TIBETSPACE

VIDEO: THE LATEST SELF-IMMOLATION FROM TIBET

A new video from Tibet shows the reactions of monks and lay-people alike to the most recent self-immolation in Rebkong, Amdo.  Have a look at it.  And buckle your seat-belts.

Two things stand out to me when I watch this video.  First, the Tibetan people have suffered and are still suffering the consequences of China's brutal opposition, which has been continual since 1949.  Second, the Tibetans have used every means at their disposal to respond to this suffering in a constructive, nonviolent way.  China, by all odds, should have long ago silenced the Tibetan people, but they have failed to do so and seem, on a daily basis now, increasingly unable to do so. Whatever it is that I see in this brief film, however I want to describe this Tibetan spirit, I feel clearly that the Tibetans have revealed here a profound and unshakeable commitment to achieving a free state.  

They seem during this brief video a more stable, more commited, more powerful citizenry than anything China has so far mustered.

My hope is that China is beginning to register the same perception at some level, however secretly, however bureaucratically. 

LOCK-DOWN IN LHASA

By mid-February of this year, Lhasa was in complete lock-down.  Please read the report at Shadow Tibet. There are currently 1.2 million Chinese in Lhasa—ironically, the number of Tibetans slaughtered by the Chinese by 1959—and 200,000 Tibetans.  Tibetans in Lhasa have largely been coralled in ghetto-like quarters, much like the Jews in 17th-century Venice. Military patrols are on the streets around the clock.  The Chinese military are locked and loaded. Tibetans are disappearing.  Patriotic re-education programs are being carried out across the country.  Food is too expensive for many Tibetans. 

After reading this report, you might want to pass it along to someone else.  There are links on this site under "Action Corner" that might get you started. Information matters, knowledge makes a difference.  No lie can live forever, as Thomas Carlyle said.  

By spreading this information rapidly, efficiently, perhaps we can hasten the death of the Chinese lie.

THUPTEN JINPA, HHDL'S TRANSLATOR, SPEAKS OUT ON THE CURRENT SITUATION IN TIBET

On February 5th, 2012, Thupten Jinpa, the principal translator of the Dalai Lama, tweeted:  "Three more Tibetans have sacrificed their precious lives.  With these self-immolations, our struggle has probably crossed a threshold."  When I read this, I wondered specifically about the the word, "threshold."

What did he mean?

On March 8, he answered my question.  Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Jinpala said that "there is a growing recognition among Tibetans that Beijing lacks the political imagination and will to resolve the question of Tibet."  Jinpala also indicated that the Chinese leadership had only a narrow window of opportunity now to settle the Tibetan question, and if it missed this opportunity, then it would lose Tibet altogether.  Tibetans in Tibet, he reasoned, were crossing the threshold.

Many believe this has already happened.

Jinpala's statement is important not only for what it says, but perhaps most importantly, for the simple fact that he is the Dalai Lama's translator, and in many ways, is as close to His Holiness as anyone.  He has been a monk, and he understands the monastic perspective.  

And he is now sounding the warning signals about the serious nature of Tibetan unrest, and by implication, about the very real struggle in Tibet for nothing less than independence.

That is a statement of significance.  Or so it seems to me.

HUMAN RIGHTS, KONY 2012, AND VIRAL MARKETING—WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

KONY 2012, the viral video that has been making the rounds on YouTube and college campuses, has come under fire recently. (Read the account on The Daily What and the WSJ).  The group behind it, Invisible Children, was recently on our campus, and I wrote at the time that the organization had one of the slickest internet presences I'd seen in a long time.  And it's galvanized attention among college students around the world.  If my sophomore literature students didn't know a thing about Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army last year, they do now.  And the only reason they do is because of KONY 2012; or rather, because of the social media support KONY 2012 has engineered.

The problem is that Invisible Children has a bad credit rating in the non-profit world, giving only 31% of their funding to the cause of stopping Kony.  I won't rehash these two articles.  You can read them whenever you're ready to read them.

My point is that we need to exercise some caution as we correct these abuses. Of course, part of my reaction is cynical.  As social media campaigns can now be designed and produced with a relatively small staff, a relatively small staff with the wrong intentions can have a pervasive and international influence, while maintaining their deep and well-stocked pockets.  That's the bad news.

