My Spiritual Journey Read online

  The commission, made up of internationally renowned, eminent jurists, also declared that “most of the freedoms proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including basic, civic, religious, social and economic rights guaranteed by law, are not recognized by the Chinese regime in Tibet.” But it is not just from the flagrant violation of human rights and basic freedoms that Tibetans are suffering most today. It is even worse than that. The Chinese authorities in Tibet have denied in actual practice the fact that Tibetans are human beings who possess and experience the sensations and feelings of human beings. Thus, the Tibetans are expelled from their land in favor of Chinese settlements. They are systematically deprived of their sole source of income. In the minds of the Chinese, the life of a Tibetan has no value. It is true that the Chinese authorities vehemently deny these facts. But astonishing proofs of this exist. Thousands of Tibetans have braved the dangers and rigors of a long and dangerous journey to seek asylum in neighboring states. It is certain that if their lives had been even a tiny bit more tolerable, they would not have abandoned their hearths and homes for an uncertain future.

  In the present situation, the Tibetans and other peace-loving peoples should call on the world’s conscience and protest vigorously against the barbarous and inhuman treatment of the Tibetans by the Chinese invaders.

  I want to appeal to all Tibetans to renew their confidence and, once again, to do everything in their power to reestablish peace and freedom in their beloved homeland.

  In the name of humanity, I ask all the peoples of the world to come to the aid of the luckless and unfortunate people of Tibet.

  I also insist on the extreme danger the current situation presents. We all know that the Chinese armies committed a brutal attack on the territorial integrity of India, despite the efforts of the Indian government to maintain friendly relations with the People’s Republic of China.17 This assault should prove, if there were any need for proof, that so long as the Chinese occupy Tibet, a threat to peace and progress will always loom over the countries of Asia and the Asiatic Southeast. The gravity of the situation was reinforced by Chinese nuclear tests. Until then, the nuclear powers had shown much restraint because they fully realize that the use of the atomic bomb would be disastrous for humanity. Will the Chinese authorities adopt the same restraint once they are in possession of perfectly operational bombs? I fear that we cannot reasonably expect such moderation on the part of a government whose insane ambition knows no God and respects no limits. That is why I sincerely hope and pray that the peoples of the world anticipate the danger that threatens us all.18

  In this speech on March 10, 1965, the Dalai Lama addressed his people and the world. The Chinese Liberation Army had occupied Tibet supposedly because of the backwardness of its customs and society. The feudal, theocratic system was decried by Mao to justify his work of subjugation, and official propaganda presented Tibetans as primitive, uncultured barbarians. Recently, with lucid realism mingled with sadness, Tenzin Chögyal, the Dalai Lama’s younger brother, stated that, for a Chinese person, “killing a Tibetan is less important than killing a rat.”

  It is true that China established modernization programs in Tibet, but these efforts have been for the exclusive benefit of the Han settlers, who are concentrated in urban zones where they are the majority, at the cost of the Tibetans in rural zones and the nomads, who are hard to control because of their way of life and their attachment to their autonomy.

  The nuclear threat mentioned by the Dalai Lama on March 10, 1965, has only grown larger since, and it presents a real danger—both strategic and ecological—for Asia and the world. In the 1990s, with the establishment in the northeast of the country of the Ninth Academy, a high-tech nuclear research center, Tibet has become a military base for China, which has stored one-quarter of its intercontinental missiles with multiple nuclear warheads on the high plateau.

  The Roof of the World also serves as a dumping ground for Chinese radioactive waste. The Xinhua Press Agency admitted in 1995 that radioactive pollutants were buried by the shore of Lake Kokonor and in a marsh whose waters empty into the Tsang Chu, which downstream becomes the Yellow River flowing through China. Subsequently, an elevated number of cancer cases has been noted among the nomads, along with an abnormal rate of malformations in animals in the region, where traditional grazing grounds have been shut down.19

  The Han-ification campaign in Tibet

  THE YEARS OF CHINESE OCCUPATION of Tibet represent a long list of unspoken misfortunes and sufferings. Farmers and livestock owners are deprived of the fruit of their labor. For a meager pittance, large groups of Tibetans are forced to build military roads and fortifications for the Chinese. An incalculable number of our people have been the victims of public trials and purges, where all sorts of humiliations and brutalities have been inflicted on them. The riches of Tibet, accumulated over the course of many centuries, have been taken away to China. A persistent campaign of Han-ification of the Tibetan population continues to be perpetrated, forcibly replacing the Tibetan language with Chinese and changing Tibetan names to words with Chinese sounds. So much for Chinese-style “Tibetan autonomy.”

