As a Tibetan filmmaker working in China, Pema Tseden has to tread a very fine line. Whether he continues to make films or not depends entirely on how the Chinese authorities appraise his work in terms of its perceived political loyalties. The uprising of 2008 has made it more difficult than ever for Tibetan artists, writers and filmmakers to operate, given the heightened focus of suspicion that they find themselves under. More than his Chinese colleagues — who are themselves under the constant threat of censorship and blacklisting — Pema Tseden has to be especially careful in his choice of subjects and his treatment of them. Like his inspiration, the Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami, he has to juggle between the demands of an authoritarian government while remaining true to his vision. The recent arrest of Jafar Panahi is yet another reminder of the consequences that face artists who step out of line in countries like Iran and China. It is to Pema Tseden’s credit that he adroitly and beautifully navigates this treacherous path in his new film, The Search.

The Search is in the mould of a classic road movie. On the surface, the tale it tells is deceptively simple. A Tibetan filmmaker, accompanied by a businessman, an assistant, and a driver, sets out in a four-wheel-drive across rural Amdo, searching for actors to play the key roles in his new film, which is based on the popular Tibetan opera, Drime Kunden. This much-loved parable tells the story of the Bodhisattva prince, Drime Kunden, who sacrifices everything he has, including his wife and children, and finally even his own eyes, in the service of others. A series of encounters along the way gently propels the film to its subdued and enigmatic climax. As with his first film, nothing much happens by way of drama. Static camerawork, long takes and predominantly long shots that distance the viewer from the characters are the hallmarks of the film. Pema Tseden’s approach is stylistically formalistic and challenging, and makes no concession to the audience. We are forced to engage with the film on its own terms but by the end, we are moved and left with a sense of longing and disquiet.

As the group makes its way through dusty villages and towns in the Amdo highlands, a number of intriguing, seemingly unrelated stories emerges. A young woman’s voice is perfect for the role of Princess Mande Zangmo, Prince Drime Kunden’s wife, and the director is elated. But she agrees to act in the film only if he will take her to see her old boyfriend and singing partner who has left her and is now a teacher in a distant village. Renowned for both her voice and her beauty, we never see her face, which she keeps covered behind a scarf for the duration of the film. Another strand follows the story of a first love that ended in betrayal that the businessman narrates to the director. Unravelling in bits and pieces as they drive through the countryside, this account makes a deep impression on both the director and the young girl who listens avidly in the back of the car.

Other meetings with potential actors take place in schools, monasteries, village homes and even a karaoke bar. The haunting melodies of the arias from Drime Kunden, snippets of which are sung by some of the amateur performers during their auditions, remind us of how moving and beautiful the opera is even as they counterpoint the fact that many of the people the director encounters are unaware of or have forgotten the songs. Interestingly, there is no visible Chinese presence in the entire film but we sense the changes that are taking place in terms of the dissolution of traditional culture in the face of the encroachment of the modern world. Along the way, the director begins to question his own faith in the spiritual purity of Prince Drime Kunden’s sacrifice even as he is drawn to the more mundane concerns of unrequited love, as highlighted by the businessman’s story and the girl’s determined search for her former lover. The film has an elegiac quality to it; a loving farewell to a fast-disappearing way of life tinged by a sense of apprehension at what is to come.

Pema Tseden’s film is a powerful example of the voices that are evolving within Tibet in the fields of art, literature and music. The subtext here, in the absence of political freedom, is a forceful assertion of Tibetan identity, which itself becomes a political statement. Pema Tseden lives in Beijing and makes his films in Tibet, whereas I live and work in exile. I have the freedom to explore subjects that he cannot dream of touching, but he has access to our homeland and is directly connected to the changes that are taking place there. And yet, despite these differences, we share a kinship that springs naturally from our shared history and concerns, and easily overcomes the false barriers that divide us. This fact is subtly emphasised in the soundtrack of The Search, which consists almost entirely of exile Tibetan singer, Techung’s traditional songs from Central Tibet. Under any circumstance, this would be an anomalous choice, both because Techung is an exile and because traditionally, Central Tibetan songs would not have been heard in Amdo. But in the new reality, where cultural cross-pollination, both within the traditional regions of Tibet, and between Tibet and the exile Tibetan world, is thriving, this seems to be an affirmation of the deep links that continue to bind all Tibetans.

Watch Pema Tseden’s interview by the Asia Society. »

For more details, see tt1483811 on The Internet Movie Database.

Very rarely has it happened that the shooting for a documentary has begun and its subject has taken on a story of its own, both expanding and deepening its sense of urgency and poignancy, complexity and hope, more than would have been possible if it were just a hindsight appraisal. The documentary “The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom,” opening in the Bay Area on June 18, benefits from that singular fortuity. The involvement here is similar to witnessing childbirth under the most adversarial conditions, the threshold equally open to life and death.

In March 2008, over a hundred Tibetans set out on a Return March to Tibet from Dharamsala in northern India, the Tibetan world’s exile capital and the headquarters of the Dalai Lama. The campaign, just months ahead of the Beijing Olympics and just a year short of five decades of Chinese occupation, marked the culmination of exiled Tibetans’ frustration over China’s intransigence to the Tibetan leader’s “Middle Way” approach. Repeatedly, Beijing had thwarted the Buddhist leader’s reconciliatory policy, envisioning cultural autonomy for Tibet, including provinces incorporated into the Chinese mainland, as a disguised bid for independence. The boldest gesture yet, the march which the Nobel Peace Laureate opposed, was fraught with danger. A crackdown from the Indian police was likely; and should the march make its way into Tibet, a lethal confrontation with Chinese soldiers was imminent.

Simultaneously, an independence protest broke out in Lhasa, which spread to far flung areas of Amdo and Kham. Chinese paramilitary troops swiftly brought the country under lockdown and cut off all media access. But the revolt was far from subdued. The roof of the world was a stage to the biggest turbulence since the uprising of 1959, which China had violently put down, effectively sealing its military occupation of Tibet.

The documentary, by the husband-wife team of Tenzin Sonam and Ritu Sarin, expertly traces the parallel movements. The footages of the exile march are as breathtaking as the undercover ones of the Tibet unrest are harrowing. On both sides of the Himalayas, the eye-grabbing yellow, red and blue Tibetan flags dominate the frames. The banners that flutter over the exile procession, along winding paths, across bridges and over deep valleys, are of luxuriant printed fabrics. Inside the restive nation, their hand-drawn banned versions appear variously in monk protestors’ nervous clutches and on a pole outside a besieged police station, hoisted by a defiant horde of nomadic horsemen.

While physically removed, the Dalai Lama finds himself at the center of the twin revolutions. Be it in debates among the displaced activists about why, like Gandhi, the Tibetan leader couldn’t himself front the march, or in the slogans of oppressed monk protestors in Tibet who, ambushing state-orchestrated media tours, express wish for his quick return, the Dalai Lama is interchangeable with the struggle he symbolizes. Depending on your perspective, he’s equally the means and the end.

Unlike other documentaries on Tibet, which typically extract from the Buddhist leader stock quotes bordering on clichés, The Sun Behind the Cloudsachieves deeper inquiry. The filmmakers relentlessly mine the intimate access allowed them, bringing into focus the inner conflicts of the Dalai Lama rarely before captured on film. Torn between his position as the defender of his people’s freedom and the global beacon of peaceful living, the Tibetan leader cuts an achingly solitary figure, alone in his indefatigable compassion, alienated in a sea of insurmountable odds.

The film also examines the growing disenchantment among exiled Tibetans with the Dalai Lama’s “Middle Way” proposal. As voiced by a poet-leader in the march, his reincarnate lama companion, and a host of other intellectuals and activists, the Buddhist icon’s policy falls short of political realism as manifest in China’s continued brutalization of his people. To them, the Tibetan leader’s relinquishing his demand for independence some two decades ago was a costly blunder.

