ISSN 1076-9005

Journal of Buddhist Ethics 7 (2000)



The Free Tibet Movement: A Selective Narrative





By John Powers



© 2000 John Powers

Reprinted from Engaged Buddhism in the West with permission of

Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm Street., Somerville, MA, 02144 U.S.A.,

www.wisdompubs.org

At dawn of March 10, 1959, crowds of Tibetans began to gather outside the Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s summer palace, a short distance from the capital city of Lhasa. Their aim was to protest an order from Tan Guansan, Political Commissar for the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC), that the Dalai Lama attend a theatrical performance, and that he arrive alone, with no bodyguards or retainers. The Tibetan crowd feared that the order was a pretext for arresting their spiritual and temporal leader.(1)

By noon there were over 30,000 Tibetans around the Norbulingka, and many were shouting anti-Chinese slogans and demanding that China leave Tibet. The populace had become increasingly restive under Chinese rule, and the March 10 demonstrations became the occasion for a public venting of anger. When troops of the Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) first began to enter Tibet in 1950 they told the people they met that their aim was only to help and that they would bring modernization and economic prosperity to the backward region. They further promised that Tibet’s unique culture and religion would not be harmed and that the Dalai Lama would retain his authority over domestic affairs.(2)

After gaining control of the country, however, the Chinese authorities began to remake Tibet in accordance with Mao Zedong’s vision of Marxism-Leninism. As it became more and more apparent that the invaders intended to completely eradicate the traditional institutions of the country, Tibetans became restive. The March 10 demonstrations proved to be the flashpoint, and as crowds took to the streets to protest the Chinese occupation of their country, the new rulers decided to act decisively. Reinforcements were brought to Tibet from all over China, while the authorities sent out broadcasts urging the populace to remain calm.

On the following day a public meeting was held at the Government Printing Press at Shöl, below the Potala (the Dalai Lama’s winter palace). The meeting, attended by Tibetans from all segments of the society, unanimously issued a formal declaration of Tibetan independence that called for the Chinese to leave Tibet. More demonstrations were held during the next several days, and monks, nuns, and villagers from surrounding areas poured into the city to join the growing anti-Chinese movement.

On March 17 two mortar shells were fired from a Chinese army camp into the Norbulingka, prompting the Tibetan Cabinet to urge the Dalai Lama to flee the country. At dusk the Dalai Lama, disguised as a soldier, slipped from the palace through a door in a remote part of the compound and joined a small group of relatives and retainers. The band traveled to the banks of the Kyichu River, where they were met by 30 Tibetan resistance fighters, who had brought horses and provisions for the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile.

On March 20, unaware that the Dalai Lama had slipped away, the Chinese army began shelling the Norbulingka, sparking more fighting and demonstrations among the Tibetan populace. On March 31, just one day ahead of Chinese patrols that had been sent to intercept and capture him, the Dalai Lama arrived at the Indian check post of Chuthangmo and was granted political sanctuary by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian prime minister.

In the following months PRC authorities embarked on a massive show of force to crush the growing dissent. In the aftermath of the demonstrations, an estimated 87,000 Tibetans were killed by Chinese forces and another 25,000 imprisoned. The demonstrations and subsequent massacres have become the focal symbols of the Free Tibet movement, which has steadily gained momentum in the decades since China first annexed the country, ostensibly to reunite it with the “motherland” and free it from foreign “imperialists.” Despite China’s claims, Tibet had been officially independent since 1912, and China had never actually ruled the country as part of China prior to its invasion.(3) Also, at the time when PLA troops crossed the border, there were only six foreigners in the entire country, none of whom had significant influence with the Tibetan government.

Tibet in Exile

Once in India, the Dalai Lama sent messages to governments and political organizations around the world pleading for help, but none cared to listen. Tibet had been isolated from the rest of the world for centuries, and even though it had been treated as an independent state on several occasions in international negotiations,(4) no government was prepared to give it recognition as an independent state or to intercede on its behalf. After months of fruitless attempts to garner international support for his cause, the Dalai Lama began to turn his attention to making a home in India for himself and the estimated 100,000 Tibetans who followed him into exile.

Shortly after the establishment of a Tibetan government-in-exile in 1960, the Dalai Lama issued a statement outlining the goals of the government:

Representation of Tibetan refugees; Guardianship of Tibetan culture, religion, and language; Care and education of Tibetan children; Preservation of national and cultural identity in exile; Defense of the national sovereignty of the Tibetan people on the basis of a democratic form of state; Continuing the nonviolent Tibetan struggle for freedom in the name of the five million Tibetans in Tibet and in exile.(5)

Since that time, the Tibetan government-in-exile, under the Dalai Lama’s direction, has established 53 refugee communities in India and Nepal and has provided the administrative basis for a form of self-government in exile. It has also set up several educational facilities for Tibetan children, called “Tibetan Children’s Villages,” as well as institutes to preserve Tibet’s traditional performing arts, scriptures, and medical traditions. In addition, the exile government has become increasingly effective at gathering and disseminating information regarding the situation in Tibet and the plight of the refugee community.

The efforts of the Dalai Lama and his fellow refugees mark the beginning of the Free Tibet movement, which in recent decades has become a global phenomenon. The movement has taken some surprising turns and attracted a diverse cast of characters, including the Tibetan refugees, Western students of Buddhism, the American CIA, conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats in the US Congress, and more recently high-profile movie stars and rock musicians. The story of the movement is now told all over the world, and the Dalai Lama has become one of the most widely recognized people on the planet. Because of the diversity of the movement and the large number of people who have played an important role in it, it will only be possible in this article to highlight some of the significant events of the past four decades and to provide vignettes of the backgrounds and motivations of a select group who have played major roles or whose ideas and activities are representative of important segments of the movement.

