[THE NEW YORK TIMES]
By Ellen Berry
DHARAMSALA, India — From his office in the hill station of
Dharamsala, where Tibetan exiles have spent the past half-century
waiting for the seismic changes that could restore Tibet’s independence,
Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay was reminiscing, a bit wistfully, about a
world he had left behind.
Specifically, he was reminiscing about the Boston Red Sox. These were
not the vague remarks of someone faking expertise for diplomatic
purposes. Rather, he was recalling the seventh game of the 2003 American
League Championship Series, when the Red Sox manager took a disastrous
gamble by allowing the team’s star pitcher, Pedro Martinez, to remain on
the mound late in a deciding game against the New York Yankees.
Behind his desk, a magnificent life-size, silk-draped photograph of
the Dalai Lama hangs from the wall, and outside his window, the
Himalayas rise like a great wall into the mist.
Mr. Sangay, 46, recalled the agitation as he watched Boston’s lead
slip away, perhaps the most calamitous in a history of heartbreaks for
those who persisted in believing in the Red Sox. The suffering would all
be washed away by the next season, but in 2003 no one knew that.
“Normally, I am quite a patient guy,” Mr. Sangay said. “But he brought
him back after 118 pitches.”
Mr. Sangay likes sports. He can explain why: You win, or you lose.
Then you close the book on that episode and start over. This could not
be more different from the mission that he took on in 2011, when he left
a comfortable life at Harvard to begin a five-year term as sikyong, the
leader of the Tibetans’ exile administration. This coincided with a
momentous decision by the Dalai Lama, the exiles’ head of state since
1959, to devolve his political power to the new prime minister.
Since
Mr. Sangay took over, it has been difficult to close the book on
anything. China, which once gave lip service to negotiations on Tibet’s
status, has refused to meet with him or his representatives. Western
countries are increasingly squeamish about getting involved. With the
Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday a year away and no clear plan for succession,
anxiety has settled like a pall over Dharamsala. Some activists
criticize Mr. Sangay for being too rigid with China, others for watering
down Tibetan demands in an attempt to bring Beijing to the table.
Meanwhile, it is his job to inspire confidence when there is little sign
of progress.
Considering
all this, Mr. Sangay is surprisingly even-keeled. Asked why, he says he
falls back on the Buddhist notion of impermanence. He also uses what he
learned as a fan of the Red Sox, during the long years before the
team’s luck turned.
“There is this unfulfilled desire, unfulfilled aspiration,” he said. “That keeps you going.”
TALL
and imposing like many men from eastern Tibet, Mr. Sangay grew up in a
refugee camp near Darjeeling, in eastern India, poor enough to wear
sandals through the bitter winter.
He
comes from a long line of fighters. His father was in charge of arms
and ammunition for the Chushi Gangdruk militia, formed in the late 1950s
to defend Tibet. One particular story accompanied Mr. Sangay’s birth:
His mother suspected he was the reincarnation of her brother, who had
been trained by the Central Intelligence Agency and airdropped at the
Tibetan border, in one of the most secret programs of the Cold War. He
never returned.
“When
I was born in 1968, my mother, because of her closeness to her brother,
she said, ‘Hey, maybe he is my brother, the freedom fighter,’ ” Mr.
Sangay said. A sense of expectation developed, he added. “You parents
say that, your relatives say that, your teacher says that: ‘Hey,
Lobsang, you’re going to be someone special, you are going to be a great
freedom fighter.’ ”
By
the time he ran for the highest office in the exile government, known
as the Central Tibetan Administration, Mr. Sangay had a smoother image,
one that developed over 16 years at Harvard, first as a Fulbright
scholar and later as a research fellow at Harvard Law School, his salary
provided in large part by a private foundation. In a suit and tie, he
could easily be mistaken for an investment banker, and he has an
American politician’s knack for campaigning that, coupled with the
reverence accorded to Harvard, has helped him leapfrog older and more
established Dharamsala-based candidates.
The
biggest change was that he dropped his insistence that Tibet
gain independence, instead embracing the Dalai Lama’s so-called Middle Way. Introduced
in 1987, the policy is intended to draw China into dialogue
by softening Tibetan demands, calling for self-governance and
“genuine autonomy” within China. Last year, Mr. Sangay told the Council on Foreign Relations that
the goal was to see ethnic Tibetans installed as party secretary and in
other important posts in the Tibetan autonomous region.
