Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday, January 15, 1998

Hollywood finally discovers China's war on land of peace

Jan 18, 1998

By Robert A.F. Thurman

MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR

The story of Tibet has all the elements of a great Hollywood tale. It appeals to the hope for a lost land of goodness, as in Frank Capra's *Lost Horizon.* The Dalai Lama's nonviolent plea to China to cease its destruction of Tibetan culture resonates like Moses' cry to Pharaoh, David's challenge to Goliath, Luke Skywalker's confrontation with the evil empire and Indiana Jones last crusade.

BUT WHAT IS happening to Tibet is not a screenwriter's fantasy. It is horribly, brutally real. And the happy ending is yet to be written.

The invasion of Tibet occurred almost 50 years ago and the systematic genocide of its peace-loving people has been going on ever since. A final solution looms, as the government of Chinese President Jiang Zemin moves aggressively to smother the remaining 6 million Tibetans with overwhelming numbers of Chinese colonists.

Now, for the first time, filmgoers are being exposed to the unfolding tragedy of this Himalayan nation. In *Seven Years in Tibet,* Brad Pitt portrays Austrian mountain climber Heinrich Harrer, who treks 2,000 miles to the fabled capital of Lhasa, becomes a tutor to the Dalai Lama and witnesses the devastation of the peaceful Himalayan society by Mao¢s Red Army. In the process, Harrer learns how misguided he was in his egotism as a young, pre-war Nazi and experiences what is Tibetan culture's greatest gift: the capacity to transform destructive Western

egotism into peacefulness.

Now Martin Scorsese's film *Kundun,* based on Melissa Mathison's story, explores the early years of Dalai Lama, the political and religious leader who has kept his Peoples' spirit alive in exile in India since 1959, when he escaped from the Chinese generals.

Why has it taken Hollywood so long to discover this story? The Chinese have hidden their actions behind a curtain of repression and propaganda. Some Americans, deluded by self-interest, apathy or misinformation, slowed the lifting of this curtain on the truth.

The movie establishment in the '50s and '60s was generally liberal in its politics, and the two big enemies it featured were the Nazis and the Japanese, fresh from World War II. Soon, the Soviets and the menace of totalitarian communism supplied the major new antagonist for the many Cold War dramas. Intellectuals and artists knew very little about China.

In the '70s, a wide range of American fantasies were projected onto China. Liberals were encouraged by Sinologists to believe that Mao had accomplished the miracle of feeding the people and creating a new society. Conservatives thought the Chinese would be our major ally against the Russian menace. And corporations thought they were going to open up their billion-person market to our entrepreneurial cowboys. The Dalai Lama was refused a visa to America during the entire decade.

In the '80s, as stories of Mao's egomania and mass killings emerged, the insanity of the Cultural Revolution became apparent. People began to learn about Tibet. They discovered that the Chinese devastation of Tibet was the largest case of naked territorial expansionism since World War II. It was a major human rights violation; like Biafra or Cambodia, a modern holocaust.

They also saw the Dalai Lama, who began visiting America during the Carter era, as living proof of the unique and beneficial nature of Tibet's Buddhist civilization. A number of books and scripts were written about Tibet, but public attention was distracted by the cowboy-hat-and-panda show arranged by the cute Deng Xiaoping, then supreme leader of China, while business was still hypnotized by the hope of a *China boom,* based on Deng's reputed pragmatism.

Then in 1989, the massacre of idealistic young people in Tiananmen Square showed the world the naked violence of Chinese totalitarianism. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Tibet House New York organized an International Year of Tibet, focused around a major International Exhibition of Tibetan Art in San Francisco, New York, and London. Actor Richard Gere electrified the world by interrupting the Academy Award ceremonies to address his prayers for Tibet to Deng.

Broadening awareness about Tibet coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. By the beginning of the '90s, Mao had emerged as one of the great mass murderers of the 20th century, losing his support among even the most adulatory China scholars. And China was no longer needed as an ally against the evaporated Russian menace. So the door was open for artists and opinion makers to discover Tibet in a big way.

Business interests were still exerting some censorship pressure because of the enduring fantasy of making a fortune in the China trade, dreaming of the billion-person market for everything from shoelaces to software to nuclear reactors. Still, books were published, plays and film scripts were written, and awareness of the tragedy of Tibet began to pervade mainstream America. The Dalai Lama privately met with then-President George Bush, and later with President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

Clinton promised he would do something serious to help Tibet. Nevertheless, in 1994 he delinked trade and human rights, a real blow both to Tibetans and the savagely suppressed Chinese democratic movement. Since then, the U.S. government's only visible gesture of support to Tibet - the recent appointment of a special coordinator for Tibetan affairs in the State Department - has brought no relief.

Jiang seems intent on crushing the Tibetan will to freedom. While the world is learning more about it, things are getting worse in Tibet. China's version of a final solution is to spend billions on infrastructure projects that bring millions more Chinese colonists into the region. The current population of all five of the officially designated Tibetan Autonomous Regions already numbers about 6 million Tibetans and 8 million Chinese. Up to 30,000 new Chinese colonists are arriving each month.

Chinese has become the only language for employment in Tibet.

Any expression of the desire for independence has become high treason punishable by imprisonment, torture and death. Tibetans are losing their land and the environment is being devastated. The aim is clearly to reduce Tibetans to marginal status. This is the context in which Hollywood has discovered Tibet.

The true story of Tibet is a story of oppression; of the loss of all freedoms of religion, speech, and self-determination; of the destruction and exploitation of innocent people and their home land. It is the same true story that inspired the founders of America to create a Constitution and Bill of Rights to protect the many immigrants who were fleeing similar oppression. It is the story that inspires the best of our own patriotism.

Hollywood and its audiences recognize a bond between the United States and Tibet, a kinship of ideals and shared dedication to the value of freedom. They are also beginning to see the value of ancient Buddhist mind sciences that Tibetans have struggled to preserve for centuries, cherishing their great usefulness in developing inner happiness and freedom.

Intuitively, they recognize that this knowledge, combined with America's considerable material and technological prowess, could revolutionize the country and the world, making the freedom for all envisioned by America's founders a reality at last.

It is not too late to save Tibet and its people, the ideals they live by and offer to the world, and their intricate and valuable knowledge. Hollywood's inspiration in this endeavor is worthy of our attention and applause.