Unlike most of the other movements discussed in this book, the Free Tibet cause is not primarily an explicitly Buddhist movement, although many of its most active members have been Buddhists. During the research for this article, I spoke to a number of pro-Tibet activists, both Westerners and Tibetans living in Western countries, and the dominant theme in their accounts was diversity. The Tibet cause has attracted an exceptionally diverse group of people, some of whom see their activities on behalf of the cause as connected with Buddhist belief and practice, while others are concerned with human rights, opposing communism, and a range of other motivations.(6)

The Beginnings of the Free Tibet Movement

Although there is now widespread international support for the cause, when the Tibetan exiles first arrived in India, there was little awareness of their situation in other countries, and world leaders were generally unwilling to help them. The most important exception to this was the government of India, which agreed to accept the Dalai Lama and his fellow refugees, and also offered to give them land in South India for farming and a headquarters in the almost abandoned British hill station of Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. But India was also wary of angering China, and it played a key role in stifling debate in the United Nations in 1950 when moves were made by some member nations to investigate China’s invasion and annexation of Tibet. The Indian action was a result of Nehru’s policy of “India-China Mutual Affection” (hindi chini bhai bhai), which he believed would serve as a model for peaceful cooperation for other nations. It lasted until 1962, when China invaded India, claiming that large tracts of Indian territory rightfully belonged to China.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exile government continued to plead their case at the United Nations and other international organizations. Despite the indifference of the world’s governments, there was some interest in, and sympathy for, the Tibetans in the early 1960s. Following the Dalai Lama’s flight to India, media outlets around the world carried front-page articles on the “god-king’s” exile, and Tibet’s case was heard by the International Commission of Jurists, which concluded that prior to the Chinese invasion Tibet had met all the requisite criteria for an independent state, and that the invasion was illegal under international law.(7) Not surprisingly, China rejected the decision, declaring that it had a centuries-old claim on Tibet. Despite China’s assertions, the United Nations General Assembly in 1961 and 1965 passed resolutions endorsing the Tibetan peoples’ right to self-determination.(8)

After the initial flurry of interest in the early 1960s, however, the world largely lost interest in Tibet. China closed the country to foreign visitors, and for decades little reliable information was able to find its way out. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Chinese repression was increased significantly, and the society was radically restructured along Marxist-Leninist lines. Private property was confiscated, and most of the population forced into communes and work units. Members of the aristocracy and religious figures were subjected to “struggle sessions” (thamzing), during which they were physically and verbally assaulted and accused of “crimes against the people.” Many died during these sessions, and many more Tibetans were killed and tortured in Chinese prisons. In addition, hundreds of thousands died as a result of famines caused by confiscation of crops by Chinese authorities, who sent them to feed people starving in China. Ironically, this was a time of bumper crops in Tibet, but the Cultural Revolution had produced catastrophic famines in China, largely as a result of mismanagement.(9) According to the Tibetan government in exile, over 1.2 million Tibetans died during this time.(10)

Interestingly, during the 1960s the American CIA was the international organization that provided the most tangible support to the Free Tibet movement. Even prior to the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile, the CIA was covertly arming and training resistance fighters, and it also established a clandestine base in Nepal.(11) During the mid-1950s groups of Tibetans from border regions that were particularly affected by the Chinese encroachment began to form resistance units. They conducted a guerilla campaign against the numerically superior and better armed Peoples’ Liberation Army, but because of their superior knowledge of the landscape and their acclimatization to the harsh environment they were able to successfully harass the Chinese troops. Recently declassified documents reveal that the CIA played a crucial role behind the scenes, secretly arming the rebels and even training some in remote bases in Colorado, in terrain that was thought to resemble the mountains and valleys of Tibet. This support continued until 1971, when President Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, embarked on a policy of rapprochement with China.

Nixon’s courting of China was based entirely on pragmatic considerations. An avowed anti-communist, Nixon also realized that China represented a huge emerging market and that nations which treated it as an enemy were likely to be shut out of the coming economic opportunities. Other nations followed suit, and as more and more Western leaders followed Nixon and Kissinger in paying court to the new rulers of China, the voices of Tibetan exiles and their few supporters were almost entirely ignored.

After the first spate of resolutions from the UN and various governments, following the enactment of UN Resolution 1723 (XVI) in 1965, Tibet was not even mentioned again in the UN until 1985.

The Tibetan exile community had initially expected that their cause would galvanize the rest of the world to action, and there was widespread resentment when this proved not to be the case. As Hugh Richardson notes,

Until too late, the Tibetans showed no proper understanding of the power of publicity and expressed the ingenuous hope that the truth would surely make itself known. Partly from inexperience and partly from anxiety not to provoke the Chinese…they relied on others to put their case for them, but there were few people to attempt that.(12)

Their forced entry into the modern world proved to be a shock for many Tibetans. But as it became clear that the rest of the world had its own concerns, the refugee community began to develop activist organizations. One such organization is the Tibetan Youth Congress, which began in the early 1970s. The formation of the TYC followed a meeting in Dharamsala in October 1970, during which the Dalai Lama addressed the assembled delegates, drawn from various sections of the exile community:

Having held this youth conference during the past few days, let us ask ourselves what is the most essential task for the young people. The answer is: service to the people. In order to serve the people one must learn the difficulties and the sufferings of the people by keeping close touch with them.(13)

The organization grew quickly, attracting mainly young Tibetans who were dissatisfied with the government-in-exile, which it characterized as being too polite and non-confrontational. Often at odds with the exile government, its stated aim is “a free and independent Tibet and the restoration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to his rightful position as the sole religious and temporal leader of all Tibet.”(14) The TYC has mainly worked at grass roots activities designed to help the Tibetan exile community, but has also engaged in a number of high-profile campaigns designed to put pressure on China and to convince the United Nations and other international organizations to press the Tibet cause.

