China Digital Times has teamed up with Hexie Farm (蟹农场), an anonymous Chinese blogger, to produce a series of political cartoons.  The first in this series is entitled To Kill the Spirit of Tibet:



China Digital Times provides an interesting interview with Hexie Farm, and an explanation that this cartoon is based on Goya's masterpiece, The Third of May 1808, which immortalizes Spanish resistance to the invading armies of Napoleon:



Hexie Farm's cartoon may also recall Paul Revere's famous engraving of the Boston Massacre, where three colonial Americans were killed by British troops in 1770, an incident that helped spark the American Revolution. 

Art historians may notice that in the works of both Hexie Farm and Goya, the executioners are anonymous and faceless, whereas Paul Revere chose to give the British soldiers faces and thus individuality:


-TPR editors

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.:

By Denzi Yishey

From the 13th to 15th of this month, the protest against China’s next President Xi Jinping visit to Washington DC were jointly organized by two Regional Tibetan Youth Congresses (New York New Jersey and Capital Area) and Students for Free Tibet. Apart from minor coordination glitches, the organizers might mark this protest as a huge success. They (along with hundreds of Tibetans) were largely successful in welcoming each and every events of Xi Jinping in the capital area with protest.

Also, Tibetans in general may be pleased that the protests succeed in securing a reasonable coverage in the international press and media. The pleasure of seeing Tibetan protests on the front page might have exuberated many Tibetans. However, many tend to ignore the fact that the end of this protest may help provide insights into the planning of next protest. The piece therefore is an attempt towards sharing an outsider’s perspective on rethinking the next (or future) protest.

The protest is over. Protesters are back to their work, school, and home. Now may be the perfect time to sit and evaluate the protest with simple questions, such as, are there better ways and means to protest? Did Tibetans (or organizers) miss something? Was the protest effective? Will Xi Jinping listen to Tibetan shouts? Will China start rethinking its policies on Tibet? Will the world leaders start voicing their concerns on the deteriorating human rights in Tibet? You and me can add many more questions to this list.

To begin with, lets take a look at the protest outside the Camber of Commerce, a building standing opposite to the street facing the back of the White House. According to the organizers, Xi Jinping was supposed to arrive 3.00PM at this venue. Tibetan protesters (with Uighurs, Falun Gong, Mongolians, and few Chinese dissidents) waited across the streets with their representative flags, banners, and slogans. Though Xi Jinping arrival was delayed by about two hours, Tibetans did not wait to protest. Right after 3.00PM, Tibetans started (and continued) to boo any Asian lookalike (assuming them as Chinese) entering or leaving the building with scathing accusations of injustices in Tibet. Some even confront them directly on the street with Tibetan National Flag and shouts.

Most disturbingly, for general protesters, it was not even clear whether these Asian-lookalikes were Chinese. Even if they were Chinese, do Tibetans really need to provoke these Chinese gentlemen and ladies who may be intellectuals, businessman, and entrepreneurs (considering the meeting at Chamber of Commerce)? When Tibetans shout and protest them, do they still hold the rights to say, “Chinese intellectuals are mum on Tibetan protests in Tibet?” Aren’t Tibetans losing more by shouting against these Chinese? What did Tibetans achieve by infuriating or shaming them? Most importantly, aren’t Tibetans disproving His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s message, “Tibetans are not against the Chinese people. Tibetans are against Chinese Government and Communist Party”. Again, the questions keep getting long.

From my perspective, there might be a better way to protest Xi Jinping. He will be the next President of China, which means he is not in direct command of the Chinese government. As expert says, it may take at least two years for him to firmly have his authority over the Chinese government i.e., when he gets the command of People Liberation Army and the likely majority support in the Politburo. Putting this into context, isn’t the protest premature?


This protest could have been different than following the same-old tactics. This protest could have been grounded on hope rather than the same-old slogans. To make it short, the protest could have been a “plea protest”. In other words, Xi Jinping could have been welcomed with a different version of slogans – a slogan of request, plea, and hope.

How would it sound if Tibetans used slogans such as,
“Please Please Please, Listen to Tibetans in Tibet”
“Please Please Please, Freedom for Tibetans in Tibet”
“Please Please Please, Respect Tibetans in Tibet”
Instead of,
“Shame Shame Shame, Chinese Government”
“China Lies, Tibetan Dies”

And,
“Xi Jinping, a hope for free China”
“Xi Jinping, a hope for better Tibet”
Instead of,
“5th Generation, Last Generation (of Chinese President)”
“China China China, Out Out Out”.

How about News headline reading like this: “Tibetans Pled China’s Next President for More Freedom in Tibet”; and “Tibetans Hope A Better Future With Xi Jinping” rather than the same-old headlines.

How about this: Giving President Obama an opportunity to say Xi Jinping at the White House, “See the people outside this White House. They have a high hope of you in improving the human rights conditions in China and Tibet”. Xi might not respond but he will definitely smile.

