What Do They Mean When They Say “We Must Strive to See That the Reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is Produced Only Within the Country”?

By Tsering Woeser

An article that merits very close reading was published in the Hong Kong Asia Weekly (vol. 27, no. 22) under the title “Exclusive Interview with Professor Jin Wei of the Social Science Teaching and Research Section of the Central Communist Party School: Reopen Talks and Resolve Tibetan Issues.”

In this article the Party School professor’s crucial sentence reads: “We must strive to see that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is produced only within the country.”

There’s also one sentence that is absolutely revelatory: “Although we could use ‘The Golden Urn’ to restrict an incarnate child from being born outside the country, history also offers the precedent of an incarnate lama designating his successor. We must do everything possible to avoid the embarrassing situation of ‘twin Panchen Lamas.’” The Party School professor is too incautious: how could she have revealed the secret that it was Communist Party yahoos managing the “Golden Urn” ceremony who officially designated a “Fake Panchen Lama”?

This Party School professor, someone who recommends “that the Chinese Communist Party must remain highly self-confident,” is quite callous about what she’s found to be the nature of Tibetan self-immolations: “Self-immolations are continuing and expanding at a fast pace. It’s effectively become a ‘collective plague;’ it’s become a contagion; a movement.”

But the last sentence in her article seems calculated to kill two birds with one stone: “Tibetan issues are exceedingly important to China today. If it is possible to forge a new way of thinking and to break through the deadlock, it will not only advance social stability and allow us to avoid forming nationality wounds that are hard to heal, but also have a positive effect on other minority nationalities. At the same time it will aid in unification with Taiwan, and can also elevate China’s international image.”

The problem is that by some extraordinary coincidence, no sooner had the Party School professor made the suggestion to “let the Dalai Lama visit Hong Kong or Macao purely in the capacity of a religious leader; later on we can consider allowing him to reside in Hong Kong,” than on that same day, June 3, the Voice of Tibet reported that “A Hong Kong organization has invited the Dalai Lama to visit Hong Kong to preside over religious activities.” It further states that “The Hong Kong Tibetan and Han-Chinese Friendship Association recently made it known that it had already invited the Dalai Lama to visit Hong Kong and to preside over a ‘World Peace—Universal Harmony’ religious gathering and had forwarded an application for the purpose to the immigration office.”

How could there be such a coincidence?! This is far too bizarre! Could it be that some sort of scam is being played? And what’s the background of this Hong Kong organization?

According to reports, the person who invited His Holiness to visit Hong Kong is a certain someone who’s the founder of the “Hong Kong Tibetan and Han-Chinese Friendship Association.” On Twitter an internet friend from Hong Kong wrote “It’s said that he’s a swindler. Some people say his background includes close ties to the Communist Party. The day before yesterday a friend already came to ask me about his background, saying he was going to hold a press conference tomorrow.”

Even though—contrary to what one might think—being a swindler and having a background of close ties to the Communist Party are very compatible, the question is: how could this sort of person have been allowed to extend an invitation to His Holiness the Dalai Lama to come to Hong Kong? How is this not extremely sinister?

And this “Tibetan-Han Chinese Friendship Association” seems very much like the Confucius Institutes that are blossoming all over the world: complicated backgrounds and a flicker of spy shadows…

And that certain someone who is its founder? According to information supplied by an internet friend on Twitter he was the convener of the 2009 “Right to Inherent Dignity Movement Association” which at that time seriously disrupted the July 1^st [pro-democracy] demonstration. The Apple Daily reported that “it had fought over who had rented the Victoria Park site; and similarly along the march route, the same weird group was suspected of seriously disrupting the July 1^st demonstration.” At the time the Voice of America also reported that he had wanted to go to Victoria Park to fight over control of the demonstration’s base area.

And now this person has become the founder of the “Hong Kong Tibetan-Han Chinese Friendship Association.” At the beginning of last year he travelled to Dharamsala and saw His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Afterwards he had a photo of himself with the Dalai Lama enlarged and showed it off all over the place. And most recently he declared that he had invited His Holiness to visit Hong Kong to preside over Buddhist teaching activities. He even claimed that he’d already received written approval for this from the government. But, as an internet friend said on Twitter, in previous years the Hong Kong Government had refused entry to Wang Dan; if it were now to allow the Dalai Lama to enter that would be really strange.

So in the end, what is this all about?

The heart of the heart of the whole thing lies in the wondrous nature of this Party School professor. Her first suggestion has already met with a fortuitous coincidence (whether His Holiness actually goes to Hong Kong is another matter; the coincidence has already happened). And as for her second suggestion—“We must strive to see that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is produced only within the country.”—does one dare say that it too will meet with a fortuitous coincidence?

How is it that one feels that there’s a chess game in play, move by move? Ultimately, how should one “strive”? Who is the “we” of whom the Central Party School professor speaks?

Is the Communist Party carefully laying out its opening gambit? Is it setting up moves for a very long-term game? Many people of various identities and statuses are popping up. White faces, red faces; sweet talk, honeyed words. They even play the pity card. And they use “restarting talks” as bait; they use a visit to Hong Kong as bait. This includes the 2,500,000 yuan that Xinhua reports as having been spent by the Communist Party to renovate His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s former residence (which is [in China’s geographical delineation of the area] in Hongya village, located in Shihuiyao Township in Ping’an County, within Qinghai Province’s Haidong Prefecture). As a goal, do they imagine that they can ultimately have His Holiness promise to reincarnate “within the country”? Well, just as the Party School professor said: “We must strive to see that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is produced only within the country.”

But also, as an internet friend said on Twitter, “To make concessions and pay such a high price simply to visit Hong Kong is clearly unreasonable. Connecting this to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile’s impatience to return to Tibet and its resultant promise to renounce the status of political independence and democracy, a visit to Hong Kong at this time may be a pivotal link in negotiations.” Of course, His Holiness cannot commit himself so easily, but the “we” that the Central Party School professor needed to mention certainly can “strive,” because as far as Beijing is concerned just having the Dalai Lama abroad, whether it’s this incarnation or the next one, is a “special” dilemma. And yet the simple “resolution of ‘the Dalai Lama dilemma’ would lend itself to larger uses in the sense of a small investment bringing a large return.”

The Chinese language is just too rich. “Vis-à-vis His Holiness, who is already ‘advanced in years’ and who is facing an imminent reincarnation problem,” there must be “striving,” there must be “a resolution.” What do such verbal formulations signify?

An independent Chinese intellectual sent me an e-mail. Worried and anxious, he said “There is obviously a back story to the two articles in Asia Weekly. The first speaks of the internal divisions among Tibetans and the Government-in-Exile’s inability to stabilize the situation. The article that follows has several keywords that I really don’t like: reincarnation, inviting His Holiness to visit Hong Kong, etc. And an invitation to His Holiness to visit Hong Kong is surely on His Holiness’s mind: he has many times evinced warm feelings when speaking about Xi Zhongxun and is reposing great hopes in Xi Jinping. If moved by rhetoric, His Holiness could gladly go. But think about the affair of the 10^th Panchen Lama’s passing away in Shigatse. I think of the old adage, ‘Don’t walk into danger!’”

Indeed, don’t walk into danger! When there’s someone saying “We must strive to see that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is produced only within the country,” my hope is just for His Holiness to be in sound health; for His Holiness to be free of any malady!

In 1991, I was elected, for the first time, as a member of Tibetan parliament. On 29 May 1991, I took my oath and responsibility [as MP]. Since then until today, for almost twenty-two years, I have been consecutively elected as a member of Tibetan parliament and purported to have made some modest contribution to our common cause. During these years, I served as a speaker of parliament twice, and also once as pro tem speaker of the parliament.

As a matter of clarification, I would like to express to the parliament with special emphasis that from the perspective of Dharma (Chos) His Holiness the Dalai Lama is my undisputed, noble protector, my source of spiritual refuge both in this and the next life. I believe [from the depth] of my heart that not only for the Tibetan people in and outside Tibet, but also for the whole world, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a noble leader, and I love, respect and admire him [accordingly]. This [my love, respect and admiration for His Holiness as a noble leader] will never ever change.

From the perspective of politics, in 2011, His Holiness the Dalai Lama issued many statements [to the effect that] his political and administrative leadership and responsibilities shall be handed over to a directly-elected leadership of the Tibetan people. Therefore the structure [provisions] of the charter of the Central Tibetan Administration was amended for the 25th time resulting in tremendous changes. Based on this [such changes], His Holiness the Dalai Lama doesn’t hold the political and executive power of the Central Tibetan Administration anymore; nor is he the nominal or titular head of our nation [Tibet].

Before the above changes occurred, to resolve the Tibetan issue truthfully, His Holiness the Dalai Lama — the undisputed spiritual and temporal head of the Tibetan people — implemented the Middle Way policy in the Tibetan parliament. Although I do not agree [with the Middle-Way], I supported it and the resolutions related [to the Middle-Way] were passed unanimously in the parliament. The main reason I supported [the Middle-Way] is because I respect His Holiness the Dalai Lama from the depth of my heart, and [also] because I took a series of oath to [sincerely] follow the words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Now under different circumstances, [exercising my] democratic duties and rights, and in accordance with my earlier [political] stand, from today onwards I am going to support the restoration of Tibet’s complete freedom and independence, and withdraw all the support that I have given in the parliament to the Middle-Way till date. I request the parliament to acknowledge this. I have three important reasons to make my [political] stand clear:

1. For the past 64 years, China’s policy on Tibet—let alone undergoing positive changes—has worsened [in terms of its] barbaric and oppressive actions. Now the Tibetan people have lost every faith in the Chinese government [to resolve the Tibetan issue through dialog].
2. Based on above reasons, our fellow Tibetans inside Tibet are engaging in diverse non-violent protests, including the act of self-immolation, and through [these protests], they are making clear that they don’t want to live under the Chinese communist government and aspire for Tibet’s complete freedom and independence. Therefore, I am going to show my support and solidarity [to them].
3. This year is the 100th anniversary of the Great 13th Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso’s declaration of Tibetan independence in 1913. I commemorate and express my respect [to this great event]. I pray to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha—the three sources of ultimate refuge—that this clarification will advance the unity and patriotism of the Tibetan people in and outside Tibet, resulting in the restoration of Tibet’s complete freedom and independence. I [hope] my prayers would be answered accordingly.

Honorable speaker let me express a few more words. I consider my clarification significant, which is why I presented it in writing. Since the 11th session of the Tibetan parliament, it is not that our members of parliament and observers from outside do not know what my [political] stand is. Therefore, while making this clarification, I have done it with full modesty considering it as my duty. I have made the clarification not out of pride, resentment or to impress others. I have never had such [desires]. Moreover, inside and outside parliament, and everywhere, although this [independence] is my fundamental political stand, I am a person who have always tried, if necessary, to avoid speaking and making clarifications about it.

I am not a person who always wave the [flag of independence] and [disrupt] our internal unity; our internal unity is strong generally, but it [raising the independence stance] might hurt some individuals, which is not nice. And in democracy, all of us, bearing our responsibility and using our intelligence, primarily taking responsibility for our nation, can have our own [political stand]—that each one of us has the right to free expression and free thought. Acknowledging and respecting this right to free expression and free thought, I have been a person who always made efforts not to raise the [independence] stance all the time. However, for the ultimate [struggle] of Tibet—be it Tibetan people’s polity, religion, culture, or any other matter that one considers—I have always felt that what we really need is freedom and independence.

This feeling and stance I have arrived at out of strong conviction and belief. Such is the case. For instance, in 1970, after graduating from Mussorie School I joined the university; it was as if I had now begun to stand on my own feet, to have my own self-sufficiency [autonomous existence]. In that year, in Dharamsala, I participated in a conference organized to found the Tibetan Youth Congress. It was an important milestone for this [independence] stand. In 1979, generally from 1959 to 1979, the policy implemented by both the Tibetan government and public was [restoration] of freedom and independence. Since 1979, the policy underwent changes—1979 is generally considered the turning point. Even at that time, my [political] stand didn’t undergo any changes. In 1979, I was a [member of] Central Executive Committee of the Tibetan Youth Congress. I was serving as a teacher in Bylakupee Tibetan school. Then in 1987, His Holiness the Dalai Lama presented the Five-Point Peace Plan in the United States. In 1988, His Holiness presented the Strasbourg proposal—the essence of which is how to conduct negotiations in stages with the Chinese government through the Middle-Way approach—thus making it all clear through this proposal.

While making all this clear, I was simultaneously serving as the principal of the Central Tibetan School in Mussorie and Vice-President of the Central Executive Committee of the Tibetan Youth Congress. Even then also, my stand did not undergo any changes. Since then keeping a firm stand, without undergoing any changes, in my heart I have felt that the short and long-term need, the ultimate need, of the Tibetan people is freedom and independence. As far as my knowledge is concerned, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, considering the urgent circumstances and implementing thousand strategies and hundred tactics, proposed the Middle-Way, but I think that what we needed was independence, that was in His Holiness’s mind, I felt. Therefore, from 1959 to 1979, the policy of Central Tibetan Administration was to [restore] Tibet’s freedom and independence. As such the prayers that I recite regularly, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s composition of prayers for Tibet’s spiritual and temporal cause, these prayers I recite regularly, everyday, without any break. For us Kagyu followers, there’s a prayer-text called Chags Med De Mon (literally: prayers for welfare to be recited regularly) that we are advised to recite regularly, but we could not recite it regularly. However, the prayers composed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama during that time, for instance on 29 September 1962, His Holiness composed the prayers Dentsig Monlam (Words of Truth) that we today recite with lots of importance.

