by John Avedon
Tibet:
Today and Tomorrow
JA: Could you describe current conditions in Tibet, as far as you are aware of them?
DL: Each day the labor period is ten or twelve hours, sometimes fourteen. Therefore, the Tibetans say there are only three things to see. In the morning you see the stars, during the day the locks on the houses, and at night, returning from work, the moon. After work they must remain another two or three hours at political meetings, accusing one another and engaging in so-called class struggle—forced by the Chinese to create problems. From school-going age to the age of seventy, eighty, ninety, people must work. Recently, a Tibetan from Dharamsala secretly went to his native home in western Tibet. According to him, when he came to visit his own mother, who was about seventy, she had no time to see him. “Why don’t you take a few days off so that we can be together?” he asked. His mother replied that she couldn’t because she would lose work points. Without points, she would not eat. Where his mother was working, he also saw people in their eighties and nineties working. This is so the Chinese can take grain for many different purposes.
JA: In terms of the overall environment, how much restriction is there on freedom of speech?
DL: To speak out in public is very difficult. Though there is some leniency nowadays, many Tibetans feel that this recent liberalization is another trick, like the One Hundred Flowers Movement. At that time, everywhere, including Tibet, the Chinese government encouraged people to express their own thoughts. Actually, this was just a means on the part of the government to discover who the so-called main reactionaries were. During the short period it lasted, they marked down the names of everyone who spoke up. Then the movement concluded, and under the name of another popular movement or policy, they gathered up all the people they had identified. That is their practice. So you see, freedom of speech is very strict, limited. Recently, there have been quite a number of posters put up in Lhasa. The extent of liberalization that is now taking place in China, though, has not come to Tibet.
JA: Is the country very much an armed camp? After thirty years, is it still occupied by Chinese troops?
DL: Practically wherever there is a Tibetan population, there also is a big Chinese military camp. In the border area, it is understandable to have large military camps, but inside, if things were quite normal, then why would it be necessary to station large numbers of soldiers everywhere? In Lhasa alone, the Han military and civilian population is more than the Tibetan population.
JA: Is there a large prison system? Are there many political prisoners?
DL: Yes. Near Lhasa, northeast of the city, there is one large prison camp which right now has at least two thousand fresh prisoners. They come from a remote part of Tibet and were arrested as a result of having taken part in a revolt, an uprising. Most of these prisoners are young people. According to one very recent source of information, the torture and hardship being carried out on the Tibetans in that camp is so great that the people who have told us this find it difficult to talk about. It is too upsetting. This is just one camp. In other places there are still prisoners.
JA: What is your knowledge of the Tibetan underground? Is it constituted in separate movements?
DL: Among the youth, the underground and nationalistic feeling is quite strong. It is really remarkable. It seems that there are organizations; but in terms of numbers and this sort of thing, it is hard to say, and also there is not much value in doing so. Actual physical resistance, fighting, is quite rare. It is too difficult. As I mentioned, the Chinese fully control the country. However, they are always moving about in groups or convoys because of the danger of Tibetans attacking them. Occasionally, there is sabotage.
Now I will tell you about food. Animal husbandry has greatly increased as well as food production, but any real benefit for our people is very limited. In the last year or two, the food conditions around Lhasa have become a little better, but around the countryside, it is very poor. During the past eighteen years or so the people were half hungry all the time.
JA: Has that increased disease and infant mortality?
DL: Oh, yes. Many people, just because they couldn’t get any butter—a staple of their diet from childhood—developed serious stomach ailments. They would swell up with gas. Their faces would become bloated, and many died. People are forced to eat just whatever wild vegetables they can find. Also, as I mentioned, the Chinese take increasing amounts of grain under different excuses or names. They say, “For love of your government, you must contribute more grain to it.” That is one tax. Another one requires that more grain be sold to the government. The fee that the people are supposed to receive in payment is to be collected at the bank, but usually they never get this money. Then the Chinese take grain to prepare for the Third World War. In the past, they said this was inevitable due to American imperialism, now it is supposed to come as a result of Soviet revisionism. In any case, according to the Chinese, there will be a Third World War. So they tell Tibetans that preparation for this war is highly necessary, and then they take another portion of grain. As a result of all this, the quantity of grain that should last thirty days lasts only twenty. Generally, Tibetans have quite big stomachs. They are used to eating well. If the people really ate to fill their stomachs, the grain wouldn’t last more than twenty or twenty-five days. In order to make up for the lack of rations, they often brew a very light soup to stretch it to the end of the month. In one way they are developing good eating habits. They certainly won’t get fat. (laughter)
Now another point. Tibetans drink tea that is thickly brewed with butter, but the ration of butter given out is very small, completely insufficient to make ordinary butter tea. Therefore, they put a tiny portion of butter, a pinch, in the cup. Also, as you might know, Tibetans are big meat eaters. We are very fond of it. In the past, meat was always available. Now, they can only get meat on Tibetan New Years and the first of October, the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. So, on only two or three occasions a year do they get meat. In some places, like Kham,12 it is even worse. One man from that area, who usually lives in Peking, had one of his children visit his birthplace. According to what he said to someone, who in turn told me, that place had plenty of meat in the past. Now, the father is a Communist, a Tibetan Communist. The son stayed there one year. During the entire year he didn’t see one piece of meat. This is the son of a party member. The father had already joined the Chinese Communist Party in the early 1930s. Until 1957 he was one of the main Tibetan Communists who were working with the Chinese. This person is one of my best friends. In 1954 to 1955, when I was in Peking, most of the time when I met Mao Zedong and other Chinese dignitaries this person was my interpreter. I trusted him. Though he was a Communist, he was a patriotic Tibetan. He was supposed to remain in Tibet permanently, but one day he came to see me. He told me that he had received a telegram from Peking saying that he was to immediately return there. After some time the main Chinese representative stationed in Tibet told me at a meeting that this person was a very bad element: nasty, narrow, and nationalistic. He committed many crimes—such as trying to establish a Tibetan Communist Party. “Now he will never come back,” he said. So he disappeared in ’57. For the past twenty-three years, I have been worried about him. Just a short time ago, though, I was told that he is in Peking. That is his story.
