Commentary On Tibet by Satis Shroff

Commentary on Tibet:
Gold Medals versus Human Rights (Satis Shroff)

The Dalai Lama has threatened to resign as the political leader of the Tibetans in Tibet and the diaspora (USA, India, Nepal and Switzerland), but the protests within Tibet has been rising although Tibet has been hermetically sealed for foreign journalists, and the nabbed demonstrators have been put to show as terrorists, their own outmoded arms on display (Royal Enfield rifles from World War II), knives and a few cartridges. A young monk was shown on TV welcoming and thanking the Chinese Army soldiers as ‘saviours’ by putting the traditional khada scarves on their heads.

Never before was a farce staged so badly. It was sickening to watch it, propaganda at its worst. The foreign journalists were obliged to leave Lhasa so that the Chinese propaganda could function without democratic impediments. And the views that have emerged through Xinhuan and Chinese TV are conspicuous through their slanted reporting to the benefit of the rulers in Beijing.

The world knew already in 2001 that Peking put not only the Tibetans under pressure but consequently cracked down on intellectuals and other Tibetan people, and even so far as to hang them en masse as political criminals. It is ironical that the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Beijing. One hopes that this will be a lesson to the Olympic Committee if they are ever in a dilemma of staging the Games in similar countries, where the rights of the individuals are suppressed, and human rights are trampled upon. This goes against the Olympic spirit. But the question of morality and ethics doesn’t seem to arise when political lobbyists are at work, and economic and commercial gains are also a part of the game, in this case, Games. The privileged party elite of Peking and the organisers of many western countries seem to have a common opinion as far as the Olympic Games are concerned, and they all come up with: how could be punish our own sportsmen and women by not letting them take part in the competitions? Think of the gold medal possibilities.

A sportsman with ethos and integrity would be ashamed to take part in the competitions. Most of the organising and participating nations are against boycotting the Games “because it would damage the sport and the contestants (sic).” On the one side, we have competitors wanting to take part in the Games no matter what it costs. On the other side, there are the one-party organisers in Beijing who see the Tibetans as disturbing elements led by the Dalai Lama clique, although they know very well that this is a cheap lie, fabricated to suits their purpose. Thanks to the Olympic Games 2008, the Chinese elite are in the international limelight, and have been ignoring the critical views of the rest of the world’s leaders and world organisations, and using them for their own purposes. The march of the Chinese troops in Lhasa has shown the real face of China.

What are gold medals worth in terms of humanity? A dark shadow has been cast upon the Olympics 2008 and August is nearing, but Peking is adamant. It’s still playing the olde, hackneyed melody, instead of listening to the Tibetans and the conscience of the world that are demanding equal human rights and justice, tolerance and respect for China’s minorities.
Ach Freiburg, wasn’t it this German town which invited and feted the Dalai Lama and showed that we were in solidarity with him, his folk and his cause? Now we are silent when Tibet needs us. The Olympic spirit and Machtpolitik should not be allowed to go hand in hand. We have had parallels in Berlin in 1936 and Moscow in 1980. The International Olympic Committee has made a terrible mistake in awarding Peking, at this stage of its power-politics, the privilege of staging the Olympic Games.

Come August and the Games are really staged in Beijing, this will be the unkindest cut for the people of Tibet, the peace-loving Dalai Lama, the man who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in Stockholm, lest we forget, by the western world.

It can only be hoped that the Beijing government gives up the path of brutal confrontation, does a bit of soul searching and turns to the peaceful path of conflict solution through dialogue at the same eye-level, and not from above-to-below with its minorities. Since the Chinese and Tibetans (government in exile at Dharamsala) obviously are not in a position to carry out talks together, it would be better if Beijing consented to talks with UN mediators.

There is no denying that the Olympic Games are a competitive festival of sports and cultures, but how can people of different cultures celebrate when war-tanks and the Chinese Army are holding the Tibetan folk back in Lhasa, “Jhokang-market, and people in the provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, Tongren (Rebkong) in the province Qinghai? The situation is similar to 1989 when ten thausand Tibetans demonstrated against the Chinese regime.In those days Perking imposed military rule over Lhasa, and sent its People’s Army to the streets. Hundreds of monks were imprisoned, many were shot.

