{"id":462,"date":"2009-03-09T10:38:48","date_gmt":"2009-03-09T10:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/03\/commemorating-march-10.html"},"modified":"2009-03-09T10:38:48","modified_gmt":"2009-03-09T10:38:48","slug":"commemorating-march-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/03\/commemorating-march-10.html","title":{"rendered":"The Dalai Lama & Commemorating ‘Tibetan Independence Day’ on March 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commemorating March 10
<\/span><\/p>\n

(14th Day,
\n1st Month, Earth Ox Year, Monlam Chenmo, 2009 C.E.)<\/span><\/p>\n

*********<\/span><\/p>\n

March 10, 2009 is the 50th commemoration of the Lhasa uprising of 1959, when the Tibetans of
\nLhasa and pilgrims and refugees from all over Tibet arose and, mostly unarmed,
\ntried to protect the 24 year-old Dalai Lama from being taken into captivity, in
\nthe midst of a nationwide, unarmed and armed resistance that sought to
\nterminate the Chinese military occupation of their precious Tibet, the Land of
\nSnows.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nChinese government led by President Hu Jintao is behaving in an inconceivably
\nimmoral and impractical way, by encouraging irredentist cultural
\nrevolutionaries such as Zhang Qingli and his backers and supporters to destroy
\nthe Tibetan individual identity and Buddhist culture, and even, it seems the
\nTibetan people. This nakedly reveals for all to see the <\/span>basically genocidal intent of the Chinese
\nneo-colonialists in Tibet.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\n“White Paper” released by the Chinese government on March 2, 2009, in the
\ncontext of intense ongoing oppression, a virulent “Strike hard” campaign, is a
\nrehash of obsolete communist propaganda. It vilifies the Dalai Lama and the
\nTibetan nation in the typical colonialist way, justifying the 58-year-long
\nChinese occupation and genocide by pretending that the free society they invaded
\nwas a horrible one that did not deserve to exist. It opens with the bare-faced
\nlie that Tibet has been part of China forever, which anyone with a slight
\nacquaintance of Chinese and Tibetan history easily sees to be untrue. If the
\nTibetans were Chinese, then why would the Chinese need to strive for over fifty
\nyears to destroy Tibetan culture, language, and one sixth of the population, in
\nthe futile effort to replace their “Tibetanness” (i.e. identity, culture,
\nhistory, and language) with “Chineseness,” (i.e. a sense of being Chinese, a
\nculture conforming to Chinese culture, and a fabricated history where they’ve
\nalways been Chinese, even without knowing it)?<\/span><\/p>\n

But
\nthe “White Paper” is too pathetic to merit the refuting of each propaganda
\npoint with some glimpses of the reality of an imperial invasion, a military
\noccupation, a colonialist population transfer, and sadly, an ongoing, purposive
\ngenocide. Its arguments and cooked-up “facts” are a throwback to 50 years
\nago to the era of triumphal communism that was going to “liberate” the world by
\nconquering it for communism, out to destroy “old” cultures and religions to
\nmake way for the brave new world of classless internationalism. Within China,
\nsuch impractical Stalinist ideology and cultural revolutionary activity has
\nlong been discredited, along with the excesses of Mao and his gang of four.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why
\nthen does President Hu Jintao think it is useful to unleash this same old thing
\non the defenseless Tibetan people? He must be terribly afraid of the truth of
\nthe Tibetan cause, of the reality of the Tibetan people’s feelings, not to
\nmention the often stated desire for freedom and democracy of the Chinese
\npeople. His vicious oppression of the Tibetan people when he was in charge of
\nTibet in the late 1980’s earned him spectacular advancement within the Chinese
\nCommunist Party’s ranks, it so pleased the aging Deng Hsiaoping and his anxious
\nsuccessor, Jiang Zemin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet
\nhowever powerful Hu may feel as President of a “rising China,” he seems not to
\nhave sufficient self-confidence or imagination to take the bold but realistic
\nsteps needed of facing the reality of Tibet and radically changing course,
\naccepting the Dalai Lama’s sincere offer of friendship and letting the Tibetans
\nbe Tibetans, having their Buddhism and their freedom on their own high plateau.
\nThis would calm the Tibetans and stabilize the China-Tibet union, and begin the
\nprocess of environmental restoration of the high plateau that is vital for all
\nAsia and the entire world. It would also swiftly change his global stature from
\nsharing with Ahmedinejad of Iran the position of “least respected world leader”
\n(in a recent International Herald Tribune \/Harris poll) to being universally
\nrespected and honored as the fourth leader of China. He would be the first to
\nmake the shift of China’s persona from being that of a self-contradicting
\ncommunist “world-liberator” through imperial conquest, to being the reasonable,
\ncooperative, truly peacefully rising, creative, ecologically and politically
\nconstructive, new world power in the 21st century. <\/span><\/p>\n

