Next summer I hope to take a trip to India with a study group from Loyola University, New Orleans. One stop on the itinerary is Dharamsala, the site of the Tibetan government in exile... For this reason I read the account of Adhe Tapontsang, a Tibetan woman who was incarcerated for twenty-seven years in various Chinese prison camps. The Voice That Remembers details Ama Adhe’s life in Tibet before the Chinese occupation, during the slow insinuation of Chinese troops and people into Tibet, under the takeover by Chinese Communists, and after her eventual escape to Dharamsala in 1987.
To be honest, I always thought the “Free Tibet” bumper stickers and banners were a bit of Hollywood cause-of-the-month stuff. It is clear from Ama Adhe’s story, however, that a grave injustice has occurred. Many in fact. There is the deforestation of Tibet and the despoliation of the land, not to mention the destruction of the nation’s cultural heritage in its monasteries, nomadic life ways, and language. And there is the ruthless suppression of Tibetan nationalism, evident in the repression of political dissidents. A photo on the back cover of the book shows Adhe and a fellow prisoner standing in front of an artificial lake that was dug by Tibetan children in a forced labor program that lasted almost twenty years. How did Ama Adhe survive the torture, hunger, humiliation, cruelty, rapes, and other hardships over the decades? She certainly was physically, mentally, and emotionally strong. She never informed on anyone, despite the punishments she received (graphically described in the book). She shared what little she had with other prisoners who were weaker than she was. She prayed to her deities for strength and compassion. She was ever mindful of those who were suffering and those who died. I couldn’t help but think of my sisters when they joined Peoples Temple as I read the following description of the Chinese who were arriving in Tibet: “The Communists seemed earnest, but we found their constant humorless moralizing tiresome. They seemed to be completely lacking in spontaneity, and they constantly relied on quotes from Chairman Mao in their conversations, not only with Tibetans but with each other. During these meetings, we listened to Communist songs and slogans, but we found them stiff and dull. We just sat politely and waited until they were finished” (45). Another thing that struck me were the thamzing sessions, which were similar to the Temple catharsis sessions. “In thamzing, the prisoner could be manhandled and humiliated by twenty, fifty, or even one hundred people. Children and family members sometimes were forced to commit acts of violence against their own families” (65). Individuals were supposed to confess to their faults during the sessions. If they didn’t, the punishments would be more severe. Ultimately, however, comparisons with Peoples Temple and Jonestown fail. The Voice That Remembers makes it perfectly clear what an actual concentration camp was like, and what starvation really meant: boiling one’s shoes until the leather soles were soft enough to eat. By comparison, Jonestown was a summer camp, hard as that may be to believe. Adhe Tapontsang, The Voice That Remembers: One Woman’s Historic Fight to Free Tibet (1997) Comments are closed.
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Author Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute. Archives
December 2021
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