雷伊·桑斯特（Leigh Sangster）：图像的来世

作者：Leigh Sangster（雷伊·桑斯特），梅杰巴达学院(Maitripa College)

译者：傅春雨 @boattractor_cj

文章来源：《文化人类学》（Cultural Anthropology）学刊特刊

标题：The Afterlife of Images

时间：2012年3月28日

原文网址：http://culanth.org/?q=node/542

自焚能吸引对其诉求的关注和争取支持，部分原因在于其震撼人心的视觉图像。[1]似乎每天都有藏人自焚或与其相关的图像出现并在网上流传，尤其是有关过去六个月以来连续的自焚事件，到目前为止总数已达三十三起之多。[2]然而，颇让人意外的是，自2009年以来，截止于2012年藏历新年之后，仅有七起记录自焚或事后情形的照片、录像在图伯特/西藏之外被公布。[3]国际媒体只有在这些图像被公布之后才开始转播报道。与自焚、抗议、悼念有关的原始录像和图片，以及记者设法秘密记录的资料，先是被偷偷带出西藏，在藏人的网站、新闻媒体和组织团体的网站上发表，然后才被全球各种媒体所引用并报道。

甘孜藏族自治州道孚县35岁的尼师班丹曲措在2011年3月11日（译注：原文如此，据唯色博客，应为2011年11月3日）的自焚以及她的葬礼是记录最详尽的事件。一段最初镜头有些晃动的录像是这样开始的，被烈火吞噬的班丹曲措纹丝不动地站立街边。能听到有呼喊的声音。一位身着藏人传统服装的妇女手持洁白的长哈达，从旁边的人行道走向街边。当她抬臂将哈达掷向烈焰时，班丹曲措跌倒在地。这段录像到此为止。

班丹曲措的自焚还被从临街二楼的窗口拍摄录像。这段录像成像不太清晰，开始时现场有十几位藏人朝班丹曲措匍匐在地的遗体周围迅速聚集，她的遗体僵直，还燃着火，四肢扭曲地伸离地面。聚拢的人群大约有几圈。人群中一位僧人从一个塑料袋中取出一张宽大的黄布，来回走动以等待火苗减小到他可以接近。当他站住准备以黄布遮盖尼师的遗体，这时几条洁白的哈达像飘带似地飞向尼师仍在燃烧的遗体。（然后）摄像机调整角度对准在人群外缘的一位拿着长木条的藏人；他（以木条为栏）阻挡试图进入藏人圈、冲向尼师的六七名警察。这段录像到此为止。另有两段几秒钟的录像小片段，都显示了存放于一座寺院内的班丹曲措焦黑的遗体，为洁白的哈达所环绕；其中一段聚焦特写了她身旁有烧损痕迹的达赖喇嘛和另一位喇嘛（唯色注：这位喇嘛是噶玛巴仁波切）的小幅合影；另一段推测那天上午她曾随身携带这帧照片。其它录像片段显示上千藏人在夜晚带着哈达和酥油灯排队悼念、诵经，聚集在寺院的大堂上哭泣。这些有关班丹曲措的录像总共仅有五分钟，却讲述了难以想象的故事。第一段录像的一张截图，即班丹曲措站立着被火焰包裹的那张，被西方媒体的许多文章用作插图，这个画面也和其它画面一道被汇编入藏人制作的纪录片中，在网上或者以其它方式广为流传。[4]

图1. 2011年11月3日自焚的尼师班丹曲措（路透社）。

而另一些录像和照片则是曝光警力部署以及记录对和平抗议的镇压，揭露了中国政府的恐吓和武力炫耀。[5]一些显示枪伤的照片，据说是警察部队朝人群开枪所致，非常小心地从画面上略去了脸部以保护伤者和救助者的身份，救治的地方是在家里而非医院。[6]

图2.警察拖走一位据告在色达和平抗议时被射杀的抗议者。[7]

