On Our Compatriots’ Behalf
A recent article in an Indian newspaper suggest that Tibetan exiles regisn to the fact of having to spend the rest of their lives outside Tibet. The writer is convinced there is not the remotest possibility of their ever being able to return home. Moreover, she feels, there unchanging attitude may cause “serious problems for India.”
The writer obviously hope the Tibetans will abandon their struggle and cease to be an embarrassment to the Government of India and it’s efforts at normalizing relations with Peking. Her reasoning is that firstly Tibetans are fighting a hopeless cause and secondly that the younger generation is not interested in the old ways. This show she only has a superficial grasp of the Tibetan refugee situation. She has met young Tibetans wearing jeans, speaking in English and idolising Hindi film stars. From that she concludes that they are reluctant to learn the ancient arts of Tibet: thanka painting, sculpture making, etc. How naïve of her to assume that everybody in Tibet used to practise these arts! Like anywhere else, these were specialist jobs and there are in exile, as they were in Tibet, a number of people, including youngster, who have or are learning these arts.
Her implicit support of the Chinese presence in Tibet is also reflects her limited reading on the subject. She reminds us that Han Suyin and “many other writers” have declared that Chinese regime in Tibet is a vast improvement on the indigenous one. She also reports Hienrich Harrer as having said that the Chinese troops were disciplined and tolerant. Even discarding the “Tibetan propaganda”, she should have known that the present Peking leadership itself has contradicted her completely. If she had studied reports of the recent visitors to Tibet she would have seen it is far from true that Tibetan there are “no longer as they were before, but assimilated into the Chinese pattern of life.”
Until recently Tibetans used to take grave risks to escape into exile. Since the announcement of the policy of liberalization about three years ago, they are tasking a limited amount of freedom for the first time in two decades. The policy has enabled many Tibetans to visit the outside world for pilgrimage and to see their long-separated relations. Most of them have returned for one reason or another: some have other relatives left behind as hostage; most fail to receive political asylum here; and many others, despite realizing that the present policy may not last long, prefer their homeland to the alien climate and environ of India or Nepal.
The bast majority of Tibetans are left in Tibet and they will never be happy until they have freedom to live as they choose and complete control over the resources of their own land. All evidence available so far indicates that the main aim of the new policy is to lure the exiles—particularly the Dalai Lama—back to Tibet. Once this aim is achieved they can do with Tibet whatever they like; and we are not exactly convinced that the welfare and happiness of the Tibetan people will be their foremost concern. Once a condition acceptable to the Tibetans is guaranteed, some of the exiles may return, others may choose to stay behind—that is not important. What really matters is the Tibetans inside Tibet. Until their happiness is ensured the exiles will feel obliged to keep up the struggle and, moreover, this struggle will continue to be spearheaded by the younger generation.
A recent article in an Indian newspaper suggest that Tibetan exiles regisn to the fact of having to spend the rest of their lives outside Tibet. The writer is convinced there is not the remotest possibility of their ever being able to return home. Moreover, she feels, there unchanging attitude may cause “serious problems for India.”
The writer obviously hope the Tibetans will abandon their struggle and cease to be an embarrassment to the Government of India and it’s efforts at normalizing relations with Peking. Her reasoning is that firstly Tibetans are fighting a hopeless cause and secondly that the younger generation is not interested in the old ways. This show she only has a superficial grasp of the Tibetan refugee situation. She has met young Tibetans wearing jeans, speaking in English and idolising Hindi film stars. From that she concludes that they are reluctant to learn the ancient arts of Tibet: thanka painting, sculpture making, etc. How naïve of her to assume that everybody in Tibet used to practise these arts! Like anywhere else, these were specialist jobs and there are in exile, as they were in Tibet, a number of people, including youngster, who have or are learning these arts.
Her implicit support of the Chinese presence in Tibet is also reflects her limited reading on the subject. She reminds us that Han Suyin and “many other writers” have declared that Chinese regime in Tibet is a vast improvement on the indigenous one. She also reports Hienrich Harrer as having said that the Chinese troops were disciplined and tolerant. Even discarding the “Tibetan propaganda”, she should have known that the present Peking leadership itself has contradicted her completely. If she had studied reports of the recent visitors to Tibet she would have seen it is far from true that Tibetan there are “no longer as they were before, but assimilated into the Chinese pattern of life.”
Until recently Tibetans used to take grave risks to escape into exile. Since the announcement of the policy of liberalization about three years ago, they are tasking a limited amount of freedom for the first time in two decades. The policy has enabled many Tibetans to visit the outside world for pilgrimage and to see their long-separated relations. Most of them have returned for one reason or another: some have other relatives left behind as hostage; most fail to receive political asylum here; and many others, despite realizing that the present policy may not last long, prefer their homeland to the alien climate and environ of India or Nepal.
The bast majority of Tibetans are left in Tibet and they will never be happy until they have freedom to live as they choose and complete control over the resources of their own land. All evidence available so far indicates that the main aim of the new policy is to lure the exiles—particularly the Dalai Lama—back to Tibet. Once this aim is achieved they can do with Tibet whatever they like; and we are not exactly convinced that the welfare and happiness of the Tibetan people will be their foremost concern. Once a condition acceptable to the Tibetans is guaranteed, some of the exiles may return, others may choose to stay behind—that is not important. What really matters is the Tibetans inside Tibet. Until their happiness is ensured the exiles will feel obliged to keep up the struggle and, moreover, this struggle will continue to be spearheaded by the younger generation.
posted by editorla at
9:03 PM
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