“May this heartfelt wish of total freedom for all Tibet,
Which has been awaited for a long time,
be spontaneously fulfilled;
Please grant soon the good fortune to enjoy
the happy celebration of spiritual with temporal rule.”

The above verse from the Words of Truth is the prayer that we offer to Avalokiteshvara Chenresig, the patron deity of the Land of Snows. Then on 5 February 1962, His Holiness composed, Deshek Riknga (five kinds of enlightened beings), a prayer meant to propitiate the Nechung deity. In this prayer, His Holiness propitiates the Nechung with the [following verse]:

“For the welfare of Dharma and sentient beings
Propagate the noble deeds of Tenzin Gyatso
Pacifying the harm that causes the degeneration of Tibet
Fulfill the joys of political and spiritual freedom.”

Then on 5 March 1973, His Holiness composed two very important prayers to propitiate deities. The one is the prayer to propitiate the female deity Palden Lhamo, in which he wrote:

“Defeated by the enemy hordes
The living beings of the Land of Snows
Despite having been subjected to unbearable suffering
With courage if they cling to the grand [struggle for] freedom
How could you abandon your noble blessings?”

Thus, His Holiness, with a bit of lamentation, propitiated Palden Lhamo with these words. Then on the same date, His Holiness composed the important prayer that we recite regularly, Ma med Sonam (Fortune not undermined). In this prayer, His Holiness wrote:

“Dispelling the darkness [caused by] the degeneration of times
The victory of the spiritual and political freedom of Tibet
Is sure to emerge, [so you] should not feel discouragement.”

Such propitiations were made to the deities of Tibet. Therefore, based on such awareness I stood firm with my stand, and will do so in future. Since it has significance for the parliament, I have tried to clarify and clear it up.

_______

Translated and edited by Tenzin Nyinjey, with permission from Karma Chophel.

The next phase of Communist China’s destruction of Lhasa came innocuously enough with Deng Xiaoping’s “Liberalization”, starting from the turn of the eighties. In the groundbreaking cartographic study published by the Amnye Machen Institute, Map and Index of Lhasa City by Christophe Besuchet, a more specific time period is provided in the introduction. “The process of destroying Lhasa as a Tibetan city is fairly recent. It began in a systematic way in 1984 with the demolition of the old historic buildings overlooking the entrance of the Jokang and later demolition of a number of old buildings surrounding the Jokang, for the creation of large public-square.”

Around this time the Drago Kani, the three gateway stupas of Lhasa, which were damaged in 1959, were completely razed, and concrete replicas put up in their place. I was told that the required consecration rituals were not performed in their construction, making these structures about as spiritually vital as the Golden Arches over a McDonald’s.

In the old days the crest of the three stupas were joined together by a long string of wind-chimes whose melody welcomed the visitor to Lhasa. This desecration of Lhasa’s spiritual gateway inspired what might be called the first major protest song in the Tibetan freedom movement. The lyrics by an anonymous songwriter subtly expressed the popular yearning for the Lhasa of old.

In front of the Potala Palace were the three beloved stupas
When the breeze stirred the wind-chimes
What resounding music could be heard,
How melodious they once sounded.
Aaah, stupa Drago Kani, I suddenly remember you in my heart.

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Dadon in the 2005 film "Windhorse".

The song became hugely popular throughout the plateau when it was sung by the famous Tibetan singing star, Dadon, who had earlier won the top prize in China’s National Song Competition. The success of the “Gateway to Lhasa” and a couple other songs expressing “local nationalism” might have gotten her into the PSB’s bad books. She fled Tibet in 1992 and now lives in New Haven Connecticut. I have a copy of this song covered by the Paris based musician, Tenzin Gompo la. If anyone has Dadon la’s original I would be grateful for a copy.

Next came the destruction of the ancient Zhol hamlet directly below the Potala and the eviction and relocation of all its residents. Also bulldozed out of existence was the charming old Shukti Linga, the Throne Park, in front of the Potala Palace, which in the past was encircled by a forest that even sheltered a small herd of deer.

In its place we now have a hideous concrete-paved square used for the sort of mass events and military parades beloved of totalitarian regimes. To this defilement has been added a couple of tacky concrete ponds with islands, to the east of the square, one topped with a stereotypical “oriental” pagoda. These ponds might be described as more ambitious versions of those ubiquitous plastic ponds that grace the foyers of all Chinese buffets in North America.

The square also has an old MIG 15 aircraft parked in it, possibly for the amusement of the tourists that were expected to come to Lhasa in droves. In 2002, the southern end of the square was graced with a giant “artillery-shell shaped” (according to Woeser) monument, to the “Peaceful Liberation of Tibet”. The latest addition in the square, for the entertainment of Chinese tourists, is a musical fountain system with colored lights that flash in time to the beat of amplified Chinese pop music. Chinese tourists have now taken over Lhasa in an overwhelming way, and even appear to outnumber the natives, especially pilgrims from Kham and Amdo. These visitors are becoming rarities, as travel permits to Lhasa are being increasingly restricted for Tibetans from those regions.

But the first wave of tourists to Lhasa came largely from the West, which in turn prompted an unprecedented influx of Chinese traders, merchants and migrant labor into Lhasa. Even back then in the “optimistic” eighties it was possible to detect signs of a possible “beginning-of-the-end” scenario for Tibetan survival. I wrote a fairly depressing two-part article on this for the Tibetan Review : “Chinese carpenters, masons, tailors, smiths, petty traders, restaurateurs, truck drivers, teachers, electricians, mechanics, barbers, butchers, guides, laborers, street entertainers, beggars and, of course, the myriad ubiquitous functionaries so indispensable to the proper functioning of a totalitarian state, are relentlessly pushing the Tibetan into immediate unemployment and ultimate extinction.” (“On the Brink”, 1986)

I described the ubiquitous alcoholism that was then taking hold of Lhasa, fuelled by the sale of cheap beer (pijiu) and the even cheaper Chinese rot-gut, baijiu and sanjiu, and how this alcoholism was becoming “one of the most severe problems in Tibet, a fact to which the many broken bottles littering the streets of the Tibetan section of Lhasa city will bear partial testimony.”

Tibetans drinking and gambling in the ruins of Shide Monastery. Photograph courtesy Manuel Bauer.

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According to a TIN Briefing Paper #31 (Social Evils: Prostitution and Pornography in Lhasa) one of the root causes of alcoholism in Lhasa was the proliferation of an astonishing number of bars and discos in the city, and that “.. people feel attracted to these places and start drinking there. At night there are many fights on the street. Many schoolchildren spend their evenings in bars.” The report discusses the social problems created by this alcoholism: increase in divorce rates, broken families, domestic violence and abuse, and the problem of pregnant women alcoholics. A Tibetan medical personnel from Lhasa who I met in 2007, told me she had observed symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome in some new-born babies in the Holy city.

The Chinese authorities appear to actively encourage the sale, distribution and consumption of cheap alcohol. There also seems to be no stringent regulation regarding sale of alcohol to minors, or the kind of alcohol licensing laws that you have, let us say, in India or even in the USA to discourage underage drinking or excessive drinking. In a post-totalitarian state where you have some of the most draconian (and effectively enforced) state regulations restricting freedom of expression and freedom of worship, the only freedom that the citizens of Lhasa, adults or children, have, is the absolute unregulated freedom to drink themselves to death anytime, anywhere.

In 1985, alcohol consumption in the Tibet Autonomous Region had already reached fifteen times the average alcohol consumption in China, according to the 1990 China Statistical Yearbook.

TIN Briefing Paper #31 also addresses another social evil plaguing “brave new” Lhasa. This report cites an unofficial survey conducted in 1998 “which showed 685 brothels and 238 dance halls and karaoke bars in 18 main streets of Lhasa.” The report notes that for a city with a population of 200,000, the figure represents an extremely high density, and one that is likely to be higher since it is only calculated on the basis of 18 streets rather than the whole city. Most of the prostitutes in Lhasa are Chinese girls “who appear to originate from Chengdu and farming areas in Sichuan.” The report concludes: “A conservative estimate of the total number of brothels where prostitutes can ply their trade in Lhasa municipality is approximately 1,000.” This figure is for brothels exclusively and does not include bars, clubs and restaurants, where prostitutes openly offer their services on the premises, many of which have back rooms where they can take their clients.

In the relatively “liberal” climate of the eighties the Panchen Lama assembled a team of Chinese and Tibetan architects to document the architecture of the Potala and some other major monasteries. In 1985 a Tibetan archeologist, Sonam Wangdu la, started a project to compile documentation of the most important surviving historic buildings in Lhasa and even throughout Tibet. This resulted in a report, County Cultural Relics Series that methodically documented the destruction of Tibet’s historic and religious buildings and sites. The report concluded that only a small handful of such structures and sites had escaped substantial damage.

Large-scale “repairs’ of the Potala were officially undertaken in 1988. In 1994 the Chinese announced, with much fanfare, the completion of the repair works. Many in Lhasa privately expressed doubts about the quality of the work done. One of the oldest chapels in the palace, the Avalokiteshvara chapel (Chenrezig Lhakhang) is said to have been destroyed because of carelessness and insufficient grasp of modern restoration methods by Chinese technicians and officials. Amnye Machen Institute (AMI) obtained a photograph of what was probably this chamber entirely in ruins. A number of murals were reported to have been irreparably damaged then. Many in Lhasa believed that the restorations were a pretext for the Chinese to carry off many of the vast treasures of the palace. A political prisoner from Lhasa, Tenpa Phulchung, has in his memoirs written of the destruction of the Potala that took place in the name of reconstruction.

In 1996, with the encouragement of the Lhasa municipality and with the participation of Western experts, the Tibet Heritage Fund was created for the protection and restoration of historic buildings. This effort received much financial support from Western donors as Trace Foundation, Heinrich Boll Foundation, MISEREOR, Rubin Foundation and others. In 1994, UNESCO placed the Potala Palace on the World Heritage List. In 2000 and 2001 UNESCO listed the Jokhang and the Norbulingka on the World Heritage List as extensions of the Potala, making Lhasa, already a sacred place in terms of its value for religion, history and the humanities, a part of the world’s cultural heritage. 93 buildings in Lhasa were listed as protected sites and marked with a blue identification plaque. There was a tremendous feeling of optimism among Western Tibet supporters.

Not everyone in Lhasa was completely at ease with this new development, especially as the official Lhasa City Cultural Relics Bureau was involved in this project. This was a branch office of the Office of Cultural Relics Management Committee of TAR, located at the Norbulingka palace, which had been primarily responsible for removing arts treasures from Tibetan monasteries and temples and shipping them of to China.

All the Western experts, donors and even most of the Tibetans officials who participated in this project, had no doubt done so with the best of intentions. But their commitment and optimism were based on the assumption that the Chinese authorities shared their cultural and philanthropic concerns and would honor whatever agreements had been entered into to realize this important venture. One donor told that it was in China’s interests to preserve historic Lhasa, since, even if it didn’t care about Tibetan culture, it would help to promote Western tourism, which China surely wanted.

I did not share this optimism. AMI’s Map and Index of Lhasa City makes clear that “… in 1980 the Chinese authorities drew up plans for the redevelopment of Lhasa city. Ten Planning maps were drafted by the Lhasa Planning Bureau, which have been circulated for restricted viewing. In essence this plan calls for the complete destruction of all old building with the exception of the Potala Palace.” Even otherwise, if one just made the effort to look under the picturesque surface and color of tourist Tibet, one could not escape the disturbing evidence that Beijing had an actual plan to make Lhasa into a Chinese city, inhabited largely, or even near exclusively by Chinese immigrants. Of course, till the 1980s the Chinese authorities had been unable to do much to implement this plan as they did not have the foreign investment, even the long-distance public transport necessary, to attract Chinese immigration into Tibet.

But in research circles in exile, as early as the mid seventies, we heard of a Chinese master plan to build a railway to Lhasa to bring in Chinese settlers. Even when Tibet was an independent nation, the leader of Nationalist China, Dr Sun Yat-sen had in his 1917-20 proposal included a projected railway to Tibet. After the invasion in 1950, Chinese and Russian engineers were sent to investigate the possibility, but the lack of technological and financial resources prevented the project from even starting. Furthermore the construction of the Sichuan-Tibet and Qinghai-Tibet Highways took priority. But the railway project was never entirely forgotten. At one point, before a foot of track had been laid on Tibetan soil, a railway station was built, with a large signboard announcing the fact, in an isolated area between Drepung and Lhasa. An American academic who visited Tibet in the early eighties saw this surreal work of political symbolism. Then in 1984 the first section of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, between Xining and Golmud was completed.

2000-2012

From late 2000 onwards Chinese cooperation with the Lhasa Heritage Fund came to an end, and in the following years most Western experts and NGO’s were expelled from Tibet. During and after the 2008 protests you did not have a single Westerner, expert or tourist to witness the next phase in China’s destruction of Lhasa city.

In February 2012, I received this report from a Western visitor (one of the few that year) to Lhasa that I published on this blog.

Lhasa consists of approximately 1.2 million Chinese and approximately 200,000 Tibetans. The majority of these Tibetans live in an area which is now almost entirely enclosed by military compounds with walls between 10-16 feet; some with barbed wire. This isolation gives the impression of what the Warsaw Ghetto was like. Inside the “enclosed” area groups of armed soldiers, S.W.A.T. teams, and police patrol the streets 24 hours a day. Military drill songs can be heard throughout the day. S.W.A.T trucks and rows of 6 to 15 armored vehicles and tanks come through the area on a daily basis. Each vehicle has 3 to 4 soldiers at the opening turret, armed with assault rifles or machine guns aimed at the Tibetans.

