April has not been a month of lull. It has made every effort to keep itself in history. The distance of time (and often one of space too) complicates the act of remembering — or is “remembering” the right word if you have not been at least alive at the moment? In any case, for that unfortunate animal posterity, historical anniversaries are, at best, symbolic reminders, somewhat akin to the bookmarks of a collective memory spanning generations.

How events in Tibet unfold will determine how we remember Tibet — in terms of the Chinese narrative or the Tibetan. Embedded in forgetting is the manner of remembering, decided by the course of history. China is not a distant colonial power. Being right next door to Tibet, it will not go away. Therefore, if the Tibetans could not visibly observe their anniversaries (and protest too) how long would the world remember Tibet?

Let’s try our collective memory with April. On April 2, 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands (or Las Malvinas), provoking a British response it did not expect. April 26 mourns the 1937 bombing of Guernica. Abraham Lincoln was shot by J.W. Booth on April 14, 1865. James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr on April 4, 1968. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin entered outer space. Buchenwald was liberated on April 11, 1945. The American War of Independence began at Concord and Lexington on April 19, 1775. Hitler was born in Braunau on April 20, 1889, and found dead on April 30, 1945 in the Führerbunker. April 30, back in 711, was also the beginning of the Moorish conquest of Spain... And, in the twilight zone where history and legend meet, Romulus and his forgettable brother may have founded Rome around April 20 in c.750 BC.

... contd.