XPost: alt.politics.liberal, alt.politics.religion, alt.religion   
   buddhism.tibetan   
   XPost: alt.zen, ca.politics   
   From: peter@dharma.dnsdojo.org   
      
   Tibetans Burn Selves for Freedom   
   By Ming Xia   
   February 7, 2012   
      
   News today that three Tibetan herders may have set themselves alight   
   highlights the increasing frequency with which Tibetans (usually   
   monks or nuns) have been turning to self-immolation, bringing to 19 the total   
   that have done so in the past year.   
      
   Why are Tibetans setting themselves on fire with such frequency? The Chinese   
   government has denied any responsibility, instead blaming   
   the Dalai Lama for encouraging such radical actions. However, this claim   
   doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The Chinese government has told   
   the West that the Dalai Lama is irrelevant to Tibetans, while telling Chinese   
   and Tibetans within China that he has been marginalized to   
   the point of becoming a “political orphan.” It’s therefore illogical to   
   accuse him of being the mastermind behind radical actions taken   
   by   
   Tibetans.   
      
   The reality is that the Dalai Lama single-handedly introduced democracy to the   
   Tibetan government in exile immediately after he fled to   
   India in 1959. He established an elected parliament, while the process of   
   democratization was accelerated by his receipt of the Nobel   
   Prize in Peace in 1989, which also bolstered secularization in the government.   
   Last year, the Dalai Lama announced plans for his full   
   political retirement, and with Harvard-educated lawyer Lobsang Sangay directly   
   elected to lead a Cabinet comprising laypersons from   
   young, well-educated, diverse and cosmopolitan backgrounds.   
      
   Such success, has, unfortunately, only deepened Beijing’s anxiety over –   
   and hostility toward – the Dalai Lama and Tibetans. For the past   
   five years, the military, paramilitary police, and law enforcement forces have   
   conducted searches, arrests, blockades and attacks   
   against   
   monasteries and their residents. The Communist Party has, meanwhile, escalated   
   its efforts to “modernize” Tibet, including trying to   
   brainwash Tibetans with themes of atheism, materialism and patriotism. One   
   example of this has been the intensification of the   
   enforcement of its 15-year-old ban on hanging portraits of the Dalai Lama in   
   monasteries. During this year’s two New Year’s periods   
   (Chinese and Tibetan), the Chinese government reportedly sent a million   
   Chinese flags and portraits of four Communist Chinese leaders   
   (Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao) to monasteries. The   
   government has also vowed to make every monastery   
   subscribe to The People’s Daily and The Tibetan Daily, two important   
   Communist Party newspapers.   
      
   In addition, the Chinese government has further broadened its infiltration   
   into religious affairs and tightened control over monasteries   
   in   
   an effort to impose its propaganda agenda, while uncooperative monks and nuns   
   have been expelled. It has been reported that in   
   Lhasa,   
   the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, there are more Han Chinese than   
   Tibetans, more soldiers than monks, and more   
   surveillance cameras than windows.   
      
   President Hu Jintao (a former Party secretary in Tibet) and Zhou Yongkang (a   
   former Party secretary in Sichuan, where most of the self-   
   immolations have occurred, and the current czar for internal security), should   
   be seen as directly responsible for the current repressive   
   policy toward Tibet.   
      
   For believers, Buddhism is seen as a way of ending suffering and death. But as   
   Tibetan Buddhism has lost its autonomy, the unique   
   culture and identity of Tibetans has also risked becoming extinct. Now,   
   instead of choosing between good or bad, monks and nuns feel   
   they have no choice but to resort to self-immolation to communicate their   
   grievances and protests.   
      
   According to various Buddhist teachings in the school of the Greater Vehicle   
   (Mahayana), suicide can be commended under special   
   conditions, for example if it is conducted “out of profound inner   
   conviction” that no good can any longer be served by the retention of   
   the physical body, or if it is in higher service to society. Indeed, it is   
   explicitly in The Lotus Sutra (Fahua Jing) that “setting fire to the   
   body” or “burning the fingers or toes” might be deemed a great offering   
   to Buddha if the Three Jewels that guide Tibetan Buddhists   
   (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) have to be defended and honored.   
      
   It has been reported that the self-immolating monks and nuns shouted out their   
   wishes for the return of Dalai Lama and the freedom of   
   Tibet.  If such self-immolations are to end, the global community must   
   mobilize, and citizens must pressure their governments to work   
   to encourage the halting of the persecution of Tibetan Buddhism and the   
   genocide of Tibetan culture that is being perpetrated by the   
   Chinese state. The Chinese government has shown no sign of changing course in   
   part because global society hasn’t demonstrated its   
   moral outrage.   
      
   Tibetan refugee and activist Lobsang Sangay once said that: “Tibetans have   
   no oil; even our oxygen is thinner than in other places.   
   Lamas are what we have. So the West does not care much about us.”   
      
   With more Tibetan deaths seemingly inevitable, the international community   
   should show that the lives of Tibetans are at least as   
   important as fluctuating oil prices. Now is time for it to show that it is   
   willing to act to save an endangered people.   
      
      
      
   Ming Xia is a professor of Political Science at the Graduate Center and the   
   College of Staten Island, the City University of New York.   
      
   http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2012/02/07/tibetans-burn-sel   
   es-for-freedom/   
      
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