All Tibetans must carry identification at all times. Tibetans residing in Lhasa are required to register with the police. There are approximately 134 new Police station checkpoints in Lhasa for random searches of pedestrians and vehicles. In addition to the military compounds in and around Lhasa, permanent military posts holding 1-10 armed soldiers have been established throughout the city. Roadside checkpoints in the Tibetan Autonomous Region are used to keep Tibetans that are not residents of Lhasa, away from the city.

Although it is listed as a World Heritage site, the Chinese government now uses the Potala as a military post. A large Military complex is situated within several blocks. The nunnery, located across from grounds before the Potala Palace, now has Military bunkers. Jokhang area has such a large military presence in that you have to be careful not to bump into soldiers and police when they go on patrol.

This writer was not a Tibet expert, and was just noting what she had seen and what some Tibetans in Lhasa had told her, and her report was understandably uneven and incomplete. A few Tibetans and even a Western supporter or two (on TSG List) cast doubts about its authenticity.

2013

But now Woser la’s recent blog post provides confirmation on the extreme security build up that has taken place in Lhasa over the last few years, especially in the old city. She also adds that snipers are now posted on the rooftops of the building in the Barkor area, particularly in front of the Jokang.

But her latest piece is not only about the security build-up but about the latest phase in the destruction of the Holy City. High Peaks Pure Earth has provided an English translation of her report which I am sure the reader has already scrutinized. They will also have seen all the stomach-churning photographs included in the report.

Red flag over Jokhang, May 2013.

This time the destruction is taking place in the name of commercial development, with Five Star Hotels, Barkhor Shopping Malls, “Spiritual Power Plazas,” giant underground parking lots, flashy high-end art and antique boutiques, all of such overpowering vulgarity and invasiveness, that it makes Disneyland seem, at least in terms of aesthetic subtlety, like the famous Ryōan-ji Zen Garden in Kyoto. Nonetheless, a recent photograph by a Chinese tourist of the Communist flag flying over the Jokhang, amidst the clutter and mess of the present construction, should make us aware that what is happening in Lhasa is not just “the unfortunate but unavoidable by-product of globalization and progress” (as the convenient rationalization goes) but that hard political considerations still reign supreme, as they always have in China.

It goes without saying that the destruction of the old city also necessitates the removal of its original inhabitants. I mentioned in a couple of earlier posts how the constant harassment of Lhasa locals by Chinese security personnel has become so extreme that many Lhasa citizens are leaving their homes to live in the “relative” freedom of Chengdu and other Chinese cities. Even such collaborators as Samding Dorje Phagmo , who was a member of the Political Consultative Committee, has sold her house in Lhasa and left. One of the historic building near the Tsuklagkhang, the Tromsikhang Palace, which received the blue Heritage plaque, is now scheduled for a complete overhaul and the forty odd families that lived in this building complex have been removed and relocated outside Lhasa. Woser la writes that those Tibetans who were removed for the construction of the Barkhor Shopping Mall were relocated to a settlement in Tolung Dechen west of Lhasa. I have heard reports that many Lhasa residents of the old city are to be relocated to settlement colonies in Tsal Gungthang twenty kilometers east of Lhasa, where there is also a large military prison.

Woser la has done a tremendous job to publicize the destruction of Lhasa. She has managed to get the attention of numerous international and Chinese journals and websites, and even provoked the official People’s Daily enough for it to issue a detailed refutation. Articles have appeared in the South China Morning Post, Business Insider and in the Sunday Times of London largely quoting from her report. Because of her appeal a number of petition drives have been started. One petition signed by more than a hundred independent and institutionally-affiliated specialists in various fields of Tibetan Studies have expressed “grave concern over the rapidly-progressing destruction of much of the traditional architectural heritage of the Old City of Lhasa and its environs”. They have called on China’s president and UNESCO secretary general to to send independent investigation team as soon as possible to Lhasa. Woeser is also posting regular updates on her blogsite. I think it is vital for all of us to do what we can to raise this issue internationally, and bring as much pressure to bear on China to at least call a moratorium on the constructions in Lhasa.

And while Woeser la has managed to do so much, even under the constant surveillance of Chinese security, those of us exiles living in the freedom of democratic societies, have instead all been caught up in the pettiest of petty politics. The CTA has managed nothing more than its usual expression of “deep concern“, while Samdong Rinpoche’s religious-right zealots have been carrying out a nasty (and effective) campaign to demonize the Tibetan Youth Congress for “hurting the Dalai Lama’s feelings.” Everyone else has been too busy trying to avoid being labelled anti-Dalai Lama or pro-Rangzen, to spare even a moment’s consideration for Woser la’s appeal.

All the while, the holiest of cities, the seat of the gods, the Mecca of High Asia (Prezhevalsky), the Rome of Buddhism, (Bell, Lowell-Thomas, etc.) the capital of the ancient Tibetan Empire, and, for many of us, the secret city of our dreams, is fast disappearing in the dust and rubble of Chinese bulldozers.

PLA bombardment of Potala Palace. Sketch by Tibetan trainee at Camp Hale. Roger E. McCarthy collection.

Tsering Woeser-la’s recent clarion call ““Our Lhasa is on the Verge of Destruction! Please, Save Lhasa!”, stirred me to undertake this modest history project. I thought it would be worthwhile to provide, as aide mémoire, brief overviews of the different periods in the destruction of the Holy City, which began when the Red Army first marched into Lhasa on the 9th of September, 1950. What is happening right now, no matter how devastating and tragic, is merely the latest in a series of phases in Communist China’s long-term national endeavor to turn the Holy City of Lhasa into a fully Chinese metropolis and drive its native citizenry, and the Tibetan people as a whole, into a kind of functional extinction. The “Eternal” in the title of this three-part essay is not meant to be ironic. The seeds of Communist China’s downfall are being sown in the very foundations and walls of the hideous shopping malls and plazas being erected in Lhasa right now. Full explanation in Part 3.

1959-1962

I was child of nine in Darjeeling when the Great Lhasa Uprising took place. All the fearful grown-up talk I overheard then, of the street-fighting and the bombardment of the Norbulingka and the Potala by Chinese artillery, scared and confused me. One strange line from those adult conversations has stayed in my mind: “Sidung chenmo tambe tangsha (the great mausoleum has been pierced).” Years later I came to learn that an artillery shell had had gone right through the mausoleum of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama in the Potala without exploding.” But at the time when my mother explained to me that the mausoleum was where the Fifth Dalai Lama’s body was entombed, it seemed a deliberate and terrible act of desecration, like the Roman soldier piercing Christ’s body with his lance. My religious concepts and imagery were, at that time, a little mixed, because of my education at St. Joseph’s College.

The devastation that Lhasa suffered in ’59 was extensive. The exile government had a program to collect eye-witness reports from refugees, but the city’s destruction was never properly documented. I am not going to try and fill in this lacunae here. I just want to share some anecdotes with the reader to give them a feel for the scale and severity of the devastation. At least half-a-dozen independent eyewitnesses told me that the Potala and the Zhol village below it received numerous direct hits from the incessant barrages of Chinese artillery fire. According to the late Chinese Colonel, Jiang He-ting (Lobsang Tashi) who joined the resistance, PLA field artillery batteries were located at Pithing, Northoe-lingka, Dhip (across the river), Drapchi (Drawothang), Dzongkar, and Silingpu (PLA headquarters). Another informant claimed that the PLA had additional artillery units at Rangkyongjong (the TAR compound) and Lingka Sarpa.

Fighters on the roof of the Jokhang got a clear view of the shelling of the Potala. One former Lhasa policeman told me that after every artillery barrage the great palace would disappear in a cloud of smoke and dust. But then some minutes later it would miraculously reappear, to great joy of the distraught Tibetan observers. The immense walls managed to absorb the impact of the shelling but the Shachenjok and Deyang Shar sections of the Potala were badly damaged. The Chinese did not shell the Jokhang as Chinese positions were very close to the Tibetan ones within the Bharkor area, but mortars appear to have been used by both sides along with rifles and machine guns.

The smaller buildings of the Norbulingka were were extensively damaged by artillery fire, but were also more easily repaired or rebuilt after the uprising was put down. Practically the entire Tibetan population of the city was forced to join in the cleaning-up operations. By 1962, when two English left-wing journalists Stuart and Roma Gelder were invited to Lhasa they declared that nothing had been damaged in the “brief” rebellion. What nails the lie in their whitewashing assignment is their account of the fighting on the Iron Hill (Chokpori). “It took only three hours and one company of infantry, supported by machine-gunners, to take Iron Hill.”

Actually the old Medical School on the Iron Hill, founded by the 5^th Dalai Lama and completed by Desi Sangye Gyatso, was destroyed by artillery fire. About 77 soldiers of the Drapchi regiment, and some monks from the Medical School, led by Shengo (sergeant) Tashi Tsewang, son of famous Rupon (major) Anan Dawa*, defended the Iron Hill. PLA infantry attempted two mass charges up the hill but suffered heavy losses and were pushed back. These Chinese attackers also took heavy fire from Tibetans fighters in the Potala Palace. Tibetans on the Iron Hill had a couple of mortars that they used effectively. Finally the PLA directed nonstop artillery fire on the Iron Hill destroying the principal building and some temples. Tashi Tsewang and most of his men died at their post.

One Chinese shell overshot the Iron Hill and hit the large arsenal, Ghomtsoe Dorjeling, just below the Iron Hill and above the Drago Kani, the Gateway Stupa to Lhasa. The Drapchi soldiers at this arsenal had kept up a steady supply of ammunition to the troops on the Iron Hill and the Potala, before the one Chinese shell blew up the depot and killed everyone in it. The enormous explosion may have also caused major damage to the Gateway Stupa complex, which was torn down later.

The remaining temples and structures on the Iron Hill were also completely torn down some years later and replaced with a large Microwave VHF/UHF antenna.

1962-1978

In 1962, the same year the Gelders visited Lhasa, China’s State Council officially listed the Potala, Norbulingka, and other temples and monasteries, including the Lhasa Tsuklakhang, as Nationally Protected Monuments.

Destruction of Jokhang. From Woeser's "Forbidden Memory".

Then in 1966, on the orders of the chief secretary of the Regional Party Committee, the senior-most office of the Tibet-based administration, government offices, schools, and local administrative offices ordered their members to go and participate in the destruction of sacred objects at the Tsuklakhang. On 25^th Aug 1966 “revolutionary masses of various nationalities” attacked the Jokhang.” Chairman (General) Wang Chimei gave instructions for the statues of the Chinese princess Kongjo, the Jowo, and others which had come from China to be spared.

Debris from Jokhang destruction collected for transportation to China. Photograph: Dalai Lama's first delegation to Tibet.

The Jokhang was occupied by Red Guards, and finally taken over by the PLA who used the temple as a pigsty. Some chapels were even used as latrines. The extensive decorations around the roof were torn down and nearly all the many hundreds of images and statuary thrown out of their chapels and broken up for the value of their metal.

Mao image in place of the Jowo at Ramoche Tsuklakhang. Photo: Warren Smith

The Ramoche Tsuklakhang was also desecrated, much of it destroyed and a large portrait of Chairman Mao erected at the central shrine space. Every monastery and temple in and around Lhasa and every oracle shrine was vandalized and desecrated, and in some cases completely obliterated.

There is really no need for further recounting of the destruction that took place in Lhasa and indeed throughout Tibet. For over the last two decades, Tibetans-in-exile have been overwhelmed by innumerable images and accounts of what His Holiness has called the “Cultural Genocide” in Tibet. Unfortunately the Tibetan leadership, in its eagerness to accommodate itself to the new reality of China’s power and wealth, is now asking us to overlook, even forget, all that has taken place. Woeser la’s book of photographs, Forbidden Memory: Tibet During the Cultural Revolution serves as a timely reminder why we must never ever do so. A Tibetan edition of the book has been recently published and can be downloaded free at her website.

Another sobering reminder of this horrendous period is provided in the autobiography of Rimbur Tulku, Experiencing the Consequences of Good and Bad Karma 2 volumes, (Tibetan Cultural Printing Press, Dharamsala 1988). All Tibetan must read at least the selection of excerpts (in English translation) that I once downloaded from a CTA website but which I cannot locate right now. It provides the most detailed and harrowing account we have to date on the the desecration of our Holy city.

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*A hero of the 1918 war that freed a large part of Kham, Rupon Anan Dawa is celebrated to this day in a Khampa song:
Rupon Anen Dawa, Ling kyi patul drawa
Menda si-si lendu, namkhe thok thang drawa
(Major Anen Dawa is like a hero of the Gesar Epic
His Mauser pistol roars like thunder in the sky.)

37-year-old Lobsang Namgyal who became the 100th Tibetan to publicly burn himself

As I write this, two events have taken place that once again demonstrate just how intractable the Tibet issue is and how any attempt to unravel it must address its root causes. On 13 February this year, Tibetans in exile commemorated the 100th anniversary of the 13th Dalai Lama’s proclamation of Tibet’s independence, which he made following the expulsion of Manchu forces from Tibet after a short-lived occupation of Lhasa. On that same day, reports reached us of the latest self-immolation in Tibet: 37-year-old Lobsang Namgyal became the 100th Tibetan to publicly burn himself since this form of protest, unprecedented in Tibet’s history, began in 2010.

Whatever the historical interpretation of Tibet’s status prior to the 13th Dalai Lama’s proclamation – and Tibetan and Chinese historians are sharply divided on the issue – the fact remains that from this moment on until the invasion of the country by the People’s Liberation Army in 1950, Tibet in every sense fulfilled the definition of a modern nation state. It had a fully functioning government, a civil service, judicial and taxation systems, and its own army, postal service and currency. It even issued its own passport, which was internationally recognized.