A larger cross-section of his followers, on the other hand, still supports the Dalai Lama’s political vision. To them, their leader’s co-existence overtures with China, drawing upon Buddhist tenets of interdependence and moderation, carry the only hope for a solution to the protracted Tibet problem. His is a plan that cannot fail—it is only a matter of time before the Chinese leadership puts aside their foolishness and resolves the crisis, leaving the Tibetans, as the Dalai Lama hopes, to benefit from China’s unstoppable economic growth.

A journalistic coup of sort is achieved in a rare interview with Tibet’s famous writer and poet, Woeser, whose writings on Tibet had led to her being ousted from her publishing job and, later, the country itself. Currently based in Beijing, her chronicles of events in Tibet, like the 2008 uprising and this year’s earthquake, have provided precious validation, besides putting her at further risk with Chinese authorities. In one of her most illuminating remarks, referring to Beijing’s constant accusation that the Tibetan leader lies about his independence agenda, the outspoken blogger says: “It could well be that they know he’s not lying, but that they just don’t want to talk to him.”

This observation cuts through a tendency among exiled China believers to locate rational responses in Beijing’s Tibet recalcitrance, overlooking the regime’s inherently tyrannical stakes in the occupied country. A Tibetan writer recently lambasted a young student’s comment to a reporter that the Dalai Lama didn’t represent the lives of all the Tibetans. Discounting sound-bite contrivances possibility, he suggested (while calling her a “fantastic” activist) her statement provided ammunition to China’s attacks on the Tibetan leader.

One aspect of the documentary’s effectiveness lies in lifting the curtain on the intellectual ambiguity and moral didacticism that pervade the Tibetan world, where the interchange of the Dalai Lama with the Tibetan freedom movement stops being an asset and starts becoming a liability. Toward that end, the film opens a debate the Tibetan world ought to engage in before it becomes too late.

The film’s Tibetan-centric theme is beautifully offset by Gustavo Santolalla’s soulful Latin-inspired score. The Oscar winner music composer of such films as “Brokeback Mountain” and “Babel” brings to the Tibetan story the right notes of ominous and hope.

One of the most penetrating and comprehensive documentaries on the Tibetan freedom movement, the film’s title comes from a line in a song composed and sung by Tibetan nun political prisoners; the “Sun” is a reference to the Dalai Lama and the “Clouds” to China’s occupation of Tibet. As rendered by one of the interviewees, herself a former political prisoner, the song celebrates the hope, as cherished by Tibetans across all divides, that soon China’s occupation of Tibet will end and the exiled Tibetan leader will return.

The pamphlet appeared on 10 January 1776, less than six months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. At the time it was published Americans were very much divided in their attitude towards Britain. The struggle for home rule had been going on for years and was gradually intensifying, but only a few Americans then favored separation from England. The Continental Congress was called in 1774 in an effort to head off a radical solution. Benjamin Franklin, in London, said in March 1775 that he had never heard anyone in America, drunk or sober, advocate independence. George Washington told a friend in May 1775 that if the friend ever heard of Washington joining the movement for separation, he had his leave to set him down for everything wicked. Thomas Jefferson wrote in July 1775 that he was looking with fondness towards reconciliation with Great Britain.

Then the next January Paine’s pamphlet, with title supplied by Benjamin Rush, burst on the colonies, and nothing was ever the same afterwards. Although leaders like Washington, Samuel Adams, Franklin, Richard Henry Lee, and others were beginning to work quietly for independence by that time, no one before Paine had come out flatly in print for separation. Paine’s pamphlet swept through the colonies, and since there was no copyright law, anyone could reprint it. Perhaps 100,000 copies were in circulation by the time the Declaration was signed, and it has been estimated that probably every literate person in the thirteen colonies had read it. The population of the colonies was 2.5 million.

While most writers of political pamphlets were intellectuals writing for other intellectuals, Paine wrote a prose that anyone could read including farmers, mechanics, tradesmen and laborers. Paine committed every logical fallacy in his argument, but the brilliance of his journalism was overwhelming, and it had a catalytic effect in moving public opinion in favor of independence. This single most influential revolutionary manifesto of the era was not written by a well-known leader thought to be “exceptional” or “super human,” but rather by a complete unknown whose anonymity was maintained even as his pamphlet unleashed revolutionary impulses throughout the continent.

Washington wrote to Joseph Reed that letters he had received from Virginia, mentioned that the pamphlet was working a powerful change there in men’s minds. Charles Lee, who became a general in the continental army, wrote to Washington to say that he had never seen such a masterly, irresistible performance that would give the coup-de-grace to Great Britain. Franklin and others also testified to the prodigious effects of the pamphlet when the first copies arrived in the American camp at Cambridge.  An officer in that army observed that a reinforcement of five thousand men would not have inspired the troops with equal confidence as this pamphlet did. Of course, the Revolution might have occurred whether or not Paine had existed, but Common Sense prepared people’s minds for the break with England. It awakened the public mind, and led the people loudly to call for a declaration of American national independence.

Where Paine got the ideas that he put into his pamphlet is moot. He was not a reader, and he no doubt picked up his notions here and there, perhaps from conversations with friends like Franklin and Rush. He always prided himself on the originality of his ideas, but his thoughts on government and natural rights were widely current in the Enlightenment, as perhaps are the ideas of Freud today among people who never have read him. The idea with which Paine opened his pamphlet, that “…government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one” was held by many liberal theorists of the time.

After this preliminary statement, Paine went for the jugular in attacking the British Constitution and undermining American loyalty to the Crown. Americans were already were at odds with Parliament over the issue of taxation without representation, but they did not blame the king for their grievances. Paine attacked monarchy, hereditary succession, and the divine right of kings with eminently quotable language. As for the divine right of William the Conqueror to rule England, he said, “A French bastard, landing with an armed banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.”

Then Paine moved on to “Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs,” in which he offered “nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense. So he went on, arguing sometimes logically, sometimes illogically, arguing by analogy, begging the question, but always phrasing his brief in memorable language. He ended this section with a peroration for freedom: “O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Europe regards her ‘freedom’ like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.”

Then he ended the final chapter of the pamphlet with a call for a DECLARATION FOR INDEPENDENCE.

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Note: Common Sense was translated into Tibetan by Lhasang Tsering and Pema Bhum, under the Tibetan title of rGyun shes. The translators also included a lengthy scholarly introduction by Issac Kramnick and a glossary of relevant political and historical terms. The book was published by Amnye Machen Institute in 1995, in its World Literature Translation Series.

“We are no Monks”, currently in its distributing-searching phase, makes complete the metaphorical circumambulation. The trek here is from exile to freedom!

But first a nod to the other Tibetan films in between: two Hollywood biggies and one Cannes favorite. Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun” was a sumptuous meditation on the life of the Dalai Lama. But for all the hype, it was a yet another cinematic experience in unraveling the enigma and making real the person. So it was fitting that after the world had savored this most uplifting of biographies, its coming roar over a nation’s tragedy would stop short at a guilty burp – and a few rounds of applause.

John Jacque Annaud’s “Seven Years in Tibet”, on the other hand, was all about Brat Pitt. What was essentially Heinrich Harrer’s sweeping chronicle of the fragile grandeur of the Tibetan nation was now a modern man’s personal tale of redemption, the coming ruins of an ancient culture serving a convenient foil to his troubled sense of destiny.