  The persecution of Buddhism and Tibetan culture reached a new degree of intensity with the advent of the so-called Cultural Revolution and its by-product, the Red Guard. Monasteries, temples, and even private houses were ransacked, and all religious objects destroyed. Of the countless items that have been destroyed, I will cite the example of a statue of Avalokiteshvara dating from the seventh century. Two heads belonging to it, cut off and mutilated, were secretly taken from Tibet and recently presented to the press in Delhi. Not only has this statue been the object of great veneration over the course of centuries, but it also constitutes a historic, important, and irreplaceable object dear to the Tibetan people. Its destruction is a great loss and a source of profound sadness to us. Recourse to such barbaric methods by insane crowds of immature schoolchildren gave rise to an orgy of senseless vandalism instigated by Mao Tse-tung in the name of the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It was an eloquent proof of the extremities into which Chinese leaders had fallen to try to eliminate the traces of our culture. Humanity and history will certainly condemn the savage massacre of the Tibetan people and the cultural heritage dear to their heart perpetrated by the Chinese.

  Observing with profound sadness the terrible poverty and suffering of our people in Tibet, we renewed our firm determination to regain our freedom. During our period of exile, we have all made efforts to prepare ourselves for the day we could return to a Free Tibet. With this aim, we have defined and promulgated a temporary constitution of Tibet, based on the principles of justice, equality, and democracy, in keeping with the teachings of Lord Buddha. It was warmly received by all Tibetans, especially the elected representatives of the Tibetans in exile. We have also launched various programs for reintegration and education, thanks to the sincere sympathy and precious support of the Indian government. Truthfully, my people and I are profoundly grateful to the Indian government for its assistance, which even extended to the safeguarding of our cultural and religious programs. We also thank the different Indian and international organizations that have tirelessly helped us. We continue to need their support, and we confidently hope that it will be granted us as before. We are also grateful to the Indian and foreign governments that have defended the cause of Tibet at the United Nations. Still, given the fact that even the most basic rights of our people are flouted by the Chinese, whom the United Nations has called to order more than once, we believe that peace will not be realizable unless Tibet regains its freedom and is transformed into a demilitarized zone.20

  In June 1966, Mao launched the Red Guard, which had the mission of destroying “the Four Olds”: old ideas, old cultures, old traditions, and old customs. The Cultural Revolution was officially proclaimed in Tibet on August 25, 1966, and the order was given to destroy Tibetan culture in all its forms.

  Twenty thousand Red Guards, org
anized into rival factions, looted and ransacked Lhasa. Monasteries were profaned and their possessions despoiled. To mock faith and piety, religious texts were used to stuff shoes or as toilet paper, printing blocks were made into floorboards, and ritual objects made of precious metal were melted down. The treasures of Tibetan religious art were sent to China to be auctioned off on the international antique market.

  The Chinese Communist Party had declared without ambiguity: “Communist ideology and religion are two forces that cannot coexist. The differences between the two are like day and night.” All religious practice was forbidden, and the systematic destruction of the monasteries began. Out of all the monks and nuns, who represented close to one-quarter of the population, more than eleven thousand were tortured to death, and half were forcibly defrocked or forced to have sexual intercourse in public.

  The Tibetan population was submitted to self-criticism and reeducation meetings, where workers had to confront their bosses, farmers their landowners, students their professors, and monks their abbots. Confessions were torn from them by extremely violent methods, some resulting in summary executions.

  The years from 1966 to 1979 represent, for the Tibetans, the cruelest period of Chinese occupation. As the Dalai Lama lamented, Tibetan identity was attacked even down to its language. Experts created a “Sino-Tibetan language of friendship” that distorted Tibetan language with Chinese expressions.

  Five hundred Tibetans perished while fleeing their occupied country

  THE COMMEMORATION ON MARCH 10 has become sacred for all Tibetans, and it is an important date in the historic struggle of our people, who want to free themselves from their oppressors. It was on this day that the Tibetans courageously tried to free themselves from the yoke of Chinese leaders. In 1950 the Chinese occupied our country by force, exercising an ambiguous, obsolete claim of suzerainty. Compared to the superiority of the Chinese forces, our resistance was condemned in advance, and it led to a large-scale massacre of thousands of our fellow citizens. But the spirit of a people that believes in human dignity and in the freedom of all nations, large and small, cannot let itself be broken by an aggressor, however powerful. On that fatal day, our entire country joined together to defy the Chinese, and we reasserted our national identity in clear terms for the outside world. Our people’s struggle is continuing today both inside and outside Tibet.

  For our compatriots who have remained in Tibet, the battle is both a physical and a moral one. The Chinese have used every trick possible, along with force, to break the Tibetans’ resistance. The fact that they have not succeeded is admitted by China and attested to by the many Tibetans who flee to India and other neighboring countries each year, despite increasingly severe controls imposed by the Chinese Communists at the borders.

  In 1968, almost five hundred Tibetans perished as they were trying to flee to India. They knew that their chances of success were almost nonexistent, and yet they preferred to take this risk. Is it conceivable that a people can reach such suicidal extremes when it is supposedly satisfied with the regime it is living under, according to the Chinese Communists?