“We don’t question or challenge the present structure of the ruling party,” he said.
Some
activists denounce Mr. Sangay for scaling back the movement’s demands.
Jamyang Norbu, a prominent writer who recalled Mr. Sangay as a natural
politician and a “good wheeler-dealer” when they became friends in the
1990s, dismissed the current policy as “a fruitless exercise.” He blamed
the influence of Harvard, saying young Tibetans who spend time in the
United States often develop an unrealistic reliance on “the old, old
European tradition of diplomacy and negotiation.”
“The
problem is that they see China through the eyes of the West,” said Mr.
Norbu, who now lives in Tennessee. “The sheep doesn’t see things from
the point of view of the wolf that is gobbling her.” With his bodyguards
in dark suits and sunglasses, he said, Mr. Sangay is focused on
burnishing his image at a moment when Tibetans are desperate for a way
forward.
“We just can’t afford it; we are getting to the end of our tether,” he said. “The whole Tibetan world is falling apart so fast.”
IN
Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama’s word remains sacrosanct, and Mr. Sangay
seems untroubled by the criticism. In a recent interview, he was
cheerful for another reason: His wife and 7-year-old daughter, who
remained behind in Medford, Mass., when he began his term, were finally
preparing to move to Dharamsala. He was buying his daughter a puppy.
As
the leader of an unrecognized government, he earns 26,000 rupees a
month, or about $430. He makes exhausting whistle-stop tours of exile
communities, listening to petitions and complaints. Last week he paid a
condolence visit to a Tibetan family that had lost a brother to a
stampeding elephant. During trips outside India, he holds secretive
meetings with government officials, often in hotel rooms or cafeterias
to avoid attracting the attention of the Chinese.
In
the presence of the Dalai Lama, his status seems to melt away.
Addressing a crowd last year, the Dalai Lama affectionately mocked Mr.
Sangay’s spoken Tibetan, saying it is “like a schoolboy talking,” and
then laughed heartily. The prime minister, in the background, bowed his
head. Asked about it, he smiled a little ruefully.
“It
was a privilege,” he said. “It means he really knows me well. For him
to say such a thing is obviously a bit embarrassing, but mainly, what a
privilege, because he was saying, ‘I know this guy well.’ ” He added, “I
worked very hard on my Tibetan.”
But
the subtext is that it will not always be this way. The Dalai Lama has
been evasive about how his spiritual successor, the 15th Dalai Lama,
will be chosen, saying only that he will reveal his intentions in 2025,
when he turns 90. The political transition, however, is in place. Asked
what would happen if the Dalai Lama died unexpectedly, Mr. Sangay said,
“The plan is the devolution of political authority.”
Meanwhile,
Mr. Sangay offers evidence that Tibetans are opening their hearts to
him. In his office hangs a thangka — a traditional painting that usually
features Buddhist deities — that has been custom-made by an admirer in
China to include his face. He sends out links to worshipful songs that
have been written in his honor and posted on YouTube. Asked where he falls in the hierarchy of leaders, he described himself as “a secondary voice,” but added a postscript.
“I am a secondary voice,” he said, “who will someday be a primary voice.” Originally published at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/world/asia/leader-of-tibet-a-red-sox-fan-knows-the-value-of-taking-the-long-view.html?_r=0 and republished at http://tibet.net/2014/07/19/prestigious-new-york-times-publishes-profile-on-honourable-dr-lobsang-sangay/
By Woeser
High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser written
between October and November 2013 for the Tibetan service of Radio Free
Asia and published on her blog on November 16, 2013.
The blogpost gives a comprehensive overview on the Chinese
government’s religious policies in Tibet since the 1950s to the present
day.
These three photos were all taken when I
was in Lhasa last year. Photo 1 shows the Jokhang Temple that His
Holiness the Dalai Lama blessed as “the most sacred temple in the whole
of Tibet”; today, the scarlet-red Chinese flag is flying on its roof.
Photos 2 and 3 show Sera Monastery, one of Lhasa’s three main
monasteries; the few remaining monks are performing a Buddhist debate to
tourists; the young Chinese who is wearing lay clothes is actually a
member of the military police. The prayer beads that he is wearing are
to disguise him as a Buddhist.