Then there was the remarkable “The Cup” by a first-time Bhutanese director Dzongsar Khentse Norbu Rinpoche. The film was a true testament to the universal language of humor and humanity, told through the story of a group of monks and their fascination with soccer in some remote monastery in India. Just as last year’s Korean surprise, “Spring, Summer, Fall, Spring”, the film endorsed the power of spiritual tranquility when applied to cinema, this time the undercurrent being one of Tibetan Buddhism of which the director is a leading reincarnate Lama.

“We are No Monks”, as the title suggests, is not about monks. It’s not also about behaving like monks or being perceived to be like monks, or any other version to the Tibetan stereotype there is in between. The film tips on its end the fragile kaleidoscope of Tibet’s political tragedy, more particularly the exile experience, and asks of the audience these important questions: will the Tibetan freedom struggle turn violent? Will there be Tibetan suicide bombers?
For a first feature film, Pema Dhondup has done a great job. Early on in the movie, there’s a scene in which an Indian police officer and a constable raid a local joint and in the course of their interrogation the officer shoves his baton into the mouth of one of the gathered Tibetan youth. This is a wide-angle shot and a crowd of heads blocks the action. It’s only when the heads gradually move away that one actually gets to see this police brutality, just as in real life, from a safe distance, without the convenience, or the hazard, of a “close-up”. And the man, who’s being tortured for information about recent robberies, himself one of the leading characters, is actually mute; his sign language is not the universal kind but his own, as would befit the dislocation of his identity.

Such forms of subtlety and symbolism abound in this movie. The overarching style is one of gritty neo-realism which Dhondup employs effectively to hold together such sprawling tangents as youthful angst, failed fatherhood, broiling revenge, and confused loyalty: toward one’s country, lost yet not forgotten, toward one’s idea of self, familiar but still strange. The film’s layered look, its narrative within a narrative, somewhat brings to mind such original works as “City of God” by Fernando Meirelles.

Four young Tibetan friends go about their lives in Dharamsala in India, seat of the Dalai Lama and an exile Tibetan community, guzzling beer and getting high on Marijuana, and whenever a bus would plant in the bustling marketplace a pretty young foreigner, they’d practice on her their womanizing charm and Indian-accented English. “You can’t miss anyone here, unless you’re a hermit or you live in a monastery,” the twenty-something Tenzin tells one such woman, this time an American.

At other times which is almost always, the four men nervously skirt around charges of involvement in a spate of robberies, the investigation for which is being led by a thuggish Indian cop, Shamsher Singh, played by Bollywood baddie and the only professional actor, Gulshan Grover. The way the local cop unrelentingly trail the Tibetan men, his authority spelling intimidation, harassment and humiliation, it somewhat serves a faint metaphor for the Chinese oppression of the Tibetan people presently saved the four friends on account of their exile reality.

Tenzin, played by Sonam Wangdue, is an unemployed graduate, a typical Dharamsala youth dreaming of going to America, spurning all attempts by his Tibetan administration-employed father to join the exile ranks. He’s the wisecrack, the Casanova, a fleeting soul forever looking for mischief. Tsering, enacted by Sonam Phuntsok, is a doting father of a girl child, his wife now living in America with another man, and who, because of his drifting ways, is obstructed by his unfeeling father-in-law from getting close to his sick daughter.

Passang, played by Tsering Bawa, is from Tibet. All rage and intensity, Passang spews talks of revenge and violence against the Chinese government, his entire family having been a victim of Chinese brutality as shown in flashbacks and in a moving reunion with his persecuted sister. He’s also given to writing plays and lecturing his friends on the complacency of exile Tibetans. The fourth angle to this quartet is the mute guy, Damdul as played by Ngawang, who during the day sells bread from a roadside. What he lacks in the facility of speech, he makes up with his camcorder, which he routinely points at his friends, sometimes to their chagrin, and at events unfolding around them, as if he were God himself taking it all in, without judging, without speaking.

Damdul and his camcorder lend this film its “narrative within a narrative” element, capturing as he does within the recording frame of his equipment perhaps some of the most important scenes. Like for example the opening shot when Tenzin speaks directly into the camera, and by default to the audience, after he’s pompously straightened his shirt collar and asked of his mute friend: “tha yin Pe (are you ready?)”.

“It’s been fifty (sic) years in exile now. What have we gained? People are still being killed in Tibet. More refugees come out every year. Destruction continues even today. What has the world given us?” A long pause during which the actor, Sonam Wangdue’s face contorts into a grim resignation. “Only empty sympathy! Every person, every nation lives for his own, its own. This is a selfish world, my friend. If you want something, you have to struggle for it yourself. Even if it means putting your life on the line!” Then he launches into a tirade against the hypocrisy of the US-led War against Terrorism, the coalition’s hoodwinking of real genocides taking place in countries such as Tibet while making of their justice-cause a slave to the hard currencies of oil and global hegemony.

This dialogue, if one knew well the Dharamsala situation, could come from the mouth of any young Tibetan there. For all the angst and the rage, what is noticeable is the way Wangdue’s character mixes up the number of years that’s lapsed since the Chinese takeover of Tibet, which is forty six not fifty, and this ambivalence, a sheer ingenuity on the part of the director, drives at the very reality of many young Tibetans across the exile landscape.

The actors are all culled from everyday inhabitants of the hillside-town, except for Gulshan Grover who delivers in this movie a truthful performance over and above his kitschy Bollywood arc. The realism extends to even such minor actors as the Tibetan lady whose character trades local gossips like “those Tibetan junkies from Shiva Café have got to be behind these robberies” and who, on days other than this when there’s no camera around, would still be fanning such local scandals, with a zest matching her feverish rosary-twirling. Those familiar with the town’s vagabond corners will be surprised to see one of its deadliest drifters, Dobdob, the sort of guy who’d rather duke it out with fists and blood than mere words, making his brief cinematic appearance – dressed in a black suit and looking all important – as a local authority; in fact, he gets to lecture somebody on how to conduct oneself in the greater scheme of things!

The film renders no soft edges to the brutality, psychologically or physical, that resides both at homes and on the streets of Dharamsala, as elsewhere in India. Grover’s cop uses his baton more than his words, and his punches fly at every given whim. Upon returning home drunk one night, Tenzin finds his family – his father, his mother and his grandmother – waiting on him and when his frustrated father begins to berate and beat him for his waywardness, the son strikes a fighting posture: “I’ll kill you! Come, dare hit me if you can!” And as it happens in most homes, the women shriek and plead sanity, clutching their hearts, pulling at their men.

The film is mostly shot with a handheld camera, giving it its life-like jolts and jitters. The only static shots are of two props: a TV set in the local joint and a computer monitor at an internet café, where Tenzin often whiles away his time plotting his escape to America in the Chat-room of Tibetsearch.com. In a remarkable turn of feature film meeting documentary, the scene of a large Tibetan crowd awaiting the Dalai Lama’s convoy was shot during an actual occasion; for a fleeting second, one gets to see the Tibetan leader, all smiles and waving his hand, before his car zips past the frame.

The film has at its churning core the question of Tibetan violence. And this is a subject the four friends ponder upon during their drunken sojourns on the desolate roadsides, after the last bar has closed down and there’s only an echo of a dog or two barking in the dark distance. “We need to follow the examples of the Palestinians, we need our own suicide bombers,” extols Passang, chest thumping and swaying on his deceptive feet. “Can you do it?” he challenges a bleary-eyed Tenzin. “Namaste (greetings),” the wisecrack replies, “I’m better off not charting a course of martyrdom just yet. You guys go for it.”

The question still lingers in the form of suspense as the film unfolds; throughout the friends’ individual narratives, intersecting at certain points and diverging at others; and as the scenes jump back and forth. So much so that it envelops the initial dilemma of whether the characters were really behind the local robberies, for which their tragedy had seemed certain, the ringmaster being the brutal cop, and in its place, the audience is now left bracing for something more horrible, unimaginable even: what is personal is now national, the gathering storm of tragedy is as much ours!

