Black Americans and Tibetans - Bhuchung K. Tsering (July 1999)

Black Americans and Tibetans
Article by Bhuchung K. Tsering (issue July 1999) 

If you look at the Tibet movement in the United States, or, for that matter, throughout the world, one of the glaring points is the absence of a major support base among the Black community. President Nelson Mandela of South Africa is the only African political leader showing an interest in Tibet. Among spiritual leaders we again have to turn to Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.

Within the United States, almost all Tibet support groups are composed of non-black Americans. The only black American actively involved in Tibetan affairs could be the monk who studied in Sera Monastery in South India. He is now ensconced somewhere in New England and seem to have been so Tibetanised that the last time His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Boston in 1998, I saw this monk being included in the "Tibetans only" audience.

Why has the Tibet movement failed to attract the Black community and how can we change the situation? The Tibetan Government in Dharamsala has been studying this issue and has even started an office in South Africa. We Tibetans need to ponder more on this issue at our individual level and even have a public debate.

It is not that Black Americans totally ignore Tibet. This was brought clear to me during the ceremony to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Movement held in Harvard University on June 2, 1999. Mrs Coretta Scott King, widow of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, was the main speaker. In her speech to the predominantly Chinese audience that evening, Mrs King dwelt at length on the vision of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the future of Tibet. She even went to the extent of appealing to the Chinese community to support His Holiness on his endeavour.

I am interested in ideas that our readers may have on how we can maximise our support among the Black community. 

Bhuchung K. Tsering is a commentator based in Washinton, DC. He currently works with the International Campaign for Tibet.

China and its public image - Bhuchung K. Tsering (June 1999)

China and its public image
Article by Bhuchung K. Tsering (issue June 1999) 

At the end of April I was in Geneva in connection with a rally held on the birthday of the Panchen Lama, the hunger strike by the Tibetan Youth Congress and the session of the Comission on Human Rights. I arrived there the day after China was once again able to block a resolution condemning its human rights practices in China and Tibet.

Enter the meeting room of the Comission - I had last stepped into it six years ago - I experienced once again the harsh reality concerning the UN and issues like ours. In that room, the suffering of opressed people is a product, with the NGOs primarily playing the role of sales agents. The product's value is not based on its own merit but on how countries feel it has use for them. Since the mid-eighties Tibetan officials and NGOs have been adapting themselves to this situation and lounching a vigorous campaign at the Commission to sell the Tibetan product. Occasionally they have been successful - sometimes they have faced setbacks. Nevertheless, today the Tibetan brand name enjoys very favourable recognition within the Commission and is used as a model for success by other human rights advocates. But then, it is a crazy market out there.

A case in point is the China resolution proposed by the United States during this session of the Commission. Even the European Union failed to co-sponsor it. Eventually, only Poland became a co-sponsor. China, however, had to seek recourse to its usual procedural tactic to prevent this resolution from being discussed. While China may think it won this round, observers in Geneva feel otherwise. There were more countries, significantly from Afrika, abstaining this time. This is a clear writing on the wall. 

Today, China is desperate to do anything to prevent countries from reminding it about Tibet. The undiplomatic outburst of President Jiang Zemin during his visit to the Swiss Capital, Bern, in late March is an indication of how far the Chinese are willing to go on this. President Jiang literally scolded the Swiss leadership for permitting Tibetans and Tibet-supporters in Switzerland to exercise their democratic right to freedom of speech during his visit to the Swiss Parliament.

I took a short trip to Bern from Geneva and specifically went to the square before the Swiss Parliament House. Loten Namling, who was my host, showed me the location where the demonstrators stationed themselves. Is this the building that made President Jiang launch his thousand tirades? I wondered. As I stood in the square I tried to visualise the development that day. While the demonstrators may certainly have embarrassed President Jiang, there was no justifiable reason for his extreme outburst. This led me to wonder whether there were other reasons for his attitude. Could it be that he has been facing the heat from others in the Chinese leadership concerning Tibet since his non-negative statements during the press conference with President Clinton in June of 1998? Would this mean that President Jiang has really not been able to consolidate power and authority? 

Bhuchung K. Tsering is a commentator based in Washinton, DC. He currently works with the International Campaign for Tibet.

Studying 'Tibetans' or 'Tibetan' studies? - Bhuchung K. Tsering (September 1998)

Studying 'Tibetans' or 'Tibetan' studies?
Article by Bhuchung K. Tsering (issue September 1998)


The 8^th ‘Seminar of the Intenational Association for Tibetan Studies’ took place between July 25 and 31, 1998 in Bloomingto, Indiana, in the United States. Thirty-six years ago, a ‘Conference on Tibet’ took place in the Italian town of Bellagio. That conference, held from July 2 to 8, 1962, was attended by 15 Western and Japanese Tibetologists. A comparative study of the two meetings reveals the extent of development in the field of Tibetan studies.

Compared to the 15 attendees in the 1962 meeting, the Indiana meeting attracted nearly 200 scholars. In 1962 Tibetans scholars (the current president of the Association of Tibetan Studies, Samten Karmay, being one of them) were regarded more as raw materials rather than finished products and merely served as sources of information which were then packaged by Western and other scholars. In the Indiana conference, 33 participants were Tibetan (17 of them in fact came from Tibet).

The ‘general opinion’ of the 1962 conference, reported by Turell V Wylie, was that ‘Tibetan culture has no chance of survival in Tibet proper where change is being made by force, and it will not long survive the acculturation process in other countries.’. the latter, I assume, is a nice way of saying that Tibetans in exile will not be able to preserve our culture. Indiana has proved Bellagio wrong on both counts. While Tibetans inside Tibet have shown tremendous resilience in the face of challenge, those in exile have shown the world that Tibetan culture, altough aged, is living and well, thank you.

However, Indiana revealed a few other challenges. First, although there was increased recognition of ‘Tibetan’ scholars, the assumption appears to be that you have to be involved with ‘modern’ academic institutions to be considered a scholar. There was hardly a participant from the traditional Tibetan monastic institutions. Were invitations issued to them?

Secondly, the seminar was not open to the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. I would have thought that the Association would have gladly seized the opportunity to relay to the Tibetan people issues which concern them. After all, Tibetan studies is about a still living people.

There is an interesting footnote to this. In the light of the media ban, it appears that one of the radio stations asked some poeple to observe (most likely so that they can broaden their horizon and be able to provide better service to the Tibetan listeners). The response was negative: only scholars who present papers were being invited as delegates and no one else. I do not know whether the response given by this member of the organising committee was a collective decision or his own personal action.

I later learn that there indeed were observers, even if they were not called as such. Out of the nearly 200 participants only 150 or so presented papers. Also, among the delegates was an official from Chinese United Front Works Department whose sole qualification appears to be his ability to monitor the delegation from Tibet rather than displaying any scholarship.

Who said the academic world is free from biased actions?

Bhuchung K. Tsering is a commentator based in Washington, DC. He currently works with the International Campaign for Tibet.