傅春雨譯
直到他的自焚成為了世界媒體上火熱的轟動， 27 歲的江白益西（ Jamphel Yeshi ）的故事與現在居住在中國西藏（那個中國領導人稱為社會主義天堂的地方）內的數百萬藏人並無二致。他是大約一萬多近年來逃離西藏的藏族青年之一，而他們逃離是為了得到更好的教育或者為被窒息的靈魂找尋喘息之地。
生活在被占領的西藏， 江白益西 和他的大多數藏族夥伴一樣， 從來沒有見過達賴喇嘛，也從來沒有生活在中國所稱的“達賴集團”的“農奴製”之下，毛的軍隊早在江白益西出生之前 36 年就已廢除之。
也和他的父親一樣，他是成長在日複一日的共產主義教育灌輸之下，這套灌輸旨在把藏族以及其它 55 個中國“少數民族”的兒童轉化成“偉大祖國”的“愛國者”。
他也同樣的在學校被老師告知：達賴喇嘛是“披著和尚袈裟的豺狼”，是他理應仇恨的“分裂分子”，是他的祖國 --- 中國 --- 的“最陰險的敵人”。
可是，從他步入青少年並開始意識到他的民族身份之日，也就是他開始感受到壓抑窒息之時。在他的家鄉，傳統上的康巴藏區（西藏失去自由後被劃入鄰近的四川省）道乎縣，藏族的傳統文化正淹沒消失於新湧入的漢族（中國的多數民族）定居者的洶湧大潮之中。
江白益西在 2007 年悄悄地越境來到印度。他在一個印度議會大廈附近由藏民舉行的抗議中國，抗議胡錦濤到訪的集會上決定自焚，其間他正在新德裏學習計算機課程。
有“拉薩屠夫”之稱的胡錦濤尤其讓藏族民眾反感。在 1989 年的藏人抗議事件中，當時的西藏領導人胡錦濤使用軍隊，坦克和裝甲車嚴厲鎮壓。三個月之後，胡的上司采用類似的“拉薩模式”在北京的天安門廣場鎮壓了中國青年反共產專製的抗議活動。
江白益西是過去一年中在西藏境內外的第 32 位自焚者。星期三，他成為第十八位經證實的犧牲者。（譯注：原文如此。但據藏族詩人，作家唯色統計，他應是 2009 年以來的第 31 位自焚藏人，第 23 位犧牲者 。 ）其餘 13 位的命運隻有中國當局才清楚。江白益西去世後，由於顯然的原因，新德裏政府采取了更加嚴格的措施以確保胡錦濤訪問的舒適滿意。
胡很快就會返回中國，自焚所帶來的不愉快氣味非常可能馬上被其它源源不斷的重大新聞所衝散。但是，江白益西遺留給世界的地獄之火卻仍在閃爍躍動，將在信奉民主，推崇文明準則的國際社會經久飄忽出沒，留下一些值得思考的問題。
就讓我們來深思一下這些問題吧：
藏族青年（多數是僧尼）的一係列自焚戳穿了中國一再重複的宣稱：西藏境內和諧安定，藏人擁護中國的統治，藏人痛恨達賴喇嘛的“農奴製”。
一個又一個自焚者的拚死呼喊“西藏自由”，“讓達賴喇嘛返回西藏”將西藏現狀的另一麵展現給全球千百萬油管（ YOUTUBE ）觀眾：事實與中國政府所稱完全相反！
至少有 32 位藏族青年自焚，卻沒有一起針對他們的殖民者的行刺，槍擊，爆炸或劫持事件，突出表明了藏民們對他們領袖達賴喇嘛的至深信仰，和對他“不殺生”，甘地主義，非暴力理念的信守。
中國領導人徒勞的試圖把達賴喇嘛描述成希特勒或者與美國合作的納粹，這些事實使得他們成為世人的笑柄。
這些事實無可置疑地證明了西藏境內的抵抗運動在中國占領 61 年後依然普遍存在，且從沒停熄；無可置疑地證明了達賴喇嘛仍然深受愛戴，甚至比他在 1959 年流亡時更受愛戴。
這些事實也證明六十餘載共產主義灌輸的徹底失敗，未能消減藏民的民族意識；而且現在藏民的感受是正在被推向絕望。
32 起自焚的每一起（譯注：原文如此。）都發生在藏東的康和安多地區，即如今四川，雲南，青海，甘肅的一部分 --- 這一事實挑戰了中國的說法：這些地區不屬於西藏，或隻有現西藏自治區才是真正的西藏。
這些自焚事件中有許多起，自焚者遭到中國軍警和保安人員踢打，甚至旁觀的漢人向未死的自焚藏族青年投擲石塊，這些行為反映了藏人和在藏區定居的漢人之間的深刻隔閡。
在同一個世界，僅僅一位突尼斯果蔬小販的自焚就能喚起全世界的聲援支持，並掀起席卷 15 個國家的革命，而麵對藏人一連串的自焚事件聯合國和各國政府都無動於衷，毫無應對，不禁令人懷疑：難道這個世界的同情心不是基於對人權和民主的信念而激發，而是另有機巧？人們也不禁要大感困惑：難道國際社會尚未進步到一定程度，以至於世界輿論僅取決於一個政府的經濟力量而無關於整個世界的道義力量？
至為重要的是，江白益西給國際社會提出了這麽一個問題：難道我們已麵臨一個臨界點，全世界無數爭取自由和公正的人們即將失去信心，從而懷疑以民主和非暴力訴求解決紛爭是否有用有效？
Tibetan self immolations: Why isn't the world listening?
