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| Vigil story in South China Morning Post - Friday, January 5, 2001 |
| Chanting for freedom DAVID WILSON |
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With his wild hair and beard, he looks like an Old Testament
prophet who has just wandered in to London from the wilderness.
But Simon Gould, 52, means business. He is at the heart of the
Tibet Vigil-the longest running in the West-which takes place
every Wednesday between 6pm and 8pm. The embassy appears to be guarded by a lone police officer and a security camera cocked at the door which, like a tomb entrance, stays shut. During the vigil, officials dart in and out via a side door, unseen. The eye is drawn to the roof's black mast aerial, which makes the neighbouring Polish Embassy's seem like a coat hanger. But is anyone bothering to listen to the protesters? Initially downbeat in the darkening chill, Gould, a decorator, admits he thinks the vigil has achieved nothing. So why has he attended almost every vigil? ''Why not?'' he shrugs, laughing shrilly. He says it is a habit and that he finds the vigil in no way extraordinary. ''What is extraordinary is there's all those people out there spending their lives charging about in motor vehicles,'' he says. Apparently starting to warm to the subject, indeed becoming defiant, he confides: ''They know we're here. They used to have banquets and whatever on Wednesdays, but they have stopped doing it.'' So the vigil has achieved something in fact, and has become a bit of a target. On one occasion, after he attached a banner protesting against the Tiananmen Square massacre to a lamp post, three Chinese jumped out of a car. One of them came up to ''spar'' with Gould. He said: ''It's not fair-there's three of you and one of me.'' They replied: ''Okay, we'll have just one of you and one of us.'' Gould still refused to fight. On another occasion, two plain clothes police officers accosted him and warned him that his life was ''in danger from China''. He says he cares more about whether someone in his private life is going to yell at him than this supposed threat. He is passionate about what is happening in Tibet. He mentions forced abortion, forced sterilisation, the felling of forests and China's announcement that it plans to use nuclear explosions, in breach of the international test-ban treaty, to blast a tunnel through the Himalayas for the world's biggest hydro-electric plant. ''It's complete and utter debauchery, isn't it? True planetary debauchery,'' he seethes. He is, however, wary about reacting aggressively. ''I mean I could go and kick that car in the teeth, but if I did he would run me over. And that's roughly what I would say to you about Tibet's chances. If I was in Tibet, would I have the courage to go and blow up a pipeline? What a prospect,'' he says, his voice trailing off, his eyes growing distant. They take on a glint as other protesters begin turning up.
They seem almost mild-more in the mould of save-the-world hippies
than Seattle anti-capitalist hellraisers. That said, they have
made an effort. Some unfurl and brandish the Tibetan flag emblazoned
with the sun whose rays represent freedom, happiness and prosperity.
He says: ''You can be a bystander most of the time, but once in a while you have to take a stance against inhuman behaviour.'' He finds inspiration in the Dalai Lama: ''What he has done for the Tibetans is quite immense.'' Although like Gould and all the other protesters, Dugdak does not advocate violence, he warns that when the Dalai Lama dies, so too may his policy of non-violence. Finally, the people are impatient, he says. He voices his own frustration at the way embassy officials react to petitions handed in by protesters. They just throw them away on the spot, he claims. ''They see us as a disgusting sort of people there to annoy them,'' he adds. The embassy issued the South China Morning Post this statement: ''Tibet is an inalienable part of China. The weekly protesting is unreasonable. ''The protesters are ignorant of Tibetan history and are taken advantage of by some organisations that devote themselves to supporting or working for the 'independence of Tibet'. The protesters are fully deceived by some malicious-willed people who are indulged in a political fever of seeking a 'free' Tibet and would not learn the truth of Tibet, its history or present situation.'' The embassy's claim that Tibet has always been a part of China is hard to assess, thanks in part to the Tibetan scholastic tradition's emphasis on religion rather than history. However, Tibetans have one particularly solid piece of evidence for their independence. In 821 China and Tibet ended almost 200 years of fighting with a treaty engraved on three pillars, one of which still stands in front of Lhasa's Jokhang cathedral. The treaty proclaims that the ''Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and the Chinese in China''. Chinese historians such as Lifeng Wang counter that before
China invaded, the ruling Lamas kept common people as slaves.
So, the argument goes, most Tibetans are better off under Chinese
rule. Sonam Dugdak shakes his head. Simon Gould says: ''That's
just Chinese nonsense. They make it up as they go along really.''
As the protesters' ranks gradually swell to 20, he encourages
them, dancing daintily and cheerleading. |
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Some passing motorists honk their horns in support,
others gawp and grin. A man in a jeep gives the vigil the finger,
provoking an equally coarse rebuttal. Warren seems fragile. He admits he is ill, but he devotes his days to pursuing a variety of human rights issues and is bullish about the free Tibet campaign. To an embassy, vigils and protests are ''one of the major embarrassments that there can be'', he claims. |
| Arts administrator Paula Hollings, 45,
echoes this view. ''I strongly believe that non-violent, direct
action is one of the most powerful campaign tools we have. Being
out on the street every Wednesday, come rain or shine, is highly
visible, audible, and a thorn in the side of the Chinese officials
in residence.'' She points to the annoyance caused by protesters
laying flowers outside the embassy. As London's Telegraph newspaper
reported, in response to a March 2000 flower protest the police
unleashed five cars, two motorbikes and one dog patrol van with
sirens blaring. Hollings says she found all the fuss ridiculous. But she acknowledges that policing of vigils has mellowed since Britain's High Court ruled that the police ''acted unlawfully'' against demonstrators protesting at Chinese President Jiang Zemin's October 1999 state visit in which Gould, among others, was arrested. |
| She recounts a particularly powerful 30-hour vigil for imprisoned nun Ngawang Sangdrol in July 2000. ''As I lay my head down to sleep on the paving slabs I looked across at the Chinese Embassy looming before me . . . It chilled me to the core and for a brief instant I got in touch with the horror of being imprisoned between walls like those, as Ngawang and so many others are, and the strength of spirit they have to not let themselves be crushed by it.'' |
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Tibet has already been crushed, some might say. After all, it now has just 6.1 million ethnic Tibetan residents compared to 7.6 million ethnic Chinese. Hollings admits that she does on occasion lose heart, but has no doubt that, if enough people protest, change will follow. Gould is adamant that Tibet will be liberated-within 14 years, he prophesises. He plans to keep protesting until then. |
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