It is China’s violation of this sovereignty and subsequent colonization of the country that has led directly to the wave of self-immolations taking place in Tibet today. These dramatic protests are symptomatic both of the increasingly oppressive situation inside Tibet where every form of dissent has been methodically and violently shut down, and the perseverance of the Tibetan people who, after more than five decades of Chinese imperialism, remain more determined than ever to challenge it.

The messages left behind by several of the self-immolators and the last words shouted by many of them converge on two points: a call for the return of the Dalai Lama and the demand for Tibet’s freedom, sometimes clearly articulated as independence from China. The generation that remembers an independent Tibet may largely be gone but every Tibetan continues to believe that the claim to independence is legitimate and rooted in our history. For exile Tibetans like me, the sacrifice of the self-immolators and their message has rung loud and clear: the battle for our beleaguered nation is by no means lost. Their actions, along with those of the thousands who came out in protest during the uprising of 2008, and the scores of writers, musicians and intellectuals subsequently incarcerated for giving voice to the demands of their people, have given us new hope. As their spokespersons in the free world, their heroic actions demand from us a renewed engagement with our cause and a concerted effort on our part to amplify their voices and help fulfil their aspirations. But how successful have we been in achieving this?

At the end of 2011, Time magazine stated that the string of self-immolations in Tibet was the year’s top under-reported story. That year, 11 Tibetans had publicly burned themselves. A little more than a year on, the numbers have climbed to more than 100, with 28 in November 2012 alone, but media coverage has remained, for the most part, low-key, and public awareness continues to be woefully lacking. There has been some attempt by western governments to call China to account but without any conviction and no real pressure.

Despite being among the most successful refugee communities in the world, with a charismatic and a globally renowned leader, and with enormous international goodwill for our cause, we have failed to mobilize the widespread outrage and support that the situation in Tibet demands. A key reason for this appears to be the dogged insistence on the part of our leaders in Dharamshala to stick to a conciliatory political policy that has voluntarily forsaken Tibetan independence as the fundamental source of contention; a policy that has borne no dividends yet constrains us in our criticism of China’s actions in Tibet.

 
For nearly three decades, the Tibetan government-in-exile has stuck to the Middle Way Approach as the only way to resolve the Tibet issue. Taking its inspiration from the Buddhist principle of avoiding extreme positions, the Dalai Lama gave up the demand for independence, asking, in return, for a genuine autonomy that would cover the entire Tibetan plateau. Since China’s takeover of the country, the traditional Tibetan provinces of Kham and Amdo were made part of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan, and only the erstwhile Central Tibetan province of U-Tsang was incorporated as the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The Middle Way Approach proposed an administrative unit within China that would unite the three provinces. This was a bold offer, but it depended entirely on reciprocal goodwill and sincerity from China, something that has never been forthcoming. For the Dalai Lama and the exile Tibetan government, leaving behind the past in order to find a way forward for Tibet is a huge and imminently reasonable concession, but Beijing does not see it in that way. It has consistently spurned the Middle Way Approach as nothing but a ploy to regain independence. One demand it has always made as a precondition to any meaningful talks is that the Dalai Lama officially accept the Chinese narrative that Tibet has been a part of China since at least the 13th century, which he has, with good reason, refused to do.

 
By refusing to accept China’s version of history, the Middle Way Approach leaves open the possibility that Tibetans can always revert to a demand for independence. Therefore, unless Tibetans agree to rewrite their own history, which they cannot do, Beijing will continue to accuse the Middle Way Approach of being insincere and refuse to negotiate, and the entire exercise will remain, as it has done so far, locked in a stalemate. But despite Beijing’s official rejection of the Middle Way Approach, it continued to dangle the carrot of negotiations, and between 2002 and 2010, nine rounds of talks took place between the Dalai Lama’s representatives and Chinese authorities.

Maintaining a facade of talks benefited China in a number of significant ways. The Dalai Lama’s powerful western allies have always strongly encouraged and supported the Middle Way Approach, hoping that by eschewing the prickly issue of Tibet’s independence, it would make Beijing more amenable to a negotiated settlement. Of course, it also let them off the hook from having to take a harder stand on Tibet, something they were loathe to do given their economic dependence on China. Any semblance of a dialogue then was enough to allay western criticism over China’s rule in Tibet. And under its cover, China has been able to ruthlessly and with impunity carry out its own final solution to the Tibet problem: to efface every trace of Tibetan identity through a combination of demographic marginalization and cultural imperialism.

 
The talks also served the purpose of extracting ever more concessions from the Tibetan side. A key requirement for the talks to continue was that exile Tibetans had to tone down their political activities against China to prove that they were no longer seeking independence. For the first time our leadership asked us not to raise certain slogans, particularly anything that might upset Beijing. The Tibetan word for independence, rangzen, was effectively deleted from all official (and unofficial) communications, and our long-term cry, ‘Bod Rangzen Tzangma Yin!’ (Tibet’s independence is unquestionable!), suddenly became a dirty phrase. Indeed, the very word, rangzen, started to take on sinister connotations.

Although the majority of Tibetans continued to instinctively believe that rangzen should be our political goal, those who openly expressed this were accused by proponents of the Middle Way Approach of being anti-Dalai Lama, the single-most devastating charge any Tibetan can face. One outcome of this contradiction between what we believed to be our inherent right and the compromise we were being asked to support was that it drained the vitality from our movement and left it adrift without a clear and unifying goal, a state of affairs that persists to this day.

The talks broke down in 2010 and there is no sign that China is interested in reviving them any time soon. It seems that Beijing no longer needs to keep up the pretext of continuing the dialogue. The uprising of 2008 and the ongoing self-immolation protests have only hardened its view that, no matter what the Dalai Lama says and how sincere he is, his very existence is a reminder of Tibet’s sovereignty and a threat to its hold over Tibet. And yet, in exile, the Middle Way Approach has evolved its own peculiar momentum; the more China rebuffs it, the more stubbornly our leadership maintains that it is the only policy it will pursue, sometimes describing it in near spiritual terms as being beneficial not just for Tibet and China, but for all humanity.

 
The Middle Way Approach has been elevated to a kind of sacrosanct dictum that cannot be debated, much less discarded. Certainly, the fact that the Dalai Lama himself believes in it, and has invested so much political capital and time in pursuing it, means that many Tibetans, usually on the basis of their religious devotion, continue to support the policy. But by dogmatically adhering to this approach, the exile government continues to bind itself to the conditions built into the proposal and in doing so, forfeits the possibility of forcefully confronting China’s actions in Tibet. It also traps itself in a doublespeak that ends up sending mixed signals, not only to Beijing and the world but also to its own people, thereby further muddying and weakening the foundations of our long-term struggle.

A case in point is the four-day Tibetan People’s Solidarity Campaign organized by the exile Tibetan government in New Delhi at the end of January 2013 to draw attention to the self-immolations in Tibet. Echoing the demands of the self-immolators and protesters, our Prime Minister-in-exile, Lobsang Sangay, made a speech in which he said, ‘We have sent a message to Beijing that Tibetans inside and outside Tibet are determined, resolved and committed that till freedom for Tibetans is restored and His Holiness the Dalai Lama returns to the holy city of Lhasa, Tibetans will not rest.’ He further added that Tibetans had ‘come out in the streets of Delhi and walked the path of Delhi where freedom fighters of India walked and restored their freedom,’ and that ‘we are following the path of the Indian freedom struggle.’

Sangay may have been carried away by the excitement of the occasion but by raising the example of India’s freedom struggle, he seemed to be suggesting that Tibetans are committed to restoring Tibet’s independence in a non-violent struggle. These sentiments contradict his own repeated assurance that the government-in-exile ‘remains steadfastly committed to the Middle-Way Approach and to the resumption of dialogue between Beijing and Dharamsala to resolve the issue of Tibet.’

 
The Memorandum for Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People, the blueprint that sets out the vision of the Middle Way Approach, is predicated on giving up the demand for Tibet’s independence and not raising the issue of her status before the Chinese invasion. Dr Sangay’s statements could be interpreted by Beijing as doing both and plays into the Chinese contention that the proposal is a covert demand for independence. Second, the memorandum has no provision to discuss the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet. This is because the Dalai Lama has rightly stated on numerous occasions that the Tibet issue is not about him but about a nation and a people. He has also persistently promoted the idea of a secular democracy for Tibetans in which Church and State would be separate. In a move to emphasise this, he even took the historic step in 2011 of devolving his political authority and terminating the 400-year-old rule of the Dalai Lamas. For the exile government to now express that the return of the Dalai Lama is one of its key demands subverts the very spirit of the Middle Way Approach and leaves it open to the charge of duplicity.

In reality, of course, despite the Dalai Lama’s resignation from politics, Tibetans everywhere continue to see him as the symbol of our nation. The cry for his return to Tibet is instinctively linked to the demand for freedom and independence because in the Tibetan mind, the two are inseparable. And so when Sangay raises the vision of the Dalai Lama’s return to the holy city of Lhasa he, like all Tibetans, reinforces the aspiration for an independent Tibet.

 
In Tibet, Chinese authorities have launched a determined campaign to halt this newest challenge to its rule. It has criminalized self-immolations and made anyone found to be aiding or abetting a self-immolator guilty of murder. Scores of Tibetans have been arrested to date, some given long prison terms, and a 40 year old monk, Lobsang Kunchok, has already been sentenced to death, charged with ‘intentional homicide.

These draconian measures, along with those already in place, such as the heavy presence of armed security forces and severe restrictions on movement, bolster the iron-fisted control that China exerts over the region, with its many layers of force, insidious surveillance and a carefully cultivated climate of fear and suspicion. They contribute to the further deterioration in the rights of Tibetans to preserve their way of life. But rather than discouraging dissent, there is a sense that Tibetans may have reached a tipping point, that this latest cycle of protest is only the beginning of another, more deadly phase in their resistance against Chinese rule. It suggests that the more China represses, exploits and colonizes Tibet, the more determined and enduring the fight-back will be.

At the end of 2008, the Dalai Lama had called a special meeting of Tibetans in exile to discuss the ongoing crisis and a way forward. Although the majority of Tibetans at the conclave expressed continued support for the Middle Way Approach, they made a recommendation that within a short (but unspecified) period of time, if China remained intransigent then fresh options, including a return to the demand for independence, should be discussed. Nearly five years have passed since that meeting and no talks with Beijing have been forthcoming since January 2010 even as the situation in Tibet has deteriorated further.

 
Clearly, the Middle Way Approach has exhausted its possibilities. By continuing to express allegiance to it, we are not only failing to intensify the message so compellingly coming out of Tibet, but are inadvertently assisting the very process of cultural annihilation that the policy seeks to protect. The longer we wait in this limbo of political ambivalence, the more time we give China to carry out its final solution, and the more in vain the sacrifices of our compatriots will be.

The time has come to rethink the Middle Way Approach and reinstate Tibet’s independence as the cornerstone of our struggle. This will dynamically unify and revive our movement and restore the moral and legal basis to our challenge of China’s rule in Tibet. More importantly, it will ensure that the Tibetan struggle remains resilient and inspirational in the longer term when we will no longer have the Dalai Lama to personally embody our aspiration for a free and independent Tibet.

(First published in Seminar, Tibet Burning, April 2013. Reprinted with permission from the editors.)

On May 8th, the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington hosted an evening with Lobsang Sangay, the head of the Tibetan government in exile. Sangay addressed a gathering of journalists, academics and lawyers, eager to discuss the escalating crisis in Tibet. (The proceedings were recorded and the video is available online). Most in the audience anticipated a repudiation of Chinese Communist rule from the Harvard Law student, but what Sangay had to say sent shock waves through the room, and later, the blogosphere.

When asked if he hoped to see free elections in a genuinely autonomous Tibet in the near future, Sangay replied; “We don’t challenge, or ask for, an overthrow of the Communist Party. We don’t question or challenge the present structure of the ruling party.” Jerome Cohen, the renown legal scholar from New York University, asked Sangay for clarification, stating; “It’s very interesting to see what this would amount to if there’s no freedom of speech for the people in Tibet.” Sangay provided clarification; “We are not asking for democracy for Tibetans in Tibet… we want rights as per the Chinese constitution.”

The internet swelled with questions about Sangay’s remarks, in particular, his flouting of democracy for the people of Tibet and China, and his disregard for the Chinese intellectuals who bravely signed Charter 08, which calls for the rule of law, democratic reforms in China and criticized the Communist Party for “clinging to authoritarian politics, it has caused an unbroken chain of human rights disasters and social crises, held back the development of the Chinese people, and hindered the progress of human civilization.”

To embrace Chinese Communist rule is to abandon the people inside Tibet who have waged a desperate battle of survival and resistance for over 60 years. Every man and woman who made the ultimate sacrifice of self immolation did so for independence, as their moving final testaments confirm. And it is in direct opposition to the stated goals of the Dalai Lama, who purposefully modeled his exile government on India’s democracy, not Mao’s one party dictatorship. When the Dalai Lama proposed the Middle Way Policy in 1988, he conceived of preserving Tibet as a buffer state and a de-militarized “zone of peace.” Sangay’s stated position eviscerates the relevance of the Tibet movement, and depreciates India’s burden of a long, tense border with an increasingly bellicose China.

There were Indian journalists present at the Council on Foreign Relations that evening, but none asked Sangay any tough or serious questions. When the matter of the recent Ladakh incursion was raised, Sangay blithely said that China’s military positions at the Indian border should be at “China’s discretion.” Excuse me, but Sangay resides in Dharamshala, and has recently been provided with a special vehicle with a red light on top, to indicate his VIP status in Himachal Pradesh. One would assume that these privileges come at South Block’s discretion.

