Imagining Peace and Public Engagement

I recently went to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibit about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, entitled “Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko”. Mixing the couple’s music and artwork, the exhibit gave a detailed chronology of John and Yoko’s relationship while encouraging the public to interact with the ideas and values they embodied. There was the nail painting in which members of the public were encouraged to hammer a nail and tie a piece of their hair around it, an all-white chess set, and a room with maps of the world on which people could stamp the words “Imagine Peace”. My favourite was the last room where we wrote our hopes for peace on cards and hung them from one of the dozen trees fluttering with well wishes of thousands of people.

Great exhibits such as this one always reignite my interest in museum curation. “Imagine” was also inspiring in its content. Despite having grown up listening to the Beatles, I was surprised how little I knew about John and Yoko, other than the couple’s famous bed-in at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel and the claim that Yoko broke up the Beatles. I was impressed by the couple’s commitment to issues of social justice and the creative ideas they came up with, from their acorn campaign and the “War is Over! (if you want it)” billboard Christmas present, to the announcement of the country Nutopia and the album “Some Time in New York City”. However, John and Yoko’s impassioned campaigns made me realize that in today’s music and art world, we don’t have the same principled actions. Artists write political lyrics and promote different causes, but I can’t think of a single one who is doing anything nearly as creative or engaging as John and Yoko did.

Standing in a room surrounded by “War is Over!” posters and video footage of protests all over the world, I was saddened by the seeming lack of political awareness or engagement today in comparison to the 60’s and 70’s when John and Yoko were at the height of their activism. I guess it didn’t help that my excitement about activism in the 60’s and 70’s was being fed by “My Revolutions”, a novel by Hari Kunzru that I was reading at the time.

And yet in the last room, thousands of people had taken the time to write messages of hope for peace and tie them onto the branches of trees. I read a lot of the messages. People obviously care about peace and making the world a better place; I think they just need to be inspired to take action. Yoko Ono and this exhibit inspired people to take this small symbolic action.

But we need more.

Fire Under the Snow

At this year’s Montreal Human Rights Film Festival, I went to see “Fire Under the Snow”, a film about Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who spent 33 years in Chinese jails. The documentary was simple but well made – it captured the real nature of the monk who drew me into the Tibet movement nine years ago.

I first heard about Palden Gyatso in high school. I was then a member of the Amnesty International club at school and had just learned about the situation in Tibet. A friend of mine, who was a member of Students for a Free Tibet, insisted that I come to see Palden’s public talk.

Just like in his talk nine years ago, in “Fire Under the Snow” Palden tells the story of how he was arrested for protesting against China’s invasion of Tibet in 1959. He shows the tools the Chinese prison guards used to torture him and the other inmates, describing in gory detail how he was tied up, hanged, shocked, and beaten. And yet, despite the horrible pain inflicted on him, Palden la never gave in to his interrogators’ demands that he denounce his teacher as a spy nor did he lie about his motivations for protesting. Whenever questioned, he honestly told the prison guards that Tibet was independent and that he protested for it to be so yet again. After 23 years in several prisons and 10 years in hard labour camps, Palden was released and escaped to Dharamsala, India, where he still lives. Instead of staying in a monastery with fellow monks, Palden chose to live in a small room that I used to pass on my way to temple so that he could continue to work for Tibetan independence.

Nine years ago, Palden’s story moved me more than any other political prisoner’s case had. I was amazed by the small, smiling monk who sat humbly but resolute at the front of the room, with a great sense of humour and deep compassion for the Chinese people and his prison guards, even after so many years of brutal torture. Because of his talk, I joined the local chapter of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) who had helped organize his cross-Canada tour.

Last year, Palden was attending a press conference in Dharamsala that SFT had helped organize for the Spanish lawsuit against the Chinese government, in which he is a main witness of the genocide being carried out in Tibet. A friend, knowing that Palden la had inspired me to join the Tibet movement, took me to meet him after the press conference. When we were introduced, Palden la held my hand, smiled sincerely, and said “good friends!”

It is the strength and dedication of Tibetans like Palden Gyatso who keep me involved in the movement. If they still have hope, then so will I. It’s infectious – as I’m sure the rest of the audience at “Fire Under the Snow” would agree.