A faceless mob in action

What an incredible time its been in the Triangle for those interested in China and Tibet and the world. I spoke last night with Grace, the woman from Duke who has received death threats, who has been blacklisted from China, and whose parents have gone into hiding as a result of a mere request at last week’s Duke Tibet protest for tolerant conversation between those who are pro-China and those who are pro-Tibet.

I was practically in tears from her experience and the ugliness that is the fruit of misunderstanding refusal to listen – it’s unfortunate how we ignore the obvious solutions sometimes – in this case, tolerance and dialogue – to hear our own voices shout above the rest.

Here are some of my notes from speaking with Grace- much of it is more paraphrase than direct quote.

“The Chinese side did not give the other side opportunity to speak. That’s why I would rather risk my neutrality to foster communication and let the other side have a chance to speak.”

“People don’t feel the need to learn about other cultures and have self-centered perspective. Every
culture is a rich book – it has a starting point, plot development, climax, and end. Just like this Tibetan issue- if the Tibetan language is disappearing. If I could speak their language, if Tibetans could speak Tibetan, if more Chinese could understand them, they could understand their culture.”

Grace is an amazing woman – she is working her way through four suitcases of books that she brought to school from China. She’s learning to speak German and French and hopes to learn Arabic this summer. She wants to learn ten languages by the time she is 30 and her English is in many ways better than mine, even though I’m American. In all of these ways, she is a person, an incredible incredible person. And in these times, we need to remember that on both sides there are people like her. Incredible people.

And we must remember this and remember the people and find human solutions in these times – else it is inevitable my generation and the rest of time will inherit a world “swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night. “