TIBETSPACE

FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ABOUT OBAMA, HIS HOLINESS & THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

The recent decision by the White House not to receive His Holiness the Dalai Lama--exacerbated by the fact that it now involves one Nobel Peace Prize winner turning his back on another one because of pressure from China, a country on intimate terms with oppression--presents an opportune moment to have a look at the two men, side by side, in five areas, and to see that they don't really have a lot in common.  And that both men's work continues apace, on decidedly different tracks.

1. Human Rights--Over the past fifty years, the Dalai Lama's role has expanded from serving as a political representative of the Tibetan people--both in Tibet and in exile--to being a spokesperson for human rights in general and standing as an advocate for the relief of human suffering wherever it might exist. Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. would have agreed with His Holiness. King's own career, broadening from a focus on African-Americans to include, finally, the American poor, whatever their race, bears ample testimony to this. Now in 2009, fifty years after Mark Charles Parker was taken from his jail cell in Poplarville, Mississippi and lynched, the American political scene does not have a national figure whose ideas are marching logically and inexorably toward the cause of human rights. Remember, you can't get elected to national office in America by running on a platform of human rights.  And remember this too: the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King, Jr. did not run for public office.
2. Chicago Olympics--If Obama wants to be re-elected, he has to campaign; and, by some accounts, his re-election bid for 2012 has already started.  The Chicago Olympics would have been a real boost to his campaign and a fine send-off in 2016, when the Olympics arrived and his term, if he is re-elected, would end. In the twentieth century, however, either the Summer or the Winter Olympics visited our shores eight times.  That's enough.  Sure, there are those who thought that Obama's failure to get the Games for Chicago signaled dire and ominous things about America's reputation abroad (of course, Obama hadn't won the Nobel Prize for Peace at that time--more on that later), but they were wrong. Rio simply needed it more than we did.  And they purportedly made a much better case.  But King didn't care, and His Holiness doesn't care, about these things because they don't have to care about these things.  They don't have to win votes. Obama's attention to the Olympics wasn't a distraction from the health-care issue; it was an attempt to get re-elected.  
3. Non-Violence--Now that the civil-rights workers who rose to prominence in the 50's and 60's are aging, non-violence as a cogent and indispensable tool for social reform has vanished from the national stage.  The Dalai Lama's recent pilgrimage to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis should remind us of what unites Reverend King and His Holiness.  I am thinking, of course, of Mahatma Gandhi. Both King and the Dalai Lama drew a great deal from Gandhi's fundamental notions of non-violence. His Holiness, Mahatma Gandhi, and Reverend King realized a central truth that extends from a subtle understanding of non-violence:  that the acquisition of material wealth carries with it ethical obligations that extend beyond personal gratification and security.  And this is a truth that doesn't fare well in America. Greed, in fact, is a form of internal violence that has far-reaching implications.  But you can't get elected in America by running on a platform of human rights and by pointing to the essential violence associated with gaining great wealth.  After all, Obama is a very wealthy man.  King wasn't; His Holiness isn't.
4. The Global Village--The global village is a sexy idea.  As a phrase, it's become ubiquitous.  But it's not complicated.  The global village comes into being when we begin to perceive that our neighbor's suffering has a direct impact on our own suffering; and that the best way to alleviate our own suffering is first to alleviate our neighbor's suffering.  Of course, if you translate this into political action, nationalism, domestic economies, defense systems, all of these things come under scrutiny, and elected officials cannot, if they wish to be elected, indulge such a powerful idea and scrutinize such sacred cows.  The American electorate will not return to office someone who becomes overly concerned with what is happening in Rwanda, Sudan, Darfur, Tibet, Cambodia, Burma, or Bosnia--even if that person believes that these humanitarian actions will have a direct impact on the quality of American life.   This, however, was precisely Gandhi's platform, it is His Holiness's platform, and Reverend King was moving gradually toward such an idea as well.
5. The Nobel Peace Prize--Even Obama, in his honest and eloquent remarks upon learning that he had received this prestigious award, admitted that he didn't deserve it.  When the committee, citing his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," stated that Obama had committed himself and his country "to a world without nuclear weapons" (read the full text here), it became clear that this was an award granted more to an imagined future than an accomplished past.  And it was granted, I believe, in deep gratitude by a European community happy to be rid of the Bush family. But the Nobel Peace Prize won by Reverend King, Mother Theresa, Sakharov, Walesa, Tutu, Wiesel, the Dalai Lama, and Suu Kyi is not the Prize won by Al Gore and Barack Obama.  They were granted for different reasons and serve different purposes.  As Jody Williams--who won the Prize in 1997--remarked, "he [Obama] is going to be sending 40,000 new American troops into Afghanistan just as he received the Nobel Peace Prize?  I think that is a contradiction that needs to be seriously looked at."  And Obama's fierce, conservative critics will do just that.  The point is that the Nobel Committee might have inadvertently given our very young and very inexperienced President an award that, in reality, points to his youth and emphasizes his lack of experience in dealing with the kinds of problems that have often occupied the prize winners that I mentioned above.  And they might have unintentionally given ammunition to his critics.  (For a brief round-up of the various angles to this story, start with The Daily Beast.)