By Vijay Kranti
Until he became a burning sensation in the international media, the story of Jamphel Yeshi, 27, was no different from the few million Tibetans who live today in what Chinese leaders call a Socialist Haven or China's Tibet. He was one of those 10,000 odd young Tibetans who could smuggle themselves out of Tibet in recent years in search of better education or to find some breathing space for their suffocated souls.
Like most of his fellow young compatriots in occupied Tibet, Jamphel too had never seen the Dalai Lama nor lived under what China brands the "feudal" rule of the "Dalai clique" that was dethroned by Mao's army 36 years before Jamphel was born.
Like his father, he too was educated and brought up on a daily overdose of Communist indoctrination which hopes to convert Tibetan and children of other 55 "national minorities" of China into "patriotic" citizens of the "great motherland".
He too was told by his class teacher in school that the Dalai Lama was a "wolf in the robes of a monk" and hence deserved their hatred for being a "splitist" and the "worst enemy" of their Chinese motherland.
However, when he entered his teens and started becoming aware of his ethnic identity, he too began feeling suffocated and lost amidst a new flood of Han settlers (the majority community in China) in his traditionally Khampa Tibetan town of Tawu which was assimilated into neighbouring Sichuan province after Tibet lost its freedom.
Jamphel quietly crossed over to India in 2007 and was going through a computer course in Delhi on the day he decided to take the extreme step of immolating himself during an anti-China, anti-Hu Jintao Tibetan rally near the Indian parliament.
Hu is especially despised by Tibetan masses as the "Butcher of Lhasa". As the governor of Tibet, Hu used army tanks and armoured vehicles to effectively crush the Tibetan uprising in Lhasa in 1989. Three months later, it was the same "Lhasa Model" that was used by his seniors in Tiananmen Square in Beijing to crush the Chinese youth's uprising against the Communist system.
Jamphel was the 32nd in a chain of self immolations inside and outside Tibet in past one year. On Wednesday, he became the 18th among the confirmed Tibetan deaths. The fate of the other 13 is known only to Chinese authorities. Following Jamphel's death, the government in New Delhi has, for obvious reasons, decided to further tighten measures to ensure a comfortable stay for Hu Jintao.
Hu will soon return to China and the stink raised by the immolation is most likely to melt away in the flood of other important news. But Jamphel's moving inferno leaves behind some issues which may haunt a world community that expresses faith in democracy and civilised conduct.
Just a few issues to ponder over:
A long chain of self immolations by Tibetan youths, a majority of them monks and nuns, negates the oft repeated Chinese claims that everything is fine inside Tibet. Or that Tibetans love Chinese rule and despise the "feudal" Dalai Lama.
One burning and dying immolator after another shouting for "rangzen" (Tibetan freedom) and return of Dalai Lama to Tibet has exposed another face of Tibetan reality to the millions of YouTube watchers across the world as opposed to what Chinese government claims.
At least 32 cases of self immolation by Tibetan youths and not a single case of stabbing, shooting, bombing or hostage taking against their colonial masters underlines the Tibetan people's deep faith in their leader Dalai Lama and his commitment to 'ahimsa' or Gandhian non-violence.
It also makes a laughing stock of Chinese leadership when they desperately try to paint Dalai Lama as Hitler and a Nazi collaborator of the US.
It establishes beyond doubt that resistance inside Tibet is alive and widespread even 61 years after the Chinese takeover and that the Dalai Lama is, perhaps, more popular that he was on the escape day to exile in 1959.
It also proves that the Communist indoctrination of six decades has failed to cool down the national aspirations of Tibetan masses. And that Tibetan masses today feel pushed to desperation.
Each of the 32 immolations occurred in the erstwhile Tibetan provinces of Kham and Amdo, now parts of Sichuan, Yunnan, Quinghai and Ganzu - this challenges Chinese assertion that these areas are not Tibet or that only Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is the "Real Tibet".
In most events of these self immolations, the manner in which the Chinese PSB police and agents kicked the man on flames or the local Han bystanders pelted stones over the dying young Tibetan only reflects the deep divide between the Tibetan and the Chinese settlers in Tibetan areas.
In a world where a single self immolation by a Tunisian vegetable vendor can invoke world support and revolution in 15 countries, the absence of any reaction or measure on the part of the UN and governments towards an unending chain of immolations compel sceptics to think the real triggers of world sympathy lie somewhere else rather than in commitment to human and democratic values.
They might start wondering loudly if the world community has not arrived a stage where world opinion is more influenced by economic power of a single government than the collective moral power of the world at large.
And above all, Jamphel Yeshi has left the world community with a question: have we arrived at a stage where thousands of struggling communities across the world might lose faith in the efficacy of democratic and non-violent expression as a valid tool of conflict resolution?