Another activist organization was the Tibetan People’s Freedom Movement, which held a demonstration in Delhi in 1977. This marked the first time that Tibetan demonstrators had taken such direct action to force the world to take notice of their cause. A group of young Tibetans began a hunger strike outside the UN Information Centre, vowing to fast until death if necessary in order to force the UN to enforce its earlier resolutions on Tibet. The press release issued on March 20 indicates the sense of frustration felt by Tibetans during this time, as the rest of the world appeared to them to be ignoring the ongoing human rights abuses in Tibet:

We Tibetans are treated as political lepers by the international community and our cause as an embarrassing and contagious disease. We the victims are ignored and shunned while our oppressors are courted and feted by a world gone mad. We are a peaceful people and we have nowhere to turn to for justice except the United Nations. We do not ask for charity. We only demand what is ours, what was assured to us by the U.N. in its three resolutions. The United Nations in those days claimed impotence, as Red China was not a member of that international body. But now Red China is not only a member, but also sits in the Security Council. Hence, we urge the United Nations to implement your resolutions passed on Tibet.(15)

The 1970s and 1980s were a time of growing frustration within the Tibetan exile community, and many of its members began to adopt increasingly militant stances. The Dalai Lama’s policy of negotiation rather than confrontation with China had produced few if any tangible results, and reports of human rights abuses continued to filter out of Tibet, often carried by new refugees seeking to escape the oppressive conditions there.

Despite the exile community’s despair, however, this was a time in which significant grass roots work was being done in Western countries, and this would lay the groundwork for a growing awareness of the Tibet cause. Tibet support organizations were formed all over the world at this time, and information about Tibet’s human rights situation—as well as books and articles on its traditional culture and religion—were being made available to the international community. Some of the leading figures in this growing movement were political activists, and others who played significant roles included academics who traveled to India and Tibet, studied with Tibetan scholars, and returned to the West to publish their research. These early academic pioneers included Jeffrey Hopkins, who became fluent in colloquial and literary Tibetan and who served as the Dalai Lama’s chief interpreter for ten years. After spending several years in India studying with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan scholars, he returned to the US, received a Ph.D. in Tibetan Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and later began a program in Tibetan Buddhism at the University of Virginia. An avowed Buddhist, Hopkins became involved in political activism in the early 1970s and was one of the key players in arranging for the Dalai Lama’s first visit to the US in 1979. Regarding his decision to become involved in political activism, Hopkins says,

Tibet has been the prime source for the teachings that constitute my own practice of Buddhism, so I think that I’m obligated to help [Tibet] in whatever way I can. I do not think that aside from the Tibetan community there are groups of people who maintain these [religious and philosophical] traditions at the level that it was maintained in Tibet. It takes a whole infrastructure that we don’t have here [in the West].(16)

As the Dalai Lama’s chief English-language interpreter, Hopkins played a key role in the 1980s, both as a translator for public lectures and as a collaborator on several books, including some that have become best sellers.(17)

When academics like Hopkins began to publish their research, many mainstream academic presses considered Tibetan studies to be a field that was too obscure for successful commercial publications, and many of their books appeared in presses devoted primarily to Tibetan religion and culture that were founded in the 1970s and 1980s. Two of the most prominent of these were Snow Lion Publications and Wisdom Publications, which have extensive catalogues of titles on a wide range of topics in Tibetan Buddhism.

Like many other Western Buddhists involved in the Tibet movement, Tim McNeill, President of Wisdom Publications, first encountered Tibetan religion and culture during a trip to Asia following his graduation from college. In 1972 he visited Dharamsala and was immediately impressed by the Dalai Lama and his fellow Tibetan exiles. He began attending lectures on Buddhist philosophy and practice at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. After some time in Dharamsala he traveled to Nepal and was among the first Western students to complete a one-month retreat course at Kopan Monastery with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe. This experience provided the inspiration for the founding of Wisdom Publications.

After several years in the Himalayan region, primarily with the Peace Corps in Afghanistan, McNeill returned to the U.S. to complete a graduate degree in Public Policy at Harvard University. After several years as a senior executive with a major commercial publishing house he turned his political avocation into a full-time role, as associate issues director of the 1988 Dukakis presidential campaign. Following the Democrats’ defeat, McNeill accepted his teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s request to assume the directorship of Wisdom, which was struggling for survival in London. In the following years, Wisdom benefited from the growing interest in Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, in the West.

McNeill, like so many others working to support Tibet and its culture, happily trades off more lucrative career pursuits for the opportunity to practice Buddhist right livelihood in his daily life. As he points out, the current success of the Tibet movement and of publishers of Tibet-related books is not an anomaly but the result of almost two decades of hard work. During that time, interest in Tibet has grown slowly. Teachers such as the Dalai Lama have become increasingly known in the West as researchers, translators, and publishers have helped bring their ideas to Western audiences. At the same time political activism has made people aware of the human rights situation in Tibet and put pressure on international bodies like the United Nations to take action.

The Lhasa Riots and Tiananmen Square

When China began to emerge as a major economic and military power, other nations became increasingly reluctant to risk angering its leaders and thus losing access to the world’s largest market. During the 1970s and early 1980s most countries strove to improve ties with China, and there was a hiatus in resolutions by governments and the United Nations regarding Tibet and the human rights situation in China in general. Reports of human rights abuses continued to filter out of the country, but it appeared that no one had the will to act on them.

This situation changed in 1987 when riots erupted in Lhasa on the anniversary of the 1959 March 10 uprising. Large crowds, led by monks and nuns, gathered in the Barkhor square of Lhasa and denounced the Chinese occupation of their country. The authorities were initially surprised by this public show of defiance after decades of Chinese rule, but they soon moved armed troops into Lhasa to suppress the demonstrations. In the weeks that followed, a brutal crackdown was carried out in Lhasa and the surrounding area, but unlike previous shows of force by China, the rest of the world took notice this time.