Some added advantages of this “wishful” protest could be: more media and press coverage; more appreciation from world leaders; more attention from intellectuals; more supports from general public; more interest from the Chinese people; and more reasons to smile and hope for.

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.:

By Bhuchung K. Tsering (International Campaign for Tibet, February 10, 2012)

The recent spate of self-immolation could point to a new radicalisation of Tibet’s struggle.

On 27 February 2009, Tapey, a Tibetan monk in his 20s, walked from the Kirti Monastery, in Amdo (in today’s Sichuan province), to the nearby crossroads in the town market. His garment was drenched in oil. Upon reaching the crossroads, he set himself on fire, unfurled a homemade Tibetan flag bearing a photo of the Dalai Lama and shouted slogans. Before people could hear what he was saying, members of the People’s Armed Police intervened and shot at Tapey. When he fell, they took him away.


That incident turned out to be the first of many such self-immolations in Tibetan areas. It also seems to have set a precedent for a new direction in Tibetan activism. In March 2011, another Tibetan, Phuntsok, committed self-immolation; by the end of January 2012, at least 15 others have done so. Twelve of these are known to have died. Even as this article is being written, during the first week of February, there are reports of three more Tibetans having self-immolated. A common demand of these individuals has been the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet and freedom for the Tibetan people.

Most of the self-immolators were from Kirti Monastery. Its head lama, Kirti Rinpoche, who resides in Dharamsala, has said that the self-immolations are the result of wounds suffered by three generations of Tibetans. During the 1930s, the first generation suffered when Chinese communists raided the Kirti area while on their Long March; during the 1960s, the second generation suffered prior to and during the Cultural Revolution; and since the late 1990s, the third generation of Tibetans has suffered on account of so-called Patriotic Education and related campaigns put in place by the Chinese government.

For its part, the Chinese government’s initial reaction to the recent spate of self-immolations was one of denial. As the number of these incidents continued to increase, Chinese officials sought to deflect blame by humiliating the Tibetans, declaring the self-immolators to be criminals and saying their actions were instigated by ‘the Dalai clique’. They also attempted to minimise the political significance of these actions by portraying them in the light of economic protest, suggesting that they are effects of globalisation – though how exactly they make that connection has never been explained. To counter any allegation that they have neglected Tibet, Chinese authorities have highlighted the monetary assistance that is being rendered to the Tibetans.

The critical factor in this string of self-immolations is that the Chinese government is victim of its own decision to link the Tibetan issue with the survival of the Communist Party of China (CPC). In its failure to understand the nature of Tibetan identity, which is inseparable from Tibetan religion and culture, the Chinese leadership looks at Tibetans’ adherence to their traditional mores and to the reign of the Communist Party as being mutually exclusive.

A flourishing nationalism

Today, the Chinese government sees the very existence of a distinct Tibetan identity as a political statement. As a result of this thinking, Chinese officials are attempting to sever the relationship between the Dalai Lama (a symbol of Tibetan identity) and the Tibetan people. These efforts include a continued ban on portraits of the Dalai Lama. News is currently coming in from Tibet that Tibetans who went to India to receive the Kalachakra teachings from the Dalai Lama in January are now being detained and interrogated upon their return, and that sacred protections cords are being confiscated. Since most of the self-immolations have taken place in Tibetan regions that were not under the control of the Tibetan government at the time of the Chinese communist takeover, the tie between Tibetans in these areas and Lhasa or the Dalai Lama should be seen by China primarily as spiritual and cultural, not political.

Chinese policies have therefore led to the growth – if not outright origin – of Tibetan Buddhist nationalism. Ironically, China’s short-sighted clampdown on Tibetan Buddhism has caused a feeling of unity among Tibetans to solidify, both within the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and in all traditional Tibetan areas, something the Chinese government was trying to discourage in the first place. Mandating that all Tibetan monasteries hang portraits of the four Chinese leaders – Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao – as the TAR administration did in December 2011 as part of its ‘Nine Possession’ decree, will only add to the provocation.

In fact, the religious basis of Tibetan identity should have been apparent to the Chinese Communist authorities from the time they first invaded Tibet, in 1950. Tibetan nationalism was primarily centred on religion. Tibetans called the Chinese invaders tendra (Enemy of the Faith), and the most renowned Tibetan resistance force was called tensung thanglang maggar (Voluntary Force for the Defence of the Faith).

Instead, this year, Chinese leaders sent to Tibetan monasteries over the Chinese New Year to offer ‘Spring Festival greetings’ had no qualms about preaching their real message of ten-lhing sung-kyong (maintaining stability) and providing monetary incentives for the monks to keep the peace. It certainly says much about the credibility of Chinese rule in Tibet that, even after 50 years, the Chinese leadership’s main message remains ‘stability’.

