Introduction
The Birth of the Freedom Struggle
Tibet Now: the Reality
Legacy of Rangzen

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Elaborate celebrations are being planned this year in Beijing to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s seizure of power in China. It also seems that quite extraordinary security preparations are also being undertaken, as, no doubt, Chinese leaders have realised that this year is also the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. As a matter of fact, this is also the 10th anniversary of the imposition of martial law in Tibet and the 50th "anniversary", in a manner of speaking, of the arrival of Communist troops in Eastern Tibet. It is also, most significantly of all, the 40th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising. So no doubt the security precautions being observed in Lhasa and other parts of Tibet are just as thorough.

In olden days such a phenomenal confluence of events would no doubt have been regarded as a portent of some kind, possibly even of imminent change in the destiny of the concerned nation. Whether we subscribe to such beliefs or dismiss them in the spirit of rationalism, there is no getting away from the growing and nagging realisation that somehow 1999 has become a watershed year for all Tibetans.

The struggle for Tibetan independence is fast approaching a profound crisis; a crisis that goes much deeper than can merely be ascribed to mistaken government policies or the machinations of self-serving and often self-appointed "negotiators". The very question of Tibet’s identity, not just as a nation but even as a fact of history, is under assault. Jiang Zemin has demanded that the Dalai Lama not only give up Tibetan independence but also the very concept that a free Tibet had ever existed in the past. These demands, however outrageous, do seem to have made an impression on us, if we are to judge by the weakening of the conduct of the Freedom Struggle world wide, especially in the timid and muddle-headed discontinuation of the barely-started but promising economic campaign against China.

Equally significant is last year’s grievous policy débâcle. Prior to the Dalai Lama’s visit to Washington DC in November 1998, and seemingly in response to Jiang Zemin’s demands, a number of official announcements were made of "major concessions" to China. Even a trial balloon (later denied) seems to have been floated in the German magazine Die Woche, where acceptance of Tibet and even Taiwan as inalienable parts of China were hinted at. But China decided it had no need for dialogue with the Dalai Lama and slammed the door shut on any possible negotiations. Depressing and shameful as this incident was, it was unfortunately only the latest in a long line of such ignominious and futile capitulations.

The period of crisis looming over our society now is, without doubt, not only extremely dispiriting and confusing, but also morally debilitating. This can be seen in the vicious religious and political conflicts within the exile community, and the search for a new life in the West by many, especially younger, Tibetans. But such a period of crisis can be pregnant with hidden opportunities. Nature has provided compensations for even her worst catastrophes. Volcanic eruptions and floods cause immense destruction and suffering, but they also bring about the renewal of the land in the deposit of rich volcanic soil and fertile loess. Great crises, by their very nature, herald change. Whether that change will be beneficial or not seems, to a large degree, dependent on the ability of people to adapt to that change and to use it boldly and effectively. The Chinese word for crisis "weiji" is made up of two characters, "wei" or danger and "ji" or opportunity.

T H E   B I R T H   O F   T H E   F R E E D O M   S T R U G G L E

As mentioned earlier, 1999 also marks the 40th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising. The choice made by the Tibetan people then (and earlier by Tibetans in Kham and Amdo) did not merely provide temporary relief against Chinese terror, but truly saved Tibet from a silent and uneventful extinction. This is not to argue that the resistance movement was militarily successful, nor that the defiance of the Chinese occupation authorities by patriotic officials like Lukhangwa or Lobsang Tashi was in any way a sustainable line of action, nor for that matter that the Lhasa uprising was an act of desperation rather than organisation and planning. However, viewed from a historical perspective there can be no doubt that the cumulative effect of these events brought about the flight of the Dalai Lama and his government, and the diaspora of Tibetans into the outside world. This, in turn, created the renewed opportunity for the assertion of Tibetan identity and independence. There can also be no doubt by now that had the Tibetan people not made that particular choice then that Tibetan national and cultural identity would have disappeared, or at least been compromised and weakened to a point where what remained would be no more than an exotic tourist attraction in one of China’s "minority" areas.

Once again, as in 1959, the Tibetan people are being called upon by history to make a choice. Inside Tibet, after decades of soul-destroying Communist indoctrination and one of the most cruel and unrelenting system, of repression in the world, the Tibetan people’s hope for Rangzen still stubbornly refuses to be crushed — a recent expression of this being the demonstration and hunger-strikes in Drapchi prison resulting in the shooting deaths and executions of an unknown number of prisoners. In exile, despite the confusion, cynicism, apathy and erosion of political and moral integrity, the sacrifice of Thupten Ngodup and the courage and determination of the Tibetan Youth Congress-led hunger strikers last year, clearly demonstrate the depths of national feeling among the people.