There are some features of pre-communist Tibetan political culture that Sangay is actively deploying to build his myth; his official Facebook page declares that he is a “secular emanation” of the Dalai Lama and Guru Rinpoche. And at the Council in Washington he said; “Many artists inside Tibet have composed songs in honor of the election and my victory and they have put it on YouTube with English translation. Some have sent me scrolls where normally we put deities and gods and goddesses, only they have put a picture of me and that’s being distributed.” This would be risible if not for the mounting death toll in Tibet, and that Tibet’s ancient civilization is being destroyed by the day, as bulldozers tear into the holy Jokhang temple in Lhasa.

Beijing’s cadres are unwilling, or unable, to relinquish one party rule, as they cling to an obsolete Maoist world view that demonizes the Dalai Lama and calls the Buddhist faith “a disease to be eradicated.” That Tibetan culture is a force that so petrifies the great People’s Republic of China exposes the xenophobia, intolerance, and violence that infects the Maoist creed. Sangay’s categorical rejection of democracy in favor of Communist rule in Tibet could be a cynical power play, or maybe he thinks might makes right, and that power does come from the barrel of a gun, but then, how can he proclaim himself a secular emanation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, protector of Tibet?

Chester Bowles, the venerable United States Ambassador to India, published a memoir in 1969 entitled “A View from New Delhi.” Here is an excerpt: “Whereas India tried to dignify the individual as part of the process of development, China regarded him as an instrument of the state…whereas India sought to preserve and enrich her ancient culture and to modernize her society within the context of her traditions, Communist China attempted to replace the traditional Chinese culture and institutions with a completely new and alien social system. While India tried to minimize the amount of social dislocation caused by the development process, China sought to maximize it…While the Chinese were sure they could interpret the future, the Indian government has remained sensibly agnostic. Where the Chinese system has cracked under adversity, the Indian has simply bent…the long-suffering, exploited Chinese peasants and workers must be wondering how long the horror can go on, while they hope for the day when at long last they can be free of the shifting whims of a communist dictatorship.”

Others say it is his magnificent moustache that has begun almost a cult-like following in their home world and they have come to request a sample of his moustache and are willing to pay almost anything in return. It is rumored that he had inquired about the capability of their spaceship in teleporting vast numbers of people into outer space but unfortunately it appears this civilization’s prime directive is non-violence and non-interference. It isn’t clear who he had in mind when he made that inquiry but it appears to amuse him tremendously whenever that question is broached. And if he is sufficiently jack-Danielled, he is known to burst into fits of laughter. No one knows whether he was able to part with some of his steely moustache as a gesture of good faith and friendship but the general consensus is positive. In return, these good natured Aliens seem to have somehow brokered a deal (marking the first interstellar trade) with the makers of Jack Daniels and now an endless supply of this famous bourbon arrives every Friday at noon on his doorsteps.

Finally, there is a third school of thought out there, who believes that these aliens are the ones that actually created us and are now checking up on us to see if their creations have borne food (maybe not the right word, considering we have already discussed the appalling subject before). And these super aliens who have created us have selected some of the best amongst us to further enhance and educate, to act as guides for the next phase of the evolution. Perhaps they were tired of observing and waiting for us to evolve from the medieval mindset that they felt it necessary to give us a jolt, just in case we don’t end up destroying the whole world and ruining their experiment …creation! I meant creation. This will explain why he seems to have this uncanny instinct, almost supernatural awareness, of the world around him, and a natural aura of innate sensibility in his demeanor that others can’t help but be captivated by his deportment. Sometimes if it is sufficiently tuned up it sends shockwaves in sensitive areas and he had to be recalled back to dial down the enhancements. It appears to be a work in progress.

But what isn’t disputed is that he has indeed met the Centauries and some of them even hung out with him, posing as human beings. By sheer dumb luck, one of the people taking pictures on that day, happen to have one of those old Leica cameras with an antique lens and was able to capture the creature in its true form. What happens now is anybody’s guess. Whatever it is, one thing is for sure, we must never forget to put on our tin-foils from now on or risk the potential for abduction, whether friendly or otherwise. Unless, of course, you wished to be abducted and then by all means, please find a quiet wooded area and wander around. It is not a total guarantee but at the very least you will be much closer to nature and the fresh air doesn’t hurt.

Next Week’s Topic: Jamyang Norbu and The Argonauts. An exciting adventure by yours truly in the search for the Golden Fleece. Monday, 7PM EST, Children and Senior half priced. Popcorn machine is broken. Please accept our apologies in advance.

About a year-and-a-half ago I was having dinner with a group of friends in India, at the home of a Tibetan friend. The topic of the sad state of affairs in the Tibetan community in India (loss of morale, corruption, etc.) came up and I rhetorically asked when it had all gone bad. Mind you, I have strong memories of the early days, of the time when the sense of unwavering commitment to Tibet was palpable, when the stand for Tibetan independence was not controversial (to the contrary!), when getting to the West was not the first thing on people’s minds. It was in that atmosphere that a good number of us non-Tibetans first encountered Tibet and the Tibet struggle and it indeed colored our attitudes (the attitudes of some of us at least) throughout the subsequent decades.

Well, in response to my question, my friend replied that it was the Middle Way. Everything had changed with that. We didn’t discuss it further, and moved on to other topics and a warm, convivial (and delicious) dinner.

August 1988; the molding of public opinion begins

But I thought about the remark. I don’t know if my friend meant the comment in the way I’ve taken it, but it seemed to me (and still does) to be much more insightful than its brevity might suggest. For when the Middle Way became official policy—with the Strasbourg Statement in the summer of 1988, though, truth be told, Tibetan Government-in-Exile officials were already operating on the basis of the policy years before it became public—it wrought a stunning reversal. Over the course of days anyone with a stake in the governing status quo, anyone with something to lose should they not remain in good standing with the Tibetan establishment, was faced with the fear of possibly losing a position, prestige, even a job, should he or she not remain in step with the policy decreed by the Dalai Lama. And so, one saw many, many, split-second turnarounds. People who had one day touted their commitment to the independence of Tibet were the next day touting that they were not for independence, but for Tibet being a democratic “entity” within China. Or minimally they learned to keep quiet. All of this happened in the absence of reasoned discussion and the formulation of a logical conclusion. It happened for reasons of expedient self-interest. People didn’t want to be on the opposite side of the divide from those who held power.

What was lost in all this was idealism: the idealism that had been the hallmark of the Tibetan struggle, both for Tibetans in exile (think back to the founding of the Tibetan Youth Congress) and for their non-Tibetan supporters and sympathizers. The Middle Way institutionalized—and under the circumstances it could not have been otherwise—cynical self-interest and private gain. The idealists were scorned as unrealistic (in point of fact they have turned out to be the realists), unconciliatory, and extremist, all negative qualities which aided in limiting their places in the structures of Tibetan society, unless they repented or at least shut-up. Advancement was very much helped by fealty to the new line. An establishment that, with all its faults, was rooted in its furtherance of a common ideal had now jettisoned that ideal and was coaxing shows of support for a policy decided by a small elite group, a policy that would easily have been dismissed had it not come with the Dalai Lama’s name associated with it. Some people, grasping at straws, tried to argue that the Middle Way was a way to secretly get back to Tibet and get independence (and in that they were at least in the company of the Chinese authorities who, like the Tibetans who promoted this rationale, have insisted that the Middle Way was and is a dishonest ruse). But this is a footnote. By vitiating Tibetan idealism the Middle Way raised the curtain on the first act of what became over the years a spectacle of increasing cronyism and corruption within Tibetan exile society, perhaps most notably manifested more recently by, among other things, visa scams worked by Tibetans on other Tibetans, fake asylum claims, criminal activities on the part of nihilistic Tibetan youths, etc. (One might say that some—even much—of this would certainly exist without the policy change, but I believe that the degree to which we have it today would surely have been less.)

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The victory of the Middle Way and the degeneration of ideals that followed in its wake should not be seen in isolation from the distorted understanding of civil society among Tibetans in exile that enabled it; i.e., the understanding among a substantial number of Tibetans that the policies, pronouncements, and wishes of the leader—the Dalai Lama—must not be subjected to serious critical objections and dissent. This atmosphere has led to the use of the Dalai Lama as a prop by some, and to mention of his name as the crux of an argument’s merits by others. This warped sense of civil society has become one of the obvious characteristics of significant portions of the exile community. It is reflected in the dismissal of Jigme Ngapo from his position at the Tibetan Service of Radio Free Asia late last year; allegations of the exile leadership’s political machinations to exert influence over RFA have been asserted by several parties as the primary cause of his dismissal. Reliable reports have made it clear that this dismissal was very much in line with the wishes of the leadership in Dharamsala. Even if short-sighted officials in Dharamsala may consider the termination of Jigme Ngapo’s employment opportune, the whole affair is deplorable. For one thing, given the questions about Lobsang Sangay’s behavior (financial and otherwise) that have been popping up, it is no credit to exile efforts at civil society for its leadership to move to influence reporting and personnel issues at RFA. RFA is, after all, mandated by the U.S. government to retain objectivity in its reporting—reporting that must sometimes take in the doings of these self-same Tibetan exile political figures. Some of the complaints about Jigme Ngapo actually speak favorably to his understanding of the need for distance and objectivity, i.e., complaints that he never visited Dharamsala as head of the RFA’s Tibetan Service or requested a personal audience with the Dalai Lama during his tenure. And more recently there has come very reliable word of a particularly embarrassing incident, indicative of Dharamsala’s adamant intention to involve itself in RFA matters. Since many of the principle players in Jigme Ngapo’s dismissal were caught off guard by the furor that followed it, the Dalai Lama—ostensibly retired from political activity—decided to lend his authority and influence to the cause of quieting dissent on the issue. In a closed talk to Tibetan journalists at the 26th Mind and Life Conference in Mundgod in January, well after Jigme Ngapo had been dismissed from his post, he made it clear that he agreed with the complaints that the Tibetan exile leadership had been making about Jigme Ngapo’s independence (e.g., complaints about Jamyang Norbu being allowed to give commentary on RFA) and supported his dismissal. Most mind-boggling, though, was his statement that Libby Liu, the controversial (to say the least) head of RFA and the one who terminated Jigme Ngapo’s tenure there, had done much more for Tibet than Jigme Ngapo had ever done. Given the machinations to oust Jigme Ngapo that preceded this, having the Dalai Lama—who is seemingly unconcerned about any questionable behavior on the part of Libby Liu or Lobsang Sangay (the latter, after all, being an ardent supporter of his policy of retaining Tibet as a part of China)—pronounce favorably on the merits of one RFA official over another simply solidifies the perception that the wall that ought normally to keep exile political influence out of RFA’s affairs has been toxically eroded.

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To bemoan the state of civil society in exile is not—please be assured, dear reader—to propose any sort of equivalence, moral or actual, between the PRC and the Tibetan exile political structure, such as it is. Whatever valid criticisms of exile society and the exile community one might make, arrests, executions, and torture are in no way part of it; on the most obvious level there is simply no meaningful or honest comparison to be made between what transpires inside Tibet and what transpires in exile. But that should not deter anyone from being blunt about the ills of exile society, including the less than complete grasp on the part of many exiles as to what makes up a functional civil society. This state of affairs may also be responsible for the often skewed view of Chinese society that periodically manifests itself among exiles. In some quarters the growing interest in Tibetan Buddhism on the part of some Chinese within the PRC has been translated into notions about support for the Tibetan cause within China, ignoring the fact that many of the people in China who take an interest in Tibetan Buddhism do so with little or no awareness of the Tibet Issue and its implications (not unlike some of their counterparts in the West, actually). Indeed, to the question that is frequently asked—what do Chinese think about Tibet?—the answer is quite simple: Tibet does not occupy the thoughts of the vast majority of Chinese. And when it does come to mind, it is likely to be as a region whose people were liberated from a particularly horrendous form of feudal oppression, or as a land of apolitical mysticism. The fact is most Chinese don’t spend time thinking or caring about Tibet. Indeed, when Tibet comes into broader view, as during the protests of 2008, this lack of serious reflection results in bafflement or, more commonly, resentment—resentment at the patent ingratitude of Tibetans for the liberation from slave-like servitude that China granted them. This is not to ignore those Chinese who do dare to reject what the official media and Chinese ultra-nationalism prompts them to think about the issue. But they are a terribly small part of the population and to see them as having a role to play in pushing popular sentiment (let alone official policy) in a certain direction is, at least at this moment in time, to misread the nature of civil society in China, as many in the exile community are indeed wont to do.

It is for this reason that the projection of Tibetan hopes onto the phenomena of visible Chinese protests—the perception that these protests are opening up a space for greater Tibetan freedom—has serious failings. Protests within the PRC—and there are many—are indeed striking. But Tibetans who think that they may foreshadow the growth of a Chinese society predicated on broad notions of justice and human rights that will work towards addressing the aspirations of Tibetans are misjudging much of their context.

And this brings us briefly back to RFA, where a March 11 news story headlined “Many Chinese Sympathetic to Tibet: RFA Poll” started off with the statement that “Mainland Chinese are largely sympathetic to the cause of Tibet…” The headline and opening phrase certainly express sentiments that feed into the exile establishment’s view that the Middle Way is an effective policy, one that is winning popular Chinese support because of its “conciliatory” nature. Yet when one reads the story closely one discovers that it is based on telephone questioning of… 30 Chinese respondents! 30 people (not all of whom, by the way, are wholly sympathetic to Tibetan expressions of discontent) out of, say, 1.3 billion! One may rightly wonder: what agenda—or, more aptly, who’s agenda—would get such a headline and story posted on the RFA website on the basis of a statistically less-than-inconsequential phone survey of RFA listeners? Only a disregard for minimal journalistic standards for research and reporting could produce such a story. What next? Will RFA be breathlessly telling its listeners in China that most Americans have sighted Elvis Presley, alive and well, at their local McDonalds?

