作者：Kevin Carrico（凯大熊），康奈尔大学人类学系
译者：黄潇潇 @xiaoxiaom
文章来源：《文化人类学》（Cultural Anthropology）学刊特刊
标题：Chinese State Media Representations
时间: 2012年3月28日
原文网址：http://culanth.org/?q=node/531
上一次图伯特/西藏的大规模抗议在2008年春天爆发时，中国中央电视台向观众滚动播放拉萨出现的“打砸抢烧”（原注汉语拼音：da za qiang shao)。画面上的藏人暴动者掀翻警车，投掷石块，殴打路人，焚烧中国国旗，同时还有仔细剪辑过的武警受伤或躲在防暴盾牌之后的景象。
我不仅在事件刚发生就看到电视上将其作为新闻播报，还看到之后数月内，这些画面被无端反复重播，甚至集结成DVD在街头售卖。三年后我在中国都市地区做民族关系的田野调查时，发现这些画面已经铭刻在集体意识里。
这些铺天盖地的画面可以说形成了前所未有的媒体宣传攻势，旨在巩固西藏问题上的官方立场。它们为一个强加于复杂事件的简单叙述提供了看似不容否定的视觉证 据：无理取闹、凶残暴力的“西藏分裂者”，突然毫无来由地向那些一心只想要“帮助西藏发展”的汉人居民施以残酷暴行。在这种描绘下，抗议的根源就必须从西 藏以外寻找（即“达赖集团”the Dalai clique），或者完全归因于据称抗议者混乱的头脑（即“流氓”），以确保不从历史积怨或当前被占领下的社会政治背景中寻找到起源。
与这种疯狂的图像播放相比，对于近期藏地一系列自焚事件，官方媒体的反应最异乎寻常之处就是其相对沉默。尽管这些抗议持续时间长，性质严重，相关报道却很少，即便有，往往也很笨拙。哪怕是以坦率发表国家民族主义观点而闻名的《环球时报》(原注汉语拼音：Huanqiu shibao），看来也找不到适当言词描述最近的事件，该报在一篇离奇的社论中声称：“不必为小骚乱操心（No need to sweat over minor unrest）”。越来越擅长将一切事件纳入官方话语的国家媒体，此时却似乎骤然语塞。
因为2008年的事件有潜力被简化成“忘恩负义、暴力的藏人”和“愚蠢的西方人”这种国家民族主义式的叙述，使得当年春夏季就该事件展开了近乎强迫式的讨 论。相比之下，最近这一系列自焚事件却让持各种立场的人都哑口无言。自焚是非常公开的抗议行为，其所传达的含义极不容易被改造。这样的行为不会屈从于简化 的叙述，反而强迫这种叙述改造自身；它们传达出极大的苦难，让辩驳徒劳无功。那些Anti-CNN（四月网）式的攻击，如官方网站“中国西藏网”（Tibet.cn）最近引用匿名“网友”表达他们希望达赖喇嘛自焚的观点，相形之下就卑劣已极。当别人在引火自焚时，这种回应只有失败。
落伍的政治与文化控制依然在中国和西藏大行其道，一个常被援引的理由是，普通国民的“文化低”（原注汉语拼音：wenhua di）。但在Twitter等超越审查的平台上进行的对话显示，这种宣称不过是政府及其支持者老一套的自我麻痹。然而，即使将此话当真，一个问题仍然存在：这所谓的“文化低”，会不会正是持续占据官方媒体的简化叙述之产物，而不是其存在的正当理由呢？当官方媒体把达赖喇嘛与希特勒相比时，人们可能会问，究竟什么才是“文化低”？
中国官方媒体对当前图伯特/西藏形势的回应，其彻底扭曲之处就在于：人们可以在官方网站上找到希望达赖喇嘛自焚的公开言论，却需要翻越坚固的防火墙，才能 获得近期图伯特/西藏事件中哪怕最基本的信息，而公开讨论要么已被屏蔽，要么已被随意删除。简化的官方叙述向来是对中国和西藏民众的伤害，但最近数月的悲 剧程度之深，已将这些叙述的本质暴露无疑：它们使人难堪，以至于在一种又一种说辞中碰壁的政府及其喉舌，似乎也已经含蓄地承认。
Chinese State Media Representations
Kevin Carrico, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University
When the last major uprising in Tibet occurred in the spring of 2008,
viewers of China Central Television were treated to repeat screenings
of the “smashing, beating, looting, and burning (da za qiang shao)” in
Lhasa. Images showed Tibetan rioters overturning police cars, throwing
rocks, beating passersby, and burning PRC flags alongside carefully
edited images of military police reliably injured or hiding behind riot
shields.