Today, a new generation of monks and Tibetan angry youth have grown up and are only trying to fight for their human rights, as members of Homo sapiens. Even the Dalai Lama spoke of more autonomy, mind you, within the framework of the Chinese constitution. What the Tibetans want are equal rights and freedom from the cultural domination of thousands of Han Chinese, who have been re-settled by Beijing’s policy makers with the result that the Tibetans have become a minority in their own country. This is certainly not what the Tibetans and the western world understand under ‘autonomy.’

For centuries Tibet was the ‘autonomous region’ of China. But the Tibetans hae been deprived of their very autonomy with the creation of a Chinese governor. China has in the past regarded the Himalayan countries as its phalanx, and has fought fiercely against India in 1962 over the border areas. There’s a Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai atmosphere, as the two big South Asian powers vie with each other for economic and commercial gains and cooperation newly between the Indian and Chinese troops and take part in military exercises. The Lingua franca of Tibet is not Tibetan now but Standard Chinese, for the Han Chinese are out to develop Tibet and its people culturally, economically, socially and psychologically after the motto: there’s no better culture than the Han culture.

In the Kindergardens and schools of Tibet most of the lessons are held in Chinese, and not Tibetan. If one speaks Tibetan, one risks losing one’s job. When the Tibetan parents speak with the teachers they are obliged to do so only in Chinese, even though they are Tibetans. If this isn’t cultural imperialism, then what is it?

Even though some athletes are showing character and personal integrity by protesting as individuals spontaneously, the majority, however, do want to take part in the Games. Like for instance the German spear-thrower Christina Obergföll who said: “The boycott would steal the chance of a lifetime.” The manager of Sabine Spitz (mountain-bike discipline) said: “The boycott will only punish the athletes.”

Beijing has to listen to the Dalai Lama and his followers in the West, and in Tibet, and take to dialogue, instead of playing the hardliner and condemning and slandering His Holiness and his ‘so-called clique.’ The former spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet has serious and sincere intentions as far as the future of Tibet is concerned The communist politicians in Beijing have to realise that the only way to peace and stability in this former poverty-stricken country of monks, farmers and nomads is not through the use of force (Gewalt) but through well-meant consessions through dialogue, and by raising the status of the Tibetans to that of the Han-Chinese, andletting and encouraging them to develop Tibet together, and not by regarding Tibet’s wonderful culture and religion as something inferior and exotic. We can all learn from Tibet’s rich culture. Beijing has more to gain if it follows the path of peace, tolerance and Miteinander (togetherness) instead of using cheap propaganda to stage a Peking Opera with Tibetans as the culprits, which no one with a conscience, character and integrity wants to see. The scenario is well-known in the western world and no propaganda in this world can help the Chinese government in this particular issue.

The Han and other Chinese have the chance to prove to the world that they can practice social welfare and social development by giving the Tibetans the same autonomy, same status as the other Chinese. Otherwise, Beijing’s political goals remain a farce, reminiscent of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’: all animals are equal, but some are more equal than the others.

The Ocean of Wisdom (Satis Shroff)
Tenzin Gyatso, the spiritual and former
Temporal ruler of Tibet,
Came to a town in the Black Forest
And conquered the hearts of the Freiburger.
A lama in a back limousine,
Applauded by hundreds of Europeans and Asians.
You could feel the goose-pimples in your body,
Tears of joy came to your eyes.
His Holiness prays and blesses
The Tibet Kailash Haus,
A thousand Tibetan prayer flags
Flutter merrily in the wind,
Carrying the mumbled words to Himmel.
At the Freiburger Town Council
Says the lama:
‘Nations, races, social classes
Even religions are secondary.
What is important is that
We are all human beings.
Even the sun breaks through the clouds
When Tenzin Gyatso folds his hands,
Smiles from the balcony,
And throws flying kisses
To the German masses.
Even Petrus seems to be smile in Heaven.
The Ambassador of Peace
Hopes for a peaceful change,
In Tibet, the Roof of the World,
Where the economy booms
Under the control of the Chinese,
But where democracy and human rights
Are still stifled.
I remember seeing His Holiness
As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas,
As he fled across the Abode of the Snows.
Crowds thronged with snow white khadas,
To greet the Dalai Lama.
And here was I in Germany
With my humble prayers,
And there His Holiness,
Blessing us all,
The personification of the Ocean of Wisdom.
A seventy-two year old monk,
With the charisma and spontaneity of a child.
A message which said:
‘Whether you are a Christian, Buddhist or atheist,
If you have compassion for humans,
You can’t be wrong.’
What counts are the inner values
Within us:
Love, forgiveness, tolerance and self-discipline.
Religions help us to make these values even stronger.
Like the inner love and dialogue,
Between a mother and a child,.
To create a Century of Dialogue.