Offering of light

 

In any case, the recent Tibetan self-immolations have taken place in remote areas. Further, most of these individuals have left behind no statement indicating that publicity – for themselves or their cause – was among their main objectives. Instead, these were actions undertaken by people who simply felt the need to fight, in some way, the injustice they were experiencing. An audio testament left behind by Sonam Wangyal Sopa Rinpoche (known popularly as Sobha Tulku), who died on 8 January 2012 after self-immolating, may be the only concrete document left behind thus far. In his statement, Sobha Tulku said:

"this is the year in which so many Tibetan heroes have died. I am sacrificing my body both to stand in solidarity with them in flesh and blood, and to seek repentance through this highest tantric honour of offering one’s body. This is not to seek personal fame or glory."

A look at how the Vietnamese Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh described the self-immolators in Vietnam during the 1960s may help us to better understand Sobha Tulku’s words. In a letter to civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr in 1965, Thich Nhat Hanh explained:

"I believe with all my heart that the monks who burned themselves did not aim at the death of the oppressors but only at a change in their policy. Their enemies are not men. They are intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred and discrimination which lie within the heart of man."

That sentiment was echoed by Sobha Tulku: ‘I am giving away my body as an offering of light to chase away the darkness, to free all beings from suffering.’

The Tibetan self-immolators were challenging political, cultural, religious and social injustices, the roots of which are deeper than any mere material developments could assuage. What US columnist Thomas L Friedman wrote about Egypt and Russia in the New York Times on 31 January 2012, in a column titled ‘The Politics of Dignity’, is also applicable to Tibet. Friedman wrote:

"the political eruptions in both countries were not initially driven by any particular ideology but rather by the most human of emotions – the quest for dignity and justice. Humiliation is the single most underestimated force in politics. People will absorb hardship, hunger and pain. They will be grateful for jobs, cars and benefits. But if you force people to live indefinitely inside a rigged game that is flaunted in their face or make them feel like cattle that can be passed by one leader to his son or one politician to another, eventually they’ll explode."

In a way, the self-immolations could be a new form of Tibetan Buddhist liberation theology in the making. In the words of Father Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian priest credited with coining the term, liberation theology is about emancipation of the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed from ‘those things that limit their capacity to develop themselves freely and in dignity.’ Similarly, Deane William Ferm, a religion scholar, in his Third World Liberation Theologies, says that liberation theology ‘stresses liberation from all forms of human oppression: social, economic, political, racial, sexual, environmental, religious.’ These forms of oppression are essential features of the environment in which the Tibetan Buddhists have committed their self-immolations.

Father Gutiérrez has also talked about ‘witnessing several new expressions of this theology in different contexts and continents – North America, Central and South America, Africa and Asia.’ We now have a Tibetan version of liberation theology, similar to the ‘engaged Buddhism’ of Buddhist political activists in places like Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Tsampa Revolution


Foreign governments have also been taking note of these developments in Tibet. Even thoughTime magazine listed the Tibetan self-immolations as one of the ‘Top 10 Underreported Stories’ of 2011, whatever information we have indicates that these incidents have in fact led to intense discussions within government circles in numerous capitals as well as among their respective embassies in Beijing. In particular, governments seem concerned with how the movement could develop hereafter. When the latest self-immolations were taking place, the CPC’s point-person on Tibet was on a visit to Germany, trying to put the party's point of view across to the German government.

Indeed, if these self-immolations are forerunners of a radicalised Tibetan movement, then the Chinese government is greatly mistaken to think that this trend can be stopped by increasing restrictions, including those on movement, the Internet and other communication channels. Tibetans will look for, and find, different ways to express themselves. In the wake of the pan-Tibetan uprising in 2008, the Chinese authorities thought they had resolved the situation by quelling it with force. But the self-immolations have clearly indicated that the Chinese approach at that time was no permanent solution. Therefore, the latest stringent restrictions will only increase the sense of injustice and discrimination felt by Tibetans. Leaving aside political aspirations, as long as Tibetans continue to be denied the opportunity to live a life of equality, respect and dignity, it is clear that they will undertake actions to convey their feelings.

Chinese writer Wang Lixiong had an interesting solution in a recent online posting titled ‘Except self-immolation, what else can be done?’ Wang says people need to show the Tibetans some way of finding answers. His feeling is that ‘getting Tibet out of this crisis should start from village autonomy.’ He was referring to recent developments in the village of Wukan in Guangdong province, where a people’s movement won villagers the right to elect their local leadership. Wang wrote:

Tibetan villages too possess all the conditions Wukan does. If one Tibetan village succeeds, Tibet will already have a banner; when ten villages succeed, darkness of the night will be ignited with light of the dawn; with a hundred villages, genuine autonomy will rise from the horizon and embrace Tibet.

