I just got back from a trip with Sanju to Dharamsala, the Tibetan capital in exile. I arrived on Sunday, November 28, and left on December 2. With overnight bus trips bookending the trip, and with some flight delays, I was gone 7 days. I got back a little over 24 hours ago.
Tibet has a long history of being in and out of Chinese rule. Various Chinese and Nepalese emperors have conquered it, various Dalai Lamas have raised armies to free it, and the process has all gone back. When the Qing dynasty fell in 1912, the 13th Dalai Lama returned to Tibet from India to assert Tibetan independence. For the next roughly 40 years, China did not contest this, and Tibet governed itself. In 1950, with a newly solidified government and few external problems, China moved to solve this Tibetan issue and moved its troops in. With Tibet’s new leader, the current Dalai Lama, still quite young, their resistance was minimal, and the resulting peace accord solidified China’s control over Tibet.
Over the next ten years, Tibetan anger over this situation simmered, though, and periodically broke out in violence. In 1959, Chinese resistence against this resulted in a full scale uprising in Lhasa. The Chinese invited the Dalai Lama to a theatrical performance at a nearby military base, on the condition that he come without guards or fanfare. Realizing what was up, he instead fled to India, like the 13th Dalai Lama had done. This was probably a prudent move, as China has shown with the current Panchen Lama exactly how diabolical they can be with Tibetan leaders. That boy has likely been dead since his capture in 1995, but as long as the Chinese claim he is alive somewhere, he cannot be replaced, as replacements are chosen via reincarnation. Had Tenzin Gyatso gone to that performance in 1959, he likely would have met the same fate, and there would be no Dalai Lama now, or possibly for quite some time. Now, however, he runs an excellent PR campaign from Dharamsala, with the current government in exile.
As I see it, Tibet has to be considered part of China. If nothing else, they’ve been conquered. If conquest is illegitimate, then none of the world’s borders are legitimate. Maybe San Marino can still claim legitimacy, but few other countries could. But just because China owns Tibet doesn’t relieve them of all responsibilities there. It doesn’t give them carte blanche to flood the province with Hans, run the whole show from Beijing, give Tibetans no special rights, and make them pay to see the Potala Palace. It is in that spirit that I support the Tibetan cause and their right to self-governance.
This isn’t to say that Tibet is special among China’s minorities–when they marched 56 children in black face for the 2008 Openinc Ceremonies, that was wrong towards all minorities, not just the Tibetans. But I’ve also heard their plight compared to that of, say, the Chinese Catholics, and that’s just bunk. The Chinese Catholics are just a group of people of a specific religion, not an ethnicity with a language, a history of independence, centuries of organized governance, and a large identifiable territory.
My feelings about Tibet were a lot of what drew me to Dharamsala. I’m not particularly into Buddhism, and am even less so now, but I support their cause, even if their take on religion is a little funky. Whose isn’t? If you’d asked me when I came to India what one place I’d like to see most, I probably would have said Dharamsala. Tibet has fascinated me, as have the Himalayas. As you’ll see tomorrow, things got off to a rocky start, but Dharamsala was anything but disappointing. It was a beautiful area, and I had a wonderful, stimulating time. I’ll post all about it over the coming days.
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