The Dalai Lama

Perhaps the clarity of the atrocity resonates in the West, where few international disputes seem so cut and dried. The Kosovar Albanians never quite convinced America that they were completely innocent victims, and we're still torn between Israel and Palestine. Tibet, by contrast, is a no-brainer. Here, in a nation nostalgic for the seemingly black-and-white struggles of the comparatively simpler past, the Free Tibet cause has wings.

Wings, at least, among a certain few. The official U.S. position is that Tibet has no real claims to independence. That stance is informed, of course, by concerns over trade with China -- intervening on Tibet's behalf would jeopardize our already fragile relations. It's one of those U.S. policies that are so outrageously unjust that few are motivated to even complain, and another gulf between popular opinion and official rhetoric opens wide.

Then again, liberal-minded types were predisposed toward the Free Tibet movement to begin with. Winning the P.R. war with China is like beating a caveman at chess. Despite China's size, influence and apparent sophistication, its government still concocts propaganda the old-fashioned way: ridiculously. When it comes to garnering the moral support of Americans -- Americans who root for the little guy, who still like movies about hulking, calculating Russians surrendering to the hearty USA -- a nation that doesn't disguise its imperialist roots doesn't have a shot.

Statements leaked from a meeting of government officials in Beijing in the early '90s (and translated by the International Campaign for Tibet) reveal just how anxious and crude China's anti-Tibet propaganda can be:

"We should launch our propaganda in whatever country [the Dalai Lama] goes to ... In the whole period of the 1990s, it will not be possible to eradicate splittist forces, yet it may be possible to divide them and tear them apart ... TV programs for external broadcasting should include programs about Tibet. We should broadcast to Europe and America so that our propaganda can directly reach audiences of the Western countries. With regard to the targets of our propaganda, [we] should do a good job with high-level people, including parliamentarians of relevant countries."

China may appear bumbling, but Tibet vanishes a little more each day. The great improvements China claims to have bequeathed to the Tibetans are, as one would expect, the very instruments that are erasing them. The modernization of society in Tibet has happened via movie theaters, shopping centers and other conveniences that have gradually whitewashed traditional Tibetan culture. It's a way for China to get the thorn out of its side -- change the nature of the thorn.

The government justifies its cultural revision the way it has from the beginning: China is liberating Tibet from itself. An unjust feudalism has been removed, and secular reason is slowly replacing Buddhist mumbo jumbo. The so-called improvements also divert attention from the more direct persecution that continues to occur. Carrying a photo of the Dalai Lama can still land you in jail, and landing in jail can still mean death. Even the environment has suffered tremendously at the hands of the Chinese occupation; logging, hydroelectric projects, waste disposal, unsustainable mining and nuclear proliferation have done severe damage to the Tibetan plateau, according to a recent study by the government in exile.

China's invasion and occupation of Tibet are inextricably linked to any understanding of the Dalai Lama's identity. His homeland's predicament has shoved him into the world spotlight -- and away from the more traditional activities of a monk. As the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, he inherited that school's responsibility for political control of the state. (Other schools, such as the Kagyu and Nyingma, go about Buddhism quite differently and, lacking the structure and polish of the Gelugpas, wouldn't do as well as international diplomats.) The tension with China has demanded that the Dalai Lama focus more on policy than any of his predecessors did. "I do not consider myself anti-China," he has said. "I am helping the two goals the Chinese government is seeking -- stability and unity." Outside Tibet and India, he is often seen more as a political figure than a religious one.

The monk does occasionally emerge, in the West, from behind the diplomat, and the teachings we receive exceed the wisdom of the average politician: "I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend," the Dalai Lama has said. "This gives me a genuine feeling of happiness. It is the practice of compassion."

Had Tibet remained autonomous, the Dalai Lama's governmental duties would have required far less energy, and he would have been free to devote more time to his primary obligations -- teaching and practicing Buddhism. As it is, he wakes up between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. and manages to squeeze six hours of meditation into a day of governing.

In Tibet's 11th hour, the Dalai Lama has to put practice on the back burner now and then. He does all he can to bring money and support to organizations such as the Tibetan Youth Congress, which is struggling to preserve Tibet's heritage. At the same time, he continues to propose meetings with China. But China refuses to meet with him until the government in exile abandons all claims to Tibetan independence.

The situation doesn't look good for Tibet. The Dalai Lama talks about retiring. He has suggested that his successor, the next incarnation of the bodhisattva of compassion, may be found outside Tibet for the first time in history; with 120,000 Tibetans living in exile, that's not inconceivable. Others say there may not be another one at all; a Dalai Lama incarnates himself only when he chooses to.

Other possibilities loom on the horizon: The charismatic 15-year-old head of the Kagyu school, the 17th Karmapa, who made the news early this year when he escaped to India from Tibet, could assume political control if the Dalai Lama names him Tibet's next leader. As the only major Tibetan Buddhist lama whose lineage is acknowledged by China, the Karmapa remains an embarrassment to the Chinese government for as long he stays in India.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama is ever his effervescent self. The man who taught himself English, who collects wristwatches as a hobby, who arranges meetings with physicists whenever possible to hear their explanations of the universe, who shrugs happily at the radical notion of a female Dalai Lama and who waves off those who would call him a "god-king" can still be found giggling, almost daily. China continues to despise him. (With a chuckle, he says that he'd be snatched up immediately if he returned to Tibet, and that the Chinese government would issue a statement saying, "He's resting.") And the West reveres him more and more. As complex as his life looks from the outside, we believe him when he tells us he's just a simple monk. In fact, we're prepared to believe just about everything he says.

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