International Campaign for Tibet

"The darkest of days": a Tibetan monk's perspective on the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party

"Normally, for the celebration of an important anniversary involving everyone regardless of ethnicity and culture, people dress up in their costumes and look forward to participating with enthusiasm, but under the shadow of today's anniversary, many millions of people are wearing the clothes of mourning, and recalling the wounds of history," writes Kanyag Tsering.

As the Chinese Communist Party engages in triumphalist celebrations of its 90th anniversary today, a Kirti monk who is now in exile has written a powerful account of the darker meaning of the occasion. In his article below, originally published in Tibetan at www.khabdha.org, Kanyag Tsering, a monk at Kirti monastery in Dharamsala, India, states that a few days ago, soldiers in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, visited every household in order to raise the red flag, threatening that failure to do so would result in years in prison. The Ngaba area has been under intense crackdown since a Kirti monk, Phuntsog, self-immolated himself on March 16, 2011, followed by peaceful demonstrations and the deaths of two Tibetans in their sixties who attempted to protect monks from being taken away from Kirti by paramilitary troops.

I am against today's anniversary

by Kanyag Tsering

Today is supposed to be the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party, and the 60th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet, and the Chinese government is staging celebrations so grand as to surpass the earth¹s capacity to support them. But many millions of people required to recognize the self-importance of a legitimate state, and to greet today's anniversary with exceeding joy, will on the contrary be seeing it as the date of birth of the single most powerful opponent of peace and democracy in this world, while Tibetans see it as the darkest of days, when their state and sovereign territory with a history of more than 2000 years was occupied in entirety by the Communist Party. When the red flag with five stars in which the government invests such pride and dignity is raised by force on the roof of every house, it pains many hearts as if they had been stabbed with a knife.

During the days leading up to this anniversary, the entire area now proudly claimed as "China's territory" has been covered with red flags, yet the many wounds left by the unfathomable violence behind each of these flags clearly show through. A few days ago, People's Liberation Army soldiers in the Ngaba region went into every household to raise the red flag, making the unconscionable announcement that "pulling down the red flag will be punished with 10 years in prison." This clearly shows the attitude that many people must have toward the red flag, which cannot be different from their attitude to the state and the government.

Basically, in this 21st century, there is a general sense that an anniversary of great importance to the government should also be important to the people, but far from coinciding, the views of the government and the people on today¹s anniversary are as far apart as the sky and the earth, one shouting with joy and whooping for victory, the other weeping and muttering defiance. This attitude has not developed merely in response to recent events, but comes from a comprehensive view of the past 60 years of history.

Normally, for the celebration of an important anniversary involving everyone regardless of ethnicity and culture, people dress up in their costumes and look forward to participating with enthusiasm, but under the shadow of today's anniversary, many millions of people are wearing the clothes of mourning, and recalling the wounds of history. Their eminent wish might be to shout a loud protest against the organizer of the celebration, while the organizers themselves seem quite aware of that reality. In the neighborhoods where these millions of people with nothing to celebrate live, armed soldiers have imposed a crackdown sometimes so severe as to remove the freedom of movement altogether, while the flag of "Nationality Policy" is raised high, and the sweet-sounding phrase "Harmonious Society" proclaimed far and wide without the slightest shame, and seeing this fills me with revulsion. It seems to me that everyone who has been forced into exile by this regime should make their protest against this anniversary heard in any way they can.