So, President Obama decides not to welcome His Holiness to D.C..  It's a political decision made by a savvy politician, and it's one that I suspect His Holiness wouldn't have made if the tables were turned and our President showed up in Dharamsala.  He wouldn't have made such a decision because it would have never been necessary for His Holiness to make such a decision.  The two men are driven by different necessities. You can take your pick.  

Or you can hope and pray that somehow they are complimentary.

VIDEO INTERVIEWS OF TIBETANS IN INDIA

The TEXT Project (Tibetans in Exile Today) is an oral history project based at the University of Arkansas and directed by Professor Sidney Burris and Geshe Thupten Dorjee.  The goal of the Project is to gather video interviews with the elderly Tibetans currently living in exile in India, and eventually to house them in an online archive that will be available both to scholarly and general audiences alike.  It is the assumption of the Project that traditional Tibetan culture is vanishing in Tibet, and that the elderly Tibetans who remember their lives before the Chinese arrived in 1959 hold valuable memories that need to be preserved.

To accomplish this, Professor Burris and Geshe Dorjee have traveled to India over the past two summers with fifteen students from the University of Arkansas.  Before leaving, their students have studied Tibetan history, culture, and philosophy; have familiarized themselves with the fundamentals of oral history; and have become comfortable with the new technology that supports digital HD video recording and editing.  

It is a further assumption of the TEXT Project that by allowing qualified undergraduate students to work on the front lines of Tibetan cultural preservation, they will come face-to-face with one of the few genuinely non-violent cultures left in the modern world.  As a result, two interests are well served by the TEXT Project:  the past history of the Tibetan people, as told by the Tibetans themselves, and the future of the global community, as defined by the younger generation that will shape it.

Over the past two summers, the TEXT Project has gathered some thirty interviews in Dharamsala, Majnu-Ka-Tilla in New Delhi, and Drepung Loseling Monastery in south India.  Students have spoken with monks, nuns, members of the Tibetan parliament, the President of the Tibetan Youth Congress, teachers at the Tibetan Children's Village, elderly Tibetans, the Nechung oracle, Tibetan merchants, and others, including members of the younger generation as well.

The Project has generated enormous student interest on the campus, and Professor Burris and Geshe Dorjee are currently investigating potential funding sources to begin the long, arduous--and costly--process of archiving the videos that they collected.

Until funding has been located to build properly the website that will house the complete interviews, Professor Burris and Geshe Dorjee--assisted by their students, of course--will excerpt the interviews and post them on a temporary site.  

Each excerpt will be accompanied by a brief introduction that sets the scene and discusses the significance of the interview's content.  Two have been posted already, and notice of further postings will appear here on TIBETSPACE.  

Stop by the new site and have a look.  And leave a comment; the TEXT Project values your opinion.

