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Dalai Lama's Influence in Tibet Weakens
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Recent violence shows the Tibetan community split on how to resist Chinese rule. The Dalai Lama's nonviolent approach has lost favor with many.
30-Second Summary
On Monday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao charged the Dalai "clique," exiled in India, of instigating the protests in Lhasa that began last week.
However, the Dalai Lama has discouraged violence and championed peaceful resistance. In fact, he threatened to resign as political leader of the exiled Tibetan government if the violence increased.
He advocates a “middle way." Instead of working toward Tibetan independence, he has called for a meaningful autonomy for Tibet within China.
But analysts say at this point Tibetan frustration at the lack of reform has boiled over. They have lost faith in the talks and fear a growing Chinese influence over Tibetan affairs. They also worry about the uncertain future of the Dalai Lama’s successor.
Time magazine quotes Lobsang Sangay, senior fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School: "It's that the Dalai Lama's approach is right but that the partner is not willing and the people see the Dalai Lama being taken for a ride.”
Although peaceful resistance worked successfully for Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the approach has not always achieved its goals, despite the commitment of the protestors.
As George Orwell once wrote about the Soviet Union, “It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again.”
However, the Dalai Lama has discouraged violence and championed peaceful resistance. In fact, he threatened to resign as political leader of the exiled Tibetan government if the violence increased.
He advocates a “middle way." Instead of working toward Tibetan independence, he has called for a meaningful autonomy for Tibet within China.
But analysts say at this point Tibetan frustration at the lack of reform has boiled over. They have lost faith in the talks and fear a growing Chinese influence over Tibetan affairs. They also worry about the uncertain future of the Dalai Lama’s successor.
Time magazine quotes Lobsang Sangay, senior fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School: "It's that the Dalai Lama's approach is right but that the partner is not willing and the people see the Dalai Lama being taken for a ride.”
Although peaceful resistance worked successfully for Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the approach has not always achieved its goals, despite the commitment of the protestors.
As George Orwell once wrote about the Soviet Union, “It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again.”
Headline Links: Tibetans differ on how to respond to China
According to Time, “Young Tibetans, many of them born outside their homeland, have become increasingly critical of the moderation of the Dalai Lama and other exiled leaders,” and “they believe that demonstrations or even confrontation might be more effective means of securing their rights.”
Source: Time
MSNBC portrays the growing rift between the strategies espoused by the Dalai Lama and those promoted by the younger generations. While the Dalai Lama has warned that he would resign as Tibet’s political leader in exile if the violence continued to escalate, younger generations are frustrated that “they have been talking for 20 years and nothing came out of it.”
Source: MSNBC
Opinion & Analysis: The best approach for Tibet
The Economist argues that the best way for China to allay the tensions in Tibet is to engage in substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama. “No successor will command such veneration. And so none will be as persuasive an advocate of nonviolence and of a ‘middle way’ for Tibet, short of the full independence many Tibetans believe is their birthright.” Trying to better Tibet’s economic situation has not been working, according to The Economist, meaning that if Beijing does not want to negotiate with the Dalai Lama, its only other option is brute force.
Source: The Economist
Jayati Chakraborty argues that the Tibetan people will not achieve their goals through peaceful means: “The very essence of communism is violent revolution. Obviously the Lama’s message of peace and nonviolence will fall on deaf ears.”
Source: Merinews
Background: The current Tibetan crisis and Burma’s 2007 protests
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recently denounced the Dalai Lama for allegedly inspiring the riots in Tibet. FindingDulcinea writes, “Tibetan exiles have placed the death toll at about 100 so far, although China claims the number is much lower.”
Source: findingDulcinea
The unsuccessful pro-democracy protests in Burma last September led many analysts to wonder whether nonviolent resistance can ever be effective in a totalitarian state.
Source: findingDulcinea
Historical Context: Nonviolent resistance in India, the United States and China
Gandhi, non-cooperation and Orwell
Mohandas K. Gandhi emerged as the leader of India’s resistance to British rule shortly after World War I. He wore the white loincloth of a Hindu holy man, led an ascetic existence, and espoused a doctrine of peaceful “non-cooperation” against the British Raj. Gandhi's pacifistic strategies have since influenced many political dissidents, such as Martin Luther King Jr. India gained its independence in 1947, and Pakistan split from the rest of the subcontinent the same year to form a predominantly Islamic state. In 1948, Gandhi was shot by a Hindu fanatic angered by the Indian leader's tolerance for Muslims. This article, intended for students, was written by a New York Times writer and details India’s struggle for independence under Gandhi’s leadership.
Source: FindArticles.com
Such was Mahatma Gandhi’s belief in nonviolent resistance that when asked in 1938 what the Jews should do to resist Hitler, he responded that they should commit mass suicide. That would, so Gandhi believed, “have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” Orwell’s opinion on this was that Gandhi “did not understand the nature of totalitarianism … he believed in ‘arousing the world,’ which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing. It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again.”
Source: George Orwell
Gandhi’s grandson Arun Gandhi visited Jerusalem in 2004 with hopes of teaching his grandfather’s ethics and strategy of nonviolent protest to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The International Herald Tribune did not rate his chances highly: “For most of the 37 years of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians were nonviolent—and it did them little good.”
Source: International Herald Tribune
The U.S. Civil Rights Movement
In the Civil Rights Movement, the split between violent and nonviolent protest in the pursuit of human rights was embodied in the different approaches of two black leaders: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. The stance of the former was expressed in the slogan “By any means necessary.” King disagreed with Malcolm X, saying that “urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.” An entry on Malcolm X details his ideological differences with Martin Luther King Jr.
Source: Stanford University's King Encyclopedia
Martin Luther King Jr.’s adherence to nonviolent protest was influenced by Mohandas Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau’s “Essay on Civil Disobedience.” According to Stanford, King defined nonviolent resistance as “the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”
Source: Stanford University's King Encyclopedia
According to PBS, nonviolent protest was “at the heart of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement," and it is detailed in a short essay available online. The article opens with an epigraph from King: “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a sword that heals. [It] cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”
Source: PBS
Tiananmen Square
In 1989, students camped out in Tiananmen Square, in China’s capital Beijing, for seven weeks, calling for democratic reform and an end to government corruption. Millions of people joined the peaceful protests, and when the army finally moved in and opened fire, thousands may have died. A precise number for the fatalities has never been confirmed. The BBC looks back to June 4, 1989, when troops began firing on the Beijing protesters. The BBC observes that the demonstrations were probably the greatest threat to the Chinese Communist Party since the 1949 revolution that brought it to power.
Source: The BBC
During the student demonstrations of 1989 in Beijing, an anonymous man stopped an advancing line of tanks by standing in front of them. Captured on video by CNN and the BBC, his resistance made headlines the world over and drew attention to the student protests.
Source: YouTube
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