Tibetan Blogger in China Faces Many Challenges
The Washington Post today highlights the challenges facing a Tibetan blogger, writer and poet, named Woeser, who is living in Beijing.
In her quest to chronicle the struggles of the Tibetan people, Woeser has found it difficult to continue her work due intimidation by the Chinese government.
Her books are banned here and three different blogs she maintained on Chinese servers have been shut down in the past two years — on government orders, a friend at one of the Internet companies told her. Her current blog, woeser.middle-way.net, is hosted on a computer server in the United States, but even that one temporarily succumbed to an attack April 26.
Despite these challenges, however, she tells the Post with determination, “I feel I have a responsibility to do this.”
Tibet Writes, cites Beijing writer-scholar Wang Li-Xiong, who believes that Tibetan writers like Woeser are critical to providing alternative forms of information in China…
“The fact that they have paid the high price of losing the language of their nation to gain such fluency in Chinese can also be interpreted as a reversal of something negative into positive.”
The feeling among Tibet Watchers like Wang is that up until now the experience of Tibet has been voiceless within China due to censorship, the language barrier and the distortions created by Beijing propaganda.
They see writers like Woeser as Tibet’s ’public intellectuals’ who have the literary and linguistic skills to play an important role by interacting with China’s populace and authorities through publishing, the media, internet and by mixing in the PRC’s mainstream.
Their articulation of Tibet’s ’otherness’ is seen as a powerful weapon to regain national equality and resist, and even disarm, the ’cultural imperialism’ imposed upon Tibet under Chinese rule.
Woeser has also been a critical information source for those outside of China. Through her writing and wealth of contacts in Tibet, the world has been able to more accurately monitor the sequence of events stemming from the most recent crackdown by Chinese authorities in Tibet.
Reprinted by Epoch Times, here is an excerpt from an April 12, 2008 post by Woeser…
A Japanese reporter said that Taktser, a small village in Pingan County in Qinghai’s Xining City, is the Dalai Lama’s hometown. Now the front doors of the old house are closely shut. The Qinghai provincial judicial authorities posted notices on walls on both sides of the main entrance. The notice in both Chinese and Tibetan is dated April 2. The Chinese version roughly says that posting and distributing any logos or flyers that endanger national security are prohibited. Manufacturing and distributing the Dalai Lama’s portraits or photos is also prohibited. The notice also reads, “Realizing one’s errors and mending one’s ways is the only way out for lawbreakers. Those who surrender and plead guilty or report other lawbreakers will receive a lesser or mitigated punishment.” The notice also points out that the general public will be commended and rewarded for reporting lawbreakers. It is said that there are police officers patrolling during the day, and the roads leading to the village have been blocked.
The latest news says on the evening of the 10th, a large number of military vehicles entered the Drepung Monastery again. On the 11th, roads leading to it were blocked. It is said that many hungry monks, who have been stranded for 30 days in the temple surrounded by military police, are going to come down the mountain to seek lifting of the martial law. Other sources say that there may have been an incident triggered by military police who made arrests by breaking into the temple. The exact reason of this military deployment is not yet known, but there are reported casualties. While communication with the temple is still blocked, the news has already spread across Lhasa. The Tibetans are filled with anxiety.