“An Overview of the CCP’s Religious Policies in Tibetan Areas”
By Woeser
The religious policies of the CCP in Tibet have more or less stayed
the same over the past decades; there have been differences in degree at
different times in different places, but overall, they have remained
exactly the same. Here, I want to give an overview of the entire
situation:
The religious reforms were passed by the CCP Central Committee and
launched in 1958. It was a political movement in the Tibetan areas of
Amdo and Kham and had one ultimate goal to destroy Tibetan religion
step-by-step. For example, the reforms entailed closing down
monasteries, arresting important religious figures, or forcing monks and
nuns to leave the monastic order. In Qinghai province alone, out of 618
traditional Tibetan monasteries, 597 collapsed, out of their 57390
members, 30839 were forced to return to ordinary life.
In 1959, under the name of “fighting the counter-revolutionary
rebels”, Tibetan religion was attacked fiercely. Religious leaders
either fled abroad or were arrested and sentenced; it was a time of
total destitution.
As a result of the Cultural Revolution from 1966-1976, out of the
originally 2713 monasteries inside Tibet, only 8 remained. In the entire
Tibetan region, including Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan provinces,
out of the originally over 6000 monasteries, less than 100 remained.
At the end of the Cultural Revolution, after experiencing terrible
calamity, Tibetan religion underwent a revival, most of the destroyed
monasteries were rebuilt under the efforts and sacrifices of Tibetan
people. I want to particularly stress that the funds needed to rebuild
these monasteries almost entirely came from donations from Tibetans
themselves. The central and local governments only gave money to rebuild
a few most famous religious places.
In the early 1980s, local leaders were comparatively moderate and
Tibetan religion enjoyed some degree of freedom. But because of the
numerous protests that erupted between 1987 and 1989 in Lhasa, and
particularly after Hu Jintao became Party Secretary of the TAR in 1988,
religious policies were tightened. All the way up to today, local Party
Secretaries have been hard-liners, supporting and placing emphasis on
tough religious policies in Tibet.
In January 1989, the 10th Panchen Lama suddenly passed away, leaving behind a situation full of suspense.
Between March 1989 and May 1990, adopting the rhetoric of the “barrel of the gun”, Hu Jintao turned Lhasa into a military zone.
In 1995, the relationship between the CCP and the Dalai Lama
completely broke apart over the problem of the reincarnation of the 10th
Panchen Lama; Li Ruihuan labelled the Dalai Lama as follows: “The Dalai
Lama is the leader of a conspiring political gang of separatists who
want Tibet to be independent. He is a loyal tool of the international
anti-Chinese powers and the root cause of the turmoil within Tibetan
society, he is the biggest obstacle preventing traditional Buddhism from
establishing itself in an orderly manner.”
Chen Kuiyuan, appointed by Hu Jintao, became the head of the TAR.
From then on, first in Lhasa and gradually in the whole TAR, the local
authorities established work groups in all monasteries, fostering
“patriotic education”; the abbreviation for these work groups was then “
Offices of Patriotism”. Their main job was to unify all monks’
perception and knowledge of the Dalai Lama. In cases of slight
nonconformity, monks would be expelled, in severe cases, they would be
sentenced to imprisonment. This was a time of many suicides among monks,
a fact that remained largely unknown to the outside world. “Patriotic
education” was continued until 2008, when renewed hard-liner policies
expelled the monks from other Tibetan areas living in Lhasa’s three main
monasteries, which eventually led to the eruption of the March 2008
protests.
Over the past five years, “patriotic education” has been spread
across the entire Tibetan region, which has had extremely negative
repercussions. Between February 2009 and September 2013, 121 people
self-immolated inside Tibet and 5 within the exile community. Out of the
126 self-immolators, 19 were women and 107 have already passed away.
The local authorities, however, have become ever more unyielding. There
was, for example, the well-known and greatly criticised project of the
“9 haves” that was implemented in monasteries and villages of the TAR.
It dictates that people need not only to possess the portraits of the
CCP’s four (now five) great leaders and the five-starred red flag, but
also that they have to possess a Party radio, TV and a newspaper to be
able to receive the voice of the Party at all times; additionally, the
work groups stationed in monasteries and villages have been building
police stations that resemble the monasteries in terms of external
appearance. The cruel reality is that all Tibetan monasteries are
already trapped in a cage.
October – November, 2013
Originally published at http://highpeakspureearth.com/2014/an-overview-of-the-ccps-religious-policies-in-tibetan-areas-by-woeser/ and republished by TPR with permission of HPPE.
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