Wolfgang Graf: A Freiburger Feingeist (Satis Shroff)

Wolfgang Graf: A Freiburger Feingeist (Satis Shroff)

Wolfgang Graf was born in Freiburg-Zähringen and did his schooling at the Kepler Gymnasium. Later he studied Biology and Chemistry at the Freiburger University because he thought then that it would be good to be a teacher in a school. But he didn’t teach and worked instead in the quality control department of a factory lab, which produced cigarettes in Freiburg.
He said that science and technology always interested him, a child he looked at what his big sister, who had her own photo-lab and experimented with photo development and used her microscope. Later at school he wrote a paper about the human nervous system as his Abitur dessertation. But that wasn’t all.
“There was something boiling within me that had to come out. It had to be the arts. During his school days he painted a lot, wrote poems, and even a theatre manuscript, which was printed in the school-mag, but which was never staged,” said Wolfgang.
Wolfgang describes himself as a late post-World War II child and he lived with his parents and two sisters in one room at Grandma’s flat in Zähringen, in which there were three rooms for eight persons. Grandpa was semi-paralysed since thirty years.
“My father was 16 when he had to join the Wehrmacht as a soldier but he wasn’t involved in the real fighting. He shot his thumb through an accident. As children we took it as something serious and Dad enjoyed it as a heroic deed to be wounded during the war. He put on a laconical smile and said, “It was more a case of collerateral damage. Dad died last December. Mom lives in Freiburg and is 87 years old.”
“How’s she doing?” I asked him.
He replied, ‘She’s still going strong. She loves watching TV and reading women’s and TV mags and is fond of the Bild Zeitung because of the big headlines.’
I recall an old Freiburger medical professor who was also an avid Bild reader, Germany’s leading Yellow Press Zeitung. During one of our conversations in the crowded S-Ban on our way to Freiburg’s main railway station we’d started talking about the ‘Entartete Kunst’ during the Nazi regime. So I asked him a question about it.
Wolfgang replied, “Germans have a big history but just before the World War II, the Nazis introduced their own version of what art and culture should be. Faschism brought not only war and misery to Europe but also destroyed modern art and culture. In Italy and France the people sing a lot but in Germany there’s no singing culture anymore.”
‘What’s the reason?’ I asked him.
He said, “The Nazis sang too much, al the time and we Germans have now have a disturbed relationship to old German songs.”
In this context I’d like to mention that Alois F. who’s a prominent member of the Zähringia, a local old men’s singing choir, asked me to join them. But Thomas my neighbour from Cologne told me that the old boys’ choir didn’t want new English songs. They didn’t want any innovative ideas. Just their old songs, and this didn’t appeal to the younger generation of Germans who prefer:hip-hop, Eminem, 50 Cents, Tokyo Hotel and gospel songs. When you go to the local church you see only old people and mothers with toddlers. The youth are conspicuous through their absence.
“What about the olde German Liedergut, the treasury of songs?” I asked Wolfgang.
“German culture is rich in songs and they used to sing it a lot before the World war II.” He went on to say, “Even Hitler wanted to be an artist but he was refused admission in Austria. The Art Academy in Vienna refused Hitler the unknown artist twice. If they’d taken him, there would have been no World War II.”
The work in the lab didn’t interest him either and he switched to a dancing career in 1978.
Wolfgang said with a laugh, “I had a girl-friend at that time who was a dancer. Actually he wanted to be an actor and play in the German theatre. She told me: ’Come along, it’ll do you good.’ I complied and then began my life-long love affair with dancing. In those days there was an Alternative Movement, wherein you cold do anything if you wanted to.”