And when the violence finally happens it comes from the most unlikely quarter: a cinematic roll of dice which finds its real inspiration in the first exile martyr, Thupten Ngodup, a hitherto unknown face who in 1998 had blazed into the Tibetan consciousness with his shocking act of self-immolation at a Tibetan hunger-strike site in Delhi, India.

It won’t be giving away too much to say that the suicide-bombing scene in Delhi is a brilliantly imagined segment. But what’s more emphatic of the exile Tibetan experience, the raging conflict of politics versus spirituality, is the young martyr’s voiceover toward the end: “I’ve not done this for anyone else, but myself. Tenzin was right: ’I’ is the important word here.” One can almost weep at these lines!

The film’s rough-cut, as was shown to this writer, is bit too long at around two hours. A couple of scenes, particularly a party scene, seem to just drag on. With narratives spooling out in layers, the film could use a tighter editing.

The film’s main weakness, however, seems to spring from the filmmaker’s own philosophical ambiguity, almost trepidation, about the possibility of violence in the Tibetan struggle, as opposed to his artistic imagining. That, along with his implicit bid for political correctness, somewhat dilutes its cinematic integrity.

Therefore, although it seems plausible that the new arrival from Tibet should in the end seek an intellectual internalization of his anger through making plays with themes of Tibetan freedom struggle, it seems a stretch unbelievable that one of his plays, in which his freedom fighter-nemesis having killed a Chinese diplomat or two, should end with a crowd of Tibetans parading to the front, carrying placards and shouting slogans: “He’s a terrorist. He’s not a Tibetan!”

But that didactics is finally also the filmmaker’s message, born by his sense of responsibility, his moral callings. Here he treats the difficult line between being a cinematic arbiter of his nation’s unfolding tragedy and an artist on his own.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tibet has always enchanted travellers, writers, soul seekers, missionaries and adventurers since the ancient times. As a result a large number of books were written about it — ranging from absurd fiction such as The Third Eye by Lobsang Rampa (assumed Tibetan name of Cyril Hoskins, a plumber’s son from Plympton in Devon, England) to fantastically well researched political books like China’s Tibet? Autonomy or Assimilation by Warren Smith.

Fitting in the bookrack is Pramod Wadnerkar’s Free Tibet, a work of fiction based on Tibet — or more aptly based on Tibet’s struggle for freedom from the Chinese occupation. The fun with such work of fiction based on contemporary Tibet is that we come across characters we know well in our daily lives. Wadnerkar’s book has many such people.

Tenzin Dojee, “the supreme leader of all Tibetan organizations of freedom-fighters”, is a former Indian army and the recipient of the Vir Chakra.

A commander in Dorjee’s resistance group is Namgyal Choephel, a former Major in the Indian army; and his colleague, Niroula, is a businessman of Nepalese stock, who fights along side the Tibetans.

Kirti Rinpoche, a high-ranking lama with his monastic base in Gyangtse, is the leader of the group who want to solve the Tibetan issue with Chinese through dialogue and non-violence.

Ganden Tashi is a Tibetan Fulbright scholar, who came to India as a small child. His mother is jailed by the Chinese authorities for her part in a peaceful protest.

Other major characters include Sonal, an Indian living in the US; Roland Smith, an American with a murky background; and Dr Bhargave, a disgruntled Indian nuclear physicist helping the Tibetan youth group to develop “non-nuclear electro-magnetic pulse warheads.”

What these interesting characters do in Wadnerkar’s Free Tibet is like a bunch of mountain rats nibbling at a large loaf of bread on a hillside powdered with barley flour. One cannot blame the author because writing a novel based on an issue as complex as contemporary Tibet is not easy — especially when you involve a CIA operative and a nosey Indian journalist with love interests. Wadnerkar has intentionally, it seems, made the matter even more complex by bringing in geo-political games and global strategic interests by China, India, Russia, US and Pakistan.

As a result it’s hard for readers as multiple events move from back and forth with flip of a sentence. Things that the characters do resemble hordes of flies struck on a spider web being blown asunder by a whirlwind.

There are also sweet donuts to be picked up along the way. Such as:

“Definitely Tibet is going to be an independent nation. But when? Those who are starving for this dream have to understand the value of each passing moment,” lectures Tenzin Dorjee to his comrades in arms in Free Tibet. This reminds of the real life Tenzin Dorjee, the Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet, who I would imagine will make a similar statement in similar circumstances. But of course the real Tenzin Dorjee does not approve violence as a means. The principle strategy of the organization that Dorjee leads is non-violent direct action.

“We’ll achieve equality and welfare not with arms but with change of heart. Not rights but duties guide our life. And as for our heaven, it is here, on this very earth,” says Kirti Rinpoche to the ranting Chinese officers, who accuse Tibetans of being superstitious and backward, and their claim to have brought happiness to Tibet. The real Kirti Rinpoche, who is the head lama of Kirti Monastery based in Dharamsala, India, would have said the same thing if pestered by the Chinese. Monks of his monastery are the well informed about the current affairs and are politically very active.

The united actions by the various Tibetan groups in Free Tibet forces the Chinese president to choose between bombing Tibet to ashes using nuclear warheads and suffer lose of face internationally or to accept their demand for a free Tibet. Beijing, ever so conscious about its image, very grudgingly chooses the later.

The culmination of the novel, for me personally and for any Tibetan reader, is when the Dalai Lama, the undisputed Tibetan leader, declares Tibet an independent country.

“On this day of Tibet’s independence I again pledge myself to the enrichment of Tibetan civilization. We have Ahimsa, love for nature and compassion in plenty to give to this world,” declares the Nobel Laureate.

Free Tibet should have ended right here on a happy note. Free Tibet is the final destination of our struggle and the sacrifices Tibetans inside and in exile undergo. But the fact that Wadnerkar wrote two more chapters is a different matter. Fiction matches reality only to a certain extent.

Wadnerkar, however, should be given a round of applause for his keen observations and grasp of not only of the knotty Tibetan political issue involving various players, but also of the intricate methods that Beijing practices to banish Tibet and Tibetans into forgotten memories.

The importance of Free Tibet is that it was written in Marathi — a regional language spoken by over 96 million people in India. It has never been the forte of Tibetan Government-in-Exile to reach the massive Indian populace. Works like this is an ideal way to re-introduce Tibet and Tibetan issue to ordinary Indian people. Doing so will give them a sense of what the vexed issue of Tibet means for them — the long term geopolitical strategy and national security.

I envy those who can read the novel in original Marathi, in which case one does not have suffer its straining rendering into English with a series of typos, miss-spelt words and names. The erratic editing is bothersome as well.

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Somewhere in Free Tibet a CNN reporter asks the Chinese foreign minister, Fang Xai Shi, how is Tibet a part of China. The clever minister loudly and shamelessly says, “[because] Tibetans look like Chinese, they eat and drink like Chinese.”

Bravo, Wadnerkar, you got it absolutely right. That is exactly how Beijing justifies its violent occupation of Tibet.

Despite heightened international awareness of the situation inside Chinese occupied Tibet; the injustice, human rights atrocities, censorship and widespread erosion of Tibet’s culture, through Beijing’s program of assimilation and colonization, the Tibetan struggle for national and cultural freedom, has been a somewhat misunderstood subject. The political objectives and nature of resistance waged by Tibetans, which most dramatically erupted across Tibet during 2008, occasionally overlooked and sometimes misrepresented.