Believing that the country was secure, China had begun allowing tourists to visit, proclaiming that Tibet had benefitted greatly under Chinese rule and that the populace was prosperous and happy. The riots demonstrated that this was not the case, and the brutality of the Chinese security forces was witnessed by a number of foreign tourists, some of whom became pro-Tibet activists upon their return to their home countries. One such person was John Ackerly, who happened to be in Lhasa at the time of the riots with his friend Blake Kerr, who wrote a vivid first-hand account of the riots and their suppression by Chinese security forces.(18) Ackerly traveled to Tibet with the intention of climbing mountains, but instead became caught in the middle of the fighting. After witnessing the brutality of the Chinese crackdown, he resolved to form a lobby group to put pressure on the US government and media in order to get China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama and the government-in-exile.

Upon his return to the United States, Ackerly, a lawyer with a background in human rights, began to develop plans to create an organization to lobby for Tibet. In 1988 the International Campaign for Tibet was established as an umbrella organization for people with an interest in the Tibet cause. In the intervening decades it has grown into the world’s largest such organization, and it now has branches all over the world. Many of its members are Western Buddhists, primarily belonging to Tibetan traditions, who feel a particular kinship with the Tibetan cause due to their religious beliefs. Others, like Ackerly, are not Buddhists, but have a deep commitment to human rights. Ackerly reported that in the early years of the campaign there was an average membership of 2000, a large percentage of whom were Buddhists, and that many of the most active members identified themselves in this way. Ackerly also indicated in a phone interview that much of their successful recruiting has come from contacting people in lists of Buddhist organizations, but the International Campaign is a non-religious political organization whose main commitment is to addressing the human rights situation in Tibet.

The organization currently has 40,000 people on its membership lists, and the number is growing steadily. As John Avedon (author of In Exile from the Land of Snows) pointed out during a telephone interview, the groundwork for the current interest in the Tibet cause was laid in the 1970s, when people like Ackerly and Avedon traveled to Asia and encountered Tibetans. Like Ackerly, Avedon came to the movement almost by accident. He traveled to Nepal in 1973 and wrote an article on the trip for Rolling Stone. During that time, as he developed an interest in Buddhist practice, he grew increasingly concerned that the Tibetan Buddhist tradition was under threat and needed to be defended.

In the late 1970s he began to involve himself in political activism and was one of the key players in making arrangements for the Dalai Lama’s first visit to the US in 1979. This proved to be a breakthrough for the movement, because it provided the Dalai Lama with a larger international forum, and China’s protests of the visit served to focus attention on its human rights record. During the next several years Avedon traveled extensively with the Dalai Lama and gathered information for In Exile from the Land of Snows. A beautifully written and impassioned account of the Dalai Lama’s life in exile, the book became a best seller and drew many of its readers to the Tibet cause.

Meanwhile, Avedon was involved in lobbying efforts in conjunction with the International Campaign for Tibet, mainly aimed at the US media and Congress. The first major initiative began with hearings in the House Foreign Relations Committee in 1987, which led to several resolutions, the first being a Senate Foreign Relations Authorization in 1988, which was the first Congressional resolution specifically targeting human rights issues in Tibet.(19) Another bill affirmed Tibet’s statehood under international law, and a Senate resolution declared that Tibet was an occupied country under international law and that the Dalai Lama and the exile government were its legitimate representatives.(20) These resolutions were not binding on the President or the State Department—which chose to ignore them—but they demonstrated a growing awareness of the Tibet cause and a willingness on the part of some US lawmakers to raise the issue of human rights in China.

Like many Tibet activists, Avedon is an avowed Buddhist, who sees his activism as being connected with his religious convictions and practice. He described his motivation to engage in political activism as being based on “a profound desire to save and make the dharma available to those who are interested,” and further stated that he sees Tibetan Buddhism as “a treasure of humankind that is in danger.”(21) Like others whom I interviewed for this article, he stated that his decision to become politically active in the Tibet cause arose from a sense of dedication to Tibetan Buddhism, and he also indicated that he feels a sense of personal fulfillment in being able to make a contribution to the movement.

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama

In the decades following his flight into exile, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, has emerged as the most prominent spokesperson for the Free Tibet movement. Born in a small village in eastern Tibet on July 6, 1935 , he was officially recognized at the age of six as the reincarnation of Tupden Gyatso (1876–1933), the thirteenth Dalai Lama. After his recognition, he was brought to Lhasa to begin a rigorous program of studies in traditional Buddhist subjects such as logic, epistemology, and monastic discipline. He is reported to have excelled at both memorizing and debating the volumes of technical literature that are required reading for scholars of the Gelukpa order, the largest and most powerful sect in Tibet. His studies were cut short, however, following the Chinese invasion in 1950. For the next few years he continued to study with his tutors, but as events reached a crisis point in 1959, the Tibetan Cabinet hastily decided to invest him with full temporal authority, two years before the traditional age of eighteen. The decision was reached shortly after a ceremony in which the Gadong oracle went into trance and urged the Tibetan officials in the audience to “make him king.”(22)

Following his investiture, the young Dalai Lama sought to negotiate with the Chinese authorities, but they were committed to radical Marxist reorganization of the country, and had no intention of sharing any real power with the Dalai Lama. After the events of March 10 demonstrated that there was no possibility of rapprochement, the Dalai Lama fled into exile in India. Once settled in Dharamsala, he began to work for Tibet’s independence. In recent years he has become one of the most widely recognized religious figures on the planet, and as he travels the world he meets with many powerful and famous figures, as well as with ordinary people. His warmth and charm, coupled with his humility and sincerity, win him followers and supporters wherever he travels.

