarding the Tibet issue.. We must not allow our governments to base their policies on the erroneous assumption that the CCP government is permanent.
Power has passed to a new generation of leaders in China. It is the nature of tyrannical regimes that they become weak and less coherent with each new generation.. We are already seeing the cracks that weaken the PCC. We must exploit these cracks, waving the flag of truth in their faces at every turn..
The Tibet issue is both a political and a moral issue. All humanity is challenged. Every world leader should take this test, and like any other test, one can pass or fail. Much to our dismay, many world leaders have refused to take the test, or have failed. Too many of them look the other way when our brothers and sisters are screaming in flames. We should not let our governments continue to fail the test, politically or morally. We must insist that today silence is no longer an option. We must keep before us the words of Martin Luther King Jr., "In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends".
We must challenge the silence of our governments at every step and pressure them to confront the Chinese government's lies with the truth. We should also praise when a world leader tells the truth. We commend and support the recent actions of the United States Ambassador, Locke and the recent strong statement from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, and welcome these actions as a great step forward.
brothers and sisters, the time to campaign for truth has arrived.
We must strengthen the Chinese people to end the silence on Tibet. We should make special efforts to reach them for their encounter with the truth., to appeal to their conscience and to let them realize that the suffering of the Tibetan people is the suffering of the Chinese people, and that the same government that brings so much misery to the Tibetan people is the same government that imprisons its best citizens, steals the land of its peasants and controls their right to speak and think freely. We must make the Chinese government feel the flames of martyrdom from all directions. My dear brothers and sisters, I promise you with all my heart, With all my physical and spiritual being I commit myself in this campaign for truth. With our combined help, the world will know the truth. The world must know the truth. The world must tell the truth. and in the end, the truth will set us free.-
*Yang Jianli is a Chinese teacher, Former political prisoner and survivor of the Tiananmen protests
** To date, the immolations total 86