Of course, Tibet is not comparable to other Chinese provinces, and Tibetan Buddhism is not Christianity. As Christian Caryl, a contributing editor at Foreign Policy, wrote in November 2011, ‘The history of self-immolation as a political tool suggests that it is a highly volatile one. Setting oneself on fire can sometimes ignite a huge political protest, but there’s no guarantee that it will.’

Tibetans should heed such words of caution. In 1998, when Thupten Ngodup became the first Tibetan to self-immolate, it led to much soul-searching among Tibetans. Writing in the Tibetan Review at the time, this writer warned against reactions that unintentionally glorified death:

Thupten Ngodup’s action was the result of the courage of his conviction. Interpreting it in any other way so as to bolster a short-term political objective would not be doing justice to Thupten’s action. We should not take his action as a model ... for other Tibetan freedom fighters to follow.

This certainly holds true in the present situation, too.

However, just as the Vietnamese self-immolations became symbolic of the Vietnamese resistance, the Tibetan self-immolation has become a symbol of the radicalisation of the Tibetan struggle and its movement in a new direction. As it is, in the Tibetan social-media world the self-immolations have been dubbed the ‘Tsampa Revolution’, referring to the roasted barley flour that is a staple of the Tibetan diet. In December 2011 a report emerged that Tapey, the monk introduced at the beginning of this article and whose whereabouts had not been known, was undergoing treatment in a Chinese military hospital. Tapey may be recovering, but the recent self-immolations could just be the tip of the iceberg. What lies underneath, and how it should be dealt with, is a challenge for both the Tibetan people and the Chinese government. 

http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/5006-man-on-fire.htmlhttp%3a//www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/5006-man-on-fire.html 

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.:

Source: Tibet.net, the official website of the Central Tibetan Administration


DHARAMSHALA: Inaugurating the Tibet Policy Institute at the Kashag Secretariat today, Kalon Tripa said the institute aims to carry out comprehensive research works on all aspect of Tibet-related issues, which he underlined would help the administration in framing policies for the next fifty years and making the Tibet issue a competent case on the international platform.

The Kashag attaches great importance to the Tibet Policy Institute, Kalon Tripa said, adding that a clear and in-depth research materials on every aspect of Tibet issue would play a pivotal role in framing policies and plans for the next fifty years.

He underscored the need for the researchers at the policy institute to carry out research on both past and present political, environmental, and economical situation in Tibet, geopolitics of China, US and Asia vis-a-vis the issue of Tibet.

Kalon Tripa also expressed hope and emphasised the need to have competent researchers and pledged to make every effort to realise this goal. He called on the researchers including the staff of the Tibet Policy Institute and other CTA officials, to make best develop the know how and their interests in research works on issues relating to Tibet.

Aiming to make Gangchen Kyishong, the seat of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, as an “Intellectual Hub”, Kalon Tripa said top researchers from India and abroad will be invited to hold monthly and annual debates and symposiums to hone the skills and knowledge of the Tibetan researchers.

Kalon Tripa praised the efforts made by former researchers of the Central Tibetan Administration for their valuable research work and the materials published.

In his remarks, Mr Thubten Samphel, the newly appointed director of the Tibet Policy Institute, said the policy institute would strive to focus on research towards evolving policies to tackle challenges in the coming fifty years in all spheres of Tibet issue.

“We highly appreciate and thank the director and staff members of the Research and Analysis Unit for their valuable research works considering the resources available to them, said Mr Samphel, who will take charge of the Tibet policy Institute on 2 March.

“To fufil the Kashag’s aspirations, researchers at the policy institute would make their best possible efforts to pool their energy and interests in all aspects of the Tibetan issue,” he said.

Mr Lobsang, Additional Secretary at the Tibet Policy Institute, presented an overview of some of the key research works carried out by the Central Tibetan Administration on the issue of Tibet till today.

Originally published at http://tibet.net/2012/02/15/kalon-tripa-launches-tibet-policy-institute/

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.:

 

Veteran political journalist James Fallows writes a lengthy and thoughtful review of the Obama presidency so far in the March 2102 issue of The Atlantic.  The article touches upon several interesting topics, including this analysis of what it calls Obama's Sun Tzu-like China strategy:  

As Obama began his term, official China was growing smug and prideful. The triumphant Beijing Olympics were just behind it; the American financial collapse symbolized the decline of a superpower and the world’s reliance on its new paymasters, the Chinese. Because of China’s heavy reliance on exports, its labor force was hit harder by the worldwide collapse of demand than that of any other major economy, but the Chinese pulled themselves out far more rapidly. Americans and Europeans dithered about applying stimulus; the Chinese went ahead and applied it, creating jobs for many millions of people and expanding the country’s physical infrastructure in the process.

By the time Obama made his state visit to Shanghai and Beijing, in November 2009, the press in both countries and the rest of the world was primed to present his usual low-key demeanor as servility. The Washington Post and The New York Times contrasted Obama’s supposed hat-in-hand manner with the bravado of Bill Clinton, who had mentioned the Tiananmen Square protests while standing next to President Jiang Zemin.