The charismatically-challenged Chinese leaders, however, take a very different view of the Dalai Lama. In the early years of the invasion, they were reluctant to publicly criticize someone who enjoyed broad support among Tibetans. The turning point came in 1995, when President Bill Clinton officially de-linked human rights in China with US trade. He had threatened to revoke China’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status, which would have subjected Chinese imports to heavy tariffs. At the time the US had a $30 billion trade deficit with the PRC, and so the US had far less to lose than China, but a group of Chinese leaders had recently gone on a high-tech buying spree in the US, and corporate leaders of several major companies lobbied the president to maintain the favorable trade relations. Clinton subsequently reversed his campaign promise to revoke MFN unless China made substantial progress in human rights.

Human Rights Watch Asia has argued that this move demonstrated to China’s authorities that they can safely ignore human rights concerns.(23) Since that time, they have dramatically increased repressive measures in Tibet and have also begun a public vilification campaign against the Dalai Lama. Regularly branding him as “a political corpse” and “a wolf in monk’s clothing,” China’s propaganda apparatus describes him as the leader of “the cruelest serfdom the world has ever known” and as a monster who delighted in torturing and exploiting his miserable subjects. Tibetans are forced to publicly denounce him, and possession of a picture of the Dalai Lama has been declared a criminal offence.(24) Despite these efforts, support for him remains strong in Tibet, and it continues to grow in the rest of the world. As Pico Iyer writes,

It is, in fact, the peculiar misfortune of the Chinese to be up against one of those rare souls it is all but impossible to dislike.…Everyone who meets the Dalai Lama is thoroughly disarmed by his good-natured warmth and by a charisma that is all the stronger for being so gentle.(25)

In his public speeches and his writings, he stresses the interdependence of national interests and universal human goals, and he links these notions with a Buddhist rejection of military conflict.

It is quite clear that everyone needs peace of mind. The question, then, is how to achieve it. Through anger we cannot; through kindness, through love, through compassion we can achieve one individual’s peace of mind. The result of this is a peaceful family…Extended to the national level, this attitude can bring unity, harmony, and cooperation with genuine motivation. On the international level, we need mutual trust, mutual respect, frank and friendly discussion with sincere motivation, and joint efforts to solve world problems. All these are possible. But first we must change within ourselves.(27)

The only way to bring about lasting peace between nations, he contends, is through internal transformation that works at controlling anger and other negative emotions. He argues that this is not an idealistic notion, but rather one that it is based on simple pragmatism. He points out that everyone is equally committed to achieving his or her own happiness, and that the generation of negative emotions leads to suffering and discontent.

Hatred, anger, and greed simply produce uneasiness and always more dissatisfaction. Even nations need to control and minimize anger and hatred; it is the only way they can avoid suffering and bring their people happiness.…Goodness is finally the most practical, the most realistic solution.(28)

He contends that his philosophy of developing a “good heart” is based on core Buddhist principles, but also believes that it is in accordance with the best principles of all religions.(29) In his talks to Buddhist organizations, he often stresses the notion that compassion is basic to all Buddhist practice, and he further insists that direct engagement with other people and their problems is necessary in the development of genuine compassion. Too many Buddhists, he believes, withdraw from the world and cultivate their own minds, but although this is an important first step for many, he also urges Buddhists to become involved in the world.

In the first stage, sometimes we need isolation while pursuing our own inner development; however, after you have some confidence, some strength, you must remain with, contact, and serve society in any field—health, education, politics, or whatever. There are people who call themselves religious-minded, trying to show this by dressing in a peculiar manner, maintaining a peculiar way of life, and isolating themselves from the rest of society. This is wrong. A scripture of mind-purification says, ‘Transform your inner viewpoint, but leave your external appearance as it is.’ This is important. Because the very purpose of practicing the Great Vehicle is service to others, you should not isolate yourselves from society. In order to serve, in order to help, you must remain in society.(30)

Some people, he admits, have a special predilection for isolated meditative practice, but he believes that they are a small exception. He insists that most Buddhists should strive to achieve a balance between contemplation and social activism. Both are essential components of a healthy spiritual life, and for most people no amount of contemplative activity can take the place of engagement in the world. On the other hand, he cautions that activism alone tends to become sterile and can lead to negative emotions such as frustration, anger, and hatred.

A basic tenet of his teachings is that Buddhism is essentially activist. He asserts that Buddhism teaches people to renounce the world, but in his view this does not mean physically separating oneself from worldly activities, but rather cultivating an attitude of cognitive detachment while still working for others. This, he asserts, is the proper attitude of a bodhisattva,(31) who is able to work within the world for the benefit of others without becoming dragged down by its negative elements.

In practical terms, he teaches that one should engage in meditative practice early in the morning and then consciously remain mindful throughout the day of the motivation of the practice (genuine compassion for all sentient beings). During the day one should regularly consider whether or not one’s actions are of real benefit to others, and before going to sleep one should review the day’s activities to evaluate what one has done for others. In Kindness, Clarity, and Insight he writes:

We must promote compassion and love; this is our real duty. Government has too much business to have time for these things. As private persons we have more time to think along these lines—how to make a contribution to human society by promoting the development of compassion and a real sense of community.(32)

The Dalai Lama’s vision of Buddhist practice has had a profound impact on many of his followers. An example is Robert Thurman of Columbia University, who in recent years has emerged as one of the most effective spokespeople for the Free Tibet movement. Thurman first developed an interest in Tibetan Buddhism while traveling in India in 1961, and later became the first Westerner to receive ordination as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. After returning to the US in 1962, he began studying with Geshe Wangyal, a Kalmyk Mongolian who founded the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in North America.(33)

During the 1960s, Thurman was primarily interested in meditation practice and study, and had little interest in the Tibet cause. He believed that it was hopeless and that Tibetan culture in Tibet was doomed,(34) and so he concluded that the only rational course of action was to avoid the issue. In the early 1970s, however, he began to study Buddhist ethics and Tibetan society, and as a result became convinced that he had a moral obligation to become involved with the Free Tibet cause. By the late 1970s he had decided that there was reason to hope that Tibetan culture might survive and that activism was essential in order to put pressure on China to change its ways.

