China May Becoming a Screwed "Olympic Host" by Awakened Tibetans -- Can
Tibet's Leaders Ride the Tiger?
Sunday, Mar. 16, 2008
Can Tibet's Leaders Ride the Tiger?
By Madhur Singh/Dharamsala
"China is strong because we are on our knees," read a big red banner
held aloft by half a dozen youngsters with Tibetan flags painted on
their faces, gathered at Dharamsala's central Tsulagkhang Temple early
Sunday. As hundreds of Tibetans and their sup****ters streamed in,
trampling over Chinese flags strewn along the way, more banners
appeared: "This is the moment ！ now or never"; "Shall we be slave or be
free?" Shouts of "Pogyalo" ！ Free Tibet! ！ rose up to express solidarity
with a long-planned "Dharamsala to Lhasa" march that started on March
10, as hundreds of yellow and brown Tibetan flags fluttered in the wind.
"We had hoped for this response," says Sherab Woeser, one of the
coordinators of the march. "But now that the pent-up anger and
frustration are out, we need to find a way to manage it."
Events since March 10 have marked a watershed for the thousands of
Tibetans, mostly youngsters, who disagree with the Dalai Lama's
moderation but have been conditioned to defer to their spiritual leader.
While China's restrictions on the media make it extremely difficult to
know what exactly sparked the uprising within Tibet, many young Tibetans
outside their homeland feel it is time to stop being pushed around by
Beijing. "His Holiness is a monk, he advises patience," says Nwawang, a
33-year-old chef who fled Tibet for India over 10 years ago. "But we
can't leave things the way they are. We must act now before Tibet, our
homeland, our culture is wiped out. And now is the time when the entire
world is looking at China."
On Saturday, hundreds of young monks, nuns and ordinary Tibetans,
furious at the Chinese crackdown in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, marched to
Jwalamukhi, where an earlier group of marchers had been detained for 14
days by Indian authorities. Nearly 700 people had descended on the town
by evening. Organizers of the original march feared that passions could
get out of hand and had to turn the protestors away, telling them to
remain non-violent. On Sunday, hundreds more people gathered at
Tsulagkhang Temple. More marches are planned for the coming days.
The march to Lhasa, which started it all, was the brainchild of
activists impatient with the "middle-path" approach. One of them, Tenzin
Tsundue, now in detention in India, has been a longtime sup****ter of
more fervent resistance. In 2002, he made news by scaling 14 stories of
scaffolding of a Mumbai five-star hotel when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji
was inside. "Some would say there is a disconnect between young Tibetans
and our political leader****p, and that it would help if the Dalai Lama
moved toward a sterner position ！ possibly say China better get serious
about the talks or walk out," says Lhadon Theton, executive director of
the New York-based Students for Free Tibet. "Personally, I think all
Tibetans minus 10 want independence."
Those ideas resonate in Nepal, home to another sizeable Tibetan
population, where Tibetans have demonstrated daily for the past week.
The protests have been broken up by Nepal's police, often violently, but
that doesn't bother Tenzing Wangdu, 32, who was the president of the
Nepali chapter of the Tibetan Youth Congress until a few months ago, and
proudly shows off welts on his upper arm and back where the police
clubbed him during yesterday's protest. "Having marks on your body makes
you feel like you are among our brothers in Tibet who are giving up
their lives." Tenzing Dolkar, 29, says all Tibetans would like to deal
with China peacefully, but that the situation has gone beyond that. "At
the moment the Dalai Lama is telling us not to shout and use violence
against the Chinese, but the situation is such you can't always follow,"
she says, moments before a peace march around a Buddhist temple on the
outskirts of Kathmandu. "So..." Her voice trails off and the sentence is
left hanging.
The Dalai Lama told re****ters Sunday that he continues to favor the
"middle path" of autonomy within China rather than demanding full
independence for Tibet. But if the momentum inside and outside Tibet
continues for even a few more days, say protestors, it can continue for
weeks. "We're working to make the occupation costly for China," says
Lhadon Theton, who remains committed to non-violence but is planning
more protests in front of embassies around the world and is hoping to
get as many protestors into Beijing during the Olympics as possible. "No
one had a clue when the Berlin Wall came down," she says. "History is
long, and only time will tell what will bear fruit."
！ With Re****ting by Simon Robinson/Kathmandu
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* http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1722792,00.html
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