In response to the Beijing’s questions on behalf of Dalai Lama

By Tendar Tsering
The lengthy seven questions to the 14th Dalai Lama came as usual in the China Tibet Online followed by the Chinese state mouth piece Xinhua News last week, and seeing the publication made me no surprise rather felt like laughing however when foreign media yesterday started copy-pasting the article, that made me ‘feel’ sad, and driven me to reply to the Beijing’s questions on behalf of the Dalai Lama.

1)                 China accused the Dalai Lama in the article of annihilating the Tibetan culture by urging to forego the Tibetan New Year ‘Losar’. That’s a lie. The Dalai Lama never urged nor asked the Tibetans to forego the Losar.  It is the Tibetan Youth Congress, the lonely but the largest and strongest pro-independence organization who appealed the Tibetans not to celebrate the Losar in a party mood.
However, the Tibetan Youth Congress and the Tibetan government in exile asked the Tibetans to celebrate the Tibetan losar by observing the day as a part of culture though not in a party mood.

Tibetans are urged not to celebrate the losar in a party mood in order to show solidarity with the Tibetans in Tibet who lighted themselves to the fire in an effort to tell the world what it is like to be in Chinese occupied Tibet.

As China always try to hide and fabricate the truth, it is no surprising to see the false accusation but it is sad that even the foreign media including Times of India and IBN-Live picked up the  same line in a copy-paste sort stating ‘Dalai Lama’s urge not celebrate the losar’ is very disappointing.

Being Tibetan, I am disappointed, and as a journalist belong to the same media-family, I am ashamed of the copy-paste sort lines though they clearly know that the Dalai Lama never ever urged the Tibetans to forego the Losar. In fact, he never spoke about the ‘Losar forego’.

If the Times of India and IBN-live check out their archieves, they will clearly know that because they have already done the story about who, when and why urged to forego the Losar-back in February.

2)      Beijing’s accusation of the Dalai Lama’s revival of the serfdom in Tibet is baseless and childish. The 14the Dalai Lama has already transferred the political power to the elected leader, Dr. Lobsang Sangay. The whole world knows that.

Moreover, this current Dalai Lama was seen as a reformist even before Chinese invasion-the Dalai Lama was in mid of reforming the Tibetan society by abolishing the system of serfdom and slavery but the Chinese soldiers came and occupied Tibet.

3)  China’s accusation of Dalai Lama being the agency of Gelug sect is an example how China fabricates the truth. The 14th Dalai Lama is known as the head of all sects of the Tibetan Buddhism including the Tibet’s ancient religion ‘Bon’.

For the Tibetans, Dalai Lama is not just a spiritual leader, but he is the reformist, and he is the jewel of Tibet that all Tibetans are proud of him.

There is in any case, no point of accusing the Dalai Lama as a man of one sect because he is more of a spiritual leader to the world, and he respects all the religions.

4)    Equaling the Dalai Lama with the Nazis and their genocidal war on the European Jews during the second world war is in fact, what the Beijing government is doing in Tibet-openly firing and indiscriminately gunning down the peaceful Tibetan protesters in Tibet, and legalizing the policy of detention without formal charges. The repressive Chinese policies in Tibet are forcing the Tibetans to burn themselves alive on the fire in protest against the Chinese policies for the Tibetans in Tibet. More than thirty Tibetans in Tibet have set themselves aflame in recent months (till date: 2012-3-26), calling for the freedom in Tibet and return of the Dalai Lama from exile. Call for the return of the Dalai Lama is not just the return of the spiritual leader but he is the symbol of freedom and spirit of Tibet.  
5)   China’s criticism on the Dalai Lama’s proposal of middle way is just an excuse and a false belief that the Tibetan issue will die along with the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama is the only understanding and negotiable Tibetan that the Beijing government can use to solve the issue of Tibet with China.

The 14th Dalai Lama is the only person that can convince the Tibetans to ask for the autonomy not for independence though legally and historically Tibet belongs to the Tibetans.

It is non sense to accuse the policy of middle way saying that it will be in the hands of Tibetans to stop Chinese population transfer into the Tibetan regions if Tibetans are granted the autonomy. China should feel grateful to the Tibetans for asking for the autonomy, not for independence.

6)    As usual, again China pointlessly pointed out that Tibet is part of China by saying that the title of the Dalai Lama (ocean of wisdom) is given by the Chinese government. In fact, the title of the Dalai Lama is given by Mongolian king ‘ Altan Khan’, and Chinese Ambassador was used to invite as a guest at the enthronement celebration of the Dalai Lama, not to prove the enthronement-historically China had no say on the enthronement of the Dalai Lama.

7)     China’s accusation of Dalai Lama inciting the self-immolations in Tibet is an another baseless accusation because the Dalai Lama has already told to the world that he never encourage the self-immolations in Tibet. He even has expressed his doubt about the effect of the self-immolation to change the Chinese policies. China is just playing the blame game instead of addressing the root causes of self-immolations in Tibet.

Beijing government is already feeling the fear that force and lie can never success, but it is also a fear on the Chinese side to stop lie-ing and gunning down the peaceful protesters. Nevertheless, sooner or later China can never hide the fear, never can keep lie-ing and gunning down the freedom lovers in Tibet and China-China will collapse in the offing.

NOTE-- Tendar Tsering is a journalist currently working with the Tibetan pioneer portal www.phayul.com 

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2 comments:

  1. Excellent piece TT la.

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  2. What can we say, hardcore Journlist Tendar la! This is great. Would love to read more.

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