The good news is that a few well-intentioned reformers can just as easily construct social media campaigns that trade in pure compassion and awareness.  There are fewer checks and balances on social media because anyone can use it.  But intentions, whether good or bad, are exposed quickly and efficiently in social media.  And that's a good thing.

Social media, in fact, highlights one of the most important dimensions of any sort of social action devoted to helping others.  From a neighborhood renovation to an international intervention, our approach to human rights ought to begin with an examination of our personal motivation—without such an examination, the philosophers of intention tell us, the results of our action might be compromised or weakened.

Publicity—it's not just for ad agencies and glossies anymore.  Intention?  That's where we ought to focus a good portion of our energy.

REGARDING TIBET: KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO . . . AND CAN'T DO

If you were in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965, you had most likely made up your mind about the Civil Rights movement.  You either supported Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and the Civil Rights activists or you lined up behind Sheriff Jim Clark who'd ordered every white male to the Dallas County Courthouse to be deputized.

The point is you had a dog in the fight.  John Lewis wasn't going to convince Sheriff Clark that blacks be given equal rights under the law, and Sheriff Clark couldn't convince John Lewis that his attenuated status as an American was right and just.

This is where the press comes in because the press is one of the great allies of political change.  Socio-political protest, covered by the media, is aimed at the fence-sitters, the well intentioned people who don't condone human cruelty and prejudice, but who live in communities where its reality hasn't been dramatically presented to them.  

These are the people who don't have a dog in the fight, and typically, these folks are kind, reasonable, and considerate.  They don't condone blasting a young black girl with a water cannon.

These are the people who, when they saw pictures and video clips of Alabama State Troopers attacking peaceful protestors in Selma, said to themselves that enough was enough.  And they said it to their neighbors, and to their friends, and to their Congressmen, and they said it so many times that it became atmospheric.  

And so the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, extending the franchise to all races, creeds, and colors in this country.

With the advent of real-time social media, the protests in Tibet have the capacity to bring the world's attention to the Tibetan's plight in ways that King and Gandhi could only dream of.  A simple re-tweet, a blog posting, a mention, an IM'd photo, shared, reposted, a follow, a "like" here and there . . . these are all important adjustments in the atmosphere that will bring pressing attention to what China is doing in Tibet.  

As supporters of Tibet who aren't on the front lines, either in Tibet or in the exiled community, this is what we can do, and it is very important.  In fact, it's an essential part of the formula for social change:  protest + media coverage = action.

The Tibetans are standing for freedom.  That won't change.  The Chinese military and police are resisiting that stand. This will not change either until these images, impressions, and reports are spread around the world, to the fence-sitters who don't want to hear of human oppression, really, but who, when they do hear of it, will be repulsed by it.

And Tibet wins every time that happens.  Free Tibet?  Yep.  Retweet now.

SO YOU'RE AN AMERICAN & YOU SUPPORT TIBET: HERE'S MORE STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW

Let's assume, for a moment, that you're an American.  And let's assume, furthermore, that you're interested in the future of Tibet, Tibetans, and Tibetan culture.  If you practice a form of Tibetan Buddhism, let's forget about that for now because religion tends to confuse things if we're not careful.

As Americans, we've got a substantial list of things that we can do on a daily basis that Tibetans cannot do in Tibet.  Things like worship freely, speak freely, work freely (or look for a job freely), or complain loudly because we cannot find a job or we don't make enough money or we don't like our government or we don't like our future.  

America has made enormous sacrifices to preserve these freedoms.  We know the cost of freedom.

Many Tibetans are now asking to be given the same freedoms that we exercise every day.  

So:  when an oppressed people wish to exercise the very rights that define us as Americans, we must respond in kind:  we must recognize the human profundity of that wish by assenting to that wish.

It does not mean that we understand politically how this wish will be granted. It does not mean that we will lead the Tibetan people to freedom.  It means simply that as Americans we have no choice but to honor the wish, to honor the human will to be free.  

And to do what we can to move this dream a little closer toward reality.  More on that later.

EVEN T.S. ELIOT THINKS TIBET SHOULD BE FREE, AND HE'S DEAD.

