In Exile From the Land of Snows (2 page)
Read In Exile From the Land of Snows Online
Authors: John Avedon
Tags: #20th Century, #Asia, #Buddhism, #Dalai Lama, #History, #Nonfiction, #Retail, #Tibetan
ReconstructionS
INCE
F
EBRUARY OF 2009
, one hundred and thirty-one Tibetans have burned themselves alive protesting China’s occupation of Tibet.
1
Drinking kerosene, while draped in gasoline-soaked robes and blankets, monks, nuns, fathers, mothers, and teenagers have burst into flame shouting “We need freedom! Long live the Dalai Lama! Return the Precious Protector to Tibet!” Often running past markets, monasteries, and police stations, they have been shot and sprayed with fire extinguishers or doused with fire extinguishing chemicals, or—on the rare occasions when Chinese patrols have been absent—have collapsed into burning, charred corpses.
2
“I am giving my body as an offering of light to chase away the darkness,” one lama explained his sacrifice. “To my spiritual friends living in exile: I want to request you not to be sad.”
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The self immolations all indict six decades of Communist oppression: from Beijing’s initial million-death conquest to the current demographic onslaught destroying, with legions of settlers, Tibetan identity. Tibet’s apartheid relies on a ubiquitous surveillance grid of “Nets In The Sky and Traps on The Ground” to ensure “stability maintenance” for a “harmonious society.”
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Vast Chinese “new towns” engulf Tibetan old quarters. Two and a half million Tibetan nomads have been forcibly resettled into regimented compounds. China’s colonial economy, having long marginalized the Tibetan underclass, plunders billions of dollars from lumber, minerals, and tourism. While a Sinocized parody of Tibetan ethnicity is proffered in theme parks and luxury hotels, the key to Tibet’s 2,100-year-old
civilization is missing. “Taking away a person’s language [through forced Mandarin schooling],” grieved one young Tibetan, “is like having your tongue pulled out of your mouth.”
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A new truism describes Beijing’s rule: “In Lhasa nowadays there are more Chinese than Tibetans, more soldiers than monks, and more surveillance cameras than windows.”
In 2008, the largest uprising since the 1956–59 Tibetan revolt swept Tibet. As the capital burned and protests spread, People’s Armed Police backed by armored personnel carriers bearing .25 caliber machine guns shot hundreds, arrested thousands, and permanently locked down the plateau.
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Beijing reflexively ascribed the unrest to “Sabotage masterminded by the separatist Dalai clique,” whose head it derided as “a wolf in monk’s clothes; a devil with a human face.”
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“I feel helpless,” the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, said as reports of the first eighty killings reached India, “frightened of further bloodshed.… I want to appeal once again for Tibetans to practice non-violence.”
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When they did, by incinerating themselves, he dolefully reflected, “It is very, very sad. I doubt that such drastic actions will be effective.… However, under a rule of terror, Tibetans are sacrificing their own lives—not hurting others.”
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China, though, remains unmoved. Nine rounds of Dharamsala–Beijing talks on the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way Approach—relinquishing Tibetan independence for secure autonomy—have failed to win a single Chinese concession.
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Beijing now waits for Tenzin Gyatso’s death to end its “Tibet problem.” Meanwhile global support for Tibetans—exemplified by the Dalai Lama’s 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, 2007 Congressional Gold Medal, and extensive multi-governmental and NGO backing, as well as the United States Congress’s 1991 Resolution 41 declaring Tibet “an occupied country under established principles of international law whose true representatives are the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile”—falters before China’s rise.
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Tibetan refugees, moreover, are unnerved by Tenzin Gyatso’s 2011 devolution of political authority to a young, popularly elected prime minister, Lobsang Sangay. Although the Dalai Lama’s historic creation of a constitutional democracy—ending his lineage’s 369-year-long Ganden Phodrang Government—fosters pride in a modern polity, fear of his “retirement” is rife. “There is absolutely no need to worry.… I will continue to serve the cause of Tibet,” he has reassured the refugee parliament. “If we have to remain in exile for several more decades, a time will inevitably come when I will no longer be able to provide leadership. Therefore, it is necessary that we establish a sound system of governance while I remain able and healthy.”
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Such is Tibet’s plight sixty-four years after two-thirds of its 8,500-man
army perished fighting 40,000 PLA soldiers, in the largest annexation of a sovereign state since the Second World War.
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“One ancient nation is dying,” the Dalai Lama often pleads for his people’s salvation, yet genuine Tibetan autonomy would broadly benefit all.
