Dharamshala — On Children's Day in China, the Chinese government uses women's associations and other organisations to instil patriotism in Tibetan children, as well as teaching them about the history of the Communist Party and Chinese law.
The Chinese government is using various means to inculcate the goodness of the CCP, Xi's thoughts and false history about Tibet, the Chinese language to Tibetan children in general in schools and especially to Tibetan children in Chinese state boarding schools, aims to erase Tibetan identity and wants Tibetan children to think in Chinese, speak in Chinese and live like Chinese, even though Tibetans have a completely different lifestyle from Chinese people.
On June 1, 2024, China's Children's Day, 11 National Women's Federation and other organisations organised various activities for children, including Tibetan children, at national and regional levels. These activities will propagate the thoughts of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Chinese-style socialism and patriotism among children.
The Chinese government is using Children's Day as an opportunity to spread propaganda about Xi Jinping's ideas, the Communist Party and Chinese history. This year's propaganda slogan for children is "The hearts of young people are inclined to the Party (CCP), I grow up with my motherland (China)", and these women's organisations will organise activities related to the slogan in all schools and other places.
The activities include telling the history of the CCP, Chinese laws and the false history of Tibet written by the Chinese government, reciting poems about the goodness of the CCP and patriotism to the CCP, and trying to make the children loyal to the CCP. It is an attempt to brainwash young minds and make children to be loyal dogs of the CCP.
The Chinese government imposes repressive policies on Tibetans, including not allowing Tibetan children to learn their mother tongue - Tibetan, shutting down Tibetan schools and arresting Tibetan language advocates, writers and teachers. Tibetans, special officials and their family members are not allowed to go to monasteries to pray.
All Tibetans are forbidden to have faith in their spiritual leader, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, who now lives in exile. Those who keep photographs and books of His Holiness the Dalai Lama are arrested, tortured and imprisoned for years. Tibetans don't have basic human rights such as freedom of speech, writing, religion and movement.
China-Tibet: The one-thing you need to know
Over the past 70 decades, there has been ongoing political repression, social discrimination, economic marginalization, environmental destruction, and cultural assimilation, particularly due to Chinese migration to Tibet which is fueling intense resentment among the people of occupied Tibet.
The communist-totalitarian state of China began its invasion of Tibet in 1949, reaching complete occupation of the country in 1959. Since that time, more than 1.2 million people, 20% of the nation's population of six million, have died as a direct result of China's invasion and occupation. In addition, over 99% of Tibet's six thousand religious monasteries, temples, and shrines, have been looted or decimated resulting in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sacred Buddhist scriptures.
Until 1949, Tibet was an independent Buddhist nation in the Himalayas which had little contact with the rest of the world. It existed as a rich cultural storehouse of the Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings of Buddhism. Religion was a unifying theme among the Tibetans -- as was their own language, literature, art, and world view developed by living at high altitudes, under harsh conditions, in a balance with their environment.