In "Little Gidding," the last section of TS Eliot's Four Quartets, one of the greatest poems of the last century, now under-appreciated, under-read, and under-taught, Eliot closes by writing:

Quick now, here, now, always—

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of things shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

Every time I read this poem—quite a lot recently—I am reminded of the "complete simplicity" of human freedom and the Tibetan's will to achieve it; I see in Tibet through our realtime media a "crowned knot of fire" that the Chinese cannot unravel and will not unravel.  

But I don't see a "rose" when I look toward Tibet; I see a lotus flower, the symbol of compassion and His Holiness the Dalai Lama's great benevolence, and I feel that this "fire" in Tibet is serving this lotus, and that one day, the fire and the lotus shall indeed be one.  And His Holiness and all Tibetans will return to their homeland and to their family and once again regain their soveriegnty and independence.  

CHINESE PERSECUTION IN NGABA—MONKS FLEE TO THE MOUNTAINS

Phayul recently reported that the monks of Samdrupling Jonang monastery of Ngaba, Tibet have fled to the mountains.  Why?  Simple.  They fear for their lives.  Besides, all religious activities and ritual ceremonies have been banned by the Chinese—the essence of a monk's life.

I bring this up only to point to the obvious:  the Chinese occupation of Tibet has been rocked by the self-immolations of the Tibetan patriots who are struggling to secure their independence. The Chinese are responding with what they judge to be an equal and opposing force:  a denial of rights, incarceration, torture, starvation, re-education, forced labor.

Make no mistake about it—we are watching an authentic nonviolent revolution.  The Tibetans are carrying on their shoulders an ancient tradition of resistance that in America has gradually disappeared from the public stage—although it's making a come-back—since Martin Luther King's assassination. 

The Tibetans deserve our support.  At least.  Awareness now is crucial.  The Chinese have been seduced into commiting inhuman acts of brutality, and our task is simple:  expand the circle of awareness, gradually, one person, one friend, one blog post at a time.  

The front lines of compassion and justice happen to be precisely where you are standing.

A BIG-THOUGHT INFO-VIDEO THAT MAKES YOU THINK BIG THOUGHTS

Have a look at the video below when you get eleven minutes to yourself.  You're going to like it.  It's one of those speeded-up, hand-sketched, animated graphics that's capable of presenting, like, the entire history of the world in several easily digestible moments.  And the narrator, Matthew Taylor, has a British accent to boot, so Americans are persuaded he's smart from the get-go because we figure if you're articulate, you're also intelligent.

Here's ten things he says that you'll agree with:

1. We're going to have to live differently in the 21st century.
2. Most of our insights into human nature are going to be counter-intuitive. The true stuff about ourselves won't, on the face of it, make much sense.  Like, I'll be very happy if I spend my time making others happy.  Sounds good, admire the ideal, but really?  Come on.
3. If you want to be a happier person, don't read a self-help book, just have happier friends. He means by that, just connect!
4. What we want now is a more self-aware, socially embedded model of autonomy.
5. Let's start thinking about the hubris of individualism, and all the problems its caused us.
6. Can we develop a relationship to our reactions rather than be captive to them?
7. Things are getting better regarding person-to-person violence; realtime social media brings social problems into our living rooms.  We have data now.
8. Inter-personal, communal, global—three adjectives you're going to see hooking up everywhere.
9. Stop thinking about big plans and start figuring out the nature of empathy within each of us.
10. You knew there was going to be a big phrase that solves our problem.  Here it is:  empathic capacity.

There's a lot to digest in this little video, and it's a helpful video. But like all films of this genre, it's an inspirational video, which means it's short on solutions because, well, because the point of the video is that each of us has to come up with our own solutions and make our own contributions, and the film wants inspire us to do that.  Good.  But you knew that, right?

So where do we go from here?  The film kinda sorta hints at a solution in the Copernicus passage that claims it doesn't seem like the we go around the sun, but in fact we do.  

Here's our homework assignment:  realize that the structure of our individual personality is set up to process incoming data in fraudulent, self-serving, and ultimately destructive ways, and also remember that the consumerist culture that nurtures that personality has silently agreed to take advantage of our personality's tendency to misrepresent things, and the two forces—misrepresentation and consumerism—have quietly signed a pact that gets us to buy stuff—literally and figuratively—that we don't need.

Our task? Dissolve that pact. And let me know how you're doing with that.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT TIBET. SERIOUSLY.

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.