“My job is too big for one man”

That was the sentiment expressed by the Dalai Lama in a recent speech, as reported by the Independent.  As Andrew Buncombe describes it:

In a speech that underscored the pressures he has had to bear during his life serving as both a spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama has said there is no need for his successor to perform the two roles.

Now, the Charter of the Tibetans in Exile, which is basically the constitution of the government-in-exile, specifies that the Dalai Lama is the chief executive. This is not a figurehead position, since it is given broad executive powers and a veto over legislation. So, we’re talking about amending the Charter to remove the Dalai Lama’s powers? It seems like that would be politically difficult to do if the incumbent Dalai Lama doesn’t suggest it explicitly. So, is that what he is suggesting?

A Chinese think tank investigates the roots of the March 2008 violence

In May, the Open Constitution Initiative, a Chinese think tank based in Beijing, also known simply as Gongmeng, published a investigative report detailing their view of the causes underlying the violence in Lhasa in March of 2008. The International Campaign for Tibet recently put an English translation of the report up on their site.

The Other Serf Liberation Day and the Appropriation of Chinese Symbolism

As I argued in the comments of an earlier post, the idea that China liberated the Tibetan serfs in 1959 is ahistorical because the standard of living, personal freedom, and political rights of the Tibetan public do not appear to have improved afterwards in the 1960s. In other words, if nothing changed for the better, there’s no way that can be described as a liberation. On the other hand, some aspects of life in Tibet did improve in the 1980s, when the Deng economic reforms were extended to Tibet and relatively liberal political policies were followed. If somebody feels like celebrating a “Serf Liberation Day”, the official government date doesn’t make any sense, but maybe May 29 would instead.

On May 29, 1980, twenty-nine years ago today, Hu Yaobang, who was then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, gave a speech in Lhasa to 4,500 party members and government officials. Hu harshly criticised the policies that had been followed in Tibet up to that point and offered six points for a new policy, which amounted to implementing autonomy for Tibet, (”You should according to your own characteristics, draft specific decrees, laws and regulations, and rules to protect the special interests of your own nationality.”); flexible economic policies as opposed to rigid socialist measures; respect for and promotion of Tibetan culture; and a dramatic shift in power in the TAR from Chinese cadres to Tibetans (“Today there are 300,000 ethnic Han, including military, in Tibet. How can that ever do?”)

Highway to Lhasa

Dear Jigme,

We hope you are moved by “Highway To Lhasa” on YouTube

Traditional Tibetan Folk Tales

Tibetan Folk Tales - A.L. Shelton

Albert L. Shelton was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 9th 1875, his parents soon after moved to Kansas where Shelton grew up. Shelton spent more than twenty years in Kham as a medical missionary and was particularly well respected among the Tibetans there but on a high mountain pass in 1922 Shelton was shot, apparently by a bandit, and died at the age of 46.  In 1923, Shelton’s widowed wife Flora published a biography on the life of her late husband entitled Shelton of Tibet. Then in 1925 Flora also compiled and published a collection forty-nine tales that had been gathered by Shelton during his trips among Tibetans.

The little stories in this book are told as the people sit around their boiling tea made over a three stone camp-fire. They are handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, and though often filled with their superstitious beliefs, through them all run a vein of humor and the teachings of a moral truth which is quite unexpected.

Refugee Stories

Tibetan Elders

In the article The stories of Tibetan elders in exile by J.M. Brown, Brown writes about the oral history project work by clinical psychologist Marcella Adamski in recording the stories of Tibetan elders in exile. Adamski’s work was spurred directly from a request by the Dalai Lama, whom she met in Dharamsala in 1999.

After reading this article I was reminded of some of the exile stories I have heard from my own exiled elders when I was younger. I thought I’d patch together and share some of the stories that I can recall so that people can read them and then maybe share their own exile stories as well.

I can remember most clearly my mother’s account of why her family fled from Tibet in late 1959. My mother’s family lived in the  small farming village of Namdha, about a half hour walk from the city of  Khangma in the district of Gyantse. Her family was the wealthiest of the village and her father was well respected for the kindness he showed to the poorer villagers in the village and also for the loans he lent out to those who needed it.

Response to Jim Luce on “Tibet: Polar Perspectives”

Over at the Huffington Post, Jim Luce has an interesting post up asking  “Can Both Sides Be Heard?”, in which he discusses what he’s learned in his attempt to get the Chinese perspective on Tibet.

This is an important topic and I applaud anyone’s efforts to learn about it. It seems that, all too often, we’re stuck with only one side of the story — here in the West we get one version, and people in China get basically the opposite. This is especially true for casual observers, who are often not even aware there is another side, but activists are not exempt, either. I remember, some years ago, when I was in college, I attended a meeting of my school’s “Students for a Free Tibet” chapter. It was the first meeting of the year, so most of the people present were newly involved and had a lot of questions about Tibet, which the club president answered at length and with passion. However, when a girl eventually asked him, “why does China want to rule Tibet?” he was stumped — he eventually just said, “I don’t know” and moved on to the next question. No matter how committed we are to a cause, if we can’t even take the time to understand what motivates the “other side”, how are we ever going to be savvy enough to do anything about it?

A Tibetan Book of Spells

By earlyTibet.com

Can monks do magic? Should they? We often picture monks (or at least the ideal of the monk) firmly in the setting of the monastery, either seeking enlightenment through study and meditation, or carrying out in the affairs of the monastery. But magic? Well, it seems that throughout most of the history of Buddhism the answer to the first question has been yes, and to the second usually why not? In fact, the  Buddhist canon contains enough spells to rival the repertoire of Merlin, Saruman and Harry Potter put together.

See rest of article here

Buy Stomachs, Win Hearts

By Thubten Samphel

The Chinese government has convinced itself that it has “liberated” Tibet. To drive home this conviction to the rest of the world it has bought advertisements in newspapers from Malawi to India to declare the happy news of Tibet’s serf liberation day. In Tibet, the authorities tried outright bribery so that the “liberated” serfs willingly join in the celebration. How successful the authorities were in this effort is captured by The Economist’s headline on this event: “Damn You, Rejoice.”

Unlike the rest of the world which is going through a period of belt-tightening because of the ongoing financial tsunami, China is awash in cash. Like any nouveau riche, China throws its weight around the world and in the neighbourhood block. In Arunachal Pradesh, China stops a $60 million development project to be financed by the Asian Development Bank. In New Delhi it buys a four-page spread in The Hindustan Times to say that the “serfs” on the other side consider themselves “liberated.” Like America from a different era, China thinks any problem will solve itself by withdrawing or throwing money at it.

‘Letters from my Great Great Uncle Cecil Mainprise’

Captain Cecil Mainprise

Here’s a really interesting blog that was sent to me from the great grandnephew of Captain Cecil Mainprise. The author has published the letters of Captain Cecil Mainprise who accompanied General Sir Francis Younghusband’s expedition to Tibet in 1903.

The letters give a very good first hand account of the British military encounters with the Tibetans and I look forward to reading the future postings of Captain Mainprise’s letters.

Mainprise was a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, commanding a Field Hospital on General Sir Francis Younghusband’s expedition to Tibet.

On his return from the expedition, he served in India and in France during the First World War. Thereafter he served in Salonika, Bulgaria and Afghanistan before returning to England to take over as Commandant of the Royal Army Medical College from 1924 to 1926.

In total Captain Mainprise wrote 50 letters home which traced the expedition’s progress into Tibet. Read this insider’s account on the day they were written some 105 years later. Final post is 18 November 2009.

See Site Here: Field Force to Lhasa 1903-04