Yet even as Obama was politely listening to lectures about China’s new superiority, members of his administration were executing an elaborate pincer movement to reestablish American influence, real and perceived, among the growing economies of Asia. In practically every formal statement by U.S. officials, from President Obama to Secretaries Clinton, Geithner, and Gates, U.S. representatives hammered home a single message. The message was that Americawelcomed rather than feared China’s continued rise. This was directed at a widespread Chinese suspicion: that America would try to thwart China’s continued development because it viewed any increase in Chinese influence as a flat-out loss for the United States.

Many Chinese officials remained skeptical, but the reassurances set the stage for the next phase of the administration’s message: we welcome your rise, but we disagree on the following things—censorship, currency, and pollution, all matters that could be presented as containable items for discussion rather than as inherently threatening aspects of China’s ascent.

In the few months after Obama’s visit to China, some Chinese military and diplomatic officials began believing their own adulatory press clips. China entered its period of what was broadly described as overreach: challenging the Japanese, South Korean, Vietnamese, and Philippine navies with expanded claims of coming supremacy in the South China Sea and the broader Pacific; antagonizing trading partners from Russia to Burma to Australia with more-aggressive practices and claims. Through this period, the U.S. government was stitching up relations with every one of these countries. Part of the message was that with its inevitable extraction from the mire of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States could reassert its presence in the fastest-growing economic region of the world; the other part was that, for all its excesses, the United States was an easier regional power to live with than the Chinese would be.

Two years after Obama’s “humiliating” visit to Shanghai and Beijing, U.S. relations with China were a mix of cooperation and tension, as they had been through the post-Nixon years. But American relations with most other nations in the region were better than since before the Iraq War. In a visit to Australia late in 2011, Obama startled the Chinese leadership but won compliments elsewhere with the announcement of a new permanent U.S. Marine presence in Darwin, on Australia’s northern coast.

The strategy was Sun Tzu–like in its patient pursuit of an objective: reestablishing American hard and soft power while presenting a smiling “We welcome your rise!” face to the Chinese. “It was as decisive a diplomatic victory as anyone is likely to see,” Walter Russell Mead, of Bard College, often a critic of the administration, wrote about the announcement of the Australian base. “In the field of foreign policy, this was a coming of age of the Obama administration and it was conceived and executed about as flawlessly as these things ever can be.”

(Full article here)

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.:

 

Originally published by High Peaks Pure Earth.  Reprinted in TPR with permission.

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser that was posted on her blog on February 1, 2012.  The original post, although written in December 2007, was only posted a few days ago along with a new introduction by Woeser that has also been translated below.

The sudden passing of André Alexander has saddened many and he will be greatly missed.  For reader who would like to read more about his incredible work with Tibet Heritage Fund, please follow the link: http://www.tibetheritagefund.org/

By Woser

I want to start by saying that I only met André twice but I always wanted to write about him. I once wrote an article, about him and his organisation Tibet Heritage Fund and about how he was made to leave Lhasa by the authorities. He told me not to publish it then because he one day wanted to return to Lhasa.

I often flick through the pages of the heavy photo book he gave me “The Temples of Lhasa”, he is the author and in the book is the Lhasa of his mind’s eye that today has already changed. Many Lhasa people remember him, they all call him André, remember his slight frame, curly blonde hair and how he liked to wear Tibetan jackets.


 I really like the small publication produced by Tibet Heritage Fund ‘A Brief Introduction of Historic Architecture in Lhasa Barkhor’. Black and white hand-drawn maps, folded pages, in the style of traditional Tibetan paper. Like a tiny, invisible museum, on display are drawings on paper of the Barkhor. In the fine and simple pictures, I see the life of Lhasa people, giving me endless things to imagine and sets off nostalgia, no matter how much I look at them, I can’t look at them enough. However, much has already been badly damaged, mottled traces and crumbling shadows mark the current situation of Lhasa people.

André started to restore old buildings in Lhasa but one day upset the officials. One time, he told experts from the United Nations who evaluate cultural heritage that a department store was built on the original site of an aristocratic house that was three centuries old… In 2002, after being expelled from Lhasa, André and Tibet Heritage Fund did a lot of work for the preservation of Beijing hutongs. It seems that later this could also not be continued. I heard that he went to the Himalayan region of Ladakh and other places where historic buildings and monasteries could be restored. On Facebook I would see photos of him and he’d be amongst ruins or in buildings that were being repaired.

Two months ago I wrote André a letter. Officials and businessmen were collaborating on a large shopping complex in Lhasa near the old city and there was work around the clock to extract groundwater for this “Divine Times Square” project, sending Lhasa people into panic, I asked André if this would all cause damage.