图3. 2012年1月23日在康章戈（即炉霍县）被中国警察开枪击中的藏人。[8]

目击者们也有意识地拍下了严重受伤和死去藏人的焦黑躯体，这类照片通常是在寺院或家里拍下，其中包括像索巴仁波切（年格·索南竹杰）这样广受爱戴的宗教领袖。丹增旺姆尼师的照片显示她焦黑的遗体躺在绿草地上，还冒着烟，几位身着绛红色尼袍的尼师们正在奔向她们的姊妹。这类照片成了证实、阐明事件的重要影视资料，在网上可以见得到，一般都附有小心慎入的提示；但这类图像通常不会出现在西方和藏人的（主流）媒体中。这种图像既太恐怖可怕，也缺乏生动的视觉冲击力，而且有损逝者尊严，可能会把注意力吸引到他们的命运，而非他们的行为（诉求）。

图4. 尼师丹增旺姆，2011年10月17日（藏人妇女联合会提供）。

于是，全球的藏人活动人士更宁愿使用网上流传的自焚现场图像和自焚者平时的肖像，制作图像资料来传播——在博客、脸书（Facebook）和油管(YouTube)上张帖 ；在从印度到华盛顿特区的游行和悼念活动中，藏人们手举着图像标语牌；甚至以模拟重演（自焚的场景）的方式来传播这些图像。[9]例如，一段为纪念而制作的录像是由自焚者的肖像以幻灯片编辑而成，背景配音是西藏民族主义歌曲和摇滚歌曲，还有首席部长洛桑森格博士的讲话，以及索巴仁波切的录音遗嘱。这些肖像被转化成数码模式，或单张使用，或以（自焚的）时间顺序拼成方格图，配以多种文字解说，[10]并加上“自由英灵”或“民族英魂”这样的标题。[11]无疑的，流亡组织希望鼓动、激励藏人，同时也争取外界的同情，呼吁政治支持。

图5. 糌粑革命（TsampaRevolution）列出的自焚者资料，2012年3月5日。

图6. 在台北的藏人抗议者手举宣传广告纪念自焚者。（华尔街日报2011年10月19日）

最近几个月，我在许多场合看到过这样的图像，并在我的脑海里一次又一次地重复回放。一边是具体的一个个生命，另一边是这些生命所代表的整体诉求和回响，我的心在二者之间痛苦挣扎。看到这些图像使得个体的生命更加真实，也促使我想更全面地了解二者所分别体现的内涵：即特殊的具体情形（虔诚的僧尼、丧夫的母亲、贫困的牧民）和非常强烈的诉求（恳求文化包容，吁请达赖喇嘛回归，要求言论和宗教自由，争取独立）。藏人社会称颂这些牺牲的个体，尽管伴随这些图像所描述的每一桩行动，这些个体的数量都在增加；尽管每一个生命的损失都给藏人社会带来真切的悲伤，（12）甚至自焚人数统计不精确就会引起很大的悲愤。（13）

尽管如此，自焚所产生的紧迫感和忧虑在图伯特/西藏和流亡社会带来了强调团结的民族精神。个体的行动转变成了一场群体运动，而这场运动的召集动员中心正是这些蔓延、传播的图像。这图像产生于个体微弱的自我表达，通过流传而变成了一场全球性的抗议中国的象征。

这些图像及其不同的运用向我们揭示了图伯特/西藏内部的什么情形？我们应当怎样来思考传播和关注这些图像——这些着火燃烧，被殴打，或者被枪杀的人们的躯体的图像——的道德和政治含义？我不禁想到苏珊·桑塔格（Susan Sontag）就他人痛苦的有关思考，她确信除非我们设身处地经历之，我们绝无可能理解作为受难者在其处境中的感受。（14）简而言之，在道义上我们唯一的当务之急，就是不能变得对我们周遭的痛苦麻木不仁。我们希望这些图像能产生（同情的）行动，然而正如过去十多年来在伊拉克和阿富汗战争中的情形一样，令人恐怖的图像也可能会激起更多的暴力，或者变得习以为常，甚至觉得厌烦。苏珊·桑塔格曾指出，图像本身并不能保证导致（同情者采取）行动。这也包括全球藏人都不禁寄以期望的这类图像。但藏人自焚的图像却像是转入了（祈望中的）来世，以坚信所有观者必会呼吁并采取行动的信念而流传。似乎舍此信念，就会断送终止西藏苦难的机会。