In 1992 he assumed administrative leadership of Tibet House in New York, which has been particularly effective in bringing celebrities to the Free Tibet cause. In the 1990s Thurman has become one of the highest-profile activists in the movement, and was chosen by Time magazine in 1997 as one of the “25 Most Influential Men in America.”

Thurman believes, contrary to the opinions of a number of other scholars of Buddhism, that Buddhism has always been socially engaged. He contends that the Buddha was a kshatriya (the ruling class in ancient India) and that as such he was raised to rule people and to benefit his subjects. As he contemplated his situation, however, he realized that a king’s abilities to truly help his subjects are limited, and that as a worldly ruler he would be unable to cure the fundamental problems facing humanity. Thus the Buddha resolved to form a monastic order, which Thurman terms a “radical social intervention” that was devised as “the only social institution that has the ability to truly protect people.” It provides an opportunity to opt out of society, but in Thurman’s vision it simultaneously challenges that society and presents it with a model group founded on the values of compassion and wisdom.

Like the Dalai Lama, Thurman sees his social activism on behalf of the Tibet cause as being intimately linked with his Buddhist practice, a sentiment that was echoed by several of the people I interviewed for this article. A number of Buddhists who are involved in the Tibet movement indicated that their activism interferes with Buddhist practice, but this sentiment appears to be the exception rather than the rule. In most cases activist Buddhists have developed cognitive strategies for integrating social activity and religious practice. Jeffrey Hopkins’ statement on this issue expressed ideas held in common with many other Buddhists working for the Free Tibet movement:

There’s no question that activism is religious practice, and it’s a way of putting into deeds attitudes like compassion for others that otherwise are just verbal. It gives me plenty of opportunities for acting together with other people and, through acting, seeking to counteract what some other people have done.(35)

Hollywood Adopts Tibet, and Tibet Adopts Hollywood

As recently as 1979 the Dalai Lama was not able to get a visa to enter the United States. Because the US government was eagerly courting China, the government wished to avoid conflict with its new-found trading partner, and State Department staff were forbidden from even speaking to his representatives. The grass roots activism of the 1970s and 1980s gradually eroded the resistance of US leaders to confront the Tibet issue, but the key turning point came after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1988. For the first time foreign media were present to record a brutal crackdown by Chinese security forces against their own citizens, who were peacefully calling for democracy and basic human rights. Images of the crackdown were broadcast all over the world, and many governments officially denounced China’s actions.

A further boost to the Tibet movement came in 1989, when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent efforts on behalf of his people.(36) This had the effect of dramatically increasing his public profile and made it more difficult for the PRC’s leaders to simply ignore him. It also gave him a wider international forum for his cause, and as a result he was increasingly sought out for interviews by the media.

Since then he has also been asked to speak in the US Congress on several occasions, and his public lectures regularly draw huge crowds. When he visited Australia in 1996 to officiate at a Kalacakra initiation ceremony, the interest was so great that the ceremony was held at a pavilion often used for rock concerts. The Dalai Lama sold out the Horden Pavilion in Sydney for seven straight days, but when Michael Jackson came the next month he only sold out two shows. The event carried the paraphernalia of a rock concert, and there were bouncers at the entrances with Dalai Lama t-shirts, souvenir stands displaying Dalai Lama memorabilia, and stalls selling his books and tapes of his public lectures. Responding to the massive public interest and to Chinese denunciations of the event, the media gave saturation coverage to the Dalai Lama’s visit.(37)

A key moment in the current surge of interest in the Tibet cause was Richard Gere’s impassioned speech at the 1993 Academy Awards, during which he called for Deng Xiaoping, then China’s paramount leader, to stop oppressing the Tibetans. Gere, a devout Tibetan Buddhist, asked the audience to mentally send a message to Deng asking him to bring “a little sanity” to the Tibet situation.

Gere was subsequently banned by the Academy for bringing politics into the award ceremony, but in subsequent interviews he has indicated that this is of little concern to him and that he is pleased that his speech was able to reach a large audience and make more people aware of the Tibet situation.

Gere was the first major celebrity to become active in the Tibet cause, but he has been followed by a number of others, including film star Harrison Ford, his wife Melissa Mathieson, a movie script writer, and rock musician Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys.

Yauch has been particularly active in bringing the Tibet cause to younger audiences, mainly through his efforts in organizing a series of “Tibetan Freedom Concerts,” which have drawn a veritable who’s who of contemporary music, including such bands as the Foo Fighters, REM, and U2. At the time this article is being written, Yauch is organizing the fourth such concert, which will be held simultaneously on June 12 and 13, 1999 in four cities: Sydney, Chicago, Tokyo, and Amsterdam.(38)

With the growing interest in Tibet among Hollywood stars, rock musicians, and other celebrities, the Free Tibet movement is enjoying unprecedented publicity. Once the plight of the Tibetans was portrayed only in documentaries on public television, but in 1998 two big-budget Hollywood films were released. The first was Seven Years in Tibet, a $70 million Sony Tristar production directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Brad Pitt. Pitt played Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer who was interned in a British prisoner of war camp during World War II but managed to escape and make his way to Tibet along with his climbing partner Peter Auschneiter.

The other major film was Kundun, written by Melissa Mathiesson and directed by Martin Scorcese. It tells the story of the Dalai Lama’s early life and ends with powerful images of the Chinese invasion of Tibet. According to John Ackerly, since these films were released membership in the International Campaign for Tibet has tripled.