André, grieved, said, “Water is a big problem in Tibet because big hydropower stations are being constructed everywhere. Already, Lhasa’s environment has been seriously damaged and polluted, greedy developers, supported by greedy government officials are turning Lhasa valley into a big factory. If the Lhalu wetlands become dry, then it will all be too late.”

I still had questions that I wanted to ask him, I also wanted to tell him that that I wrote about him in my book “Tibet: 2008″ that was published last year. But the just turned 47 year old André suffered a sudden heart attack and died on January 21 in Berlin… On his Facebook page I looked at all his photos and saw how happy he looked in the photos from when he lived in Lhasa, looking youthful, these were the most beautiful.

André’s former girlfriend Lharigtso was our translator when we met, full of sorrow, she shared these touching stories about André:

“André was fascinated by the architecture of Tibet, the nature and the culture, and had a warm connection to it. He could wander around the Jokhang Temple, Ramoche and many small temples every day. He said that the Lhasa fried potatoes street food was his favourite but later said that the potatoes were tasting worse and worse: “When it’s made by Gyami (Chinese), it doesn’t taste good.”

His familiarity with the geography of Lhasa was always something I admired. Every time we would be in the old part of the city, I’d follow him and his brisk pace and discover many small lanes and alleys, it surprised me a lot!

From 2003 to the present, the changed environment of Lhasa upset him to tears. Walking in the Barkhor, sometimes he would suddenly stop, cover his chin with his right arm, his head shaking. I’d see tears welling up in his blue eyes…

He later went to Lhasa several times. In 2008 he went to Amdo with his parents and then took a train to Lhasa. In 2010, 2011 and even a month ago he’d been in Lhasa.

André liked to eat sweet things, he liked to watch films and would sometimes cry when watching cartoons… From 14 or 15 years of age he became vegetarian but he would bite at his fingers and I used to say, you are eating your own meat haha …. he most liked to take his small Swiss army knife and trim his own hair, this was when he was most relaxed…these are the kinds of things he would do …”

A friend wrote the following on André’s Facebook and it’s also something I’d like to say to André: “Preservation of architectural heritage in the Himalayas will never be the same now that André has left us. May the windhorse of the Himalayas and Tibet take you higher and higher to the field of absolute serenity and peace. And may your journey be filled with new discoveries and may you encounter the Devas, Dakinis, the Protectors, the Vidyadharas of India and Tibet and all those deities of the cosmic lineage and share with them the story of your life.. Bon Voyage my friend, bon voyage gentle soul……….. ”

Windhorse, windhorse, please carry André home…


 Finally, here is the article I wrote about André four years ago and is my tribute to him. The photos above are from his time in Lhasa.

“The Westerners Restoring the Old Lhasa City”

By Woeser

No one knows how Tibet Heritage Fund (THF) offended the Chinese authorities in Tibet. It has been five years since they were expelled from Lhasa in 2002. THF is a nongovernmental and non-profit international organisation. It was founded in 1996 in Lhasa by André Alexander from Germany, Pimpim de Azevedo from Portugal and a few other people. It mainly focuses on ‘researching and protecting the historic city Lhasa’. Even today, many Tibetans in Lhasa including lamas and ordinary people are always thinking of them. They say that they have never seen people who cherished the old buildings in Lhasa so much. THF worked with a more serious attitude than even the local people, and it worked with heart, which sometimes made local people feel guilty. Why did the government have to urge them to leave?

Some say that its work was so excellent that it made the authorities who were meant to ‘serve the people’ feel ashamed. It is listed on the website of THF that since 1996 when the restoration plan for the old city of Lhasa was started, “THF had completely repaired 12 historic residences and 1 temple, basically restored 3 residences, done emergency repairs for 18 residential buildings, upgraded water supply and sanitation facilities for more than 1,000 residents in the old city, built 2 public toilets, paved laneways, rebuilt 1 and restored 1 stupa, reinforced the fifteenth century frescoes in an ancient temple in the south of Lhasa. The total investment above was over 800,000 US dollars. It had provided job and training opportunities for more than 300 Tibetans.” In fact, they have saved 76 historic and traditional buildings in and around Lhasa.

Some say that they had uncovered the reality of the old buildings in Lhasa in both publications and on internet, which enraged the authorities which alleged to well protected Tibetan culture. For example, in the album of paintings named ‘A Brief Introduction of Historic Architecture in Lhasa Barkhor’, it is said that ‘the ancient architecture and blocks in the old city in Barkhor were continually destroyed during the process of urban construction since 1980′. On every Barkhor map that was drawn by local painters, the fragmentary shape and mottled trace of the architecture seems to show that what disappears with the demolition is not only the old buildings, but also a nation’s way of life. In their website, THF pointed out that “since 1993, an average of 35 historic buildings have been demolished. If this speed was to be maintained, the remaining historic buildings would all disappear in less than four years’ time.”