注释：

[1]罗杰•贝克（Roger Baker）,艾德•威廉在“社会公正激发自焚抗议”一文中引用。2012年2月8日发布。（于2012年2月20日访问）

[2]截止2012年3月28日，在西藏境内有三十一例经证实的自焚，在印度有三例。有关最近在西藏和印度的事件，见http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/burn-03282012142200.html；就事件追踪更新，见http://www.savetibet.org/resource-center/maps-data-fact-sheets/self-immolation-fact-sheet。

（3）全球藏人拒绝庆祝洛萨/藏历新年，即始于2012年2月22日。七起介绍西藏境内自焚的录像或照片，不是正在进行中的自焚现场就是刚刚自焚后的身体状况，早在2012年3月初就流传到网上：于2011年3月16日自焚的洛桑平措，21岁；于2011年8月15日自焚的次旺诺布，29岁；于2011年9月26日自焚的洛桑贡确，18岁；于2011年10月17日自焚的丹增旺姆，20岁；于2011年19月25日自焚的达瓦次仁，38岁；于2011年11月3日自焚的班丹曲措，35岁；于2012年1月6日自焚的年格•索南竹杰/索巴仁波切，42岁。

（4）例如，达兰萨拉藏青会的录像“图伯特/西藏境内藏人自焚”，由Tenzin Norsang Panamserkhang编辑，2012年2月26日。

（5）有关酷刑和伤害的照片，见茨仁唯色的“被屠杀藏人和受伤藏人的血腥图片”（唯色注：此标题可能是最早发布时用过，后已改为“色达抗议藏人遭镇压照片传出”）。 2012年2月2日发布（于2012年2月21日访问）。有关安全部队部署的录像，见瓦茨，乔纳森和肯•麦克法兰“西藏中心地带的抗议-录像”，2012年2月10日发布（于2012年2月21日访问）。

（6）见 http://www.freetibet.org/campaigns/photos.发布前可能有裁剪，但编辑模糊面部的处理随处可见。

（7）http://tibet.net/2012/02/04/serta-crackdown-photos/sarta-dawa-_19_/

（8）http://tibet.net/2012/01/31/chinese-crackdown-on-tibetan-region-nears-breaking-point/tibet-3/

（9）在华盛顿特区的集会上，在念诵自焚者的名字时，一个接一个的僧俗藏人从手持抗议标语和图像的抗议人群中站出来，挥舞红色-金黄色的绸布，然后盖在头上，躺倒在地。见“西藏在燃烧”（由Lhaksam 媒体录制）录像的9：40处。

（10）纪念图像以英文、藏文和中文加注，说明自焚者的名字、年龄、自焚时间、僧人或俗人、出生地，以及是亡故还是重伤或失踪。

（11）用“自由英灵”（也可译作独立英灵）和“民族英魂”为题，可以分析、窥见藏人流亡社会在政治诉求性质上的分歧，是争取独立还是自治，是否遵从尊者达赖喇嘛的中间道路。很难从非常有限的解说资料中推断自焚者的本意、情感和期望；制作人如何界定他们的图像和行动使得辨别具体藏人个人的行为（动机）更加困难，而只是反映了不同集体的意愿。