TAIWAN FLEXES ITS MUSCLE, SCOLDS CHINA OVER TIBET

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian today scolded China, not only over their human-rights violations, but also specifically over China's Tibet policy.  And he did this while attending a reception at the Vatican embassy in Taipei, calling on the Pope to condemn China's recent actions in Tibet:  "China's bloody crackdown on Tibetan people last month has shocked the world. Hereby I would like to call on His Holiness the Pope to condemn violence, and to encourage the search for a solution with the aim of protecting peace."  Regardless of President Chen's political motivations for making the statement, the international call for a Tibetan solution has arrived in China's backyard now, and as the external pressure mounts, we can expect an equal and opposite pressure to push back from the interior of Tibet--a kind thermodynamic theory of foreign policy that is wreaking havoc on the Tibetan people.

POPE BENEDICT MAKES A PLEA FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Pope Benedict said in a speech to the United Nations that all nations have a duty to protect people from human rights violations and humanitarian crises. If states are unable to guarantee such protection, he said, then the international community must intervene. 

He added that supporting human rights remains the most effective way to eliminate inequalities between countries and social groups, and to increase security.  It is important, of course, that a man of the Pope's spiritual prominence--MSNBC and CNN covered him 24/7 in one of the oddest obsessions I've seen on those two cable networks--speak out on human rights.  In doing so, he joins the distinguished company of the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu, and we might hope that he also encouraged a percentage of the Roman Catholic audience seriously to consider the problem in Tibet if they had not done so before.

When it comes to spreading information about the problem in Tibet, enough is never enough.  I was asked to speak last night at a human rights rally on the Tibetan situation; after my speech, a student, expressing concern over China's policies, confessed that he had no idea that the Tibetans were suffering and that the Chinese were engaging in these oppressive policies.

OK, now he knows. 

And he signed a petition.

Another student asked that I post the speech here, but instead of taking up blog-space to do so, I've posted it to the right under "Compassion Watch" as "Human rights speech at the University of Arkansas."  That's a downloadable Word document; to view it online, go to MINDSPACE and look under "Wisdom & Method."

RAMOCHE MONK DIES OF STARVATION IN LHASA AND SAMDHONG RINPOCHE OFFERS INTERNATIONAL APPEAL

Several days after the borders of Tibet were officially closed, Samdhong Rinpoche, the Prime Minister of the Government-in-Exile, today offered this urgent appeal to the international community.  The unspoken but obvious fear of Rinpoche's appeal lies in his realization that having now severely compromised the media's ability to report on the crack-down in Tibet, Chinese authorities are preparing to solve the Tibetan problem with a grim finality.  At Ramoche monastery in Lhasa, one monk has recently died from starvation as a result of the severe difficulties the monastery faces in receiving the fundamentals needed for life:  food and water, for example.  Tear gas, lobbed into the monastery by the Chinese police, is apparently a staple of the Tibetan diet.

This is sinister.  Hunger-strikes, willingly undertaken, have a devastating affect on the community, as the hunger-strikers waste away gradually, highlighting their commitment to their principles and the depravity of the oppression that has triggered such an inhuman protest.  But to see one of your fellow monks slowly starve to death because of a Chinese blockade . . . the sense of helplessness, the sense of a deferred agency, of feeling yourself a pawn in a deadly chess match, all of this is a horrible psy-ops from a military torture manual.

It is difficult to see how this kind of suffering is due to be alleviated in the near future.  But if you have ever felt compelled toward action of any kind, and if you have an interest in these matters--as your having visited this blog might indicate--I would urge you to become involved now.  Samdhong Rinpoche is not a garrulous man.  He speaks with reservation, gravity, and from the heart.

His appeal is of international importance.

DALAI LAMA: TALKS UNDER WAY WITH CHINA

In his most recent trip to America, the Dalai Lama pressed his advantage in several ways:  a five-day talk on compassion in Seattle, a meeting with an unnamed U.S. senior representative regarding the crisis in Tibet, and a recent announcement that a group of his people are meeting with the Chinese to find a solution to the current problems.  And of course His Holiness has reiterated that he will resign if the violence continues in Tibet. 

