The Promise of Chairman Mao
For those who love the people of Tibet, and the people of China, a time of crisis is quickly approaching, with great dangers ahead.
For those who love the people of Tibet, and the people of China, a time of crisis is quickly approaching, with great dangers ahead.
For Tibet, it is a time calling for united action. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, in an interview with NBC News, has, for the first time to a mass western audience, acknowledged failure in his 50-year quest to achieve autonomy for the people of Tibet within China. Meeting in Dharamsala, India with Ann Curry, His Holiness also denounced, in very harsh terms, China's treatment of the Tibetan people.
Dalai Lama: 'Hell on Earth' for Tibetans - China- msnbc.com
Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the uprising of the Tibetan people against the Chinese invasion. At this hour fifty years ago, His Holiness was consulting the State Oracle, who emphatically urged him to take immediate flight into India. In 1959 people in the west were either hearing about Tibet for the first time, or were aware of it only as the remotest of the remote; a curiosity of the mysterious east, led by a boy "god-king."
Today, His Holiness, who has assured the world that he is no god, but merely a "simple monk," is a global celebrity, with phone numbers of most of the heads of state of the Western Alliance in his Blackberry. In the fifty years since his trek across the Himalayas in the late winter of 1959, he's been successful in delivering the moral authority of the office of the Dalai Lama to the world and the world's support to Tibet. (though so far tepid in the Obama administration).
It is the eventual death of His Holiness, impending in geopolitical terms, that creates the immediate crisis in the Tibet-China relationship. As discussed in other posts the Chinese are now in position to control from within Tibet, the selection of the 15th Dalai Lama, through their control of the Panchen Lama. Outside of Tibet, HH14DL has taken steps to protect his succession. As Regent during the period between the death of the 14th Dalai Lama and the recognition of the 15th, his hope appears to center on the 17th. Karmapa, aka HH17K.
HH14DL is in support of a succession of leadership to the Karmapa, although most experts on the situation are worried about resistance by monks of the Gelukpa order of the Dalai Lamas, to the Karmapa, head of the Kagyu order. With stakes this high, and the will of Tibetans both inside and outside of Tibet strongly in favor of independence behind a united leadership, one hopes for resolution of this misgiving.
The occupation of Tibet, which began at the hands of the Chinese Army, has now been concluded through the duplicity of a lineage of Chinese governments, and accepted as the just desserts of an emerging power by Chinese intellectuals and the Chinese mainstream. As far as Greater China is concerned, Tibet is a region of China and always has been, anyone on the outside who says otherwise should mind his own business, and 'oh by the way,' the Dalai Lama is a dangerous "split-ist." who is inexplicably hood-winking the west. It is in recognizing and accepting the reality of the present situation, in which China appears to be holding most of the cards, that HH14DL acknowledges the failure of his Middle Way approach.
The deeper meaning of His Holiness' acknowledgement however, relates not to defeat, but to an increased potential for the true dream of Tibetans on both sides of the border; full independence from China. While on the Chinese side, there may be nothing to talk about, from the Tibetan point of view, the termination of the Middle Way policy effectively ends the commitment to autonomy in exchange for Tibetan acknowledgement of Chinese suzerainty. The implicit alternative is an independence struggle, and I believe that His Holiness understands and accepts this. He knows that the people of Tibet want freedom, and that many, especially the younger people, are prepared to accept the high costs of struggle with the Chinese.
In providing the link to MSNBC I viewed one of the related videos; an interview with Professor Barnett at Columbia University. I learned something regarding the history of the Tibet/China relationship. In 1931 Mao Tse Tung made a commitment to the Dalai Lama, of full independence for Tibet. It is likely that Mao never intended to keep his promise. But it was made in public from one head of state to another, and as the poet says, "a promise made is a dept unpaid." *
Having said so, no one should underestimate the probable cost in human life of a Tibetan freedom struggle; a struggle that mainstream China would be likely to treat as a civil war of "win at all costs" importance. That truth makes a sad prediction for the future of young Tibetans.
So the time is truely upon all who love the people of Tibet, and the people of China as well, to spare these brothers from the violence soon to come. Redeem the promise of Chairman Mao.
