Tibet in Exile

by medapt | June 18, 2007 at 08:47 pm

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"When people ask me, 'Which place do you belong to?' I, too, have started to say: 'I
belong to a problem called Tibet. And there are many more of us where I come from.'" - Activist and writer, Tenzin Tsundue

THE JOURNEY INTO EXILE

On September
30th 2006, a 17 year old nun
named Kelsang Namtso was the last in a column of 73 Tibetans who were fleeing
into exile over a snow-covered pass when Chinese border patrol opened fire from
several kilometers away. An international group of mountaineers videotaped the
17 year old nun shot dead and two others fall. Following international pressure,
Chinese authorities claimed that the troops had shot at the group in
self-defense and that one person had died due to "a lack of oxygen".
While arbitrary shootings at the China-Nepal border are a common risk for the
3,000 plus Tibetans who make the arduous escape into exile each year, this
videotaped incident stirred global attention as just another example of the
brutal saga inside a Chinese occupied Tibet.

See the video of the shooting >

BACKGROUND

Since the Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1950, as many as 1.2 million Tibetans
have been killed through executions, torture and starvation while more than
6,000 of Tibet's temples and monasteries have been defaced or destroyed. When
tensions peaked and violence broke out in 1959, the Dalai Lama, spiritual and
temporal leader of Tibet, was left with little choice but to flee his homeland along
with 80,000 Tibetan refugees. The following year, as more Tibetan refugees
arrived, the Indian government granted political asylum in Dharamsala for the
Dalai Lama to set up a government in exile. Today, the Himalayan hill town of Dharamsala has become the center of the Tibetan exile world amongst
its 140,000 refugees.

WHY EXILE?

"Tibet lives mostly in corners and shadows these days...Tibet today is essentially two different countries living on top
of, around, and even inside one another: a worn Tibetan amulet inside a gaudy
Chinese box."

- Travel writer and journalist, Pico Iyer

[ Socioeconomic & Human Rights ] As China boasts of the economic development in today's Tibet
Autonomous Region, it's a case of increasing marginalization with the Chinese
as the domineering stakeholders while 70 percent of Tibetans live in moderate
and extreme poverty. With 6 million Tibetans outnumbered by 7.5 million Chinese
migrants, it has become increasingly difficult for Tibetans to compete in a
Chinese controlled workforce and maintain Tibet's distinct culture as minorities in their own land. In
2006, Human Rights Watch reported:

"Tibetans
are systematically denied fundamental human rights, including participation in
public affairs, the freedoms of speech, assembly and religion."

As China is progressively pushing Tibetans out of positions of
authority, the cracking down of "splittist activity" in Tibet has become increasingly pervasive. Anti-separatist
strategies such as the 2005 Summer Strike Hard Campaign, aimed to purge
dissidents mean the possession of a Dalai Lama photo equates to
"endangering state security" and gathering for peaceful
demonstrations as "effecting stability of the motherland". For anyone
suspected of such dissidence, local law enforcement is free to arrest, detain,
interrogate and raid homes without warning. As a result, more than a thousand
Tibetan political prisoners languish in Chinese prisons, where torture,
extortion and "re-education through labor" are routine. Nyima, a 16
year old nun who was arrested for shouting slogans of religious freedom after
she was expelled from her nunnery by Chinese authorities, testifies:

"...I
was repeatedly burned with lit cigarettes, had boiling water poured over my
body and mouth prodded with wooden sticks. I still refused to confess having
committed any crime...after 6 months of daily torture, I was formally charged
and convicted. I never received access to legal representation and a trial of
any kind...For my 'crime', I received a five year prison sentence..."

Ex-political prisoners and those who wish to
excise their basic human rights flee into exile.

[ Education & Religion ] Discrimination, indoctrination and assimilation in
education and religion is another major reason for exile. Tibetans are
continually discriminated against while Tibetan language, culture and religion
are repressed, especially in schools. Education in Tibet has been commonly reported as indoctrinating rather than
educating. An 18 year old refugee, Tenzin Yangzom describes her three years of
primary schooling:

"The
textbooks used were composed by Mao. We were studying them chapter by chapter.
Apart from these books, we were only learning reading and basic
mathematics."

Through China's Patriotic Re-education Campaign
launched in the 1990s, students in schools and even monastic institutions have
since been taught that Tibetan Buddhism is a "backward behavior",
forced to renounce the Dalai Lama as a "splittist" and pledge
allegiance to the great motherland. Classes are almost exclusively held in
Chinese, leaving many Tibetan students behind by a language barrier. One
student reports:

"I
couldn't understand Chinese well enough to learn another subject through it, so
I had to keep asking the teacher for help again and again. Many of the Tibetans
in the class were like me, and when we didn't understand the teacher, the other
Chinese students would laugh and call us 'stupid Tibetans' and 'dirty
Tibetans'. Pretty soon we gave up asking for help, and just sat there, waiting
to fail."

Consequently, the vast majority of refugees,
roughly 75 percent, flee for a better education, either lay or religious.

THE STRUGGLE FOR A FREE TIBET

Five days before he doused himself with gasoline and struck a match, Free Tibet
activist Thupten Ngodup told a radio interviewer, "I am giving up my life
to bring about peace and fulfillment to my unhappy people." Ngodup had
been a part of a demonstration in Delhi to protest against the UN's inaction towards Chinese
occupation in Tibet. Instead of sitting in for the planned hunger strike, his
blazing body shook awake the ferocity of the modern Tibet struggle. Shouting slogans for a free Tibet as fire
consumed his body, Thupten Ngodup not only caught headline attention, but also
the admiration as a martyr for the Tibet cause amongst a new generation of
young Tibetan exiles; a generation of youth born and raised in exile, and
growing restless of their ineffective peaceful resistance. Amongst the last
words that Ngodup heard before he died were those of the Dalai Lama at his
hospital bedside, "You must not feel any hatred towards the
Chinese..."

Since 1959, when the Dalai Lama went into exile,
Tibetans have held steadfast to a non-violent approach for freedom. The Dalai
Lama appealed to Tibetans, "Because violence can only breed more violence
and suffering, our struggle must be nonviolent and free of hatred." Yet
after nearly 50 years, the Chinese government has been unyielding in their
claim of Tibet. Today, many Tibetans fear that the current cultural
genocide will eventually wipe out Tibet's unique cultural heritage. Even as numerous support
groups and lobbyists around the world dedicate their lives for the Tibet cause, international attention has become increasing in
the favor of China's booming economy rather than the sanction of its human
rights violations.

Since 1959, when the Dalai Lama went into exile, Tibetans have held steadfast
to a non-violent approach for freedom. The Dalai Lama appealed to Tibetans,
"Because violence can only breed more violence and suffering, our struggle
must be nonviolent and free of hatred." Yet after nearly 50 years, the
Chinese government has been unyielding in their claim of Tibet. Today, many Tibetans fear that the current cultural
genocide will eventually wipe out Tibet's unique cultural heritage. Even as numerous support
groups and lobbyists around the world dedicate their lives for the Tibet cause, international attention has become increasing in
the favor of China's booming economy rather than the sanction of its human
rights violations.

While many believe that a Free Tibet will only
come through the fall of communist China, others, including the Dalai Lama have accepted Tibet as a part of Chinese territory with hopes to bring more
rights and autonomy within China's Tibet.

"There is a great and growing desire
for change in the world: change that ushers in a renewed commitment to ethical
and spiritual values; that resolves conflicts peacefully, employing dialogue
and non-violence; that upholds human rights and human dignity as well as human
responsibility."