Fifty
\nyears have come and gone and the Tibetans still suffer under extreme injustice,
\noppression, and genocidal destruction. The Dalai Lama still leads them in
\nmainly nonviolent resistance, though he pleads with them not to protest openly
\nin Tibet during this time, because it only provides an excuse for the currently
\nbrutal regime to “strike hard” against their imagined enemy, the Tibetan who
\npersists in being Tibetan.<\/span><\/p>\n

In
\ncommemorating all this today on March 10th, one thing we can do at least in our
\nminds, it seems to me, is to take responsibility for our role in standing by
\nwhile this is happening. We should not blame it all on the poor Chinese. We
\n(meaning here the entire official world, our American government and those of
\nthe Europeans, the Indians, and the East Asian free countries) have allowed the
\nTibetan genocide to continue (along with those in North Korea, Burma, Darfur)
\nout of our greed to profit from China, either as an ally in the cold war
\nagainst Russia (forgetting in the process that the Chinese government is itself
\na totalitarian communist dictatorship), or as a huge pool of cheap labor and a
\nmythical market for our goods and commodities. Out of our obsession with
\nruthless short-term business, we have rationalized our neglect of the basic
\nhumanity and justice that is the necessary foundation of a prosperous
\nglobalizing world. Acting imperialistic ourselves, we have encouraged by
\nexample the Chinese to behave imperialistically. Clinging to our own excessive
\nmilitarism, we have pushed the Chinese to militarize excessively. Ignoring our
\nown destruction of the natural environment, we have seduced the Chinese into
\nfollowing our model of recklessly toxic industrialization. And now that we have
\nallowed the unrestrained greed of our financial elite to abuse our democracy
\nand destroy our own prosperity and turn us back into an under-developed
\ncountry, there is a danger that we will imitate the Chinese and turn
\nauthoritarian ourselves, thus reinforcing the Chinese fear of democratization
\nand entrenching them further in their unrelenting totalitarianism.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, on
\nthis March 10th, which some call Tibetan National Uprising Day but I prefer to
\ncommemorate as Tibetan Independence Day, remembering the heroic Tibetans who
\nlost their lives in their struggle for freedom from oppression, we should also
\ndeeply reflect how we can do our part not to stand by in silent acquiescence
\nbut to stand up for Tibet by correcting our own misunderstandings and
\ninappropriate behaviors, and so set an example for the Chinese leadership to
\nabandon their 50 years of failed genocidal policies and practices and extend
\na hand of true respect and friendship to the Tibetan people and their chosen
\nleader and let the Tibetan and Chinese people enjoy their natural freedoms and
\njoin together to restore their lands and cultures and societies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Robert
\nThurman is the Professor
\nof Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, President of
\nTibet House U.S.<\/a>, and author of “Why the Dalai Lama Matters”<\/a><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commemorating March 10 (14th Day, 1st Month, Earth Ox Year, Monlam Chenmo, 2009 C.E.) ********* March 10, 2009 is the 50th commemoration of the Lhasa uprising of 1959, when the Tibetans of Lhasa and pilgrims and refugees from all over Tibet arose and, mostly unarmed, tried to protect the 24 year-old Dalai Lama from being…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhist"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Dalai Lama & Commemorating 'Tibetan Independence Day' on March 10 - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/03\/commemorating-march-10.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Dalai Lama & Commemorating 'Tibetan Independence Day' on March 10 - 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The first American to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk and a personal friend of the Dalai Lama for over 40 years, Professor Thurman is a passionate advocate for Tibetan culture and a determined spokesperson for the truth regarding the current Tibet-China situation and the human rights violations suffered by the Tibetan people under Chinese rule. His commitment to finding a peaceful, win-win solution for Tibet and China inspired his latest book, Why The Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World, Atria\/Beyond Words: June, 2008. Hailed by the NY Times as \"the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism,\" Robert Thurman has made Buddhism accessible and relevant to millions of people of all faiths around the world.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/rthurman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}