The Chinese government has responded with a public relations effort of its own. Following the release of Seven Years in Tibet, Chinese authorities denounced the film’s portrayal of the Chinese invasion as “a pack of lies” that unfairly and inaccurately demonized China’s “peaceful liberation” of the country. Sony Tristar executives responded by publicly distancing themselves from the film, hoping by this to preserve their future plans of expansion into the huge Chinese market. Similarly, during the filming of Kundun, the Chinese government publicly threatened Disney, stating that it could lose access to China’s huge market if the film were released. Disney initially adopted a principled stance, defending the film on the grounds of freedom of speech and refusing to censor Kundun or its director, but later Disney CEO Michael Eisner strove to put as much distance between his company and the film as possible.

Scorcese was hired by Disney’s Touchstone Pictures with the intention of initiating a long-term relationship, but after China threatened Disney’s projects in China the company decided to pull back on advertising. A major Scorcese film would ordinarily open in 3,000 theaters in the US, but Disney decided to only release Kundun in 400 venues. Despite this, the film did well at the box office, and China backed up its threats by freezing Disney projects in China for almost a year.

As more and more Hollywood stars adopt the Tibet cause, it seems somehow fitting that the Tibetan community should respond by adopting one of Hollywood’s major stars. In 1997 Penor Rinpoche, supreme head of the Nyingma order, officially recognized Steven Segal—star of such ultra-violent movies as Under Siege and Hard to Kill—as a reincarnate Tibetan lama (tulku). Segal has been practicing Buddhism for over 20 years, and he claims that his Tibetan teachers identified him as a reincarnation long ago, although the recognition has only recently been made public. In an interview in the Shambhala Sun, Segal said of the recognition:

What I have consistently said is that I don’t believe it is very important who I was in my last lives. I think it is important who I am in this life. And what I do in this life is only important if I can ease the suffering of others. If I can somehow make the world a better place, if I somehow serve Buddha and mankind.(39)

His Buddhist spirituality is on display in his movie The Glimmer Man, in which he wears Tibetan prayer beads around his neck and speaks of cultivating inner peace. In the following scene, however, someone insults his sissy beads and he kicks him through a glass door, indicating that he may still need to put in more quality time on the meditation cushion.

As worldwide interest in the Tibet cause grows, so does the pressure on world leaders to confront China on its human rights record. For example, John Avedon believes that Bill Clinton—despite his retreat from his election promise to revoke China’s MFN status unless it made significant improvements in this area—has done more for Tibet than any previous US president. He points out that Clinton’s linkage of human rights and trade was the first time that any US administration had done so.(40) Clinton has also raised Tibet as an issue in several meetings with Chinese leaders, most prominently in a June 1998 visit to China, during which he publicly debated Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin on Chinese television, pointedly challenging China’s human rights record and urging Jiang to talk with the Dalai Lama. In 1997 he also appointed a special assistant for Tibet affairs, a move that China heatedly denounced as “interference in China’s internal affairs.”

Clinton is a politician who responds to public sentiment, and he clearly understands that the Tibet cause is gaining increasing support in the US and the rest of the world. China has done a remarkably poor job of presenting its case, and it has few supporters outside of the areas that it controls. For most people, as John Hocevar of Students for a Free Tibet says, Tibet is one of the few causes in which “there’s relatively little grey.”(41) The Dalai Lama’s non-violent struggle contrasts sharply with the authoritarian rule China has imposed on Tibet, which is maintained by an estimated 300,000 troops on the “Roof of the World.”

The most important focal symbol of the growing movement is the March 10 demonstrations, which are commemorated every year all over the world, and which in recent years have drawn ever-increasing numbers of protesters. These demonstrations explicitly recall the events of 1959. Typically, crowds of demonstrators gather in a conspicuous public place, often in front of a Chinese embassy. Generally speeches are made and slogans chanted, and Tibetans and their supporters don traditional Tibetan dress and wave Tibetan flags and pictures of the Dalai Lama. Mention is always made of the fact that such activities are illegal in Tibet and result in long prison sentences and physical torture. The speeches outline the Tibetan case against China, and the demonstrators often march from one place to another.

This yearly event has become a major symbolic drama for Tibet supporters. A typical March 10 demonstration was held in Canberra in 1999, marking the 40th anniversary of the first March 10 demonstrations in Lhasa. Organized by Gerry Virtue of the Australia Tibet Council and Zatul Rinpoche, a tulku who emigrated to Australia in 1997, a group of about 100 demonstrators gathered in the morning outside of the Chinese embassy, listened to speeches by several Tibetans, and shouted slogans like “China Out of Tibet!” “Tibet for Tibetans!” “Free the Panchen Lama!”(42) and “Long Live the Dalai Lama!” Both the speeches and placards were in English, rather than Tibetan, as the rally was intended to garner public support within Australia.

The speeches and slogans stressed themes common to other March 10 demonstrations I have witnessed: Tibet’s historical independence from China, the differences between Tibetan and Chinese culture, and warnings that Tibetan culture is being eradicated in its homeland. As Margaret Nowak has observed, this dramatic sequence of events is characteristic of March 10 demonstrations all over the world, which she describes as:

a ritual that publicly dramatizes both an ideal goal (proudly affirmed national identity) and the strategy for achieving it (self-conscious proclamation of “Tibetanness” to and in the midst of others who are not Tibetan).(43)

As often happens in March 10 demonstrations, a march followed the rally outside the Chinese embassy. About 30 people embarked on a 14-day trek from Canberra to Sydney, stopping at rural townships along the way. When I interviewed Zatul Rinpoche in Canberra about the march, he remarked at the widespread support the marchers received. At every rural township along the route, they were given a mayoral reception, during which speeches by local politicians were made and the Tibetan flag was flown. He was struck by the fact that all the politicians they approached already knew of the Tibet cause, and all were willing to lend their public support. The Australian media also provided coverage, and although the marchers spent several days trudging in rain, they were pleased at the support and publicity they received.