Some others say that what they did was only to work hard with the Tibetan workers, but ignored the prevalent ‘hidden rules’ that were popular in Lhasa and even the whole of China. Restoring urban buildings is a profitable project, and many corrupt officials, from top to bottom, are hoping to get profit from it. But THF had never bribed the officials, in which case the officials would rather give the project to Chinese construction companies that know the ‘hidden rules’ well and would make the officials benefit from the project. However, there has to be a good reason to expel THF, and in Tibet, the most severe punishment must have something to do with politics. This is why one day in 2002 the state dictatorship authorities sent a car to take them to a plane to leave Lhasa.

Over the years, I’m filled with adoration and respect to THF’s work. I have downloaded all the text and images on its website, and I have also been asking about its situation after leaving Lhasa. Not long ago I looked at the English version of the photo book ‘The Temples of Lhasa’, and my admiration for THF has increased. If it was not true respect and love for Tibetan culture, there would never be such benevolent spirit and abundant energy for THF to work until today. THF is the eyewitness of how Tibetan traditional culture faces the impact of Sinicisation and globalisation, and how Tibet struggles to maintain its own culture. Just like what André Alexander said sadly, ‘each time I go to Tibet, the old houses are significantly reduced – a stone, a brick, a lane, a street, even the dogs are “disappearing”…’

December, 2007

Originally posted at http://highpeakspureearth.com/2012/windhorse-windhorse-please-carry-andre-home-by-woeser/

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.:

 

By Ming Xia
Originally published in The Diplomat, Feb. 7, 2012.
Republished in TPR with permission of the author.


News today that three Tibetan herders may have set themselves alight highlights the increasing frequency with which Tibetans (usually monks or nuns) have been turning to self-immolation, bringing to 19 the total that have done so in the past year.

Why are Tibetans setting themselves on fire with such frequency? The Chinese government has denied any responsibility, instead blaming the Dalai Lama for encouraging such radical actions. However, this claim doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The Chinese government has told the West that the Dalai Lama is irrelevant to Tibetans, while telling Chinese and Tibetans within China that he has been marginalized to the point of becoming a “political orphan.” It’s therefore illogical to accuse him of being the mastermind behind radical actions taken by Tibetans.


The reality is that the Dalai Lama single-handedly introduced democracy to the Tibetan government in exile immediately after he fled to India in 1959. He established an elected parliament, while the process of democratization was accelerated by his receipt of the Nobel Prize in Peace in 1989, which also bolstered secularization in the government. Last year, the Dalai Lama announced plans for his full political retirement, and with Harvard-educated lawyer Lobsang Sangay directly elected to lead a Cabinet comprising laypersons from young, well-educated, diverse and cosmopolitan backgrounds.

Such success, has, unfortunately, only deepened Beijing’s anxiety over – and hostility toward – the Dalai Lama and Tibetans. For the past five years, the military, paramilitary police, and law enforcement forces have conducted searches, arrests, blockades and attacks against monasteries and their residents. The Communist Party has, meanwhile, escalated its efforts to “modernize” Tibet, including trying to brainwash Tibetans with themes of atheism, materialism and patriotism. One example of this has been the intensification of the enforcement of its 15-year-old ban on hanging portraits of the Dalai Lama in monasteries. During this year’s two New Year’s periods (Chinese and Tibetan), the Chinese government reportedly sent a million Chinese flags and portraits of four Communist Chinese leaders (Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao) to monasteries. The government has also vowed to make every monastery subscribe to The People’s Daily and The Tibetan Daily, two important Communist Party newspapers.

In addition, the Chinese government has further broadened its infiltration into religious affairs and tightened control over monasteries in an effort to impose its propaganda agenda, while uncooperative monks and nuns have been expelled. It has been reported that in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, there are more Han Chinese than Tibetans, more soldiers than monks, and more surveillance cameras than windows.

President Hu Jintao (a former Party secretary in Tibet) and Zhou Yongkang (a former Party secretary in Sichuan, where most of the self-immolations have occurred, and the current czar for internal security), should be seen as directly responsible for the current repressive policy toward Tibet.

For believers, Buddhism is seen as a way of ending suffering and death. But as Tibetan Buddhism has lost its autonomy, the unique culture and identity of Tibetans has also risked becoming extinct. Now, instead of choosing between good or bad, monks and nuns feel they have no choice but to resort to self-immolation to communicate their grievances and protests.

According to various Buddhist teachings in the school of the Greater Vehicle (Mahayana), suicide can be commended under special conditions, for example if it is conducted “out of profound inner conviction” that no good can any longer be served by the retention of the physical body, or if it is in higher service to society. Indeed, it is explicitly in The Lotus Sutra (Fahua Jing) that “setting fire to the body” or “burning the fingers or toes” might be deemed a great offering to Buddha if the Three Jewels that guide Tibetan Buddhists (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) have to be defended and honored.