Contemporary dancing (Zeitgenössischer Tanz) was an unknown form in those days, but there was a growing scene for those who were interested. In 1980 he founded a school for New Dance, Theatre and Bodywork with some friends, which exists even till today, and had made Freiburg, besides Berlin, one of the important centres for new dance forms. There was a breakaway from the traditional dance movements and the gender roles were questioned and changed, everyday-movements were brought on the stage and the barriers to the theatre were eliminated. The motto of the school became: “Every movement can be danced” and it produced new professional dancers till today.
‘We were freelance dancers and we opened our own school and performed in festivals in Freiburg (1979-80). The Hippie-Flower Power Culture was long over and a lot of people wanted to try out something new things, new ideas and there was a Häuserkampfbewegung, in which empty houses were boarded by young people, the police came, there was a struggle ensued, the young people were carried away, only to reappear the next day.’
During his students days he lived with six friends in a provincial nest, an old farm with a gardening complex. It was a time when they thought everything was possible. If someone had an idea they got together and made it work. There were alternative schools, bakeries, car-garages and a lot of other things. They forced their projects without state-subventions, that is with all the advantages and disadvantages. But today, according to him, the people try to find an existing niche, instead of doing something themselves.
To give impulses, produce and work with others together, that’s what made Wolfgang decide to work in the end as a Kulturbeauftragter (culture-manager) in Basle (Switzerland). Wolfgang was a dancer before he became an organisator of cultural events, and travelled as a dancer, choreograph through Europe and worked as a dance-teacher. He remembers working in “The Detective from China” Dance Butter Tokyo, where he spent two months, an Internatonal Ensemble mit 17 dancers from Japan Switzerland, Finnland und Germany and the director was Anzu Furukawa. In Tokyo, Nagano he danced the “Last Toast in Japan”a solo-performance, then came Dornbirn, in Dresden, Cologne “The Diamond as big as the Ritz” Dance Butter Tokyo, a two month stay in Japana, he starred in the International Ensemble comprising 12 dancers and Anzu Furukawa was again the director. Then he danced in “Tonight in The Moon” a duo-dance with Anzu Furukawa, Idar-Oberstein/ Freiburg “Duo” Neuer Tanz und Neue Musik - Improvisations with the Saxophonist Christina Fuchs, Cologne “Alternating Currents” International Improvisations Ensemble, Potsdam, Freiburg, Stuttgart (Sprache des Körpers, the language of the body.
Even though he was a lot of times in foreign countries, he always came to roost in Freiburg. Today he lives with his wife and son in Freiburg Zähringen, where he spent his childhood. Only once did he think of going to Paris and work there but he’d have been another dancer, and not someone who organises and runs events, and on the other hand he really didn’t feel at home in the world of performing arts.
“Perhaps I’m less of a Feingeist and a bit rustical to be a part of it,” he said with a grin.
That’s why he had to balance his life between strenuous dance-performances and organising events, especially when he turned forty. He decided to say farewell to the stage and devoted his time to culture-management. At first he organised different theatre projects in Freiburg, then as the chief of the Theater/Tanz workshop Kaserne in Basel and ultimately as a culture-manager of Riehen. In the meantime Wolfgang rides his bicycle, swims and does a bit of jogging. As one of the founders of Tanzfestival, he made a small come-back during the 25th Birthday of the dance festival. “I had to summon up a bit of courage, but then I was astonished,” he said with a smile. I hadn’t forgotten anything. I could really dance.”
As a parting question I asked him, “You’ve worked in Germany and in Switzerland. How do you find the Swiss?”
Wolfgang’s answer came like a bullet from a Bretta, “In Switzerland everything’s organised perfectly and one has to avoid making mistakes. We have more time and things go a bit slowly than in Germany. I think it’s the Calvinism behind it. This strict, evangelical form of Christianity in Switzerland makes everything function like a clockwork. The administration is strict but you don’t see this strictness outwards. Things are done in cooperation with others. The Swiss want superlatives and are not satisfied with moderate results.”
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