It should be understood, when trying to read potential Chinese thinking about Tibet from the larger phenomenon of Chinese protests, that local protests in China are most commonly rooted in specific local issues; they are fundamentally different from protests that involve nationality issues and nationality discontents. These latter are inherently imbued with—tainted with, as many would see it—the potential for undermining crucial elements in the modern construction of the Chinese nation. The introduction of the national question into a protest automatically places it in a much more sinister category (as far as the authorities and many Chinese citizens are concerned) than that of protests caused by limited local grievances. And here the crippled nature of Chinese civil society becomes clearer. Setting aside those few, brave souls who do look beyond their own group’s interests and raise their voices in support of broad human rights issues (and of course there are such people in China, let’s not forget), the sort of civil society backing for issues that transcend the personal interests of particular protestors is still quite weak. It does exist, of course, and when one sees manifestations of it, it is striking. But China is far from producing a civil society in which significant numbers of people will take a strong, public, dissenting stand on an issue removed from their own perceived interests. Consider that the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s only achieved the level of success that it did when a majority of the population—the non-Black population—was no longer able to avoid a gut-level sense of shame and anger over the bigotry, discrimination and worse that was visited upon one sector of society. That the majority did not suffer the same outrages inflicted on the Black population was beside the point. The situation was repugnant; it offended the sense of justice of the majority, which ultimately supported measures and actions to end it. And this, out of a sense of civil society; an awareness that it is largely the citizenry, not the government, that must ultimately set the agenda for social justice.

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This is what makes Tibetan expectations about Chinese society so misleading. Contrary to what RFA claims to have adduced, it is nowhere near being a society in which visceral opposition to injustice visited upon someone else can be sufficient grounds for outcries and broad social action over conditions in Tibet. Although there is sympathy for Tibetan grievances to be found on some social media sites, it is dwarfed by a larger public sentiment that either accepts official positions or is uninterested. Given the deterministic ideological arguments that dominated Chinese thinking on a host of subjects (history, religion, society, etc.) for decades, derisory attitudes to international sensitivities about injustice in Tibet are hardly unexpected. In most Chinese conceptions of the factors that produced an international movement in support of Tibet there is little room for consideration of the workings of civil society. Rather, certain forces whose objective effect is anti-China are at work underneath the veneer of civil society humanitarianism; forces that are deterministic: rooted, above all in group social and historical dynamics divorced from individualistic sensibilities and direction. Agitation over Tibet in the West and elsewhere (almost always characterized as anti-China) is presented as something easily understood once one comprehends the determining dynamics of the society or people in question.

At least one of the explanations can be characterized as transparently idiotic (and vile). 美国犹太人的西藏观和对“西藏问题”的态度 (“American Jews’ View of Tibet and Their Attitude Toward the ‘Tibet Question’ ”), a 2011 article by Du Yongbin in Zhongguo Zangxue, one of China’s premier journals of Tibetan Studies, starts off by reminding readers of several pertinent “facts:”

Of the 200 cultural figures with the most influence among Americans, half of them are Jews. Up to the early 1980s, of the more than 100 American Nobel Prize winners, close to half were Jews and their descendants. As a result, some people say America controls the world and the Jews control America. For reasons of religion, culture, politics, etc., there is an indissoluble link binding American Jews and the Tibet Issue.

From that point on one has a pretty good idea as to where all this is going. And the author doesn’t disappoint, providing sections on Jewish officials in the U.S. government (shades of Richard Nixon!), on the emotional tie of Jewish officials to the Tibet Issue, on Jewish academics, on Jews in Tibetan Studies (including yours truly, of course), etc. He ends with a delineation of political, emotional and cultural factors linking American Jews to the Tibet Issue: American Jews identify with the diasporic circumstances of Tibetan exiles; both Jews and Tibetans are religious peoples facing questions of modernization, secularization and cultural preservation; the realization of Zionism is considered a model for achieving Tibetan Independence, etc. But before this point, there is, as I guess is to be expected in such a piece of drivel, a short disquisition on the “Jewish media’s” support for Tibetan independence, noting ominously that “Within these world-famous media companies, not only are the owners Jewish, but many of their important posts are filled by Jews. Although there are many newspapers and magazines owned by non-Jews, their advertising income depends, to a very large degree, on Jews.” Whew! One hopes Du Yongbin has been properly thanked for sounding the alarm on Jewish control of the media! And where has the author found such spectacular insights? Well, fortunately this bit is footnoted. His source is a one-stop go-to website for all things Jewish-Conspiratorial: www.jewwatch.com…! Du Yongbin’s embrace of the assertions of anti-Semitic cranks (the website’s homepage features a lovely graphic of “Zionist Leon Trotsky of the Zionist USSR”) can hardly be an error of ignorance. Yes, some may argue that such idiocy has wide currency in China. But in this instance it’s being aired in a journal that presents itself as a vehicle for scholarship. Its publication in Zhongguo Zangxue illustrates the ease with which, in the broad absence of liberal, civil society modes of thought, deterministic, essentialist beliefs are taken up to explain foreign attitudes concerning China’s treatment of Tibet. A pity Du Yongbin wasn’t around in Stalin’s waning years. He might then have been able to combine his belief in an overarching Jewish-American position on Tibet with a Stalinist/Marxist disquisition on Jewish… uh, make that “rootless cosmopolitan,” art, capitalism, etc.

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But the best illustration of the application of essentialist and illiberal thinking to the Tibet Issue derives from that deterministic work par excellence, Edward Said’s Orientalism. In the most basic and simplistic way in which the book has come to be used by its acolytes—China and Tibet aside—it allows for identity and representation to trump or muddle the specifics of awkward fact; identity and position determine representation, and so the West must see and deal with the “Orient” in a manner that accords with the needs of the West’s position of dominance and its imperialist heritage. These have made of the Orient a backward, barbaric “Other,” justifying the West’s position and needs in the relationship. Through elaboration, this also extends to positive images of the Oriental “Other,” or so Chinese commentators would have it when they assert that the West, in its demonization of China needs to invoke the image of a sacred, otherworldly and wise Tibet. In essence, the West must view the Orient in the basic, prescribed manner. As Said made clear (selecting India and Egypt to stand in for the Orient in toto):

I doubt if it is controversial, for example, to say that an Englishman in India or Egypt in the later nineteenth century took an interest in those countries that was never far from their status as British colonies. To say this may seem quite different from saying that all academic knowledge about India and Egypt is somehow tinged and impressed with, violated by, gross political fact—and yet that is what I am saying in this study of Orientalism. For if it is true that no production of knowledge in the human sciences can ever ignore or disclaim its author’s involvement as a human subject in his own circumstances, then it must also be true that for a European or American studying the Orient there can be no disclaiming the main circumstances of his actuality: that he comes up against the Orient as a European or American first…

And there’s more than a small grain of truth in this: people do stereotype the “Other.” It happens between cultures, between nations, between regions, between peoples and ethnie, etc., and within them as well. And people are influenced and shaped by their environments. But these are commonplaces, not great revelations; and elevating them to the overriding determining factor in the development of an individual’s views means subordinating the content of said views—and the facts that shape and gain expression in them—to the identity of the observer. It makes people first and foremost functions of their identities (as described by the many academic fans of Orientalism, of course); and as such it is ideology. It is ideology as much as if the identity in question were class or race.

Much ink has already been spilled pointing out the holes in Said’s work, not least his poor grasp of academic Orientalism in the West, as evidenced, for instance, in his seemingly near-total ignorance of the German Indological tradition, a tradition bereft, during its development, of an accompanying German imperialist stake in India of any sort. What Orientalism ignores in the motivation of so many scholars such as these is amply summed up in the very title of Robert Irwin’s critique: For Lust of Knowing. Rather trenchantly Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans) noted, apropos of Said’s portrait of Orientalism as a colonialist-imperialist conspiracy: “Who knows? One day it will perhaps be discovered that the best studies of Tang poetry and Song painting have all been financed by the CIA—a fact that should somehow improve the public image of this much-maligned organization.” His critique (“Orientalism and Sinology”)—which was specifically concerned with what Orientalism meant for Sinology—ought to be read in full; it can be found in the most recent collection of his essays.

If one takes note of the slippery generalities about the production of stereotypes and the role of social and political environments in the shaping of views that are frequent elements in much of the literature that has grown around Orientalism, one might just begin to see that the “theory” of “Orientalism” has ultimately come down to the fetishization of the banal. (In this sense, perhaps, it was an early herald of a broader trend, at least in large sectors of Anglo-American academia: banalities dressed up in affected neologisms and effusively praised as pathbreaking revelations at annual circle-jerk symposia and conferences, only to be all but forgotten by the time the following year’s gathering has been convened.)

In truth, it’s necessary to point out that Orientalism’s assertions about the manner in which the power interests of the West shape scholarship, literature, media, etc., creating in all of them an image of the Orient as violent, brutal, craven, etc., etc.; i.e., an image “tinged and impressed with, violated by,” the political needs of the West, were hardly new when the book first appeared. If one were on a major American university campus such as… well, why not say Said’s very own Columbia University in, say, the early 1970s, well before Orientalism saw the light of print… If one were in that particular place at that particular time one could hardly have been unaware of any number of lectures or presentations demonstrating how the imperialist culture and interests of the United States determined the popular and academic representation of China: Fu Manchu, Anna May Wong, et al, were all part of the inevitable imagery that an imperialist power required in order to represent China as a violent, brutal place when in fact the China of the day was a place of broad harmony, committed altruism and—above all—revolutionary solidarity; a place where intellectuals and students happily went out to the countryside to live in communes and learn from the peasantry. Violence, torture, and oppression in the China of the Cultural Revolution? It was only the United States, abetted by an academic establishment which was, shall we say, “violated by gross political fact,” that propagated such an image for its own imperialist purposes. Thankfully audiences could learn the revolutionary truth about such colonialist misrepresentations from the roving bands of lecturers from the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars or, a little later, from the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association… Alas, by the early 1980s that had all became a huge embarrassment to a host of newly-minted China experts (think Shirley MacLaine, et al.). Unfortunately, it turned out that there had been violence and brutality attached to the Cultural Revolution… violence and brutality aplenty.

Orientalism, as often propounded, is in large part a conversation-changer. If the topic is repression in Tibet, human rights violations, torture, or mass deaths, Orientalism allows for the conversation to be changed to the identity of the speaker and the unspoken agenda that those sharing the identity must have. These take precedence over mere facts, and therein lies the ideological element. Of course people have agendas; but reducing the individual, scholar or not, first and foremost to a function of a specific agenda associated with a designated identity ought to seem transparently unreliable as methodology. But it is easy and saves one the problem of dealing with the complex and contradictory natures of real people, It is worth remembering the words that Marguerite Yourcenar drew from the imaginary pen of the Emperor Hadrian: “I have often reflected upon the error that we commit in supposing that a man or a family necessarily share in the ideas or events of the century in which they happen to exist.”

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The often vacuous banality of Orientalism has allowed it to be used by any and all. While Chinese commentators have made use of it to criticize Western supporters of Tibet, there are Western supporters and some Tibetans who have picked up the accusation and thrown it back, accusing Chinese of “internal Orientalism” vis-à-vis Tibet. The result conjures up an image of two sides yelling at each other, accusing the other side of being the “real Orientalist.”

It requires little imagination to see what advantage ideological guilt-by-association theorizing can provide to the standard Chinese argument on the Tibet Issue. Wang Hui, one of the best-known writers on the issue of Orientalism and the Tibet Question, gives a clear-cut demonstration. He evinces no need (and, one assumes, no desire) to discuss the details of repression, imprisonment, a history of mass death, etc., etc., in Tibet as understandable (indeed, justifiable) causes for normal civil-society-based concern or activity over the Tibet Issue. Rather, he need simply tie any interest in democracy and human rights to the agenda prescribed by Orientalism and its devotees, as Wang Hui does in an article (portions of which can be found expanded upon in his book 东西之间的“西藏问题” [“The ‘Tibet Question’ Between East and West”]). Thus:

Here I will first discuss the reaction to the issue in Western society. In actuality, those who support “Tibetan Independence” have their own individual distinctions. Other than launching criticisms of China’s politics from the angles of democracy, and human rights, there are also three different aspects, seen from the historical angle, that merit attention. The first is that Western knowledge about Tibet is deeply rooted in the West’s Orientalist knowledge, which up to the present has not been sorted out and clarified. This element has had the most influence on Europeans. The following aspect is the organization of specific governmental power to manipulate public opinion and political activity. This is most relevant to the United States. The third mixes sympathy for Tibet with apprehension, dread, rejection and disgust at China’s rapidly rising economy and very different political system. This point has influenced the entire world, except for the Third World. These three aspects are not only related to nationalism, even more so connected to colonialism, imperialism, Cold War history and the state of inequality within globalization…

Said took Islamic Studies as the center of his analysis of Oriental Studies* in Europe. He saw this body of knowledge as something that had been dealt with on the basis of the kind of position that the Orient had held within Western European experience, fixing an Oriental pattern. And within this pattern the Orient became an integral and composite part of European material culture and civilization; a constructed Other for the European Self. As concerned Europe, the Orient wasn’t pure fabrication or fantasy, neither was it a sort of naturally existing entity. Rather, it was a sort of system of theory and practice created by human beings, containing a level of material content accumulated over an endless stretch of history. Tibetology has always held an important place within Oriental Studies but to date it has not been treated seriously as such. In the West Tibetology is not placed within Chinese Studies. It has been like this ever since the formative period of Oriental Studies. From this sort of knowledge system itself one can see the methods for Sino-Tibetan relations in the Western imagination. These methods, basically speaking, are just the way Said described them…

And even in the realm of scholarship the shadow of Orientalism has never disappeared… The Shangri-La story is derived from the myths of Blavatsky: the story of a bunch of white people living in the Buddhist society of Shangri-La. In this story, Tibet serves as the background. The author and the actors were all Westerners dreaming of Shambhala or Shangri-La. Hollywood movies and all manner of mass culture incessantly reproduce stories about Shambhala or Shangri-La. But all that they express is what they are dreaming of within the world of the West. In the aftermath of war, industrialization and all sorts of disaster, Tibet—to put it more precisely—is Shambhala or Shangri-La. It has become a fantasy world for many Westerners: a world that is mysterious, spiritual, filled with revelations, non-technological, peace-loving, virtuous, and imbued with psychic capabilities.