T I B E T   N O W :   T H E   R E A L I T Y

All this is happening at a time when Chinese repression in Tibet is at its harshest and most unrelenting since the so-called "liberalisation" began, and shows every sign of becoming worse.

In China itself, contrary to all the speculations and ill-founded hopes that it was becoming more democratic (and hence amenable to dialogue with the Dalai Lama, or so went the theory) we have had, at the end of 1998, large-scale arrests of democracy activists and the clear hard-line declaration by Jiang Zemin on 18th December, 1998 to the entire nation that China would never tread the path of democracy. To drive this message home, as it were, Jiang repeated it a couple of days later, in addition vowing that China would crush any challenge to Communist Party monopoly on power. Immediately afterwards, China targeted the publishing and entertainment industries, mandating harsh punishment for those found guilty of "inciting to subvert state power". The rule covers writing, music, movies, television, video recordings or any material that "endangers social order". This flurry of hard-line reversion came almost immediately after China signed the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October 1998.

Repression in Tibet has always been a far more brutal and pitiless sort of business than that practised in China. It has also had distinct racist and genocidal characteristics which are inadequately conveyed by the term "human rights’ abuse" generally used by the Tibetan government and its supporters. There is probably no place in the world now (except probably for North Korea) controlled in the Stalinist police-state method like Tibet, most noticeably Lhasa city. To a great extent this is overlooked by Western tourists, visiting Tibet experts and even naïve exile-Tibetan visitors, too ignorant of the chameleon qualities of the Chinese totalitarian system, and impressed, in spite of themselves, by the scale of China’s brave new capitalist society — and maybe sometimes tempted by the opportunities.

But behind the façade of discos, karaokes and four-star hotels, the Chinese government’s chillingly unambiguous "Merciless Repression" and "Strike Hard" policies are being rigorously enforced. The slave labour camps (laogaidui), the police, the Public Security Bureau (gonganju), the People’s Armed Police, the military, and the danwei control system (a Communist refinement of the traditional baojia, "mutual watch" system) implemented through work units, re-education teams, neighbourhood committees, neighbourhood security departments and informers, all operate freely and openly. They are unfettered by anything remotely resembling independent courts, a free press, civic bodies, independent watch dog organisations, moral or religious voices, the presence of even a single representative of the world media, or rambunctious university students. Even in the worst governed countries in South East Asia, South America or Africa one usually finds some such institution or the other, frustrating, if not preventing, the kind of absolutism of tyranny that Chinese leaders practise with impunity in Tibet.

Possessing a picture of the Dalai Lama is now a criminal offence, punishable by a lengthy prison term. Monks at every monastery in Tibet are now being forced to undergo political re-education. Party control of monasteries is pervasive and the number of fresh recruits rigidly regulated. Reports have appeared even in the official Tibet Daily, of monasteries in Eastern Tibet being closed and many others being destroyed outright, in campaigns frighteningly reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. From inside the "Tibet Autonomous Region" (TAR) there are confirmed reports of destruction and closure of such important institutions as the 700 year-old Jonang Kumbum and the 12th century Rakhor nunnery, besides others.

The Chinese leadership seems to have realised that the strength of Tibetan cultural and national identity makes the Tibetan people unable to accept Chinese rule. Chen Kuiyuan, Tibet’s party secretary, has come out very clearly and declared that the enemy to integrating Tibet fully into China is Tibetan cultural identity. It is for this reason that Tibetan religion, culture and literature, allowed limited expression in the last fifteen to twenty years, are once again being stifled. The Tibetan language is being actively discouraged and even threatened with extinction by Chinese official policies.

Besides the repression, increasing Chinese immigration into Tibet has been equally effective in undermining Tibetan identity. It has brought about major unemployment and the rapid pauperisation of the Tibetan population, accompanied by the consequent social problems of alcoholism, criminalisation and sexual degradation.

L E G A C Y   O F   R A N G Z E N 

Few people in the world are so distinctly defined by the kind of land they live in as the Tibetans. Tibetan national identity has not just been created by history, nor only by religion, but has its roots deep in the Tibetan land. Tibetans are people who live, and have always lived, on the great Tibetan plateau, high above and apart from the rest of the world. The passage to Tibetan-inhabited areas from the surrounding lowlands of Nepal, India and China is not only unmistakable and dramatic but clearly a transition to a unique world.

