It is good to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama in good cheer but I wonder if Dr. Lobsang Sangay should have anything to be happy about. Even as Tibet celebrated its 52nd anniversary of being declared a democratic country, there are very little signs to show that Tibetan government has come of age. In fact, there is more evidence to show that democracy was a stillborn infant to a very reluctant parent in the CTA.
You bring up an important point vajratruth. I feel there is little to celebrate in the Tibetan settlements. Why? Because the ultimate goal has not yet been achieved. Secularly, they have not yet achieved a free Tibet. They have not achieved a real democracy. They have not achieved equality, freedom and liberty for all (to borrow from the French). Spiritually, so many are still so attached to the idea of independence. So what is there to celebrate, but the minor achievements over the last five decades that the CTA have continuously blown out of proportion, to disguise their wider failure?
It is now 53 years since the Dalai Lama declared Tibet to be a democracy and other nations in the world that have achieved independence around the same time have indeed acclimatized to the idea of freedom for the people and even progressed with improving constitutional apparatus to preserve that freedom.
But the picture is quite different for the Tibetans in exile. If indeed the CTA is a democratic government, then it should immediately lift the ban on Dorje Shugden that it imposed and started to enforce in 1996. No true democracy will ever prohibit its people from practicing their own traditional religious beliefs, let alone use it to oppress them. No democratic government in the world could survive such an obscene manipulation of something sacred to control its population. But the CTA did and today it continues to deprive Shugden practitioners of the basic rights such as the right to vote, the right to state medical facilities and the right for Shugden children to attend public schools. For Shugden practitioners, there is no democracy to enjoy.
Your entirely right and no, there is no democracy to enjoy. You see, I view freedom from two perspectives - inner and outer - and I judge it from the position of the two camps - Tibetans inside and outside Tibet.
Inner freedom, you can gain anywhere, whether you are inside or outside Tibet because that is a matter of developing your mind. But for outer freedom...for the Tibetans inside Tibet, they cannot do, think or say what they want, because they can be imprisoned for it. For the Tibetans outside Tibet, they cannot do, think or say what they want, because they can be ostracised for it.
The Tibetans in Tibet always say they cannot be themselves. When they practise, they have to recite their prayers quietly under their breath so as not to attract attention. When they revere the Dalai Lama, they have to hide his image in places of disrespect, so as to worship him.
But the Tibetans outside Tibet, if they live in the "right" monastery but believe the "wrong" thing, also have to recite their prayers quietly under their breath so as not to attract attention. They have to sneak around in the dark to meet their friends who have chosen the "wrong" side, the Dorje Shugden side. They have to pretend to give up their practices, to access medical care.
So what is the difference between living inside and outside Tibet?
At least the Chinese are far more unabashed about their human rights violations. They know they dont have freedom of speech. They know they dont have freedom of expression. They know they dont have freedom of worship. All this is very clear and the Chinese do not deny it, nor protest against it.
But the Tibetans claim they have democracy. They claim they have freedom of speech, expression and worship. I dont know what is worse - the person who knows they give no freedom and the population are apathetic towards it, or the person who pretends to give it and the population who accept this second rate freedom.
A very clear indication that the Tibetan government in exile is not ready for democracy can also be seen in their forced closure of Mang-tso the only independent Tibetan newspaper, in 1996. That in itself speaks volumes – “mang-tso” means democracy. The newspaper was started in 1990 and was did well to pave the way for Tibetans to open up their minds to freedom of expression. Mang-tso published translations of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and George Orwell’s Animal Farm to give the Tibetans a reflection of their on situation. The Tibetan-government-in-exile was never completely at least with Mong-tso’s publications.
When the newspaper criticized the Tibetan government for not doing its job to protect the Dalai Lama from the bad press His Holiness was receiving as the result of his association with the leader of the Japanese Aum sect, Shoko Azahara, it provoked the ire of the CTA. The newspaper also exposed a minister of the Kashag, forcing him to resign after he ran up a 70Million Rupee bill in opening Tibetans offices across the globe including places like places like Moscow, Canberra, Geneva, Budapest and Paris.
Of course Mang-tso has forced to close soon after. Not exactly a democracy if the Tibetan government finds criticism of their grave errors to be intolerable.
With cases like this, oftentimes I think the Tibetans are NOT ready for a real and open democracy. They are defensive, narrow-minded and refuse to consider the world at large when you KNOW that if they did so, it could only benefit their cause. Its almost as if the truth is too painful for them to bear, because deep down they know that if they compared the Tibetan situation against the global environment, they will realise there will never be a free Tibet.
As much as they accuse the Chinese of censorship and human rights abuses, the Tibetans readily overlook their own violation of human rights and even whitewash it with claims that such abuses are for the greater good of Tibetan freedom.
What a load of hogwash.
And recently, we see how the CTA has been implicated in the Radio Free Asia scandal by firing without cause, a long serving Director who refused to toe the government line and allow RFA to be part of the propaganda machinery in support of the unpopular CTA’s Middle Way approach with China. This act alone prompted a long-time supported of the Tibetan cause, US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher to call into question the integrity of certain members of the CTA.
I hope more people have the same realisations as Dana Rohrabacher about the Tibetan government, because thats one way for Dorje Shugden to be free...we need to continuously and consistently point out the hypocrisy, double standards and total lack of integrity from the Central Tibetan Administration. Theres no other way out for us, is there?
