Chinese ignorance fuels continued Tibetan martyrdom

A red face and tense body pound the cold linoleum beneath as his demands for pop tarts are not being met. The child is a sugar feign and his mother won't let him kick off today, the doctor told her to watch the sugar intake. But still the persistence of such rage has other shoppers wondering if there's a toddler being branded in the back room. As he lays there crying, she decides it's time for an elegant exit and scoops him up from such childish convictions. Her arms wrapped tightly as they move towards the car. Once they're out of the store his pop tart rebellion disintegrates, as there is nothing more to protest.

A world and a half a way another child lies crying on a different kind of floor. His name is Lobsang Jamyang and his traditional Tibetan family can no longer fund his studies to become a Monk. Reports from The Washington Post recalled Jamyang as “funny” and “passionate,” the type of child who loved lying in the grass with the family's yaks. Jamyang represents only a fraction of Tibetan culture, which has literally been set ablaze.

Since the thirteenth century, Tibet has endured cultural genocide. The Chinese government claims the sovereignty of Tibet does not belong to itself but to China instead. They believe this for multiple reasons, but mainly the fact that both empires were centralized into one under Yuan dynasty ruler Kublai Khan.

By making this claim China oversteps its boundaries as a nation while devouring the social and religious elements Tibetan culture identifies with. China not only ignores human rights, it contradicts the concepts of Buddhism that are designed to bring tranquility, unity and happiness to all. Because of this hedonistic hunger for tradition and power, the Chinese government has forced Tibetans into such despair, they are crying out through self-immolations.

Jamyang is one of 33 individuals who have protested the imposition of Chinese culture by practicing one of the harshest forms of self-immolation. After a simple meal with a friend, he excused himself to the rest room where he took fire to his own skin. From there he ran into a traffic-filled intersection, faced the towns monastery and cried for Tibetan independence. He cried for all the refined elements of his life that were slowly being replaced by Chinese control. From the food he ate to the grass he once laid in to the language he spoke, everything he knew was now being oppressed.

As he protested the sorrows of a nation, fabric and skin freshly infused, police beat the maryter's body with spiked clubs. They doused him with water and another smoky soul faded away at the hands of ignorance.

At the end of the scene, there was no mother to pick him up and carry him home. She could not fondle or quell her child as he screamed patriotic ideals or recognition. There was no one to wipe his frightful tears or soothe his pain. Although Jamyang was not a child, those who saw the tantrum could not politely turn their heads.