All told, it's been an important week for His Holiness, as he begins his tour of the United States in Seattle and concludes in New York on April 22.  He seems to be ramping up the pressure, if only by confessing that there is little else now that he can do (which no one, by the way, believes).  Every day, the Dalai Lama proves himself of being entirely capable of new and vigorous tactics for increasing his leverage in the international forum.

On a related note, Wikileaks has posted a helpful gallery of photographs and videos relating to the Tibetan crisis.  Have a look at it here.

For those of you sympathetic to the Tibetan cause, you might have noticed that the Chinese voice is becoming stronger at the lower levels.  Pro-Chinese blogs are humming now, and it's clear that many Chinese are taking very seriously the Dalai Lama's power to shape public opinion.  Popular, Chinese blog-opinion, much like American blog-opinion, runs the gamut from informed to hysterical.  If you haven't looked at the Chinese propaganda website, www.anti-cnn.com, you need to visit it. 

It's difficult to engage many of these pro-Chinese bloggers because their opinions are non-negotiable.  They arrive at the discussion with opinions whose evidence lies simply in the dogmatic nature of their espousal and the volume of the voice that delivers them.  This, of course, make dialogue impossible.  And so it shouldn't be attempted.

But there are questions that should be asked in any discussion regarding the Tibetan situation.  More on that later.

Finally--The Financial Times  is reporting that the Chinese are looking to hire a major public relations firm in the wake of the Tibetan crisis.  The solution to all our major crises:  hire a PR firm. 

So it looks as though China really is ready to step into the modern world.

CHINESE LEADER HOLDS FAST IN FACE OF GROWING INTERNATIONAL PROTEST

1. President Hu Jintao of China today toed the hard and unreasonable line that China's conflict with the Dalai Lama related to nationalist causes, was an internal affair, and was to be handled by China alone.  He was speaking to the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, by the way, of a country that has emerged as one of the Dalai Lama's most fervent supporters.

This is not unpredictable.  The current generation of Chinese leaders--President Hu was born in 1942--has focused largely on righting the economic imbalance between the thriving coastline of China and the economically deprived interior.  It is important to realize that these leaders came up through the Cultural Revolution, were educated in its principles, and are wary about opening up real international dialogue about anything regarding their own domestic policy.

There are signs that the younger generation of leaders might have a slightly different outlook on China's future relations with the internationa community.  Many of them, in fact, were educated here in the United States in the 70's, and have a working knowledge of American democracy and market capitalism.  This new generation, slated to assume full power in 2012, represents an opportunity for the world community, but most particularly for Tibetans and for all of those who support the Tibetan cause.

But this does little to address the current problems facing Tibet.  When a group of monks gathered on March 10 in front of the Jokhang Temple, no one foresaw that they would tap a world-wide reservoir of support and concern for a people who have suffered peaceably and authoritatively for over half-a-century. 

But things have changed now.  People who hardly knew where Tibet lies on the map are articulating their concerns about the Tibetan people and their leader, the Dalai Lama.  The fact that China has refused to show even the least tendency toward compromise will attract, I believe, even more supporters to the Tibetan cause.  The Beijing Olympics will keep the matter lurking on or near the headlines.  The boycott of the opening ceremonies seems to be growing week by week, and that for now is the bargaining chip that China most fears.

HOUSE PASSES RESOLUTION ON TIBET, AND BUSH LEAVES DOOR OPEN FOR BOYCOTT

Just as the Dalai Lama arrived in Seattle on Thursday to begin a series of teachings on compassion, the US Congress passed a resolution on Wednesday that called for the Chinese government to end its crackdown in Tibet and to release those who had been imprisoned for peacefully protesting the Chinese occupation.  The vote on the resolution was nearly unanimous:  413-1, with Rep. Ron Paul of Texas voting against it.

The Chinese reaction was predictable:  rage, disbelief, incredulity, the standard arsenal of emotions we've come to expect from them.  It's worth noting, however, that I was writing this post, links to the story on Google News were disappearing as fast as they appeared.  Perhaps this is typical for controversial stories, perhaps not.