Few other people are so specifically defined by geography or climate except perhaps for Eskimos, Bedouins and Polynesian Islanders. But very early in their history Tibetans managed to transcend this merely environmental affinity to create a powerful national identity through the unification of the various kingdoms and tribes throughout the plateau. The sense of wonder and pride that these first inhabitants of a united Tibet felt for their new nation is evident in this extract from an ancient song on the manifestation of the first emperor of Tibet:

The centre of heaven,
The core of the earth,
This heart of the world,
Fenced round by snow,
The headland of all rivers,
Where the mountains are high and the land is pure,
O, country so good,
Where men are born as sages and heroes,
To this land of horses ever more speedy,
Choosing it for its qualities he came here.1

Though the imperial period of Tibetan history ended around the tenth century, its legacy of nationhood was permanent. Later monarchs like Phagdru Jangchub Gyaltsen (1302-1364) and the Great 5th Dalai Lama (1617-1682) consciously drew inspiration from the imperial age in their efforts to create a united and free Tibet. More recently, the Great 13th Dalai Lama’s (1876-1933) untiring and monumental struggle to regain and later defend Tibetan independence was no less an expression of this heritage of national freedom that Tibetans have maintained throughout their history.

It is absolutely essential that we Tibetans understand how longstanding and legitimate our claims to nationhood are. Many nations in this world are, in a sense, largely products of history. The United States, Canada, and Australia do not derive their true national origins from the land, as Tibet does. Other countries like Kuwait, Jordan, Singapore, and some African states are creations of Western colonial policy, or the debris of colonial rule. More recently, out of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, countries like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, etc. — which never existed as nations in history, have come into being. This is not to argue that Tibet has any more right to exist as a nation than these countries — after all, it is the natural and fundamental right of all peoples to determine their own way of life — but to underline the fact that Tibet’s status as a nation is at least as legitimate as that of any other country in the world. That we did not join the League of Nations or the United Nations, or that some big powers did not recognise Tibet as a nation, because they did not want to jeopardise their trade links with China, does not detract from this legitimacy.

The fact that Tibet has, for periods of its history, been conquered by foreign powers or that some Tibetan ruler used foreign military backing to gain political control of the country also makes no difference to its rightful status as a free nation. Even when Tibet’s political and military power had declined considerably in the 18th and 19th centuries and a degree of Manchu rule was exercised over the country, the uniqueness of Tibet’s civilisation and its racial and national identity was recognised by people all over Asia, not least by the Manchus themselves, who only appointed Manchus and Mongols of high birth as their commissioners in Tibet, never a Chinese. In fact, Manchu relations with Tibet were handled by the Li Fan Yuan (one of the two "departments" of the Manchu "Foreign Office") which also handled relations between the Manchu court and Mongol princes, Tibet, East Turkestan (Xinjiang) and Russia. Tibet and especially its capital, Lhasa, was regarded by Buriats and Kalmucks in Russia, and millions of Mongols as the centre of their culture and faith. The Russian explorer Prejevalsky in 1878 sent a memorandum to the Geographic society and the War Ministry "… He drew a picture of Lhasa as the Rome of Asia with spiritual power stretching from Ceylon to Japan over 250 million people: the most important target for Russian diplomacy."2

There is probably no country in the world that has not at one time or another been under the rule of another. Few, if any, of the UN member states could claim independent statehood if they had to demonstrate a history of continuous and uncompromised independence. As the Irish delegate pointed out in the 1960 UN debate on Tibet, most of the countries in the General Assembly would not be there if they had to prove that they had never in the past been dominated by another country.

Britain was for nearly four hundred years a part of the Roman Empire. Russia was under the Mongols for well over two centuries, and of course the United States started off as a British colony. China itself was ruled both by the Mongols and Manchus, and repeatedly defeated in war by the Tibetans, who even captured and briefly held the Chinese capital of Chang An in 763 A.D.. Though the Chinese now affect, for obviously self-serving reasons, that their Mongol and Manchu conquerors were regular Chinese dynasties, it cannot really mask the xenophobic hatred that the Chinese felt (and even now seem to feel) for their foreign rulers. After the fall of the Manchu dynasty there were large-scale massacres of Manchus in cities like Xi’an. And lest we forget, a large part of China was under Japanese occupation earlier this century.