Yet, as revealed by Warren W. Smith Junior‘s Tibet‘s Last Stand? The Tibetan Uprising of 2008 and China‘s Response, Tibetan national identity (and the incontrovertible fact of Tibet’s right to self-determination and independence) are defining features in the Tibetan resistance to Chinese oppression. With a masterful scholarship he draws upon a range of factual and informed sources (Tibetan, Chinese, human rights organizations, government and media reports) providing a remarkably detailed and moving insight into the courageous and inspirational actions of Tibetans who faced bullets, torture and prison to challenge China’s illegal occupation.

Warren W. Smith Jr. deploys a formidable array of evidence, and with superb understanding and analysis, records the brutal consequences of the Uprising which was visited upon Tibetans, through China’s bloody response. He documents the catalogue of terror and abuse which followed. A monsoon of violence, censorship, racism, control and propaganda, worthy of Nazi-Germany or Stalinist Russia, designed to crush Tibetan dissent, and secure preparations for the Beijing Olympics. An event which, as richly demonstrated by the author, permitted Beijing an opportunity to reassert its bogus claims over Tibet, manipulate international opinion through a range of propaganda distortions, and enabled further pressure to be exerted upon an Exiled Tibetan Government, desperate to facilitate negotiations with China. All of which is masterfully scrutinized by the author who sheds an enquiring and revealing light upon the tortuous and futile attempt by the exiled Tibetan Administration to appease Beijing in exchange for so-called meaningful autonomy.

What emerges throughout this book, apart from Warren W. Smith Junior’s obvious credentials and expertise as a pre-eminent authority, writer and researcher of Tibetan political history and its place in terms of international law, is the unyielding spirit of freedom in Tibet, which refuses to be crushed. The solid fact that, notwithstanding China forcefully denying Tibetan sovereignty, Tibet retains the right to self-determination and is a distinct culture and nation, albeit under occupation. Not surprising therefore that he considers Tibet’s national and cultural identity as constituting key territory in current and future efforts to resist, what may appear an inevitable decline into obscurity under communist Chinese domination.

The author has added another meritorious achievement to his already formidable literary output on Tibet, in examining the struggle for Tibet’s national and cultural survival he has composed a fascinating and thorough assessment. The detail, political reasoning and depth of knowledge prove compulsive reading and he is to be congratulated for assembling such an extensive account of the Tibetan National Uprising of 2008 and its political and human consequences. In articulating and determining the key issue of Tibetan nationalism, and exploring the nature and objectives of Tibetan resistance, it is a unique publication, informed and enriched by an author with genuine understanding of the issues. Featuring a wealth of meticulously researched material it offers fresh information and a scholarly perspective, to reveal what was a remarkable demonstration of national and cultural opposition to the oppression and injustice of Chinese rule.

By way of introduction the author refers to The Battle of The Little Big Horn in which the US Cavalry, lead by one Colonel Custer, was surrounded and massacred by an alliance of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in 1876. An event which marked the end of indigenous resistance to the relentless expansion of ‘development’ westwards. As the book notes, though sharing some features the analogy with the Tibetan struggle for freedom and nation is neither appropriate nor accurate. Unlike the various groupings of Indians across the United States, Tibetans though possessing differing dialects share many features that define a people; common language, religion, culture, history, and a system of government. Moreover unlike Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, Tibetans have an informed, educated and politically motivated Diaspora to champion their cause; promoting Tibetan freedom and opposing the distortions and propaganda of China’s bogus claims over Tibet. The author considers exiled Tibetans may provide a true rendering of Tibet’s history and maintain, against the disheartening reality of Chinese occupation, Tibetan national identity.

While the subject matter and academic practice demand realism and objectivity to permeate the pages of this definitive account, the reader departs the last page hoping for something more. Perhaps it’s a romantic hope that a resistance, beyond the tragic heroism of the Little Big Horn, can occur within and beyond Tibet. That the selfless courage and sacrifice which defined Tibet’s National Uprising of 2008 is not a last stand, but a defining and inspirational event that will invest current and future Tibetan generations with a determination to maintain the fires of freedom and independence.

Tibet‘s Last Stand? The Tibetan Uprising of 2008 and China‘s Response is required reading for anyone wishing to obtain an informed and factual understanding of the Tibetan issue, the political aspirations of the Tibetan people, or the rampant nationalism which defines the Chinese regime, its machinery of oppression and propaganda, and its merciless occupation of Tibet. Thoroughly captivating, it is a definitive reference from the foremost writer on Tibetan political history. A definitive reference, inspirational, at times heartbreaking and always informed, it is written in an accessible and lucid style. This publication will appeal to anyone interested in human rights, justice, and freedom for the people of Tibet.

Jamyang Kyi hastily brushed her teeth, put on her clothes and dashed out of her house without having breakfast. Before exiting the door she called to her niece, “Prepare some vegetables for lunch.” It was just another working day.

Once inside her office, a group of policemen in civilian dress arrested her. She was escorted to an unmarked vehicle and driven away to the local police station. On the way a Chinese officer lectured, “Under the special policy of the government, Tibet has undergone transformational development, and the construction goes on with massive infusions of funding every year. Official salaries are much higher than in other provinces. How can [you] they be so ungrateful?”

This fittingly sums up the fundamental problem that Beijing has with Tibet and Tibetan people. They utterly fail to understand that what we need is not money but freedom − freedom to ride our yaks, plough our fields, grow our barley and decide who are our leaders. What we need is not bullets exploding from the PLA’s guns, but to let our words soar freely in the wide blue sky. But of course, Beijing does not allow Tibetans to just be − because being Tibetan is being anti-Motherland; a crime big enough for you to be arrested on your way to work.

The fifty years of PRC occupation − and propaganda about astounding material development − has not changed the basic balance between the Chinese ruler and the ruled Tibetans. The half-truths dressed in quotable socialist maxims have brought Tibetans neither the promised socialist paradise nor the basic rights based on which some semblance of their lives can be built.

Thus, from her exile in Beijing, this was the response of our iconic writer, Woeser, to China’s massive military crackdown on the 2008 peaceful protests inside Tibet. “Tibet is no longer the Tibet of the past, and the Tibetan people are no longer the Tibetan people of the past – everything has undergone a genuine transformation. If one pretends to be aloof and indifferent and thinks that blood can just be washed away and that the truth can be covered over; or that atrocities will not be condemned and suffering will not be pondered; if one acts as though nothing ever happened and thinks life goes on as before, and the sun will rise as ever, this is just self deception… Tibetans are breaking through the silence.”

From Amdo, a young Tibetan, Kunga Tsangyang − a popular writer, blogger and photographer − writes that “the portrayal of Tibetans in Chinese official media this year has left an image of Tibetans as enemies,” and that “Tibetans are driven to a desperate position because of them being accused of doing things, which they never did, and small incidents were exaggerated and paraded before the world.”

Dolma Kyab, another young Tibetan writer, who is serving ten and a half years in prison for authoring The Restless Himalayas, wrote that “it should be known that understanding the realm and range of Tibet, and understanding that Tibet was formerly a viable independent nation before being colonized by China, is of great benefit to all Tibetan people in understanding ourselves,” and that “… it is only when we understand ourselves that we then have the power to understand this land that belongs to us.”

These are some of the powerful voices from Like Gold That Fears No Fire: New Writing From Tibet. It is a compilation of hard, unrepentant, creative voices with total authority to speak for their silenced brothers and sisters. All the writers have either faced persecution, exile, imprisonment or disappearance. Kunga Tsangyang’s whereabouts is unknown; Dolma Kyab is being incarcerated in Chushur high-security prison; Woeser is in exile in Beijing and Jamyang Kyi is being surveilled every day by watchful eyes after paying a huge sum for her release. Many others are restricted in their locality by the heavily-armed PLA and the dreaded PSB personnel.

