Dalai Lama's Special Envoy calls on Tibetans to record their suffering
Dalai Lama's Special Envoy calls on Tibetans to record their suffering
(International Campaign for Tibet, 4/2/2009)
Lodi Gyari, Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, has issued a call for Tibetans, in Tibet and around the world to record their experiences of suffering over the past 50 years. "It is vitally important, especially as a testament to those Tibetans no longer here, that we record our personal experiences of suffering. We should do this, not to fuel resentments but to help the Chinese people understand our true history and to know that we are justified in our hopes for a future Tibet."
Speaking at the March 31 opening of an exhibit on prison labor camps in Tibet, Lodi Gyari praised the work of Harry Wu, the founder and Executive Director of the Laogai Research Foundation, in documenting the vast network of labor camps in China and Tibet. "Harry Wu's work at the Laogai Museum is done for the same reasons that the Holocaust Museum was founded: to remember and to expose these ugly truths so that such things will never happen again," Gyari said. "The Tibetan people can learn to forgive, but we must not forget."
Lodi Gyari urged Tibetan youth in particular to learn about their family experiences from their parents and relatives. "This is a part of the legacy our Tibetan children have inherited, and it is the moral responsibility of every Tibetan family to know their history and to collect evidence of the events that have shaped their lives."
The exhibit at the Laogai Museum opened exactly 50 years to the day that His Holiness the Dalai Lama crossed the Tibetan border into India, having departed Lhasa in the dark of night on March 17, to seek asylum from the Indian government and, as he has written, "to devote myself to keeping hope alive for my people everywhere."
Harry Wu recalled in his remarks at the opening of the exhibit that, as a young man in Beijing in 1959, he went to an exhibition which purported to show atrocities in Tibet prior to its so called "peaceful liberation."
In reality, as soon as the People's Liberation Army had assumed full control of Tibet, an enormous program of labor camp construction got underway for the incarceration of the thousands of Tibetans who actively opposed or who were suspected of opposing China's invasion of Tibet.
"What has happened over 50 years in Tibet?" Wu asked. "One, temples and monasteries were destroyed. Two, labor camps were built. This exhibit is here to portray that suffering," Wu concluded.
The exhibit, "Laogai in Tibet" has been produced in collaboration with the International Campaign for Tibet and will run until May 30 at the Laogai Museum located at 1109 M Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20005.
Source: ICT
Source:
http://www.laogai.org/news/newsdetail.php?id=3346
(International Campaign for Tibet, 4/2/2009)
Lodi Gyari, Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, has issued a call for Tibetans, in Tibet and around the world to record their experiences of suffering over the past 50 years. "It is vitally important, especially as a testament to those Tibetans no longer here, that we record our personal experiences of suffering. We should do this, not to fuel resentments but to help the Chinese people understand our true history and to know that we are justified in our hopes for a future Tibet."
Speaking at the March 31 opening of an exhibit on prison labor camps in Tibet, Lodi Gyari praised the work of Harry Wu, the founder and Executive Director of the Laogai Research Foundation, in documenting the vast network of labor camps in China and Tibet. "Harry Wu's work at the Laogai Museum is done for the same reasons that the Holocaust Museum was founded: to remember and to expose these ugly truths so that such things will never happen again," Gyari said. "The Tibetan people can learn to forgive, but we must not forget."
Lodi Gyari urged Tibetan youth in particular to learn about their family experiences from their parents and relatives. "This is a part of the legacy our Tibetan children have inherited, and it is the moral responsibility of every Tibetan family to know their history and to collect evidence of the events that have shaped their lives."
The exhibit at the Laogai Museum opened exactly 50 years to the day that His Holiness the Dalai Lama crossed the Tibetan border into India, having departed Lhasa in the dark of night on March 17, to seek asylum from the Indian government and, as he has written, "to devote myself to keeping hope alive for my people everywhere."
Harry Wu recalled in his remarks at the opening of the exhibit that, as a young man in Beijing in 1959, he went to an exhibition which purported to show atrocities in Tibet prior to its so called "peaceful liberation."
In reality, as soon as the People's Liberation Army had assumed full control of Tibet, an enormous program of labor camp construction got underway for the incarceration of the thousands of Tibetans who actively opposed or who were suspected of opposing China's invasion of Tibet.
"What has happened over 50 years in Tibet?" Wu asked. "One, temples and monasteries were destroyed. Two, labor camps were built. This exhibit is here to portray that suffering," Wu concluded.
The exhibit, "Laogai in Tibet" has been produced in collaboration with the International Campaign for Tibet and will run until May 30 at the Laogai Museum located at 1109 M Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20005.
Source: ICT
Source:
http://www.laogai.org/news/newsdetail.php?id=3346
Comment
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Comment by Dechen C. Tashi on May 27, 2009 at 10:31pm -
Peter, thank you for your comments.You are right .To express resentments to fuel the Chinese people would not be the wise thing to do, and at the government level I know my leaders have gone out of their way to not to upset the Chinese in any way.This seem to have embolden the Chinese leaders who pay very little to no heed at all. But you are still right. Aggravating the people with sheer anger would not serve any purpose. Never the less while expressing resentments against the political system that is so twisted and bended toward working against the innocent Tibetans is some thing that the Chinese people in all fairness needs to understand and open eyes of wisdom, with kindness,and compassion toward Tibetans and not to misinterpret grievances expressed by the Tibetans.Rather understand them .If they do not do that we can not bring them to understand the truth about Tibet and its situation.To come to real understanding about each other; both the parties need to sit down and talk in equal terms.Chinese government as well as people need to be willing to sit and do honest studies about each others' past several thousands of years old history.Whatever the history proves right or wrong must be the fair deal.
You are absolutely right,there are good many Chines who like Harry Wu have great sympathy for us and I do not know a single Tibetan who does not appreciate such understandings from good Chinese people.In fact I have read Harry Wu's Trouble Maker and I have just started to read his first book Bitter Winds.I think I read his second book first .I know, he is incredible.His working with I.C.T means a lot to the Tibetans.And I do hope it is like wise.
Yes, Mr. Gyari's advise is some thing we all should pay heed to.Our story if written in the best we can will be our legacy that we'll be leaving behind us.
Writers like Sun Shuyun has also written in her book The Long March where she had mentioned that the communist Chinese believed in Tibet being an independent country, separate from China ,and that there were in Tibet to help us fight against the Nationalists and protect Tibet's independence.I stand correction if I am wrong about that.
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