I watched while these images were not only broadcast as news soon after
they occurred, but were then gratuitously rebroadcast over the months
that followed and even sold en masse in DVD format on the streets. And
during fieldwork on ethnic relations in urban China three years later,
I found that this imagery remained engraved in the collective conscious.
This onslaught of images constituted an arguably unprecedented media campaign to consolidate the official line on Tibet. It provided seemingly irrefutable visual proof of a simple narrative imposed upon complex events: irrational, violent, and threatening “Tibetan separatists” suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere unleashed senseless violence against Han residents interested only in “helping Tibet develop.” Within this presentation, the source of protests had to be found either outside of Tibet proper (i.e., “the Dalai clique”) or solely inside the purportedly troubled minds of protestors (i.e., “hooligans”), so as to ensure that they not be found in historical grievances or the current sociopolitical context of occupation.
The result was a decontextualized narrative of victimhood and moral
victory, located in a historical and political vacuum, which presented
“China” as the dual target of an onslaught by “violent separatists” and
the “biased” gaze of the Western media. And if the history of humankind
has proven anything, it is that simple narratives have appeal: this was
proven yet again in 2008 by the rapid spread of the “I ♥ China” meme,
which literally blanketed the Internet, public spaces, and even
individual bodies as a top-selling t-shirt that spring and summer.
In
contrast to this frenzied broadcast of images, the most striking
characteristic of the state media response to the recent series of
self-immolations in Tibetan regions has been its relative silence.
Despite the length of these protests and the gravity of the events at
hand, reports have been rare, and when they have appeared, they have
generally been quite clumsy. Even the Global Times (Huanqiu shibao),
known for its characteristically outspoken state-nationalist viewpoint,
seems to have stumbled in search of words to characterize recent
events, claiming in an odd editorial that
there is “no need to sweat over minor unrest.” The state media,
increasingly adept at incorporating all types of events into official
discourses, appears to be at a sudden loss for words.
The ability of the events of 2008 to be harnessed to a simplistic
state-nationalist discourse of “ungrateful, violent Tibetans” and
“silly Westerners” made it an almost obsessive object of discussion
that spring and summer. By contrast, the recent series of
self-immolations leave everyone, no matter one’s position, at a loss
for words. They are immensely public acts of protest that communicate a
meaning not at all easy to remold. These acts do not yield to simple
narratives but instead compel narratives themselves to yield; they are
a suffering that makes counterarguments futile. Attempts to put an anti-CNN-spin on events, such as the recent state-run website Tibet.cn’s decision to cite anonymous “netizens” expressing their hopes that the Dalai Lama might self-immolate, appear immensely petty by comparison. When people are setting themselves on fire, such responses simply fail.
A commonly cited reason for the perpetuation of anachronistic political
and cultural control in today’s China and Tibet is the purportedly “low
cultural level” (wenhua di) of the average citizen. Dialogues on
Twitter and elsewhere beyond the control of censors suggest that such
claims are predictably nothing but patronizing self-rationalization by
the state and its supporters. Yet if we were to take this claim at face
value, a question nevertheless remains: could this supposed “low
culture” be a product of, rather than a justification for, the
continued simplistic narratives that dominate the state media? When
state media is comparing the Dalai Lama to Hitler one might ask what, after all, qualifies as “low culture"?
This is the fundamental perversion of the Chinese state response to the
current situation in Tibet: one can find open wishes to set the Dalai
Lama on fire on a state-run website, yet one must scale an unrelenting firewall in
order to obtain even the most basic information about recent events in
Tibet, and open discussion is either blocked or casually erased.
Simplistic state narratives have always been a disservice to the people
of China and Tibet, but the scale of tragedy in recent months has laid
bare these narratives for what they are: an embarrassment, to a point
that even the state and its mouthpieces, stumbling over one
rationalization after another, appear to have implicitly acknowledged.
28 March 2012
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