Zatul Rinpoche expressed a deep reverence for the Dalai Lama, stating that “he gives me hope and moral courage,”(44) but he opposes the Dalai Lama’s “middle way” approach to China, in which he has publicly renounced his earlier commitment to full independence for Tibet and has agreed to be content with genuine autonomy within the PRC.(45) This is also the official position of the Tibetan government-in-exile, but Zatul Rinpoche is one of a growing number of Tibetans who feel that their leaders have given away too much before negotiations have even begun. At present the PRC has refused steadfastly even to discuss the Tibet situation with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, but he continues to make conciliatory gestures toward China. Rejecting the exile government’s position, Zatul Rinpoche states that “the Tibetan people will never be happy as long as we have an association with China.”

Since emigrating to Australia, Zatul Rinpoche has worked to organize Australia’s small Tibetan community and to promote activism, particularly among Tibetan youths. He believes that the Tibetan Youth Congress is the only Tibetan organization that is fighting for independence, and contends that this approach is finally the only viable one for Tibetans: “they need to have a fire in their hearts, and wherever we live, we must live as Tibetans.”

Such sentiments are being heard increasingly within the Tibetan refugee community, many of whom are questioning the Dalai Lama’s approach in increasingly public ways. In its meeting in August 1998, the TYC pointed out the total lack of results of the non-violent path. It also noted that Tibetans are now a minority in Tibet, their culture is being steadily eradicated, religious persecution is becoming increasingly severe, monks and nuns are imprisoned, and parents send their children on hazardous treks over the mountains to reach freedom in India.(46)

In recent years the TYC has adopted an increasingly aggressive stance and has engaged in more confrontational activism, even though this puts it at odds with the exile government. An example of this was a demonstration held in Delhi in 1997, during which a group of mostly young Tibetans embarked on a “fast unto death” reminiscent of the earlier fast described in this article. This time the fast was broken up by Indian security forces, and in the resulting clashes between Tibetan hunger strikers and Indian police a Tibetan man named Thupten Ngodup set himself alight in protest against the police action.

He was rushed to the hospital but died of his burns several days later. In the aftermath he has become a symbol of courage to many Tibetans who are dissatisfied with the Dalai Lama’s non-violent approach. His stance has gained him widespread admiration around world, but it has had little if any positive effect on China’s policies toward Tibet. A growing number of Tibetan exiles have publicly called for a change of tactics, pointing out that violent resistance movements have often succeeded in gaining independence.

Even the exile leadership admits that its current approach has produced little in the way of concrete results. When I spoke to Samdhong Rinpoche, Chairman of the Assembly of People’s Deputies in June 1998, he stated that he had met with the hunger strikers, but was unable to dissuade them from what he considered to be a violent approach because “we have been unable to present them with an effective alternative.”

The Dalai Lama must be aware of the irony of the situation. He enjoys widespread reverence all over the world for his non-violent campaign, he has an international forum for his cause, but he is unable to soften the PRC’s intransigence, and so at a time when his cause is gathering adherents around the world he is steadily losing the support of his own people. In spite of these factors, he still remains committed to dialogue. He points out that it would be suicidal for five million Tibetans to adopt violent methods in confronting China, a nation of 1.2 billion people with an army of five million.

Despite these factors, the Dalai Lama remains hopeful. He is encouraged by the growing grass roots support for him and his cause and hopes that it will eventually lead to a softening of China’s position as a result of international pressure. In any event, he feels that as a Buddhist the non-violent approach is the only one open to him. In his March 10, 1999 speech he stated:

Now it’s forty years since the Chinese invasion and we are beginning a new decade.…Now in this fourth decade, again it’s human will—the truth—which is all we have in dealing with China. Despite their brainwashing, despite their using every atrocity and propaganda, and despite all of the resources they have utilized, still the truth remains the truth. Our side has no money, no propaganda, nothing except weak, feeble voices. Yet now most people have lost faith in the strong voices of the Chinese. Their strong voices have lost credibility. Our weak voices have more credibility. The history of this century is confirming the nonviolence what Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of. Even when it is against a superpower who has all these awful weapons, the reality of the situation can compel the hostile nation to come to terms with nonviolence.

In spite of the Dalai Lama’s hopeful words, his increasingly restive followers are looking for some concrete signs of progress. After the initial hope raised by Clinton’s 1998 call for Jiang Zemin to negotiate with the Dalai Lama and Jiang’s off the cuff agreement to do so, China actually broke off all contacts, and so at the time that this article is being written there is no dialogue—either official or unofficial—between the Tibetan exile government and the PRC. China has apparently decided that it holds all the cards and that there is no reason for it to negotiate. Even though Hollywood has thrown its considerable public relations weight behind the Tibet cause, there is currently little basis for hope that a happy ending will be written to this story.







Notes

References

Avedon, John F. In Exile from the Land of Snows. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Cabezón, José Ignacio. “Buddhist Principles in the Buddhist Liberation Movement.” Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King, ed., Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. Ithaca: State University of New York Press, 1996, pp. 295–320.

Goldstein, Melvyn C. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1051. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Kelly, Petra K., Gert Bastian, and Pat Aiello, ed. The Anguish of Tibet. Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1991.

Nowak, Margaret. Tibetan Refugees: Youth and the New Generation of Meaning. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984.

Patt, David. A Strange Liberation: Tibetan Lives in Chinese Hands. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1992.

Piburn, Sidney, ed. The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1993.

Powers, John. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1995.

_____. “Shangri-la Comes to Hollywood.” Asia Pacific Magazine, vol. pp. 50–53.

Richardson, Hugh E. Tibet and Its History. Boston: Shambhala, 1984.

Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama XIV. Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama. New York: Harper Collins, 1990.

_____. Kindness, Clarity, and Insight. Trans. Jeffrey Hopkins. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1984. von Fürer-Haimendorff, Christoph. The Renaissance of Tibetan Civilization. Oracle, AZ: Synergetic Press, 1980.