Now education. In central Tibet, two or three years back, we heard on Radio Lhasa propaganda that there were more than three thousand primary schools and a few middle schools. Recently, the Chinese said that there are six thousand primary schools in central Tibet. No doubt there are several thousand. The real standard of education, though, is very, very low. This is obvious. In China, itself, the standard of education is not very high. In the past two or three decades there has been more emphasis on ideology than on education. So you see, with minorities like the Tibetans, there is no question that the standard of education is low. Furthermore, the Chinese place major emphasis on learning Chinese rath
er than Tibetan. Tibetan is taught, but primarily Chinese. The period of real study is very brief. Mainly the children are forced to labor, killing mosquitoes and rats. They are sent out after just a short study period, and the rest of the time they are used as workers. The food conditions for school boys and girls are also bad. In many cases, particularly in rural areas, they are made to bring their food from home, where it is very scarce. Now in Lhasa, in a certain middle school, there are Chinese children. This is the type of place where it is supposed to be better, but here the food for Tibetan and Chinese children is separate. There are two categories: one is called bread eaters, the other, rice eaters. The Chinese belong to the rice eaters kitchen, the Tibetans to the other. The quality of the food of the rice eaters is very good, certainly better than that of the bread eaters. In the morning, the Chinese children get hot water to wash their faces with, the Tibetans, cold. This I have heard directly from a teacher who taught in that school for three years and escaped to India. She told me this story. Among the teachers, again the Tibetans get less pay, the Chinese, more. Near Lhasa—in a school east of it—the Tibetan students have been getting stale or rotten food for the past few years. Due to that food, most of the students got very sick. Many of them have said that they never want to be born again in such a place. Also, during the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese attempted to restructure all of Tibetan grammar. They made some really stupid changes. Most often, what they wrote is absolutely unintelligible.
Now health. There are many clinics. There are also the famous barefoot doctors. One good thing is that the Chinese respect traditional Tibetan medicine. They have actually built factories to make Tibetan medicine—one near Shigatse, one in the Khombo area in southeastern Tibet by the Indian border. They have also pursued some serious research in Tibetan medicine. This is very good, but the actual health conditions among the masses are different. The real benefit they get from these health centers is very little. Not much. There are clear indications of this. For instance, when someone enters a hospital, they are told that they need a blood test. Under the name of a blood test the Chinese take one, two, three large bottles of blood. Once the person leaves the clinic, he or she gets no medication or treatment. Perhaps one day they are free not to work and on some occasions, they will get a single egg. This is the situation. A group of foreign journalists visited Tibet recently and noticed how poor the health of the children in Lhasa is. Lhasa is supposed to be the best place in the whole country.
Communications. There are many good roads, a few airfields, some buses, some Russian-made jeeps, and some Japanese Toyotas; but mostly these are used by Chinese civilian and military officials—or certain Tibetans who are authorized to use them. The people—our people—are still walking wherever they have to go, using their legs. Perhaps because the roads are better now, there is less wear on their shoes. (laughter) There are serious restrictions as well. There is no question that one cannot go from village to village. Lhasa, itself, is divided into four sections. Without permission, a person in the southern section cannot go to the northern part. Now recently this sort of restriction has slightly eased. It seems a little change is occurring. Still, we are not at all satisfied. Also you might know that they have just changed the head of the so-called Tibetan Autonomous Region, the leader. The new person is a Tibetan, which the Chinese make a big point of for propaganda purposes. This person is called Tien Bao by the Chinese; in Tibetan, Sangay Yeshi. His choice is supposed to show the world that the leadership is in the hands of the Tibetans. Actually, I knew this person very well. He is a very good man, a very nice man, but unfortunately, when we spoke we needed an interpreter. He didn’t speak Tibetan. When he was a very small boy, he was taken by the Red Army during their Long March. He was from then on completely cut off from any contact with Tibetans. His wife is Chinese. He spent his entire life in the Red Army. Personally, he is very nice, very simple, kindhearted, humble. When you speak Tibetan to him, he would even feel embarrassed and blush.