It has been reported that the self-immolating monks and nuns shouted out their wishes for the return of Dalai Lama and the freedom of Tibet. If such self-immolations are to end, the global community must mobilize, and citizens must pressure their governments to work to encourage the halting of the persecution of Tibetan Buddhism and the genocide of Tibetan culture that is being perpetrated by the Chinese state. The Chinese government has shown no sign of changing course in part because global society hasn’t demonstrated its moral outrage.

Tibetan refugee and activist Lobsang Sangay once said that: “Tibetans have no oil; even our oxygen is thinner than in other places. Lamas are what we have. So the West does not care much about us.”

With more Tibetan deaths seemingly inevitable, the international community should show that the lives of Tibetans are at least as important as fluctuating oil prices. Now is time for it to show that it is willing to act to save an endangered people.


Ming Xia is a professor of Political Science at the Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island, the City University of New York.

Originally published at: http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2012/02/07/tibetans-burn-selves-for-freedom/

 

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.:

 

From the Washington Post, Feb. 6, 2012:

BEIJING — China on Monday warned government officials in Tibet that failing to maintain stability could result in job loss or criminal prosecution, the latest sign of heightened ethnic tensions in the remote Himalayan region. ...

The announcement said “those responsible for problems in stability maintenance because they neglect their posts, act irresponsibly, abuse power or fail to carry out their duties ... will all be removed from their positions on the spot no matter who they are or what level they are at.”

It said such cases could also be handed over to judicial authorities for criminal prosecution. It gave no details about the two alleged cases of dereliction of duty.

(Full article here)

And from BBC News, Feb. 9, 2012:

The Chinese Communist Party chief in Tibet has sacked four officials for "endangering stability" in the region, state media reports.

According to the Tibet Daily newspaper, they were sacked for leaving their posts in the Chamdo region during the Lunar New Year.

The regional government on Monday had warned officials to maintain stability or face dismissal or criminal charges. ...Two of the four officials face disciplinary charges.

(Full article here)

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.:

 

Source: Tibet.net

DHARAMSHALA: Expressing grave concern over the well-being of Tibetans in Tibet in view of the Chinese military build-up in Tibet, Kalon Tripa has called for more substantive support from the world community to end the Chinese government’s repression in Tibet.

“Hundreds of convoys carrying Chinese military personnel with automatic machine guns are moving towards Tibet. We fear many Tibetans might face unfortunate experiences,” Kalon Tripa Dr Lobsang Sangay told hundreds of Tibetans and supporters gathered at a solidarity vigil in Dharamsala today.


“We really feel the Chinese government is preparing for something really tragic. Hence it is critical that the international community must intervene now to show support for Tibet and Tibetan people,” Dr Sangay said.

“The Tibetans in Tibet are giving up their lives because the occupation of Tibet and repressive policies of the Chinese government is unacceptable,” Kalon Tripa said.

“We really appreciate statements issued by different countries like the US and European countries. But we would like seek some more concrete actions to send delegates to Tibet to investigate the reality and the military build-up in Tibet, deaths and torture of Tibetans, and the reasons why there is repression, why Tibetans are self-immolating,” Kalon Tripa added.

He urged the US to pass the Senate resolution to show support to the Tibetan people.

Kalon Tripa urged the international media, including those working in China, to make more efforts to go to Tibet and objectively report why the Tibetans are self-immolating. “If the world media cannot go to Tibet, we never know what else is happening inside Tibetan areas, and how many more Tibetans are being killed and dying,” he added.

Kalon Tripa said the Chinese government’s response towards the Chinese people’s protest in Wukang in Guangdong province show the discrimination against the Tibetan people. He said Guangdong governor fired local communist party officials, gave powers to the protesting groups and addressed their grievances. “Whereas in Tibet, several hundred Tibetans gathered in Dragko area, but the Chinese police indiscriminately shot Tibetans and killed them. So, the world is watching that there is a blatant discrimination towards Tibetans because Chinese can protest, their grievances addressed, whereas Tibetans cannot protest,” Kalon Tripa said.

“If the Chinese government thinks the Tibet issue cannot solved through violence, force and intimidation, then it’s not going to happen because the Tibetan spirit is strong. The Tibetan spirit would remain strong until freedom is restored in Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai Lama return to Tibet,” Kalon Tripa said.

“As we gathered in Dharamsala today, we can say with pride that we are joined by many others around the world from the US, Canada, France, England, eastern European countries, South Africa, South America and Asia with hundreds and thousands of Tibetans to show solidarity with Tibetans inside Tibet and to pray for those who have sacrificed their lives,” Kalon Tripa said.

“We will not let your voices go unheard, we will not let sacrifices go unattended,” Kalon Tripa told Tibetans living in Tibet.

Thousands of Tibetan and supporters took part in a prayer service at the Tsuglagkhang, the main temple, to show solidarity with the Tibetans in Tibet.

---

Email to a friend or share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.: