Dalai Lama Harshly Condemns China Over Tibet
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/world/asia/11tibet.html?hp
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/03/11/world/asia/11tibet.html
New York Times copyright
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My comment #46
March 10th, 2009 9:15 am
Tibet Rising not Uprising -- again
This is a 50 year dilemma, originating in and fueled by imperial British "buffer state" Tibet policy.
The memory of the mis-named 'uprising' definitely calls for a celebration, something the Chinese government will not tolerate.
How can China possibly permit a celebration that calls attention to its own oppression?! The Beijing Govt. is on the wrong side of history.
The Dalai Lama has never asked for outright liberation and nation-state sovereignty for Tibet. The Dalai Lama has reasonably and rightly maintained that Tibetans can be part of China, while the Chinese for their part need to respect both in letter and spirit, religious, cultural freedom and economic freedoms of Tibetans.
Instead the Chinese have operated with a heavy hand, centralizing instead of devolving local power into the hands of Tibetans. China has an almost unbroken history of centralized government, the Beijing govt. simply doesn't know any better at this stage in their own development.
Note that Dharmsala is in India. The Dalai Lama and his thousands of followers have lived in India since 1959 when the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama fled to India and were given peaceful refuge here.
Dharmsala is no Darfur.
I grew up in India seeing and hearing about the Dalai Lama who was a close associate of Jawaharlal Nehru, (a co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement), and other Indian political leaders. Tibetans over the years have been born in India in the half century that their "country" has been under occupation. They have lived and worked throughout India as well as sought refuge and economic opportunity throughout the world. However, Tibetans are entitled to their own historic homeland, which of course they can and must peacefully share with others, local ethnic Chinese especially who have also lived there historically.
The Dalai Lama has never pressed for Tibetan independence from China while residing in India, because to press for Tibetan independence would jeopardize India's rightful stand on sovereignty over Kashmir. Indian secularism and democracy are being tested in Kashmir, no less than the less visible quandary of Tibetan refugee rights to enjoy freedom while in their long unfair exile. In any event, Tibet and Kashmir are not comparable, they each follow a distinct colonial and post-colonial trajectory.
If only China can be quietly yet urgently persuaded to allow 1) full cultural religious freedoms of Tibetans, 2) unconditional right of Tibetans to return if they please to their ancient, peaceful homeland, 3) to develop their own unique notion of being a 'people.' in the world.
Idealistic pragmatism can be the ethical choice in Tibet. The loss of the ancient ways in Tibet (while Tibetans themselves, not Beijing, decide how they want to shape their own lives in a modern Tibet), would be a loss for us all.
The Arc of Justice bends slowly but it bends toward Tibet and the Tibetan people.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
Recommended by 28 Readers
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Showing posts with label Tibet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tibet. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tibet's Middle Way & Ethical Democracy
Barnett's piece "Did Britain just sell Tibet?" will almost certainly increase the profile of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University. Barnett will likely join the other talking heads on the US TV circuit, as yet another neoliberal dominant mainstream voice in the US-led global recession, which contextualizes British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's suggestion to China to provide capital to the IMF in return for voting power. Of course China is pleased with that craven suggestion, based on justifiable nationalistic pride in China's economic successes.
Q. Will the Tibetan people's interests be best served by either the British Government, The U.S. govt. or think tank programs in U.S. academe? The answer has got be an unqualified no, for now and the foreseeable future. Both the US (including its academic and other institutions) and Britain have very little to contribute. They both have the potential to do harm to the long term interest of Tibetans and Tibet.
The geopolitical configurations and reconfigurations of South and South East Asia (of which Tibet is a part) must be left to the sovereign nation-states of these regions because they are neighbors with historical ties and rapidly evolving contemporary cultural and economic relationships with nation states both within and outside their respective regions. BRIC (Brasil, India, China) would constitute such an example.
There is a dynamic balance of competing interests between the power economies of the sovereign nation-states of China and India.
The majority of Tibetan exiles live in India. China, a dictatorship "claimed" Tibet. India, a democracy "claimed" Sikkim. China's 'Tibetan question' is somewhat equivalent to India's 'Kashmir question'. Both think there is no "question."
The tacit support of one for the other in the corridors and conference halls of the U.N. have maintained the balance of power between them in the larger South and South East Asia regional contexts. Other sovereign-states, (even when they might only qualify as failing or failed states) in the region, Pakistan, Afghanistan are also part of the strategic equation. In addition, Russia is our neighbor. Iran is our neighbor, Iraq is our neighbor. The U.S. and Britain are not.
British Colonial control is still a shameful memory in the South and South East Asia regions. Britain was in the habit of "selling" territory and people of these regions during their period of Empire. U.S. neo-imperialism causes grave distrust among all countries in South and South East Asia.
The Dalai Lama has chosen the "non-violent Middle Way" to avoid the slaughter of Tibetans in their homeland and the destruction of their living religious and cultural heritage
To continue to persevere with this preferred Middle Way, in a highly complex inter-regional context with possible global repercussions,it is Tibetans and their leaders, first and foremost, who can best engage with the Chinese and their leaders, from safe havens and democratic spaces in Tibet, India and elsewhere.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.Blogspot.com
see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/opinion/25barnett.html?hp
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Q. Will the Tibetan people's interests be best served by either the British Government, The U.S. govt. or think tank programs in U.S. academe? The answer has got be an unqualified no, for now and the foreseeable future. Both the US (including its academic and other institutions) and Britain have very little to contribute. They both have the potential to do harm to the long term interest of Tibetans and Tibet.
The geopolitical configurations and reconfigurations of South and South East Asia (of which Tibet is a part) must be left to the sovereign nation-states of these regions because they are neighbors with historical ties and rapidly evolving contemporary cultural and economic relationships with nation states both within and outside their respective regions. BRIC (Brasil, India, China) would constitute such an example.
There is a dynamic balance of competing interests between the power economies of the sovereign nation-states of China and India.
The majority of Tibetan exiles live in India. China, a dictatorship "claimed" Tibet. India, a democracy "claimed" Sikkim. China's 'Tibetan question' is somewhat equivalent to India's 'Kashmir question'. Both think there is no "question."
The tacit support of one for the other in the corridors and conference halls of the U.N. have maintained the balance of power between them in the larger South and South East Asia regional contexts. Other sovereign-states, (even when they might only qualify as failing or failed states) in the region, Pakistan, Afghanistan are also part of the strategic equation. In addition, Russia is our neighbor. Iran is our neighbor, Iraq is our neighbor. The U.S. and Britain are not.
British Colonial control is still a shameful memory in the South and South East Asia regions. Britain was in the habit of "selling" territory and people of these regions during their period of Empire. U.S. neo-imperialism causes grave distrust among all countries in South and South East Asia.
The Dalai Lama has chosen the "non-violent Middle Way" to avoid the slaughter of Tibetans in their homeland and the destruction of their living religious and cultural heritage
To continue to persevere with this preferred Middle Way, in a highly complex inter-regional context with possible global repercussions,it is Tibetans and their leaders, first and foremost, who can best engage with the Chinese and their leaders, from safe havens and democratic spaces in Tibet, India and elsewhere.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.Blogspot.com
see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/opinion/25barnett.html?hp
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