（12）在俄勒冈州波特兰市的马尔巴佛学院院长扬思仁波切说，藏人社会（对自焚）的反应主要是悲伤，“哪怕是一位藏人的生命损失”（都非常令人悲伤）。并且，促请“坚守非暴力” 抗争的呼声也在增长，迄今为止仍是通过非暴力方式来争取“全世界藏人的利益”不能受到损害，最后，也有担心这种行动会分裂图伯特/西藏以外的藏人社区，比如在西方和在印度的藏人社区，这也将是令人“非常悲伤”的。(个人通信，2012年3月2日)

（13）例如，唯色在她充满感情的文章中，批评了藏人流亡政府首席部长洛桑森格博士在念诵自焚者名字时，遗漏了2009年的第一位自焚僧人扎白，在不同的博客文章和在线评论上，藏人们反对使用诸如“多达二十几人”这样的叙述，而要求有准确数字。

（14）苏珊•桑塔格，《他人的痛苦》，纽约：皮卡多/法拉，斯特劳斯和吉鲁编。2003年。

The Afterlife of Images
Leigh Sangster, Maitripa College

Self-immolations draw attention to a cause and rally support in part because of their powerful visual imagery.[1]  Seemingly everyday images of and about self-immolation by Tibetans are created and circulated online, particularly with the wave of incidents in the past six months that now total thirty-three cases.[2]  And yet, as of the forgone Tibetan New Year of 2012, it may surprise some to learn that documentary photography and videos of self-immolation or its immediate aftermath have been published outside of Tibet for only seven acts since 2009.[3]  A cycle of transnational circulation only then begins. Raw videos and photographs – of self-immolation, protests, mourners, and journalists’ furtive recordings – are smuggled out of Tibet to be posted on the websites of Tibetan and mainstream news channels and organizations, from which they are sourced for a variety of media, across the globe.

The self-immolation of thirty-five year old nun Palden Choetso in Tawu, Kham on 11 March 2011 and her funerary rituals are the most extensively documented. One video begins, unsteadily at first, with Choetso standing still on the street engulfed in flame. Shouting can be heard. A single woman in a Tibetan chuba dress walks from the sidewalk towards the curb, a long white khatag scarf in her hands. As she raises her arms to throw the khatag toward the blaze, Choetso collapses to the ground. The video stops.

Palden Choetso’s self-immolation was also filmed from a second story window above the street. This grainy video starts as dozens of Tibetan witnesses quickly gather around Choetso’s prostrate body, immobilized and afire, her legs and feet contorted off the ground. The crowd is several people deep. A monk inside the circle paces and pulls a large yellow cloth from a plastic package as he waits for the blaze to die back enough to permit him to draw nearer. He stands poised to cover the nun’s body with the cloth as several white khatag are thrown like streamers to the nun’s burning body. The camera angle shifts to focus on a Tibetan man with a long stick at the edge of the crowd; he is holding back half a dozen police from breaking through the Tibetan crowd towards the nun. The film stops. Two short clips of several seconds each show Palden Choetso’s black, burned corpse surrounded by shiny white khatag in a monastery; one video zooms in on small damaged photos of the Dalai Lama and another lama next to her body. One presumes she carried these images on her person that morning. Other clips show thousands of Tibetans at night, queuing with khatag and butter lamps to pay their respects, chanting prayers, and crying in a crowded temple hall. These videos of Palden Cheotso tell an unimaginable story and yet total only five minutes. A still shot from the first video, of Choetso still alive and engulfed in flame, has been used to illustrate numerous articles in the Western press, and the footage has been sequenced with others in videos by Tibetan editors for documentaries, that circulate online and elsewhere.[4]

Figure 1: Self-immolation of nun Palden Choetso, 3 November 2011. REUTERS

Video and photography also show intimidating displays of force by the Chinese state by highlighting the deployments of paramilitary troops and attacks on non-violent protestors.[5]  Photographs of bullet wounds, allegedly sustained when paramilitary fired into crowds, seem to have carefully omitted faces from the frame of the picture to protect the anonymity of the injured and to protect those caring for them not in hospitals but in private homes.[6] 