DHL
(with apologies for the irreverence of the footnote)
* Robert W. Service; poet laureate of Alaska: "The Cremation of Sam McGee." in The Spell of the Yukon and other Verses. Barse & Hopkins, New York. 1907
Dalai Lama: 'Hell on Earth' for Tibetans - China- msnbc.com
Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the uprising of the Tibetan people against the Chinese invasion. At this hour fifty years ago, His Holiness was consulting the State Oracle, who emphatically urged him to take immediate flight into India. In 1959 people in the west were either hearing about Tibet for the first time, or were aware of it only as the remotest of the remote; a curiosity of the mysterious east, led by a boy "god-king."
Today, His Holiness, who has assured the world that he is no god, but merely a "simple monk," is a global celebrity, with phone numbers of most of the heads of state of the Western Alliance in his Blackberry. In the fifty years since his trek across the Himalayas in the late winter of 1959, he's been successful in delivering the moral authority of the office of the Dalai Lama to the world and the world's support to Tibet. (though so far tepid in the Obama administration).
It is the eventual death of His Holiness, impending in geopolitical terms, that creates the immediate crisis in the Tibet-China relationship. As discussed in other posts the Chinese are now in position to control from within Tibet, the selection of the 15th Dalai Lama, through their control of the Panchen Lama. Outside of Tibet, HH14DL has taken steps to protect his succession. As Regent during the period between the death of the 14th Dalai Lama and the recognition of the 15th, his hope appears to center on the 17th. Karmapa, aka HH17K.
HH14DL is in support of a succession of leadership to the Karmapa, although most experts on the situation are worried about resistance by monks of the Gelukpa order of the Dalai Lamas, to the Karmapa, head of the Kagyu order. With stakes this high, and the will of Tibetans both inside and outside of Tibet strongly in favor of independence behind a united leadership, one hopes for resolution of this misgiving.
The occupation of Tibet, which began at the hands of the Chinese Army, has now been concluded through the duplicity of a lineage of Chinese governments, and accepted as the just desserts of an emerging power by Chinese intellectuals and the Chinese mainstream. As far as Greater China is concerned, Tibet is a region of China and always has been, anyone on the outside who says otherwise should mind his own business, and 'oh by the way,' the Dalai Lama is a dangerous "split-ist." who is inexplicably hood-winking the west. It is in recognizing and accepting the reality of the present situation, in which China appears to be holding most of the cards, that HH14DL acknowledges the failure of his Middle Way approach.
The deeper meaning of His Holiness' acknowledgement however, relates not to defeat, but to an increased potential for the true dream of Tibetans on both sides of the border; full independence from China. While on the Chinese side, there may be nothing to talk about, from the Tibetan point of view, the termination of the Middle Way policy effectively ends the commitment to autonomy in exchange for Tibetan acknowledgement of Chinese suzerainty. The implicit alternative is an independence struggle, and I believe that His Holiness understands and accepts this. He knows that the people of Tibet want freedom, and that many, especially the younger people, are prepared to accept the high costs of struggle with the Chinese.
In providing the link to MSNBC I viewed one of the related videos; an interview with Professor Barnett at Columbia University. I learned something regarding the history of the Tibet/China relationship. In 1931 Mao Tse Tung made a commitment to the Dalai Lama, of full independence for Tibet. It is likely that Mao never intended to keep his promise. But it was made in public from one head of state to another, and as the poet says, "a promise made is a dept unpaid." *
Having said so, no one should underestimate the probable cost in human life of a Tibetan freedom struggle; a struggle that mainstream China would be likely to treat as a civil war of "win at all costs" importance. That truth makes a sad prediction for the future of young Tibetans.
So the time is truely upon all who love the people of Tibet, and the people of China as well, to spare these brothers from the violence soon to come. Redeem the promise of Chairman Mao.
DHL
(with apologies for the irreverence of the footnote)
* Robert W. Service; poet laureate of Alaska: "The Cremation of Sam McGee." in The Spell of the Yukon and other Verses. Barse & Hopkins, New York. 1907
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