About this user
Tibet is neither a mono-cultural geopolitical entity, nor a one-hundred percent Buddhist country, even though the BBC appears to believe so (misleading, as frequently they do, their readers). I want you to see, Buddhist Tibetans rejecting, through racism and violence, the Muslim Tibetan minorities (not so differently from the Burmese case).
In Tibet there are Muslims: the Hui Tibetan Chinese community, and also more recent immigrants. The Tibetan Muslim. Muslims arrived in Tibet possibly during the eighth century EC, but documents start to mention them after the tenth century. It is still unclear, however, when the first mosque in Lhasa was built.
Dr Andrew Martin Fischer (who whoever has not discussed further the topic of Muslim discrimination in Tibet during the present revolt) has highlighted the tensions between the two communities, which are primarily the cause of economic differences and opportunities. He has confirmed that the official version of the relationships between the Tibetan Muslims and Buddhists provided by the Tibetan Government in exile is, at its best, affected by historical amnesia,
"[They] completely ignore the military confrontations that took place between Tibetans and certain Chinese Muslim warlords in Amdo as recently as the 1930s and 1940s. They also sidestep the fact that during the reforms of the last two decades, Tibetan aggression has come to be increasingly directed against the Muslim minority in Tibet, despite the fact that Han Chinese present by far the strongest exclusionary force in the local economy. In addition, despite popular perceptions of Tibetans as pacifists, the racist and violent backlash against the Nepali Bhutanese minority in Bhutan in the late 1980s and 1990s serves as a poignant reminder of the potential for violent ethnic conflict that lies within even these idealised Himalayan Tibetan Buddhist cultures, particularly towards other vulnerable and stigmatised ethnic minorities" (Fischer 2005: 2)
As I was saying, anti-Muslim sentiments increased during the War on Terror, which the Lamas and Tibetan Buddhists very much supported and used as an excuse to increase the discrimination and sufferance of, in particular the Hui minority. During the 1990s Ethnic Tibetan Buddhist started to fear that the economic success of Muslim Tibetans (particularly their restaurants and shops), would have undermined the economic, and so social, status of the Buddhist Tibetans. The Buddhist monks began a campaign against the economic activities of Tibetan Muslims, which epitomised in the 2003 boycott of Muslims businesses and saw also violent actions against innocent Muslim Hui families,
"The clash in Chentsa Town in January 2003 served as a call to action for Tibetans, an incitement to take matters into their own hands, especially considering the widespread Tibetan belief that the state-imposed resolution of this episode was biased in favour of the Muslims. Interestingly, it seems that the bravado of Tibetans had also been stoked up by the events of 9/11, the Afghan war and the lead up to the Iraq war, the latter two of which appear to have been overwhelmingly supported by Tibetans in Tibet".
During these clashes and anti-Muslim actions, the Buddhist Tibetans started to reinforce existing stereotypes against the Muslim populations as well as real myths, which show how little they knew about their fellow Tibetan ethnic minority.
Since the beginning of the revolt in March, demonstrations against China are held in all those countries through which the Olympic torch is passing. From the politicians, to the public, from Hollywood to Bollywood, from the scholars (with few exceptions) to the students, from the Trade Unions to the Industrial associations: all show indignation against the oppression of the Chinese government. Yet they ignore the dark side of this revolt which is not so different from that in 2003.
The people who are paying the highest price are the Muslim Hui and the Tibetan Muslims, which again have been the innocent target of Buddhist Tibetan violence, expressed in particular by young unemployed Tibetans and fully supported by lamas. as religious and political leader, the Dalai Lama has totally failed to report the ethnic violence, and the assault against Muslims. Not one word of apology, despite his being a rather loquacious man, has left his lips to reach the Hui Muslim community or the victims of ethnic and religious Tibetan Buddhist hatred: a failure that can only have consequences, in terms of religious and ethnic harmony, in a future independent Tibet.
Witnessing this, so misunderstood, revolt characterised by an amalgam of legitimate political struggle, hideous attempts at ethnic cleansing, and globalised Islamophobia, we can only ask: will the future of the Muslim minority of Tibet be similarly dark to that experienced by the Muslims in Burma?
