Dalai Lama:for better or for worse

Jim (Professor 's name (Subject

13 April 2008

The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Dispute : a Shadow Over the Olympics

Introduction

China 's hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympic is being touted as its coming-out party as a world power . It underlines China 's growing diplomatic influence and its increasing role as a major player in the global economy . Never mind China 's dismal human rights record , long a subject of censure from much of the international community . In awarding the hosting of the Olympic games to China , organizers believed here

was a chance for it to improve its human rights policies and align them more to world standards . Perhaps these organizers were being overly optimistic or just plain napve , but events of the past weeks have shown that this is not going to be so . China dominates headlines these days not so much because of its preparations for the Games but for its brutal crackdown of violent protests staged by Tibetans against Chinese rule that began in early March . Outside of China , a public relations embarrassment was also dealt the country when exiled Tibetans and their supporters disrupted the relay of the Olympic torch and held rallies along its route from Athens to Paris , London , and San Francisco , with possibilities of more rallies in other cities where the torch will be passing through on its way to Beijing

Not surprisingly , China lays the blame for all the turmoil and embarrassment squarely on the Dalai Lama , the spiritual leader of some six million Tibetans and head of its government-in-exile . And not surprisingly , the Dalai Lama remains the central figure in this conflict that has been playing out for the past 50 years or so , a polarizing figure that is revered and loved by one side and vilified and maligned by the other . Even as the Dalai Lama continues to be a rallying point for the cause of a free Tibet , Tibetans and their supporters have been quick to recognize the value of the Beijing Olympics and use it as a platform to dramatize the struggle for independence of the Tibetan people . While China is banking on the Olympics to showcase its emergence as a world power , Tibetans and their supporters are co-opting it as an arena to wage their campaign for a free Tibet . The confrontation between these two agendas may be inevitable but how it unfolds may very well be determined not just by the two protagonists but by the Dalai Lama as well

Two Views of a Shared History

In his book The Story of Tibet he co-authored with the Dalai Lama journalist Thomas Laird wrote how geographic neighbors China and Tibet shared a history dating back to ancient times . Each side , however , has its own version of it that is anchored on their respective national identities (Powers 4

Tibetan history generally construct a narrative in which China played at most a peripheral role until the mid-20th century , while China sources paint a picture of Tibet in which...