The video below is a clip of His Holiness The Dalai Lama's talk in Scotland this year. The Dalai Lama very wisely said that we as a society have placed too much emphasis on "secondary differences" e.g. our skin colour, nationality and religious beliefs. Instead we should focus and work on our "primary differences" to promote a Oneness of Humanity. After all, that we are all born and we all have to die makes us all the same and so we should just forget about secondary differences.
This is very sound advice from the spiritual head of all Tibetans and it is very important for the CTA to take heed for 2 reasons:
First, if the Dalai Lama's own government do not take His Holiness's advice and remove the one issue that has caused a deep rift amongst the Tibetan people, i.e. the Dorje Shugden ban, why should the rest of the world bother. By not shifting the focus away on "secondary issues" which the Dalai Lama has said with conviction, is the reason behind the world's problems, the CTA will rob the Dalai Lama of credibility cause His Holiness to be seen as nothing more than a war monger who is preaching peace to the rest of the world. This is especially valid when you consider that the CTA is completely empowered to do so, now that the Dalai Lama is already officially not involved in Tibetan politics and secular matters. The Oneness Of Humanity view advocated by the Dalai Lama applies to Tibetans more than anyone else. For the Tibetans, they share not only a oneness of humanity, but also a oneness of race and culture and also a oneness of cause, that is the return of their country to their own government.
Second, human rights violations of Tibetans in China is beginning to catch the world's interest again. Recently the United Nations High Commissioner For Human Rights called upon China to review its policies towards Tibetans in China. The message to China was again echoed this week by Germany, a strong player in the European Union, and delivered by the Human Right Commissioner of the Federal German Government. In addition, on the 27th November this year, the French Government's Upper House passed a resolution in support of efforts against deteriorating human rights situation inside Tibet and called on the European Union to give priority to Tibet. On the same day the US Ambassador to China Gary Locke stated that “preserving the ethnic, religious, linguistic identity of the Tibetan people is a top priority for the U.S. government” and further, that he had high expectation of change from the Chinese Government.
In order not to lose support, shouldn't the CTA clean up its own human right violations? How long more can the aging Dalai Lama single-handedly drive world support for the Tibetan Cause.
The reality is the CTA has little to offer the world in trade nor can it contribute to regional security and therefore global support is hard to come by. As long as the Dorje Shugden ban is not removed, it would be so easy for forces against change in China's Tibet policy to point to the ban as evidence that the CTA itself does not know the meaning and value of basic human rights and therefore is not on solid footing to call for the same for its people.
It is really time for the CTA to exercise the powers vested in them and become the government for all Tibetans regardless of their religious practice, or shut up for good.
