BLOG POST 2 : TIBET VS CHINA

A fight that has been going on for over fifty years, a fight that pits David vs Goliath, a fight that is passed down from Generation to Generation. All these point to one struggle, the struggle of autonomy by Tibet from the large and powerful People’s Republic of China. The lineage of this movement stems back from the signing of the seventeen points agreement, which guaranteed Tibetan autonomy. Autonomy— the becoming of a self-governing country — has been the main cause of the 50-year movement called the “Free Tibet” movement. The face of the movement is the 14th Dalai Lama who continually strives for peaceful and nonviolent means of solving the issue between China and Tibet. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in the late 1950’s after a failed Tibetan uprising, and since then has been in exile traveling the world, bringing light to the issues between Tibet and China. I will be looking past the first 50 years of the movement and focusing on the current status of the movement. With the revolution of the internet and social media The Free Tibet movement today has utilized the movement to bring awareness to this issue. For those interested in indulging deeper into the history of the movement there is a very informative timeline on this link. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/6299565.stm

Before I started researching the topic, I had very limited knowledge of the topic. Through traditional media I heard about all the atrocities commited by the Chinese government on traditional media a few years. With my family being from China I had heard two sides, the pro Tibet side and the anti-Tibet side version of the story. Members of my family would constantly bash the Dalai Lama. And to bring up a more specific example, my cousin once got enraged over news stories from China reporting that Tibetans were injecting syringes in Chinese civilians. Recently after I decided to explore the movement I searched quite a while before a similar story showed up in this news article below...http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ethnic/2009-09/16/content_8699962.htm. I however could not find this particular article on any other major American news site. If it was so difficult pulling the article up through the internet I highly doubt that it would be broadcasted through American traditional media. One thing to think about is that at least social media gives chances to people to find these news articles through mediums such Reddit re-posts, Facebook re- posts, Youtube videos, and Twitter tweets). In other words social media allows critical audiences to find out and reveal both sides of not just the Free Tibet issue but any other issue.

I went a little further to see how much traditional media such as newspapers and television has limited the perception of this topic with a few questions for my roommates. First I asked whether they were interested in the topic and then I asked them to elaborate on what they thought of the movement. The first person I asked was my roommate from London the words he brought up were “China, fire, human rights, freedom, inhumanity, violence” which I expected. I then proceeded to ask my roommate from who was initially from China but moved the United States during his middle school years. He immediately slammed the table (as a joke) but I could clearly see he had heard similar stories to that of the syringes I had brought up a little earlier. In his own words he said “damn Tibetans”. Neither of them ever researched outside of hearing what they read in news articles or TV news stations. They were in what I call the “filter bubble” of traditional media.

To bring up a specific example of how traditional media can keep people within a certain scope of view, TV stations in the United States have been known to “censor” one side while broadcasting the other. When I typed “United states censorship news” in Youtube a plethora of results popped up including this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoGeSh9LvU4 which shows the feed cutting out just as the American solider began talking about Iran. The problem with this is that it promotes bias and many times can distort information and swaying audiences towards one side of an issue.

Social media has played a big role in rekindling the fire behind the Free Tibet movement.  For one it has definitely brought awareness of the situation with recent self-immolation videos / pictures flooding social media outlets. I particularly, found this picture on Reddit on the 2nd page as a result of continued upvotes.

These self-immolation acts I later found out through another article online has been happening for the past couple of days in anticipation of March 10th to commemorate the Tibetan uprising of 1959. I stumbled upon a site http://standupfortibet.org/global-action/10-march-uprising/, which mapped out all the gatherings of people in support of freedom for Tibet that was happening around the world. The site also has a form on the right for supporters to give information and coverage of the gatherings they were involved with. Also a little bit above the form is a countdown to March 10th, and I see it as a way to hype up the supporters and a way to rally for more participation. As I mentioned before even though news stations (traditional media) can easily control what runs on the air, anchors and reporters tend to keep a neutral tone when reporting the news. On the other hand when I look up Tibet tweets or Free Tibet fan pages the tone is more definite and one sided. A tweet by Tibet@Tibetans “TIBET WILL NEVER BE CHINA! Tibetan’s speak a different language, have a different unique culture & history & are very peaceful humble people” clearly broadcasts the tone of writer / reporter (if you want to call it that). As a Chinese person I am slightly offended at the tweet, as it seems to claim that Chinese people are not peaceful and humble. On the other side of the spectrum though I can see this tweet as a way to ignite the hopes of Tibetans as well as other supporters of the movement.

    One of the biggest problems of the social media in covering movements like this one is that a reader can easily be sucked into one side of the argument and never see an article that transcends the view of the opposing side. For example if all your Facebook friends and people you followed on Twitter were Chinese / against the Tibet movement you’ll here stories about poisonous syringes being injected into Chinese people by Tibetans, or how the Dalai Lama is not as righteous as he is (you’ll probably see people posting media like this

(source:  http://thenewvoice.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/dalai-lama-is-no-jesus)

If however you are surrounded by the supporters of the movement your feed would be flooded with pictures of self-immolation and pictures showing excessive force and violence by Chinese officials like this ….

            Social Media has been the driving force in the current push of the Free Tibet movement. It has definitely increased the support of the movement as well as raising awareness of the looming issue. Pictures of self-immolation flood the Internet, and lure people into reading and researching more on the topic, however is this good thing? With striking pictures that tend to portray one side of the movement is it making us forget that there are always two sides to a story? In a way I see social media pushing the Tibet movement similar to how it is pushing the Kony 2012 movement. In both people are overlook other sources of information. 

            Now you are probably wondering what my stance on this movement is, and to be honest I am unclear myself. Part of me says giving Tibet religious freedom is the “righteous” thing to do, but on the contrary I do not think Tibet should be granted independence. For one Tibet is religious nation and is far from industrialized. A nation like that in my opinion needs the support from greater / bigger nations like China. Would you expect China to spend money and resources to help someone that was not part of their country? Another major concern of mine is the way Tibetans protest the issue, for people who strongly emphasize peace through compassion, self-immolations is not the way to go. I would even go as far to say that the self-immolations actually hurt the whole purpose of a peaceful and compassionate movement. Even though they are not directly inflicting violence burning oneself is far from peaceful. Social media gives access to information to both sides of the movement, in the end it is up to the audience whether or not they choose to widen his perception. One can easily be sucked into one side of the story if he or she does not decide to break away from the "bubble".