The tenor of Wang Hui’s comments is clear. And from them too one can understand the generally positive view that is given another work, one which focuses on the fantasy element, the Western view of Tibet as Shangri-La. Grounded in Orientalism, Wang Hui makes use of the Shangri-La meme, proposing that one aspect of Western hostility to China is rooted in the notion that China has destroyed the West’s cherished fantasy land. And so we find Don Lopez’s Prisoners of Shangri-La invoked by some writers in support of that position. Indeed, when the book was published at least one critic was angered that it would provide fodder for China’s overall position on Tibet. And one might surmise that that has been the case, given the references to it that can be found in Chinese writings. But there’s a significant difference between Prisoners of Shangri-La, as read in China, and Orientalism. To start off, Orientalism as used by Chinese writers is not a distortion of its author’s main thesis. This is what makes it so handy. But Prisoners of Shangri-La is something else altogether. Don Lopez does delve—in detail—into the fantasizing about Tibet that has become so markedly associated with the country. But in this he does not tie sympathy with the plight of contemporary Tibet uniquely to Western needs for a pure realm somewhere far away, nor does he deny the reality of what has happened in Tibet under Chinese rule. Indeed, he is quite categorical in describing China’s presence in Tibet with the terms “occupation” and “colonization.” Broadly speaking, recent Chinese writing on the subject doesn’t really represent a new development, save perhaps as regards its particularly skewed slant. Western scholarship has long been addressing the issue of a fantasy Tibet without in any way ignoring the horrors that have transpired there under Chinese rule. Already in 1996 a major symposium devoted to the subject, Mythos Tibet, was convened in Bonn, bringing together many of the major Western academics (including Don Lopez) who have dealt with the subject in one way or another. Even before that, Agehananda Bharati (Leopold Fischer) authored a much-discussed piece on the subject in the mid-1970s.

There’s something else that is quite telling about the position of Prisoners of Shangri-La in Chinese academic writing. While it is cited by some writers in China, many (if not most) of whom read it in translation, the actual translation is not accessible to the general public. It is not to be found, so far as I can tell, in any publicly accessible bookstore, nor is it possible for ordinary students and members of the public to read it. That, in and of itself, ought to make clear that its contents are not wholly or honestly represented by many of the Chinese writers who make use of it. As for Orientalism, that book is easily available in Chinese translation, a translation which includes a key to the pagination of the original English edition (so that, anyone, when citing it, can give the appearance of having used the original English-language version). Of course there’s no need in China to misrepresent Orientalism; it’s the perfect conversation-changer (when talk turns to the unpleasant subjects of political imprisonment, torture, etc., in Tibet) exactly as is. Its core idea makes it well-suited for use as an antidote against the insistence that specific grievances, facts, accounts of atrocities should be—must be—spoken of, written about and exposed before an international public, regardless of whatever identity one fixes on the speaker or writer. It is pressed into service to pronounce the content of what is said to be the mere, inevitable narratives of a certain identity.

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The need for the free and open airing of arguments, assertions, and positions is an essential element of a functioning civil society in both the PRC and Tibetan exile society, though the dynamics and types of damage done in the two cases are indeed exponentially very different. Still, the fact that there is such a lack in exile was made obvious just late last month. The Tibetan Youth Congress had scheduled an international symposium on the Rangzen issue for May 23-25 in Dharamsala. With such a gathering at hand (full disclosure: I was one of the invitees) the powers that be apparently exerted pressure (some direct, much of it indirect) on the TYC. Bearing in mind that there is no moral comparison between what transpires inside Tibet and what happens in exile, the result was nevertheless disturbing. In addition to the pressure aimed at halting the meeting, it is a curious fact that, for various reasons, none of the possible venues in Dharamsala that TYC tried to reserve for it could be made available. For those who worry about the state of Tibetan civil society, the fact that the TYC then simply scrubbed the meeting furthers the vexation. The machinations and tactics that were brought to bear effectively deprived those whose views are at odds with official policy of an opportunity to meet and express dissenting opinions. This is rather ironic: only two weeks earlier Tibetans and Tibetan supporters had been vociferously condemning the University of Sydney for withdrawing permission for the Dalai Lama to speak at a venue on its campus, claiming, among other things, that this was an assault on the right of free speech. But now the inescapable impression is that many in Tibetan exile society, not excluding people in the leadership, see that right as something they do indeed support… but for themselves, and not necessarily (or fully) for those with dissenting ideas. It is a depressing pattern which has occurred with some regularity in many of the freedom struggles that have marked the post-War and post-Cold War world. In the Tibetan case it is not possible to separate such actions from the cult-of-personality attached to the Dalai Lama and the resulting special sanctity accorded his political views. Indeed, given the fact that exile society exists within the legal structures of India, the mechanics and pressure applied to hindering dissent are of necessity very much attached to the cult-of-personality.

Given the situation, the existence of an independent media remains crucially important. And this brings us back, yet again, to RFA, which did cover the Sydney incident and which does continue to broadcast important news from Tibet. But spreading palpably unsupportable and unsubstantiated stories such as the one mentioned earlier (“Many Chinese Sympathetic to Tibet: RFA Poll”) can only work to dilute RFA’s credibility. Under Jigme Ngapo RFA had a reputation (and earned respect) for providing a diversity of opinion. But the forces that sought to end the laudable work that Jigme Ngapo did now seem intent on seeing that RFA functions in accord with their political views. When RFA got around to finding a replacement for Jigme Ngapo a show was made of finding a Tibetan Service director who would undo the damage caused by Jigme Ngapo’s dismissal and bring the highest standards to the post. The job announcement that was circulated called for a candidate with a background related to journalism, someone with contacts and ties inside Tibet, and, ideally, fluency in Chinese. And who was finally chosen? Tenzin Tethong. He is a pleasant enough person, perhaps, but he is someone without a background in journalism, without contacts in Tibet or China, and with no facility at all in Chinese. Oh, but he did bring one thing to the table: the experience of having previously served as Kalon Tripa, the position to which Lobsang Sangay was elected. In other words, someone with ties and contacts not inside Tibet but inside the Dharamsala establishment. Following Tenzin Tethong’s appointment, Libby Liu, RFA’s president, expressed the hope that his hire “will go a long way towards healing,” by which one can only understand that she hopes this will help put the embarrassment of the sacking of Jigme Ngapo (and the disgraceful way in which it was done) behind her.

One ought to give Tenzin Tethong a chance. Perhaps he will decide to continue some of those things that won Jigme Ngapo much appreciation and admiration from listeners and staff: a commitment to presenting diverse opinions and a studied non-partisanship; perhaps one will begin hearing again the voices of those whose presence so annoyed Libby Liu and the authorities in Dharamsala. That would require a real understanding of and commitment to the essential worth of civil society. It would require that the new director of the Tibetan Service be prepared to stand up to the demands of Libby Liu, authorities in Dharamsala, and the thralldom of the cult-of-personality. Given the Dalai Lama’s involvement in this whole business, it would require a gut-level understanding that he is human and that his political opinion is the opinion of a man, an opinion that cannot be accorded divine weight. This is essential if one wishes to make a stab at supporting the institutions of civil society.

If this does not happen; if the Tibetan Service of RFA continues further down the road of functioning as the house organ of the Tibetan exile leadership, one would hope that there would be protest or pushback from within the Tibetan community in exile, protest rooted in a commitment to civil society. But the outlook for this is bleak; when even the TYC (which China ludicrously brands a “terrorist organization”) appears to be capable of little more than an ineffectual, muffled protest at moves that stifle its right to free assembly and free speech, there seems precious little basis for hope. Nevertheless, when the circle of world leaders willing to meet the Dalai Lama is starting to shrink, when various industries (notably, but not uniquely, Hollywood, the place where popular images are made) are increasingly concerned about not offending China, when China has no hesitation about aggressively pressing truly irredentist territorial demands, perhaps a good dose of civil society debate in Dharamsala is needed before the next round of echo-chamber praise for the ostensible success of the Middle Way Approach begins.

Postscript

Readers who have made it to the end of this admittedly long blog post have, I hope, grasped the central point: that the civil society deficit within China and within Tibetan exile society is deep and damaging. As regards exile society, there was a stunning display of what this means only a few days after this post was put up. At an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington D.C. on May 8, Lobsang Sangay was discussing the position that he and the exile administration take towards China. The event was presided over by Prof. Jerome Cohen of New York University, perhaps best known at the moment for the help he extended to human rights activist Chen Guangcheng. The proceedings were recorded and the video is available online.

At approximately 26 minutes into the recording Lobsang Sangay states: “We are not asking that democracy be implemented or be allowed inside Tibet. What we are asking is rights as per the provisions of the Chinese Constitution. So democracy is what we aspire, but that’s not part of what we are asking to the Chinese Government” (sic). In other words the Tibetan struggle is no longer one that even seeks basic democratic rights for Tibetans. “We are not asking that democracy… be allowed inside Tibet.” Sadly, no one in the audience, at least none among those who rose to ask questions, thought to even query this. Only Jerome Cohen pressed him on the matter. At 28 minutes he notes “It’s very interesting to see what this would amount to if there’s no freedom of speech for the people in Tibet.” He gets no further explanation or qualification on this point from Lobsang Sangay. Later on (40 minutes and 50 seconds in) he tries again: “Of course one problem with Tibetans is if you give them freedom of speech they may not shout ‘autonomy,’ they may shout ‘independence.’” “Not necessarily,” responds Lobsang Sangay, reeling off a few examples of what he considers comparable conflicts (e.g., Quebec, Northern Ireland, “Catalina” [sic; one assumes he means Catalonia]) that have found resolution. Aside from the fact that these conflicts—whatever relevance they may or may not have for the Tibetan Issue—all involved parties that subscribed to fundamental ideas about democracy and rights (and which therefore made the violations of those rights potent elements in the disputes), Lobsang Sangay concludes simply that if an agreement is reached the people will abide by it. Of course! In fact he had earlier in the discussion (21 minutes and 45 seconds in) made it clear why he assumes as much: “If the Chinese Government implements their own laws we take that as a genuine autonomy and we don’t challenge or ask for an overthrow of the Communist Party…” (sic). When Jerome Cohen then asks “How do you maintain autonomy if you have continuing party control of the government?” the answer begins: “As long as Tibetans are in charge in the leadership…”

So this is what it has come down to, fifty-plus years after the beginning of an exile struggle rooted in the idea and idealism of Tibet as a nation, and 25 years after the Middle Way Approach scuttled that idealism (but still asserted that the goal was to achieve a Tibet that was “a democratic political entity… in association with the People’s Republic of China). The goal now is not any sort of democratic system in Tibet; it is rule by the Communist Party, albeit with Tibetan party members staffing the leadership positions. The idea of civil society rights and norms has no part in this. And the reaction in the exile community? A comment here and there, but otherwise mostly silent acquiescence so far to the exile leader’s endorsement of party dictatorship with a Tibetan face as the solution to the Tibet Issue. Not that this will make any difference to the Chinese authorities. Surely it only confirms their assumptions about the inherent weakness of the exile political structure. To the list of strengths that it lacks (political, military, financial, etc.) they can now add moral.

NOTE

* I use the term “Oriental Studies” here to reflect the fact that “Orientalism” is translated two different ways in Chinese. Said uses one single term to cover representations of the Orient (essentially the Islamic Orient) in areas such as art and literature but also in academic writing as well. With regard to the former (and in the general sense of the word) it is often rendered in Chinese as Dongfangzhuyi 东方主义, with the import of “ism” reflected in zhuyi 主义. But with regard to Orientalism in academic writing the term used is Dongfangxue 东方学, which ought to be properly translated as “Orientology,” “Orientalistics,” or, as I’ve chosen to do here, for reading fluidity, “Oriental Studies.” In the title of his article Wang Hui uses the term Dongfangzhuyi but, as can be seen here, he also uses Dongfangxue in referring to academic writings and studies. The reader may also note from the photograph of the cover of the Chinese translation of the book that the title, Orientalism, is given as Dongfangxue.

1974 PRC propaganda photo of "Khampa" militiaman assisting the PLA

When Andrug Gompo Tashi set up the Chushigangdruk (Four Rivers Six Ranges) in Lhoka in the summer of ‘58, and commenced resistance operations, Chinese garrisons and outpost in those areas were taken by surprise. Fearing that the local population might join or support Chushigangdruk, the PLA launched a fear campaign to drive a wedge between the local public and the Khampas. They dressed up Chinese soldiers as Khampa fighters and sent them around in small bands to rob and even kill Tibetan farmers and traders. When Chushigandruk headquarters got wind of what was happening they tried to contain the damage by letting people know of this Chinese deception.

