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Book Review: Writings Beneath the Snow

By Tsering Namgyal | Tibet Sun

Image adapted from the cover of the book: Like Gold that Fears No Fire: New Writings from Tibet.ICT/US

There is no better timing for a book of Tibetan writing to be published than a few weeks before the Chinese government announced the sentencing to death of four Tibetans for their alleged involvement in the pro-democracy riots of last spring. With little real shoe-leather journalism being carried out in Tibet, it is difficult to figure out the actual state of affairs inside Tibet these days.

It seems that under such circumstances, writers and intellectuals are often the best source of information. International Campaign of Tibet in Washington DC has brought together a collection of writings by Tibetans, titled Like Gold that Fears No Fire: New Writings from Tibet. “These courageous writers, many of whom are still in Tibet, dare to refute China’s official narrative,” points out the introduction of the book, “representing a profound challenge to the Beijing authorities than ever before.”

The book starts with an essay by the Beijing-based Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser. Woeser, the most outspoken and high profile of the Tibetan writers, had earned criticism from the Chinese government and critical acclaim around the world for her blogs, journalism and other writings.

She believes that Tibetan uprising of spring 2008 is tantamount to a referendum on the Chinese rule in Tibet. The protests, she reckons, redefined the very ways with which the Tibetans think about their identity. For us to presume that, after such a cataclysmic event, things would return to normalcy and go on as before is nothing but wishful thinking.

“Having been through the events of 2008 that shook the world, Tibet is no longer the Tibet of the past, and Tibetan people are no longer the Tibetan people of the past — everything has undergone a genuine transformation,” she writes. “Tibetans are breaking through the silence, and there are more and more instances of these voices being bravely raised, encouraging ever more Tibetans.”

Tsering Shakya, a professor at University of British Columbia and an authority on contemporary writing in Tibet, has compared her writings to that of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s under the Soviet communism and called her the “Voice of Tibet.”

According to the book, Shakya also believes the recent events are constantly inventing new memory for Tibetans. The recollections, for example, of the protests such as last spring’s and the execution of Tibetans and shootings on Nangpala, on the Tibet-Nepal border, played again and again on Youtube and the Internet, questions the way Tibetans, especially the youth, not only think about the past but also come to terms with the present. In other words, there is something of a paradigm shift going on amongst Tibetans, particularly amongst the new generation, with regards to how they think about themselves.

The protests within Tibet and the proliferation of the new media technologies have brought the Tibetans inside Tibet and the Tibetans in exile together in a collective imaginary. Though heavily censored by the authorities, Tibetans living inside and outside the Himalayan plateau these days have better knowledge of each other than in any time in recent memory. Both sides are better equipped to imagine themselves as part of a community.

Notwithstanding the challenges in communication, Woeser, for example, calls for a reproduction of Tibetan memory and identity. It is not easy, however. Not everyone writes in Tibetan — writers in Tibet are often more comfortable in Mandarin Chinese than in Tibetan. Like their counterparts in the Indian subcontinent, these writers are writing back to the empire in their own mother tongue.

Woeser calls for a reproduction of history and recovery of memory for the Tibetans. There is no better way to do so than tell stories about the past, stories unpolluted by the official propaganda. There had been a tremendous interest amongst the Chinese youth to understand about Tibet whose curiosity had been whetted by the rise in the popular discourse about Tibet.

“It’s particularly difficult for Tibetans inside whose greatest fear after half a century of mandatory brainwashing and education is not that the monasteries have been destroyed, but that their memories have been altered,” she writes. “Our duty now is to search for, recover and then amend our memories, and even to re-produce our history and reality.”

Apart from Woeser, many writers feature in the book. They include writings and work by Therang Buengu, who writes both in Chinese and English, Chinese writer Wang Lixong, Dolma Kyab, Jamyang Kyi, a singer and writer, imprisoned briefly for her writings and Namlo Yak, a Tibetan poet based in exile, Kelsang Tsultrim, a monk and video photographer, Kunga Tsayang, a photographer, amongst others.

Together, the booklet provides what Yale anthropologist James C Scott calls “hidden transcript” of the situation inside Tibet, which is very different from what is put on show in the public.

Their sense of commitment comes through very strongly in their works. In the end, what we see is something of a crystallisation of a Tibetan consciousness, a collective sense of identity, and responsibility not just towards Tibetan people but towards the world. They underscore not so much the rise of nationalism but the courage of idealism laced with the unique spiritual sensibility of the Tibetan people. With the tremendous upsurge in interest about Tibet in China, this book should appeal most to the Han Chinese readers, both inside and outside mainland China.

Copyright © 2009 Tsering Namgyal

Published in Tibet Sun