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As the dust settles

By Sim Chi Yin | The Straits Times

Uneasy calm: Chinese paramilitary policemen patrol in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, China.AFP/Teh Eng Koon/Tibet

A yellow khata, the Tibetan white silk scarf of blessing, is squished between his taxi’s windscreen and dashboard.

The ethnic Chinese driver, Li, knows that in the deadly riots that rocked this city in mid-March, shops and homes marked with a khata were largely spared. The scarf sent a message — that the shop and homeowners were Tibetans.

Almost six months have passed since the worst anti-government violence to convulse the Tibetan capital in two decades, but Li is not ready to remove his scarf.

“During the riots, many of us Han Chinese drivers put khatas in our taxis. Most of my friends have kept theirs now. Mine is still protecting me,” said the man who moved from northern Shaanxi province to Lhasa five years ago.

The appearance of normalcy has returned to this holy city. But ever-present armed paramilitary troops and police, and a few remaining charred shells of shops torched in the March unrest, are reminders of an undercurrent of fear and discontent. Beijing says 22 were killed in the riots, but the Tibetan government-in-exile puts the death toll at around 80.

Every morning I was in Lhasa, the fragrance of crackling juniper would waft from monasteries’ furnaces. Pilgrims prostrated themselves along the Barkhor prayer circuit around the Jokhang monastery in the heart of the city, watched by armed paramilitary soldiers atop some of the low-rise buildings.

On the streets, parents ferried their children to school on bicycles, as groups of mostly Chinese tourists stared at the awe-inspiring sights.

Troops holding riot shields, long batons and automatic weapons weaved around them.

In the Tibetan residential area of Karma Kusang in Lhasa’s east, troops guarded all sides of a petrol station. Tibetan children played badminton outside their homes as army trucks drove past them. In Xijiao — or ‘Western Outskirts’ — where most Chinese live and play, no policemen were seen.

At a giant TV screen erected opposite the majestic Potala Palace to show Olympics highlights, two paramilitary soldiers marched back and forth, even though a crowd rarely gathered.

In downtown Lhasa, the teenage faces of many policemen make them look less-than-menacing behind their riot gear.

“They make us feel safer,” said an ethnic Chinese chef from Sichuan, who runs an eatery off Barkhor Square. But a young Tibetan man, a thangka or Buddhist scroll painter, said: “I’m scared when I see so many police on the streets, it’s like something is about to happen again.”

Their disparate views were telling. Despite the official narrative of ethnic harmony, the March riots seem to have frayed further already-fragile Tibetan-Han relations.

“We rarely really interact with the Tibetans. They are really bu xing,” muttered an ethnic Chinese shopkeeper about how the Tibetans were “no good”, echoing a view voiced by a few others.

Wang, a taxi driver who arrived from Gansu province two years ago, was more blunt: “These days, when business is good, I avoid picking up Tibetan passengers and take only Chinese ones. When I’ve no choice, I drive the Tibetans. But when they get into my car, I feel angry.”

He added: “Before March, we Hans often gave money to the Tibetan pilgrims who beg. Now we don’t give a cent.”

The Sichuan cook, who has lived in Lhasa for 15 years, was more polite. “There’s a bit of a psychological barrier now when we interact with Tibetans. But overall ethnic relations are good. Eighty per cent of our customers are Tibetans.”

Tibetan pilgrims strolled into his noodle shop with ease, holding their prayer wheels and beads. His colleague, a young Chinese woman, tugged playfully at the hands of a Tibetan woman as she left after a meal.

The cook said: “March 14 was really the first time there was such violence against the Chinese here. The Tibetans beat each Han they saw.”

The events of mid-March remain contentious and murky. Peaceful marches by monks on March 10 — the 49th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule — somehow spiralled over the days into violent protests against the police. These then turned into attacks on ethnic Chinese property and people.

Scores of rioters have been put away and hundreds of monks are being given “patriotic education” — in which they are required to denounce the exiled leader the Dalai Lama — at the key monastery of Drepung, locked down till last week. I was stopped by police at a barricade some 2km downhill from Drepung, and told to delete photos I had snapped of the roadblock.

Six months on, the real roots of the unrest do not seem much clearer and the broader issue of what is next for Tibet appears as intractable as ever.

The government, Lhasa-based officials and Chinese residents firmly finger a “small group” of malcontents directed by the “Dalai clique” for what is known as the “3/14 incident”. Overseas scholars point to deeper, grassroots socio-economic factors, and political and religious curbs.

What is apparent to the untrained eye, though, is that this ballooning city is in the throes of seismic change — especially since the opening of a US$4.2 billion railroad linking it to inland China in July 2006.

More shops, malls and people have arrived with the railway, fuelling worries over mounting inter-ethnic competition and a widening income gap.

In dealing with the tough issue of ethnic minorities across its vast territory, Beijing seems to bank on the formula that has worked elsewhere in the country: economic development.

Growth and the social changes it brings, Beijing hopes, might make Tibetans more like their counterparts elsewhere in China, and dilute their devotion to religion — and the Dalai Lama.

With some, it seems to have worked. A Tibetan middle class has emerged, invested in the system that raised it. A few 20-somethings I met, including the two young Tibetan women from the local Foreign Affairs office who shadowed me, went to school in inland Chinese cities, transliterate their names into Chinese, and sang along to Chinese, English and Tibetan pop songs.

A 27-year-old Tibetan hair salon owner said: “I’ve never met the Dalai Lama. Why would I even think about him?”

In these nervous times when informants are on the prowl, it was difficult to have Tibetans speak their minds. It did not help that they saw me as mainland Chinese, not Singaporean.

Some who clearly understood that I was a foreigner quietly voiced support for the Dalai Lama, though. A 25-year-old Tibetan looked down at his fashionable jeans, dropped his voice to a whisper and said: “Unlike what the Chinese say, the unrest was not orchestrated by the Dalai Lama. And most Tibetans here want him to return.”

While stating that he disapproved of the March violence, an elderly Tibetan man said: “There’s no need for independence. It’s good to have stability like now. The Dalai Lama can return in these conditions.”

The aims of the Lhasa protesters were not clearly articulated. But in the days and weeks that followed, a wave of up to 100 protests swept across Tibetan-inhabited areas in three nearby provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai. Some slogans called for the return of the Dalai Lama.

Internal reports circulated among cadres estimated that some 30,000 people took part. The authorities said they detained more than 6,000 people.

Citing official Chinese documents on stamping out dissent in the monasteries, rights groups warn of a further crackdown after the Olympics, when China would be less under the world’s spotlight.

Beijing and the Dalai Lama’s envoys have met twice since the March unrest and are expected to hold what could be make-or-break talks next month — against the backdrop of the issue of Tibet having become a major flashpoint between China (and its nationalistic fenqing or ‘angry youth’) and the West this year.

Out in Lhasa’s Old City, rumours of arrest and torture are whispered.

A Tibetan painter said: “I don’t know what will happen here after the Olympics. Maybe all who should be caught have already been caught.”

Another young Tibetan man seemed more optimistic than most. He said: “During the Olympics opening, many world leaders came to Beijing. I think they talked to the Chinese leaders about the Tibet issue. So I hope there will be good change after this.”

On the roof of the Jokhang monastery, Tibetan Buddhists’ holiest shrine, tourists milled around snapping photos. A lone monk was very still, staring out at the pedestrianised square — where policemen stood in formation.

Copyright © 2008 The Straits Times

Published in MySinchew