Also, White House press secretary, Dana Perino, was recently questioned about Bush's attendance of the opening ceremonies and responded that his schedule had not been finalized yet, a distinct change from Bush's previous declaration that he would be attending the Games.  Here's the the relevant section of the press briefing:

Q Dana, in an interview with EWTN, the President was asked specifically, "You are now planning on going to the Olympics, to be at the Opening Ceremonies at the Olympics. How can you in good conscience go to that ceremony, Mr. President?" He answered, "Because I -- I'm going to the Olympics, for starters, and my plans aren't -- haven't changed." Dana, is he going to the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games?

MS. PERINO: I would just leave it as the how the President stated it. We haven't announced the President's schedule.

Q So you can't say right now whether he's going to the Opening Ceremonies or not?

MS. PERINO: I cannot.

Q You can only say that he is going to the Olympics?

MS. PERINO: Yes, but I'm not trying to signal anything by saying that -- I don't have the President's schedule. It is way too far in advance for us to announce the President's schedule.

Q Nancy Pelosi said today that -- about the Opening Ceremonies and the party -- that she hopes the White House realizes there's not a party going on in Tibet, saying that you shouldn't go to the Opening Ceremonies.

MS. PERINO: Well, maybe she should check out what the President just said on camera about pressuring China, both publically and privately, before, during and after the Olympics. He just said it, just now in the meeting with the Senior Minister from Singapore, in which they spent a lot of time talking about China and human rights and Tibet. And particularly -- in particular, the President said that China would be in good stead if it would just reopen the dialogue that it had with the Dalai Lama or the Dalai Lama's representatives.

Q One last thing. For people who are reading between the lines here that you're not being -- able to be pinned down on this, is it possible that the President could go to the Olympics but not go to the Opening Ceremonies?

MS. PERINO: I'll refer you to my first answer. (Laughter.)

Q But this is different, Dana. If we asked you this question a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago, you would have said he's going to the Opening Ceremonies. Does this suggest --

MS. PERINO: That's not true. Did you ask me that? Did I say that?

Q I think it's been pretty clear that he was planning on going.

MS. PERINO: No. He said he was going to the Olympics. We have not given out the President's schedule. And even before -- I've not given out any details about the President's schedule when it comes to Olympics. So it's wrong to say that I have changed my story.

Q Since this issue has become -- sort of moved to the forefront here, is there any reexamination, recalibration, or rethinking of the dynamics that would have the President at the Opening Ceremonies?

MS. PERINO: Not that I'm aware.

Perhaps his decision just might be influenced by the fact that the Prime Minister of England, Gordon Brown, has now declared that he will boycott the opening ceremonies?  Or perhaps that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will miss the opening ceremony?

Or perhaps our President wishes to align himself against these substantial voices?  Or perhaps he will rise to this occasion as he did when he delivered the speech in support of His Holiness at the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony?

As I have said many times in these pages, and to anyone who asks, I believe that when we watch the growing international support of the Tibetan cause, we are witnessing one of the most substantial acts of foreign diplomacy the modern world has seen.  It is a testament to His Holiness's vision, his people's endurance and patience, and to the world's deep and abiding good-heartedness, a good-heartedness that when awakened from its slumber can effect real and lasting change.

   

OBAMA SIGNS ON FOR BOYCOTT OF THE OPENING CEREMONIES IF CHINA REFUSES NEGOTIATION

Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, today supported the American boycott of the opening ceremony in Beijing.  All three presidential candidates are now on board, and all three should be recognized for realizing that, whether you support the boycott or not, Tibet and its relationship to China, as well as Darfur and Burma, need to receive international scrutiny, as promised by the 1948 UN Bill on Human Rights.  Read the report of Obama's statement here.

EU PARLIAMENT ASKS 27 MEMBERS TO CONSIDER BOYCOTT OF OPENING CEREMONY IN BEIJING

An important development in the European Union--its 27 members are being asked by its Parliament to consider boycotting the opening ceremonies.  This is an important development; stay tuned for results, but read about it here.