JA: Perhaps we can talk a bit about the situation in India. Since coming into exile, you’ve made a concerted effort to establish a more representative, democratic form of government than in the past. What do you feel is the correct balance between majority decision and your particular right as Dalai Lama to choose what is best for your people?
DL: They work together. Though there are some complaints, some criticism, it is all right. Criticism is a healthy sign. Without it, like the Chinese—in the mouth, no criticism, but in the heart, criticism—it is no good. Open, outspoken criticism is very good. Generally, in the past twenty years, we have managed quite well. There are deputies who are elected by the people. The final approval of them is mine. The People’s Deputies, who are elected in exile, only have authority from those in exile. The Dalai Lama, however, is someone who can represent all six million Tibetans. So you see, my approval of them is beneficial. It gives weight or authority to them. Also, the overall situation is that it is not our own country we are living in. It is a very, very peculiar circumstance. Under these conditions we must take every precaution. Now in most cases, if there are several candidates, I approve those who have had the highest votes. Suppose, however, there is a person who I feel cannot correctly handle the responsibility. I then have the authority to choose someone else. So far, I think this system has worked very well. It, itself, has gone through several changes. Now, besides the actual participation of the People’s Deputies in the work of governing, the process of electing them—voting itself—is training for our people. How to select; how to vote. Sometimes they become very confused. (laughter) This is important though. In the future we must go this way. In some cases, because this is new to the Tibetans, they mark the wrong name; they don’t know who to choose (laughter), and so on, but it is very important to learn.
JA: What do you imagine as the ideal form of government for Tibet’s future?
DL: That is difficult to say. At least in India we have prepared some sort of situation for the future of Tibet according to our own draft constitution. We practice according to that as much as we can in a foreign land. In the future, from our side, we will be making some kind of presentation to our people inside. Now you see, we will discuss it, but the ultimate decision will be made by the Tibetans who are inside and have been for the last twenty years—whenever that time comes. Those people have really suffered. At least we are quite free, but they have really suffered. All credit goes to them. Because of their determination, we are inspired to work. For various reasons, the ultimate decision lies in their hands, not mine. Whatever governmental and economic system we will adopt will be entirely up to them. The Tibetan people, the younger Tibetans in particular, have gone through tremendous difficulties and have gained good experience. I am quite sure they will take the right path.
JA: I know it is hard to say at this point, but under what conditions would you go back to Tibet?
DL: My general explanation—our general aim—is that the people be happy. Now that is the main point. In detail, I don’t want to say at the moment—and it is difficult to say. At the moment there is no question of returning. First, things must change inside; then, we’ll see.
JA: What do you specifically mean by happiness of the people?
DL: For the last thirty years, irrespective of the difference in classes, whether people are rich or poor, old or young, the majority have not been happy or satisfied. So first, this must be changed. So it is quite difficult.…
JA: Can you define the difference between an autonomous Tibet and an independent Tibet?
DL: I’ll just repeat that the main objective is the happiness of our people, the maximum benefit for our people. Besides that, I’m not going to say any particular word. More time should pass, then we will see.
JA: Why at this particular time, after twenty-one years of no official contact, has the Tibetan government in exile sent a delegation to visit Tibet?
DL: Because of the Chinese attitude. Their overall attitude has changed, so we took th
is opportunity to send a delegation for our own people to look.
JA: Some Tibetans still hope to take their country back by force. Can violence and religious views ever work together?
DL: They can be combined. It depends on the motivation and the result. With a good motivation and result, and if under the circumstances there is no other alternative, then violence is permissible.
JA: Can you elaborate?
DL: A good motive means doing it for the benefit of the majority of the people. But now, here you see, regarding the Tibetan question, a military movement would be suicidal.
JA: Because of the overwhelming strength of the Chinese?
DL: Oh, yes.
JA: So you would discourage others from this stand?
DL: Sometimes a militant attitude or idea is helpful to maintain morale. In certain ways this idea is helpful, but I don’t think it is feasible to actually take part in a military movement.
JA: Now that you have toured America, do you see any scope for making more public appearances than in the past?
DL: I don’t know. I haven’t given any thought to it. These days, I’ve intensified studying my own Buddhist philosophy … not world politics. (laughter) Naturally, as a result of my visit, more Americans will be interested in the Tibetan affair. Perhaps the papers in America might take up the Tibetan issue a little more. The more people who know the true situation in Tibet, the more difficult it will be for the Chinese to ignore the awareness of the world’s people. Although there may not be any immediate or direct result, it will have this benefit in the long run.
JA: Many people have expressed a desire for you, as a religious leader, to contribute a spiritual perspective to the global situation. If you felt that people could benefit, would you pursue it?
DL: If it’s going to be of any benefit, certainly—most definitely. I would be willing to contribute as much as I can. I have had this intention for many years as a Buddhist monk. It’s not something special, particularly for someone who practices bodhichitta—altruism, compassion. Naturally, that feeling is there. In the future, also, anything I can contribute to the whole of mankind, as a human being, as a person who practices these things as a duty, a responsibility, of course I would.
