You might have read about the most recent self-immolation in Tibet: an eighteen-year- old monk who, as he was burning, exclaimed, "May His Holiness the Dalai Lama live thousands of years." And then he screamed, "Freedom for Tibet."
Note: As the flames enveloped him, he did not scream, "Meaningful autonomy for Tibet." This is an important point because many Americans, rightfully respectful of His Holiness's opinions on all matters sacred and secular, have come to embrace autonomy as the only workable solution for the future of Tibet.
But I believe we must exercise caution here. Americans are accustomed to forming opinions about the development of other countries because we are accustomed to having a military that has traditionally made the development of other countries its major business.
But take a moment and look around you. Are you doing something now that Tibetans in Tibet cannot do? Do you plan on shopping freely at the market? Reading what you want to read? Exercising your religious preferences as you wish? Are you employed? Do you speak the language the police and the military speak? Examine your own freedoms, and the heavy price we paid for them.
And then consider: when we have strong evidence that many Tibetans within Tibet, as well as many of their brothers and sisters living in exile, are daring to dream of freedom, and are giving their lives with calls for that freedom on their lips, Americans must honor this very human urge: to live in freedom and independence and to determine our own future.
And we must extend the same privilege to the Tibetans. Their resistance to the Chinese oppression now is fierce. Thupten Jinpa, the main translator for the Dalai Lama, recently tweeted that he felt a threshhold had been crossed. And as we know, threshholds can be dangerous places. But many Tibetans have obviously judged that crossing that threshhold is worth the risk. And they, at least, deserve our support.
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