Editorial by Mr. Dawa T. Norbu (February/March 1975)
It is now twenty-five years since the Chinese invasion, and sixteen years since the Lhasa Uprising when China turned Tibet, for all practical purposes, into a Chinese province. During this period Tibet has witnessed the biggest upheavals in her history, and Tibetan response to such challenges has also changed according to changing circumstances and situations.
It is only inevitable that the old-fashioned Khampa-type of resistance should come to an end. For one thing that gallant but cumbersome generation is ageing, but more importantly the Tibetans have acquired in the course of their protracted struggle valuable experience. They have learned new ideas and new techniques of guerilla warfare. Now with the emergence of a new generation of Tibetan freedom fighters both in and outside Tibet, the whole conception of Tibetan nationalism has changed. If the ageing generation fought for the glory of their faith, the new generation is at pains to view the struggle in terms of nationalism as it is prevalent in the third wolrd today. Although there is some confusion at present as it usually happens during a transition, the new conception of Tibetan national liberation struggle has the potential to acquire greater clarity and in due course to crystalise into something concrete.
One of the tragedies of the Tibetan struggle has been the agonising dilemma between a total armed struggle and a ‘peaceful means’. In the past both the nature of the Tibetan leadership and prudence preferred a ‘peaceful means’. As such the struggle has been characterised by a conspicuous lack of hatred against the enemy; at best it is a strange love-hate struggle. It is a monumental tribute to the all-embracing compassion preached by Tibetan Buddhism. But while praiseworthy in the realm of ethics, it has played a significant negative role in the Tibetan freedom struggle.
While Muslim leaders can declare jahed against their national enemies, the Dalai Lama has made no such declaration: he has so far stuck to his belief. His stand is to be defended both on grounds of pragmatism and his non-violent creed. While Arafat forced his way into the UNO and occupy a seat in the world body, the Tibetans in exile continue to petition and pray. It is true the Palestinian Liberation Organisation is being greatly aided and armed by the Arab countries, while the Tibetans are not so fortunate. But unless a movement is at least moving in some direction and unless its leaders can demonstrate their capacity and show promising results, no external aid can be expected.
No power wants to be involved uselessly in a cause that shows no substantive results. It is up to those who are commited to a cause to convince other friendly powers by their demonstrative results, not by pleading.
At the same time to ignore the serious handicaps of the Tibetan struggle would be unfair. In Tibet, for example, although the nature and dialectic of the struggle has changed remarkably for the better, the young freedom fighters face greater difficulties than ever before. The Chinese occupation troops are deeply entrenched and Chinese colonial power is considerably consolidated during the past 25 years. This means that the Tibetan populace is kept under an efficient military subjugation and the chances of revolt are minimised by terror. Added to all this is that the Tibetan population is scattered over a continental area which makes mass mobilisation difficult. All thesepartly explain the phenomena that resistance exists mostly in pockets and generally lacking co-ordination.
But the redeeming feature of the new trend is that it is not the old Tibetans who have now more or less resigned to their fate but the young, many of whom are educated in China, who are now spearheading a more effective, though on a smaller and less colourful scale, resistance against the Chinese overlordship in
Tibet. Their perception of nationalism is clear and simple: Tibet belongs to the Tibetan people. And the dialectic of their struggle is that they see an ‘antagonistic contradiction’ between what they have learnt in Chinese socialist schools and what the Chinese actually practise in Tibet.
There is nothing surprising about the emerging new trend in Tibetan resistance against the Chinese. The recent history of Marxism indicates the Marxist ideology in a closed society in which it must necessarily function if it is to paradoxically succeed, has promoted more nationalism and chauvinism than proletarian internationalism. Sadly proletarian internationalism and exploitation-free society remain as romantic and remote as the pious goals of various religions. Such lofty goals are reverendly shelved away in the time future and therefore do not concern much except for occasional invocations. What matters most and hence shapespolicy thinking is what matters now and here: ‘national interest’.