Figure 2 Police drag away a protestor who was allegedly fatally shot while peacefully demonstrating in Serthar [7]

Figure 3 Tibetan shot 23 January 2012 by Chinese Police in Drango, Kham [8]

Witnesses have been compelled to photograph the injured and charred bodies of deceased Tibetans in monasteries and private homes, including that of the beloved religious leader Sopa Rinpoche (Sonam Wangyal) and the nun Tenzin Wangmo, her blackened body smoking on an open field of green grass as a small group of maroon robed nuns run towards their sister.  These constitute important visual documentary evidence of these cases and are available on websites behind warnings stating viewer discretion is advised, but such images are not typically shown in western or Tibetan media. They are both more gruesome and less dynamic in their visual power and may contravene respect for the deceased and the focus of attention on their act rather than their fate.

Figure 4 Nun Tenzin Wangmo, 17 October 2011. Tibetan Women’s Association.

Tibetan activists worldwide instead circulate images of self-immolations and ordinary portrait pictures of the self-immolators prior to injury or death in composite images online—in blogs, Facebook and YouTube posts—and in the hands of, and even reenacted by,[9]  marching and mourning Tibetans from India to Washington D.C. For example, commemorative videos feature slideshows of the self-immolators with audio tracks including Tibetan nationalistic and rock songs, a speech by the Prime Minister, Dr. Lobsang Sangay, and the tape-recorded last testament of Sopa Rinpoche.  Portraits are incorporated into digital templates and used singly or chronologically arranged into one large grid, with multi-lingual captions [10]  and headlines such as Freedom Hero or Patriotic Hero.[11]  Arguably, exile groups hope to stir but also reach beyond their own communities with an appeal for political aid.

Figure 5 TsampaRevolution listing of self-immolators, 5 March 2012.

Figure 6 Tibetan protesters in Taipei hold signs commemorating self-immolators. The Wall Street Journal. 19 October 2011.

In recent months, I have watched these images in multiple locations and replayed them in my mind, again and again. I have struggled with a tension between the specificity of one life and collective concerns and responses that life is said to represent. The available images make the individual real to us, but also leave me craving fuller knowledge of the unique circumstances (devout monastic, widowed mother, impoverished nomad) and dramatic appeals (entreating embrace of culture, plea for the return of the Dalai Lama, demand for freedom of speech and religion, for independence) each embody. Tibetan communities honor individuals, even as they become one in a growing number, when each act is depicted, each life lost is visibly grieved,[12]   and distress erupts when an exact and accurate count of self-immolators is muddled.[13] 

And yet, the urgency and alarm has also led to a cultural ethos in Tibet and in exile which emphasizes unity. The acts of individuals are translated into a mass movement, and central to this mobilization is the viral circulation of images.  The imagery that began as slim evidence of an individual, through its circulation, becomes a symbol for global, anti-China protest.

What might these images and their varied uses tell us about the situation inside Tibet? How do we think through the ethics and politics of the circulation and viewing of human bodies on fire, burnt, beaten, or shot? I am reminded of Susan Sontag’s reflections on regarding the pain of others and her conviction that we cannot know what it is like to be there, to be them, unless we have lived it ourselves.[14]  Short of this, we have only a moral imperative to not become numb to the suffering around us. We want images to do something, but, as in this long decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, images of horror can incite further violence, or become routine, even boring. Images alone, Sontag argues, do not guarantee action, especially of the sort Tibetans worldwide cannot help but place their hopes in. The afterlife of images of Tibetans’ self-immolation circulate in the faith that viewers will demand and create action. To do otherwise would foreclose the possibility of the cessation of suffering in Tibet.

28 March 2012

NOTES

[1] Roger Baker, cited in Ide, William. Social Justice Fuels Self-Immolation Protests. February 8, 2012. (accessed 20 February 2012).

