Women activists were dancing naked in Huairou, China and polluting a hundred rainy, mud infested acres of China with AIDS! So said the Chinese whispers outside the Non Governmental Organisations Women's Forum held last month in China, run alongside the U.N. International Women's Conference, in Beijing.
Mendacity was rife at the conferences. Reports in the international and Chinese press varied enormously. Whilst western reporters spoke highly of Hillary Rodham Clinton's opening speech where she stated unequivocally "freedom means...not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions" Chinese journalists made no mention of her criticisms. Xinhua, China's official news agency, was praising speakers for their constructive attitudes. We read of Mrs. Clinton's objections to her top aides being locked out of one of her speeches, but I've yet to find evidence of this in the Chinese papers or suggestions that this wasn't the way for a host nation to carry on. Even Chinese speakers witnessing the events first hand couldn't get a handle on the truth since official translators were instructed to act dumb and omit any mention of Tibet. We know that officials tell porkies, but at least in the West we can work out what's fact or fiction by the variety of views on offer. The Chinese have no such opportunities.
One publicised event in Europe was theWorkshop of nine exiled Tibetan women, visiting China on passports from their adopted countries, to debate developments in Tibet. The meeting was deliberately overrun by Han (ethnic Chinese) nationals and Tibetan (in name only) wives of high ranking members of the communist Chinese government in Tibet. They screeched to the Tibetan women in exile that they couldn't comment on events in Tibet because they didn't live there. Yet it is precisely because these women didn't live in Tibet and were not force fed Chinese propaganda, that they knew about the atrocities being performed by the Chinese against Tibetans. They'd regularly heard devastating tales of torture and oppression from the thousands of refugees that still make the appalling escape across the Himalayas to India every year. Being free from censorship and terrorisation enabled the Tibetans in exile to hear and speak the truth about Chinese behaviour in Tibet.
Wild Swans , the traumatic family biography about life in communist China, told how Mao was viewed as a god by the Chinese, in spite of gross evidence to the contrary. The strength of propaganda and brain washing in the author's homeland was so strong that even educated and perceptive women such as herself, worshipped the `motherland' and were unable to view the West as anything other than evil and corrupt.
In England we are taught that it is not acceptable to lie, and learn early on that being caught out will invoke derision, if not big trouble. There is also a general consensus, among the educated, that beating someone up because you don't agree with them is playground behaviour - a sign of weakness to be avoided. The Chinese's views on acceptable ways to behave are as far removed from our own as our language is from theirs. One assumes that translators iron out misunderstandings and everyone adheres to the same codes of behaviour. They don't, not by a million miles. Evidence suggests that the Chinese operate on the principle that all foreigners are ignorant scum and have no right to arrive in their country and tell lies, and thus deserved to be beaten up, abused and lied to. Since the population only ever has access to official Chinese `news'papers and television this view is easily spawned.
One thing we can be sure of is that the oppression of Tibet has to stop. The genocide, the forced sterilisation and abortion programmes is wiping the Tibetans out. Telling internet surfers what is going on isn't going to change anything, however, even though it makes me feel better; it has to be something that the Chinese decide is no longer acceptable or beneficial. But if half of China don't know what their country is doing in Tibet and the other half have been convinced it is desirable*, is this an impossible task?
There might be one way to reach people in China and circumnavigate the censorship, it could even be happening as you read this: the internet population could start some Chinese whispers of its own. We could e-mail Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader and instigator of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and tell him how disgusting his policies are, and bombard the Chinese with news of what their government are doing. The revelations might seem as loopy to your average Mr. Wu with a modem as hearing that conference delegates were dancing naked at Huairou, but as anyone at the NGO forum could tell you, mud sticks.
* Desirable The literal translation of the Chinese word for Tibetan is `barbarian'
If you would like to support the people of Tibet please read this letter.
Or for details of Tibet Support Groups
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