The resistance put up posters, even in Lhasa city, warning the populace of these fake or counterfeit Khampas, and describing them as “khampa-dzunma” or “khamdzun” for short. The poster also recounted successful Chushigangdruk attacks against Chinese convoys and garrisons. Some Tibetans, at the time, were not convinced by the fake Khampa stories. A few thought they might even be a cover-up for some Khampas who may have exploited the locals. I wasn’t a skeptic but I must admit that I was, for a long time, not sure, one way or the other.

But in 2008 one minor side-show in the great Uprising woke me up to the scope and magnitude of Chinese deceit. When the demonstrations and riots first broke out in Lhasa, one photograph that caught world media attention was of Tibetan protesters burning the Chinese national flag. While every one in the photograph was in western-style street clothes, one man, standing apart from the main group, was wearing a chuba robe, in loose khampa style, and brandishing a menacing looking sword.

Photograph of Lhasa street protest before "sword-brandishing" khampa was digitally removed. Photographer unknown.

Claire Harris, the Oxford art historian in her latest book* claims that “The impact of this photograph was enormous, as it radically altered perceptions of Tibetans in China and around the globe. Websites and blogs filled with comments from enraged Chinese.” The photograph of a wild Khampa wielding a huge sword provided a highly effective piece of visual propaganda. “It was heavily promoted for circulation in the international press and through the global network of Chinese embassies.”

Fortuitously, a Chinese women from Thailand who had visited Lhasa earlier that month testified to the press that she knew that Chinese officers had disguised themselves as Tibetans during the riots. She even claimed that when she saw the image of the “sword wielding” Khampa on the BBC, she recognized him as a Chinese policeman. She also reported that on March 14, she and other tourists had been at the Lhasa police station, where they witnessed a policeman taking off his Tibetan-style clothing and putting a large sword away. Harris concludes: “Shortly thereafter Chinese embassies around the world began to send out another version of the photograph. This time the armed “Tibetan” had been digitally erased.”

The lesson I took away from this case was that one should never underestimate the Chinese capacity for deception when it came to their efforts to cause disunity among Tibetans and undermine the Rangzen struggle.

So, a few days ago, when I received an email that directed to me to this bizarre report: Lhaksam Media: “Breaking News: 400 Khampas Request to change a mission or goal of RANGZEN to U-MAY LAM”, I immediately said to myself “Whoa! Fake Khampas dead ahead.”

Accompanying this spurious report was an equally misleading photograph that had nothing to do with this or any other “breaking news”. The image was of 13 Tibetans (some of them not even Khampas and one the brother-in-law of the Dalai Lama) presiding over a function. This photograph was taken from an RFA report and clearly captioned “43rd governing body meeting of Dokham Chushigangdruk.” This was probably a meeting of the CTA leaning faction of Chushigangdruk, held some years ago in Dharamshala, and having nothing to do with any call for mission change. To authenticate it as “breaking news” Lhaksam Media mentions that it received its information “cortesy (sic) of RFA …”. But the actual RFA report did not mention 400 Khampas. Instead it said clearly that the meeting was held by one section of the Khampa public in Hunsur (“མདོ་སྟོད་སེར་སྐྱ་མི་མང་ཁག་ཅིག”).

Fake photograph of the meeting of "400 khampas".

I quickly called an acquaintance connected to the main Chushigandruk organization, and asked about this news-report. He told me that it was a complete fake, and that 400 Khampas had not contacted the organization asking it to change its goal of Rangzen.

According to Tibet Times on Monday April 22 in the Hunsur resettlement camp in South India, a meeting was held at Gyurme monastery by monks and some people of Khampa background, just over 300 (“༣༠༠ ལྷག་”) in all.

Fours resolutions were passed at the meeting:

The 1st praised the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) branches in five South India settlements who had earlier called on the Tibetan Youth Congress to change its stand from independence to the Middle Way”.

The 2nd called on the Chushigandruk organization to change its stand on Tibetan independence to that of the Middle way.

The 3rd stated that the previous year (2012) a number of Khampa members of parliament had regrettably participated in a conference at Dharamshala organized by a Rangzen organization (The Tibetan National Congress). As the TYC was organizing a Rangzen Meeting this year. Khampa MPs were called on to not attend this meeting otherwise they would not be acknowledged as MPs in the future.

The 4th declared full agreement and full support of the gathering for the Middle Way policy.

The strange thing about this document is that it was not signed by the “over 300 people” reported in the Tibet Times, nor any of their representatives. There was also no photograph in this report or anywhere else of the real meeting.

There are only five signatories at the end of the resolutions, four of whom signed as monastic officials of Gyurme monastery, and one as a former TYC Centrex member. None of the signatories also signed in any capacity as representing the Chushigandruk or any Khampa organization or as a representative of the gathering. This was clearly a meeting that had been organized by the Gyurme monastery or by at least by its leading monastic officials. The Tibet Times report provides two facsimile pages of the resolutions and the signatures.

2nd page of resolution of Hunsur meeting

Another very strange thing with the document is that copies do not appear to have been sent to the Tibetan Youth Congress or the Chushigandruk organization to whom the meeting was calling on to give up their mission goal.

Instead at the bottom of the second page there is a short list of organizations to whom copies were sent. The first copy was sent the Dalai Lama’s Gaden Phodrang Trust, the second to the Kashag, the third to the Standing Committee of the Parliament, and the fourth to various monasteries.

Why is the first copy of such a contentious and divisive political document being sent to the Dalai Lama’s Gaden Phodrang Trust? It was my understanding that after His retirement the Dalai Lama was going to use this “Trust” or “Foundation” for intellectual, philanthropic or religious purposes but certainly not for political purposes.

On the basis of this strange connection it could perhaps be postulated that someone in the Gaden Phodrang Trust instructed the Gyurme monastery to hold the so called “khampa” meeting on the 22^nd of April, and the dutiful Gyurme monastic officials after faithfully doing what they were told, sent the first copy of their resolution back to the Gaden Phodrang Trust, to demonstrate that they had loyally carried out the instructions they had received.

Professor Samdong Rinpoche, likely director of Gaden Phodrang Trust

Going one step further one might argue the direction for the spate of recent attacks on Rangzen advocates may have originated from the alleged director of the Gaden Phodrang Trust, Samdong Rimpoche, who has a history of hostility to Tibetan activists and intellectuals. I was given to understand by a Dharamshala informant that Samdong Rinpoche sent Thomtok Trulku around to Tibetan communities in the USA to instruct them not to celebrate the centenary of the Great Thirteenth’s declaration of independence.

Thomtok Rinpoche, abbot of Namgyal Monastery

In the matter of the TYC chapters in South India demanding that the Tibetan Youth Congress give up its fundamental goal and cancel the planned International Rangzen Conference (of 23- 25 May) we do not, of course, have as direct a link to Samdong Rinpoche as the Gyurme monastery letter to the Ganden Phodang Trust.

But one could perhaps ask why, of the TYC’s 87 chapters, only four in Tibetan settlements in South India took this perverted stand. Could it be that they happen to exist in proximity to and under the influence of all the great Gelukpa monasteries of Drepung, Ganden, Sera, Gyurme, etc., etc., who are in turn controlled or at least influenced by the Gaden Phodrang Trust, and its alleged director? But that, I will admit, is conjecture. More investigation and more hard information is needed to fully expose this sordid conspiracy that is turning His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s retirement undertaking into a hotbed of intrigue, conflict and even collaboration.

What is not conjecture is that the demand for the Tibetan Youth Congress to give up its core principle, or for the Chushigangdruk to give up its fundamental goal of fighting for Tibetan independence and to accept China’s tyranny, is as ridiculous and brazen as a demand for the monks of the aforementioned monasteries to give up Buddhism and convert to Islam. Ask yourself this simple question. If you belong to, let us say, the International Vegetarian Union (IVU) and you decide one day you want to eat meat. What would you do? Would you demand that this august vegetarian organization give up its raison d’être, its whole reason for existence, just to suit your convenience? No, of course not. You would simply resign and find yourself a nice steak-house or a Momo place, and get started on your new diet.

Those people calling themselves khampas or TYC members (and their instigators) making these shameless demands are, as far as I am concerned, “fake” khampas, “fake” shonus (TYC members) and ultimately “fake” Tibetan participating in an exercise in criminal deception in much the same way as those Chinese in Khampa disguises did in 1958. These people are clearly operating under false pretenses, and should be, at the bare minimum, kicked out, tout de suite, from the TYC and Chushigandruk.

The leaders of these historic freedom fighting organizations being attacked by those using the Dalai Lama remarks at Ladakh or Salugara, should not be discouraged or deterred from their noble mission. When the Chushigandruk started its military campaign against the Chinese, the Tibetan government and even the Dalai Lama himself issued condemnations of the resistance force. In his biography His Holiness writes that on his flight he met some leaders of the Khampas and talked to them frankly and apologized to them. “I asked them not to be annoyed at the government proclamations which had described them as reactionaries and bandits, and told them exactly how the Chinese had dictated these and why we had felt compelled to issue them.”

In My Land and My People the Dalai Lama’s also explains, categorically and at length, that his efforts to cooperate with Beijing and make Tibet an autonomous region within the PRC (which might be called His Middle Way prequel) was a complete failure and that the only way forward for Tibet was as an independent nation. Right now the current Middle Way policy is proving to be even more of a failure than its ’50 to ’59 prequel. Chinese population transfer to Tibet is increasing exponentially, and the crushing weight of China’s monstrous security apparatus in Tibet is forcing Tibetans, particularly Lhasa citizens, to flee to the (relative) freedom of Chinese cities. The Dalai Lama himself makes a passing reference to this in his Salugara talk (official CTA translation) as evidence of the “immense freedom” in China. Hundreds of thousands of Tibetan nomads are being driven out of their grasslands into walled settlements resembling Stalinist concentration camps and into desperate lives of penury and alcoholism. China’s large-scale and forcible seizure of farms and grasslands, and the large-scale and extensive mining operations throughout Tibet, are driving the population to chronic unemployment, poverty, and extreme political, cultural and economic marginalization. Few Tibetans are getting even such low-level, dangerous jobs as miners, as the casulty figures from the Metrogongar mining disaster reveal. There can be no doubt that Tibetans as a race are being driven inexorably into what can only be described as virtual extinction.

The 117 heroic self-immolators have through their actions “to protest Chinese rule” – a phrase now used near consistently by the international media (just Google the phrase) and which is the near equivalent of saying they want independence – have demonstrated to the world that they are calling for His Holiness’s return to a Tibet free of Chinese rule – an independent Tibet. Not a single self-immolator or single street protester in Tibet has ever expressed support for the Middle Way Policy. Those advocating the Rangzen cause should stand firm, secure in the knowledge that the courage of their comrades inside Tibet has begun to expose China’s sinister treachery behind the Middle Way Policy, and that the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government will soon call on them, the very people they are now condemning, to save the day, just as they did back in 1959.

Before signing off, a return where to where we started. The Chushigangdruk in 1958 were able to capture some of the fake Khampas whom they executed, from what I gather. They also caught a few actual bandits who had posed as resistance fighters. They shot two and gave another a hundred lashes on his butt and let him go. This last character is dead and it probably serves no purpose to release his name, but it might be mentioned that he escaped to Kathmandu where he later became a big-time ku-tsong gyap-ngen, or a trafficker in sacred objects. What the Catholic church would call a simonist.

______________

* Claire Harris, The Museum on the Roof of the World: Art, Politics and the Representation of Tibet. The University of Chicago Press. 2012.

Tibetoons

Loten Namling

Painting of Milarepa by Nicholas Roerich, 1935

When one of his disciples asked Mila Repa whose reincarnation you are, the great yogi said, “I don’t even know myself whose reincarnation I am. That you believe in me as a reincarnation of a Boddhisatva is your superstition. In fact believing in reincarnation is the worst form of heresy.”

Mila Repa’s above comment is enlightening. It testifies the corruption of the Tulku system and the dangers of theocracy to human liberation. And Mila Repa is absolutely right.

As we all know, foreign powers fully exploited Tibet’s Tulku system. The Chinese continue to exploit it, as we saw in the case of the selection of Panchen Lama and the Karmapa. Today, we have two Panchen Lamas, two Karmapas, and if we do not move to real democracy and abolish the whole Tulku system, we will have multiple Dalai Lamas.

If such a scenario occurs, it will be a serious setback for our struggle and will cause serious confusion and split within our society.

It is high time Tibetans realize that democracy is necessary for our survival. Democracy is not just participating in elections and voting for the favorite candidates, although these rituals are important. True democracy is possible only when there is freedom to think and speak without fear or embarrassment, to question everything – especially the most sacred and divine things.

Such freedom to think, scrutinize and speak freely comes only in an open society. And an open society is possible only when we learn to speak truth to the powers that be – whether they are the lamas, government leaders, parents and elders, school authorities, activists or intellectuals. So we must question the powers that be, especially our government rather than follow them blindly in the name of ‘patriotism’ and thus letting them steal our independent spirit and thoughts.

Today, our government is attempting to seal our fate by negotiating Tibet’s right to exist – not as a sovereign nation but as an autonomous part of China. Negotiating for autonomy is no problem, but the danger is that our government believes it is the only way forward. In other words it has some acute problems when it comes to tolerating other views. However, if we are to learn anything from Mila Repa it is that thinking independently is more important than dogma.