[2] As of 28 March 2012, there have been thirty-one confirmed cases of self-immolation inside Tibet and three by Tibetans in India. For most recent incidents in Tibet and India, see http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/burn-03282012142200.html; for updated Fact Sheet, see http://www.savetibet.org/resource-center/maps-data-fact-sheets/self-immolation-fact-sheet

[3] Tibetan communities worldwide declined to celebrate Losar, Tibetan New Year, which began on February 22, 2012. Video and/or photography footage of seven cases of self-immolation inside Tibet, either of the act in progress and/or the condition of the body immediately afterwards, were accessible online as early as March 2012: Lobsang Phuntsok, twenty-one years old, self-immolated on 16 March 2011; Tsewang Norbu, twenty-nine years old, self-immolated on 15 August 2011; Lobsang Kunchok, eighteen years old, self-immolated 26 September 2011; Tenzin Wangmo, twenty years old, self-immolated on 17 October 2011; Dawa Tsering, thirty-eight years old, self-immolated on 25 October 2011; Palden Choesang (Choetso), thirty-five years old, self-immolated on 3 November 2011; Sonam Wangyal, Sopa Rinpoche, forty-two years old, self-immolated on 8 January 2012.

[4] For example, see the Tibetan Youth Congress of Dharamsala video “Tibetans self-immolation inside Tibet,” Edited by Tenzin Norsang Panamserkhang, 26 February 2012.

[5] Photographs of abuse and injury, see Woeser, Sherab. Gory Images of Tibetans killed and injured reach exile. 2 February 2012.  (accessed 21 February 2012).
Video showing security deployments include: Watts, Jonathan and Ken Macfarlane. Inside Tibet's heart of protest-video. 10 February 2012. (accessed 21 February 2012).

[6] http://www.freetibet.org/campaigns/photos. The cropping may have been done prior to publication, but editorial intervention is frequently seen as blurred out faces.

[7] http://tibet.net/2012/02/04/serta-crackdown-photos/sarta-dawa-_19_/

[8] http://tibet.net/2012/01/31/chinese-crackdown-on-tibetan-region-nears-breaking-point/tibet-3/

[9] At a Washington, D.C. rally, during the recitation of the names of the self-immolators, lay and monastic Tibetans burst one by one from a circle of observers holding protest and memorial images. They twirled red- orange cloth around their bodies before pulling it over their heads and falling to the ground. See 9:40 minutes into the video “Tibet is Burning” by Lhaksam Media

[10] The commemorative images are labeled in combinations of English, Tibetan, and Chinese, with information regarding individuals’ name, age, date of self-immolation, monastery or town of origin, and status as deceased, critical condition, or missing.

[11] The use of Freedom Hero, also translatable as Independence Hero [rang btsan dpa’ bo pa], and Patriotic Hero [rgyal gces dpa’ bo] could be analyzed in light of the rift in Tibetan exile communities regarding the nature of their political fight for either independence or autonomy and whether activism should proceed in accord with the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way approach or not.  It is difficult on the basis of the scarce evidence in raw footage to deduce the self-immolators’ intentions, feelings, and hopes; the ways in which others frame their images and actions can make discernment of individual Tibetans’ acts even more challenging but illumine the concerns of various collectives.

[12] Yangsi Rinpoche, President of Maitripa College in Portland, OR, said the reaction of the Tibetan community is mainly sadness over “the loss of even one Tibetan life.” Additionally, the urge arises to “protect non-violence” such that these incidents do not “jeopardize the benefit in the world and for Tibet” that has so far been attained through non-violence, and finally, the fear that this act may spread into Tibetan communities outside Tibet, such as in India and the West, which would be also “very sad”. Personal Communication, 2 March 2012. 

[13] For example, Woeser has written passionate condemnations of the Prime Minister of the Central Tibetan Authority in exile, Dr. Lobsang Sangay’s, omission from a recitation of names of Tapey, the first monk to self-immolate in 2009, and on various blogs and comment sections in online news sites, Tibetans have objected to terms such as “more than two dozen” in favor of an exact number.

[14] Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.