Congressman Jim McGovern may be best known by his constituents as the champion of small farms and agriculture in western Massachusetts. Through his annual farm tours, McGovern has been a visible presence in Hampshire and Franklin counties. “Farmers in the Valley know you have our back,” one participant in a roundtable discussion said to McGovern. Even more, McGovern is revered as a champion for those who are hungry, fighting on behalf of the SNAP program (formerly known as food stamps) and family farms in the federal farm bill.
But McGovern is more than a single-issue congressman. His advocacy extends across the seas to human rights abuses in Tibet, located to the southwest of China. Tibet’s historical territory would make it the world’s 10th largest nation. Today, it is under China’s occupation and has been divided up, renamed and incorporated into Chinese provinces with consequent depredations to its remote plateau environment, water resources and religious autonomy. For example, Tibetan Buddhists believe that when a Dalai Lama, Tibet’s Buddhist spiritual leader, dies, he is reincarnated as a child and is identified through a traditional search process.
Herein is the impetus for McGovern’s advocacy. In 1995, the Chinese government rejected the Tibetan Buddhists’ appointment and arrested the child and his family.
They have not been seen since.
“No government has the right to interfere in a religion,” McGovern said at a recent Statehouse meeting, adding that China selecting a Dalai Lama would be like a country picking the pope.
Late last month, a pro-Tibet bill championed by McGovern to put pressure on China heads to the U.S. Senate after passing in the House of Representatives by a bipartisan majority of 392-22. H.R. 4331 seeks to update and strengthen the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002 and address what he called the Chinese government’s ongoing oppression of Tibetans. McGovern said this bill “puts some teeth into” existing American policy pertaining to Tibet and Tibetans. The American government, he said, has a moral obligation to speak out when people are being persecuted.
This is an area of governance that seems to fly under President Donald Trump’s radar. Human rights are just not something Trump cares much about. His “America first” slogan speaks for itself. Trump has lavished praise on foreign leaders who crack down on religious minorities, including the leader of China, whose country is trying to erase Tibetan culture, history and language. The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since fleeing Tibet during a failed uprising against the Chinese government 60 years ago, chided Trump’s foreign policy. “When he became president, he expressed America first. That is wrong. America should take global responsibility,” the spiritual leader said in a Time magazine interview in December.
That leaves it up to congressional leaders like McGovern to call out human rights abuses, both here and overseas.
Protection of human rights is a matter of national security supported through international aid and through engaging in institutions such as the United Nations. McGovern introduced his bill with bipartisan support, including from Chris Smith, a Republican congressman from New Jersey, as well as Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ben Cardin, D-Md.
McGovern said he is optimistic about H.R. 4331’s fate in the Senate. If the House’s lopsided vote is any indication, McGovern’s bill should sail through the Senate with a veto-proof majority in a telling display of conscience that should serve as a rebuke to Trump. But then, displays of conscience are conspicuous in their absence in the Republican-controlled Senate.
In the meantime, we applaud McGovern for taking the lead on human rights abroad.