Technology Reaches Remote Tibetan Corners, Fanning Unrest
By Andrew Jacobs, NY Times, May 23, 2012
TONGREN, China--The young Buddhist monk, his voice hushed and nervous, was discussing the self-immolations and protests that have swept Tibetan regions of China when the insistent rap of knuckle on wood sounded behind him.
His guest flinched, but the monk calmly gestured to a desktop computer next to the religious shrine dominating his cramped bedroom in this monastery town in Qinghai Province.
The electronic knocking simply signaled the arrival of a message on Tencent QQ, China's wildly popular messaging service.
These days, the unmistakable marimba jingle of iPhones and the melodic bleep of Skype can be heard in lamaseries across this remote expanse of snowy peaks and high-altitude grasslands in northwestern China. Even Tibetan nomads living off the grid use satellite dishes to watch Chinese television--and broadcasts from Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America.
"We may be living far away from big cities, but we are well connected to the rest of the world," said the 34-year-old monk, who, like most Tibetans who speak to foreign journalists, asked for anonymity to avoid harsh punishment.
The technology revolution, though slow in coming here, has now penetrated the most far-flung corners of the Tibetan plateau, transforming ordinary life and playing an increasingly pivotal role in the spreading unrest over Chinese policies that many Tibetans describe as stifling.
Rising political consciousness has found expression through a campaign of self-immolations that the authorities have been unable to stamp out. Since March 2010, at least 34 people have set themselves ablaze, the vast majority of them current or former Buddhist clerics, many of them young.
Despite government efforts to restrict the flow of information, citizen journalists and ordinary monks have gathered details and photographs of the self-immolators, pole-vaulting them over the country's so-called Great Firewall. News accounts, quickly packaged by advocacy groups and e-mailed to foreign journalists, often include the protesters' demands: greater autonomy and the return of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, who has lived in exile since 1959.
"Technology is facilitating an awareness that is rippling out faster than ever before," said Kate Saunders, communications director of the International Campaign for Tibet in London.
Tibetan exiles and advocacy groups say they increasingly receive calls during impromptu street rallies. The communication pipeline goes both ways; during a demonstration in front of the Chinese Embassy in London, one participant beamed back live images to Tibetan friends via Skype.
Monks like Dorje, a 23-year-old at the Kumbum Monastery in Qinghai, are typical of an increasingly wired and worldly generation. His room is decorated with the acoustic guitar he sometimes fumbles with late at night, Kobe Bryant posters and images of a beloved living Buddha.
His most prized possession, though, is the computer he uses to download Celine Dion ballads and news from Tibetan advocacy groups. "All of us know how to jump over the wall," he said slyly, referring to software that circumvents Chinese Internet restrictions. "I think all of us are aware of our Tibetan identity more than ever."
Exile groups say government efforts to choke off information have been largely successful in much of the Tibet Autonomous Region, where security is draconian and foreign journalists are forbidden to go. Chinese jamming equipment, for example, prevents most Lhasa residents from listening to Radio Free Asia, according to its executive editor, Dan Southerland.
But to the east, in predominantly Tibetan areas that until recently were more lightly administered, the fear of retribution has yet to stanch the sharing of information. Once part of greater Tibet and known by the historic names Amdo and Kham, the areas are comparatively wealthy and have long been a crucible for intellectual ferment and dissent. It is here, in Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan Provinces, that the self-immolations and most of the mass protests have been taking place despite a heavy military presence.
At Labrang, an enormous monastery popular with tourists, monks said the temporary tower that looms over the temple complex can intercept cellphone chatter, or shut it down entirely. Security officials, they say, did just that last summer during the visit of the Panchen Lama, the top religious figure handpicked by Beijing, whom many Tibetans view as illegitimate. "For five days, all our phones were dead," one monk said.
Losang, a high-ranking monk at Labrang, said such tactics were only briefly effective because the authorities must eventually restore service or risk crippling the local economy.