  During each of the years that have gone by, the Chinese have successively tried to indoctrinate thousands of Tibetan children, forcibly separating them from their parents and sending them to China. In that country, they have been kept away from all Tibetan culture, taught the doctrines of Mao, and forced to mock and ridicule the Tibetan way of life. But contrary to Chinese expectations, a large majority of them are now resisting the regime forcibly imposed on Tibet. So long as human beings have the ability to think, and so long as they seek the truth, the Chinese Communists will not completely succeed at indoctrinating our children. There is no doubt that the fate reserved for annexed ethnic minorities attests to Han chauvinism. However, far from managing to reach their goals, the Chinese are only feeding the nationalist flame. It is for this reason that even young Tibetan Communists have joined forces with the rest of the country against the Chinese.

  The culture and religious beliefs of our country have been one of the main targets of Communist repression. The destruction of monastic universities, cultural centers, and other similar institutions begun in the beginning of the Chinese conquest has recently intensified with the Cultural Revolution and the founding of the Red Guard. Monks, nuns, and scholars have been expelled from monasteries and cultural institutions. Large numbers of the local population are being forced to build an immense network of strategic roads in Tibet, which has become a huge military base at the borders of neighboring countries. This poses a growing threat to the peace of these regions.

  It has been up to those of us who were lucky enough to flee the Chinese Communists to take up the noble task for which so many of our compatriots have given their lives. Our people in exile are conscientiously trying to prepare for the day we can return to a Free Tibet. Thus, Tibetan children, whom I regard as the cornerstone of a future free, independent Tibet, are receiving the best chances possible to develop and grow mentally and morally to become men and women profoundly rooted in their own culture, beliefs, and way of life, while still remaining close to modern civilization and enriched by the greatest accomplishments of world culture. They will thus be healthy, creative Tibetan citizens, capable of serving our nation and humanity. Our wish is not only to be able to contribute to the prosperity of our host country but also to act in such a way that an authentically Tibetan culture can take root and flourish outside of Tibet, until we are able to return there. Returning one day is a hope that will always accompany us, and an aim toward which we must ceaselessly work.21

  The ability of Tibetans to escape their situation, as mentioned by the Dalai Lama on March 10, 1968, has scarcely changed today. The events of September 2006 were a tragic reminder of this: Chinese border guards attacked a column of seventy-five Tibetans trying to reach Nepal by the Nangpa La Pass, 5,700 meters high, at the foot of Mount Cho Oyu.

  The patrol aimed and shot at sight in a snow field. Kelsang Namtso, a seventeen-year-old Tibetan nun, collapsed, pierced with bullets. Her companions were unable to carry her body, for fear of being arrested. The next day a few soldiers returned and threw the body into a crevasse, under the eyes of some Danish mountain climbers.

  During the fusillade, a twenty-year-old man, Kunsang Namgyal, was wounded and made prisoner along with thirty other Tibetans, including fourteen children who lost their lives.

  The incident had witnesses: from their base camp, mountain climbers of different nationalities filmed the soldiers shooting, then pursuing and arresting the people fleeing. The images were quickly uploaded to the Internet and broadcast on television, provoking protests in several countries.

  Far from the cameras, beneath the cloak of silence imposed by Chinese authorities, Tibetans have been experiencing such tragedies for the half-century of their country’s occupation. To give their children a Tibetan education and allow them to escape forced sinicization, parents place their babies into the arms of older children, whom they entrust to smugglers. They make the sacrifice of separating from them so that the children can grow up to be proud of being Tibetan.

  The fleeing children must ascend the highest mountains in the world, through barriers of snow and ice that reach 7,000 or 8,000 meters. To cross the passes, they must travel in temperatures that can fall to 20 degrees below zero, without the protection of suitable clothing, without adequate nourishment, and at the risk of being suddenly discovered by Chinese patrols. Some die of cold. Some die of hunger. In these icy solitudes, they fall and cannot stand up again. Others reach the end of their journey at the cost of unheard-of efforts.

  Tenzin Tsendu, a poet and freedom fighter, is the author of Border Passage, a text that evokes the ordeal of a Tibetan mother accompanying her children to freedom in exile:

  Silently threading our way by night and hiding by day,

  In twenty days we reached the snow-covered mountains.

  The border was still many days away by foot.

  The rocky grou
nd scraped our bodies, bent from effort and pain.

  Over our heads a bomber passed

  My children shouted in terror

  And huddled against my chest.

  I was so exhausted I felt as if I had no limbs,

  But my mind was watchful….

  We had to press ahead or we would die on the spot.

  One daughter here, one son there,

  A baby on my back,

  We reached the snow fields.

  We climbed up the side of monster-like mountains

  Whose snowy banks often cover the bodies of travelers who

  ventured here. In the midst of these snow-white fields of death, A pile of frozen corpses Awoke our wavering courage. Drops of blood were scattered on the snow. Soldiers must have crossed their path, In our own country they had fallen into the hands of the

  Red Dragon. We pray to the Wish-fulfilling Jewel, Hope in our hearts, prayer on our lips, We have almost nothing left to eat And only the ice to quench our thirst, We climb together, night after night.

  But one night, my daughter complained her foot was burning.

  She fell and stood up on her frozen leg.

  Her skin was tattered and gashed with deep, bleeding cuts,

  She curled up, shivering with pain.