The battle between people’s desire for freedom − and the regime’s appetite to crack down − rages on. This fight is between a roaming band of unarmed yaks and armoured tanks with red flags and yellow stars. As happened in Vietnam and the Soviet Union, the men with weapons of chemical dust are not destined to win in the end.

As a Tibetan, I will never give up the struggle for the rights of my people
As a religious person, I will never criticize the leader of my religion
As a writer, I am committed to the power of truth and reality
This is the pledge I make to my fellow Tibetans with my own life

The words are from Gartse Jigme. This reflects the spirit of a younger generation of Tibetans who have not experienced the terrible death and destruction of the Cultural Revolution. But they are well aware about the denial of basic rights and freedom. Until and unless Tibetans will achieve these, one generation of Tibetans will be followed by another who will creatively resist the Chinese occupation with the same determination as their predecessors.

Like Gold That Fears No Fire is a thoroughly inspiring compilation of current writing by Tibetans. Just as the Dalai Lama so often stresses the importance of education and intellectual exercise, these writers are clearly showing that the power of words is as enduring as the Himalayan mountains and more powerful than the barrel of a gun.

International Campaign for Tibet deserves a firm pat on its back for putting together this essential book. It comes at the right time with the right message. As we have known all along, the Tibetan issue is not only about religious freedom, cultural preservation or improvement in human rights situations. It is about the survival of a nation and self-determination of a people. This book will go a long way in proving to the world that people inside Tibet and in exile will neither compromise nor give up in their struggle for an independent Tibet.

China’s Tibet? Autonomy or Assimilation

For a book dealing with Sino-Tibetan relations Warren Smith’s new work takes an unusual standpoint. It refuses to assume the currently fashionable “a plague on both your houses” attitude; i.e. to regard the present problems of Tibet not just as originating from the harsh policies of the Chinese government but from the blunders of the Dalai Lama and the intransigence of exile Tibetans as well. Smith ignores such standard red herrings as Tibetan “failure to engage with China”, or Tibetan “hopes for American support” and instead sees the situation in stark and simple terms with Tibetans as victims and the Chinese as the victimizers. This is not to say that the book lacks objectivity or that Smith is taking sides. He is clearly aware of the numerous mistakes and even cupidity of the Tibetans in their dealings with China, but correctly sees these as secondary, sometimes even irrelevant to the overpowering reality of China’s brutal occupation and relentless assimilation of Tibet.

Warren Smith is well known to many Tibetan readers (of the Indian edition) of his masterful history, Tibetan Nation. For a book written by a non-Tibetan it is one that quite consciously attempts to understand and explain things from a Tibetan point of view. One Tibetan reader has claimed to appreciate Tibetan Nation because of its “tsampa smell”. Lhasang Tsering la of the BOOKWORM in Dharamshala, personally recommends Tibetan Nation to those seeking an up-to-date one-volume history of Tibet.

So it should come as no surprise that the introductory chapters in this new book, laying out the historical background, are impressively thorough. It is evident that Smith’s understanding of Tibetan history is not only broad and objective, but is appreciative of the Tibetan intellectual point of view. Quite a few experts tend to view Tibetan history largely from a Chinese or left-ideological perspective while some go to the other extreme of regarding Tibetan history and culture as largely a product of Buddhism. Smith’s work is a welcome corrective.

The first half of Smith’s book, which deals with China’s efforts to assimilate Tibet and to rewrite Tibetan history to conform to this new reality, is extremely useful because little has been published in this regard. Warren Smith’s accounts of Chinese propaganda efforts on Tibet are detailed and accurate. He provides extensive analysis of the works of China’s propagandists on Tibet as Anna Louise Strong and Israel Epstein. He also provides, on the book’s website, detailed critiques of Stuart and Roma Gelder’s The Timely Rain, Han Suyin’s Lhasa, The Open City, and also the Chinese government’s version of Tibetan history, The Historical Status of China’s Tibet. Although all of this is from a previous era it provides an important and clear picture of the continuity of Chinese propaganda effort and demonstrates how vital Beijing regards the contributions of pro-Chinese western journalists and academics in propagating and legitimizing the official view of “China’s Tibet”.

The book also highlights Beijing’s current propaganda programs and the varying degrees of success it has had in spreading its “China’s Tibet” message to the outside world through China’s own Tibetologists, pliant academics in the West, cultural festivals, theme parks, films, free DVD’s and publications. Smith discusses the seminal 1993 meeting of the External Propaganda Committee of the PRC Propaganda Department where China’s successful propaganda strategy on Tibet was worked out and launched.

Smith also tackles China’s propaganda efforts within Tibetan society, and the impact that such misinformation has had, especially on the younger generation. He provides detailed information of such propaganda institutions as the Museum of the Tibetan Revolution and it’s most infamous and exhaustively invented exhibition of the “evils” of old Tibetan society, The Wrath of the Serfs. Warren Smith devotes a chapter to propaganda films, especially the feature film, Serf, made by a PLA film company in 1963. This unapologetically racist, debasing and viciously false representation of old Tibetan society and culture was enormously significant for Chinese audiences in the formation of their chauvinistic views about Tibet and China’s role there. The movie was shown all over China and Tibet.

Smith’s coverage of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet is thorough and provides an exclusive window on events through selective highlights from the autobiography of Rinbur Tulku, who witnessed the destruction of temples, monasteries and monuments in and around Lhasa. Rinbur Tulku provides a detailed account not just of the destruction and desecration, but also of the deliberate process by which Chinese authorities systematically looted the shrines and temples of all valuable jewelry, precious metals and objet d’art that were all trucked to China before the supposedly chaotic destruction took place. Smith also demonstrates that the events were not spontaneous and chaotic as claimed by China’s apologists in the West, and that Tibetan participation in the destruction clearly came about due to pressure and coercion.

Smith’s coverage of the history of the Sino-Tibetan dialogue or negotiations, and the lack of any kind of development in this regard, is probably one of the most dispassionate, critical and detailed accounts we have to date. This alone will make the book worth reading for many students of Tibetan affairs. In a detailed and systematic exposition Smith makes it clear that there is no hope of “genuine autonomy” or “meaningful autonomy” for Tibet, as the Dalai Lama has been advocating. He further explains that the very idea of even a minimal autonomous status for Tibet was never one that had ever been entertained with any degree of sincerity by Beijing, even when the guarantee of autonomy was first undertaken by Chinese leaders at the signing of the 17 Point Agreement in 1951. Smith effectively underlines his contention with a hard-nosed exposition of the doctrinal realities involved. “The ultimate goal of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist nationalities doctrine was not autonomy, but assimilation. Autonomy in Marxist-Leninist theory and practice was a temporary tactic intended to reduce minorities’ resistance to incorporation into Communist states.”

Smith’s book lacks a clear narrative thread and certain chapters read like separate essays. This might be considered a virtue by those who find it heavy going to read an academic work all the way through, and prefer to sample sections of it at their convenience. Whichever way one goes about reading it, the fund of information and insight to be gained from this book ought to bring about a clear and disturbing appreciation of what China actually intends to do about Tibet.

Warren Smith is not an optimist regarding the future of Tibet. He nonetheless thinks that Tibetans might have a small (and only) chance if they were to give up their hopes for an autonomous status under China and assume responsibility for “the survival of their own national identity and their national destiny.” His final sentence is a slap in the face of those who hold that the Tibet issue can only be resolved through “negotiations”, “a change of heart in Beijing”, or on China becoming a democracy . Smith let’s us have it straight up. “The final result of the Tibet issue will be that Tibetans themselves will determine their fate, or they will be unable to do so.”

The essays in Shadow Tibet cover the years from 1989 to 2004. Jamyang Norbu’s earliest writings are available in a collection with the title Illusion and Reality. These are well worth re-reading since many are still relevant to the current situation. In fact in this volume he has a major tribute essay on George Orwell where he demonstrates how Orwell in his famous novel, 1984, foresaw a totalitarian society like Communist China – down to specific details. Jamyang Norbu is also the author, of course, of several other works, including Horseman in the Snow, the account of a Tibetan Resistance fighter; the delightful, well-researched and beautifully written Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, winner of the Crossword Prize for fiction in India; his manifesto for Tibetan independence, Rangzen Charter: The Case for Tibetan Independence and Buying the Dragon’s Tooth.

Shadow Tibet begins with a 1990 essay “Opening of the Political Eye: Tibet’s Long Search for Democracy,” in which he details the abortive attempts of the Tibetan exile community to develop anything resembling true democracy. One of the most interesting observations in this essay, at least for the spiritual seekers who flocked to Dharamshala in the 70s and 80s, is that by re-empowering the religious establishment they stifled more modern and healthy secular interests among Tibetans in favor of a return to everything that was magical and mystical about Tibet. As Norbu writes, “Through their constant disdain of Western rationalism, democracy and science, Western travelers effectively discouraged Tibetan curiosity about the West, and encouraged Tibetans to revert to their old and fatal way of dealing with reality by burying their heads in the sands of magic, ritual and superstition.” Things went downhill for Tibetan democracy after that, beginning with a period of an unrealistic interest in Communism, with the Dalai Lama himself leading the way with his statements about the similarities between Buddhism and Communism. It got even worse, with a tendency for organizations to be formed on regional or factional lines rather than as national organizations. Tibetan society in exile has still to achieve real democracy; rather it remains a peculiar form of autocracy due to the role of the Dalai Lama.

In “Imperial Twilight: A Tibetan Perspective on China after Deng Xiaoping,” written in 1991, Norbu makes an observation that has been reaffirmed by the Chinese people after the recent Tibetan protests. Quoting Lu Xun, the Chinese author who wrote “In his inferiority, a Chinese person is a slave; in his arrogance, he is a tyrant,” Norbu comments, “Even Chinese democrats in the West seem to suffer from this. They want freedom and justice for themselves but are unwilling to extend it to others, such as the Tibetans.” Recounting his discussions, along with Lhasang Tsering, with Chinese students during a speaking tour in the US in 1990, he says that the students denounced Beijing’s lies about Tiananmen, but when it came to Tibet they quoted CCP propaganda of the crudest kind, including “gross racial and cultural misrepresentations about Tibet and Tibetans.” His conclusion is that the necessary “moral and cultural regeneration” of China can only come about through the dissolution of its empire. In “From Tibet the Cry is ‘Rangzen’” written in 1993, he points out that Tibetan slogans at demonstrations and manifestos of the time invariably demanded freedom and independence, not autonomy. The same may be said of Tibetan demands during the 2008 Uprising.

In “Broken Images: Cultural Questions Facing Tibetans Today,” he decries the deleterious effects of the Chinese “modernization” of Tibetan language and culture. These include such phenomenon as the influence of Chinese speaking style on Tibetan radio announcers and the influence on literature, drama and painting. In “The Heart of the Matter: Some Observations on the Independence Controversy,” written in 1994, he comments on the perennial debate in Tibetan politics about whether Tibetans should compromise on the independence issue in the hope that China would respond by allowing some real autonomy. He demonstrates that the flaw in this argument is that China has never expressed the slightest willingness to compromise on any aspect of its rule over Tibet. The “negotiator” with China at that time, Gyalo Thondup, had to admit that all his discussions with the Chinese had achieved nothing, and that he had been constantly scolded and browbeaten by Chinese officials who never listened to anything he had to say. Nevertheless, China has always managed to distract Tibetans and the world by making another offer to dialogue. They have done so again recently, on 24 April 2008, fooling some who imagine their offer to be new and sincere.

In “Unquiet Memories: The Tibetan Resistance and the Role of the CIA,” Jamyang Norbu gives us one of the best descriptions of the Tibetan resistance on record in English, even with the publication of several new books on the subject. In “Non-Violence or Non-Action? Some Gandhian Truths about the Tibetan Peace Movement,” written in 1997, he demolishes the myth, often promoted by Dharamshala, that the Tibetan freedom struggle has always been non-violent. Nor should it have been, least of all since that was the only way the Dalai Lama was able to escape. He shows that Gandhi himself advocated violence in some instances, such as the struggle for Indian independence, and that no less an authority on non-violence than the Thirteenth Dalai Lama recommended forceful means in the defense of Tibetan independence if peaceful means were ineffective.

“Rite of Freedom: The Life and Sacrifice of Thupten Ngodup,” is a eulogy to the life of a simple Tibetan who gave up his life for his country in a dramatic act of self-immolation. In “Body-Snatchers,” and “Back to the Future,” two parts of an essay with the subtitle “Enduring Phobias in Tibetan Society,” Jamyang Norbu recounts hilarious stories of the credulousness of many Tibetans and their superstitions that have persisted in exile and in Tibet. While not condemning these aspects of Tibetan society, he suggests that more scientific and secular knowledge might be more useful for Tibet in its current struggle for survival. In an intelligent analysis of Chinese literature, “Oracle Bones: Random Speculations on China’s Future,” based upon a paper presented at the Conference on Sino-Tibetan Relations in Washington in 1992, he finds no real Chinese knowledge of Tibet or sympathy for Tibetans. “No work by any author from China—or, for that matter, a Chinese writer anywhere on the globe—has in any way dealt intelligently or sensitively with Tibet—with its people, religion, history and customs. On the whole they have been uniformly and offensively racist, often with an ill-concealed vein of hostility towards even the mildest of Tibetan aspirations for freedom.” With the partial exception of one Chinese writer, Wang Lixiong, this is still true, and China and its people have recently demonstrated their continuing intolerance for Tibetan freedom.

In “Return of the Referendum,” written in 2000, he ridicules attempts to conduct a referendum on Tibet’s status either within Tibet or in exile. The referendum in exile, on independence or autonomy, which was actually meant to confirm the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way Approach, turned into farce when two further options, self-determination and Samdhong Rinpoche’s satyagraha, or “truth insistence,” were added. Tibetans could have voted for more than one of these categories, since not all were mutually exclusive. In the end, the referendum was cancelled due to general confusion. Nevertheless, Dharamshala now claims that the Middle Way has been “democratically” chosen by Tibetans since they have expressed their preference that the Dalai Lama should decide.

In “Acme of Obscenity” Norbu demolishes the writings of the pseudo-scholar Tom Grunfeld. In “The Tibet-China Visit According to Peanuts,” written in 2002 upon the revival of Sino-Tibetan contacts, he compares the perpetual Tibetan hope for talks to Charlie Brown’s similarly unrealistic hope that Lucy will not pull away the football she is holding for him to kick, as she has done every time in the past. But of course she does it again, once again exploiting Charlie’s hopefulness. China did the same to Tibetans’ hopefulness, from 2002, when Jamyang Norbu predicted that the renewed contacts would lead to nothing, until 2008 when, having been disappointed for too long, Tibetans resorted to violence in Lhasa and many other places in Tibet. Despite Norbu’s prescience, his predictions went against the prevailing mood of wishful thinking and were thus disregarded. Perhaps Tibetans and their supporters, who are often more unrealistic than Tibetans themselves, will have finally learned their lesson and will regard China’s April 2008 offer of talks as nothing more than the falsity that it is.

In “Freedom Wind, Freedom Song: Dispelling Modern Myths about the Tibetan National Flag and National Anthem,” he refutes the Chinese contention that the Tibetan flag was invented only after 1959 by Tibetans in exile. He shows that Tibet’s flag actually has a more lengthy history than the majority of the independent countries in the world, most of whose flags are quite recent inventions. Tibet’s unique and colorful flag has most recently become familiar to many people in the world, including many Chinese, due to the worldwide publicity about the 2008 uprising. Tibet’s flag is now well-recognized as the symbol of Tibetan national identity and of Tibet’s denied right to national self-determination. In their collected form these essays compose a history of the Tibetan issue for the years they cover.

Jamyang Norbu has also written many newer articles, most posted on Tibetan websites, including “Looking Back from Nangpa La;” “The Jewel in the Ballot Box;” “The Forgotten Anniversary: Remembering the Great Khampa Uprising of 1956;” “Tibetans Welcome President Hu?;” “Newspeak and New Tibet: The Myth of China’s Modernization of Tibet and the Tibetan Language” and several others. We may hope to soon see these in a third volume of his collected essays.

I am continually impressed with the literary style and references in Jamyang Norbu’s writings. I am as impressed in re-reading them as I was when they were first published and I never fail to learn something from his insights. His opinions have stood the test of time and are as accurate and applicable now as when first written. His writings are essential for an understanding of the modern Tibetan situation. I frankly do not know how anyone can claim to an expertise on Tibet without familiarity with Jamyang Norbu’s writings. I only wish that his own Tibetan government had as high a regard for his advice. Much foolishness might have been prevented had Jamyang Norbu been more heeded by Dharamshala.

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The North American edition of Shadow Tibet is available on line.
The Indian edition is available at bookstores in India and Nepal. All profits including the author’s royalties go to bringing out new titles on High Asia Press.

Tomorrow & Other Poems

The issue of Tibet is a remnant of the Great Game. Only now the playing fields are a tiny town in northern India and the Great Hall of People via Hong Kong. For the past decade or so the Tibetan issue has taken unfathomable twists and turns, from Independence to one country with two systems, from genuine autonomy to association with China. After forty years, we are at our wits end, having tried everything, it seems, except to stick to the struggle for independence – which is rightly ours and wrongly snatched from us.

The struggle for independence is not a fancy show in a dream theatre. It is bitter fight for truth that consumes lives and takes generations. China is a millenarian thinker and so are her policies. Our struggle for freedom must be based on the understanding of this fundamental concept. Given the Dragon’s appetite, he will not be satisfied even if we kow-tow before him. China desires nothing less than complete fealty from us, which we, as a dignified race with an ancient history, cannot fulfil. Can we turn a blind eye to the sacrifice that our heroes have made? Does our history mean nothing to us? Does freedom mean nothing to us? Mr. Lhasang answers some of these questions in Tomorrow & Other Poems.

After a long drought of mediocre poetry books that starved us of poetic prowess, Tomorrow & Other Poems is a refreshing shower of rain.

Tomorrow & Other Poems is a collection of poems by Mr. Lhasang Tsering. Like the man himself, it is a distilled and pristine human experience. It has neither an over-play of highfalutin words nor complicated principles. His words are clear-cut, his expression simple. Through his poems Mr. Lhasang gives a clarion call for FREEDOM for Tibet. Only a few books I have read without a break – this was one of them. I was doused with fire and drowned in tears. It is a testimony of common men’s experience as refugees in a foreign country and subjects in an occupied country. In a Diaspora where ordinary compatriots are confused by heading-nowhere political strategy, his words are beacon lights. He gives a voice to thousands of voiceless refugees, who desire nothing but to return to their native land… to a free and independent Tibet.

On my final day I’ll return to free Tibet
And on my final day I’ll die in free Tibet.

The focus of the book is explicit. It is a breathless freedom marathon. He does not suffer from any of the ailments of which poets are likely to suffer like romanticism, philosophising, hyperverbosity or rhymes overshadowing the theme. Reading Tomorrow & Other Poems can maim you, punch you and be warned… it can change you.

He is a true Pak [1] and Chang [2] poet. His love for Tibet is boundless and he himself is something of a legend. My school-boy awe and wonderment for him still reigns. But he is a frustrated man. His frantic call for freedom for Tibet is shunned by mainstream politics and is mockingly termed as “harping on an empty word.” Yet he lives with hope as HOPE is a staple for displaced people. He hopes against hope. Hope for hope. Hope for the impossible. Why not hope. After all, for a man whose tomorrow is uncertain, hope is the only thing.

Though his name is synonymous with violence, [3] in Tomorrow & Other Poems, Lhasang Tsering shows his gentle side.

I know I’m not tall
I know I’m not handsome,
But when all are equal in His eyes
How then could I –
Fall short in her eyes?

Although the Exile House is a wee bit bigger than the 8 by 10 refugee shack that he occupied, his memory of his early years in exile is fresh and unsullied. With creative touch and simplicity he defines his erstwhile refuge thus:

Eight by ten
Measured in feet
In any country
Is a small room.

Eight by ten
For refugee
Is quite often
The only room.

Like a true Tibetan he mingles unique Tibetan culture and beliefs into his poetry. Freedom for example, is constructed in the shape of a Buddhist stupa, the symbol of Dharmakayu. When Buddha passed away, his disciples constructed a dome shaped stupa to preserve the remains of Buddha Shakyamuni and more importantly to represent his enlightened mind. In Freedom Mr. Lhasang asserts why a man must have freedom to live a dignified life. The freedom he talks of is ’an earthly freedom’ which one must fight for with blood, tears and toil, for it does not come through meditation.

While some for heavenly freedom vie
Others for earthly freedom will die.

An Ode in 21 Verses, I assume, is appropriately penned in twenty-one verses like the twenty-one Taras. Tara, ’saviouress’ or ’she who liberates’, is the embodiment of Buddha’s fully enlightened mind and, hence, she is spoken of as the mother of all the Buddhas. Like Tara, An Ode in 21 Verses, is the quintessence of Tibetan tragedy. It is overpoweringly passionate. It is a testimony to the suffering of Tibet, especially the unknown heroes who fought and sacrificed their lives. The poem’s clarity and rhythmic sorrow attest to Mr. Lhasang’s personal experience with the pain of those who died fighting and the agony of those languishing in jails. There are many poems that ought to be incorporated into the Tibetan school curriculum. This is one such. The pain of writing with intense feeling is only matched by the pain of living without a country.

Ode to a Freedom Fighter has seven verses like the seven water offering bowls that all Tibetans set on their altars. It is a frank recognition of the supreme sacrifice made by the warriors gone by. It is also a direct challenge to the middle-path approach of waiting for negotiation to resolve the future status of Tibet. Mr. Lhasang’s freedom is not simply about our return to Tibet. His freedom is a vision, in which our children can live in Tibet without having to bow their heads. We have seen the ’iron curtain crash’ and the liberation of East Timor; then why must we believe that the ’bamboo curtain will remain forever’. Yet ’association’ is the mantra being dutifully chanted. We have forgotten our past glory and given up on our future hope. Our heroes died for nothing. We betrayed them.

Your deeds forgot, your name unsung
A new history we have begun.
Seek not rebirth O warrior dead
Freedom is a dirty word, you will find to your regret!

Despair not, my friend for there is hope yet. The road may be long and winding. Many of our leaders may be confused and short-sighted. But the will of the people will prevail. Truth must triumph. We, the youth and future of Tibet, firmly stand for dignity and freedom for Tibet.

Because freedom is not just another word
Freedom most certainly is not an empty word.

Footnotes

[1] ’Pak’ is dough made from Tsampa using water or tea. Tsampa – the staple diet of Tibetans is flour made from roasted barley. Other grains may be used in absence of barley.

[2] ’Chang’ is traditional barley beer

[3] He never advocates violence as the only means, but he reserves it as a last resort to fight for independence and self defence.