Tibet has long captured the imagination of Westerners. In fact, the very first paperback ever published, "Lost Horizon" by James Hilton, was about the mystical, hidden kingdom of "Shangri-La," nestled in the Himalayas north of India and populated by enlightened and incredibly long-lived citizens. This romantic vision of Tibet -- prayer flags flapping in the rarefied mountain air, monks chanting in the early morning, peasants churning yak butter -- has enough basis in reality to perhaps justify itself. But those elements that are grounded in reality are slipping away as the Chinese empire proceeds toward a total obliteration of Tibetan culture.
George Orwell wrote: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." This "vision of the future" could be said to apply to the present day, regarding China and Tibet. Anywhere from 140 (Tibetan Government-in-Exile estimate) to 15 (People's Republic of China estimate) people died in the riots that rocked Lhasa and other Tibetan cities last week. The Dalai Lama strongly condemned violence on the part of both Tibetan protestors and Chinese authorities, going so far as to threaten to resign his post as leader of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. But Chinese officials still insisted on blaming him and "his clique" for the riots, just as strongly as they insist on imprisoning anyone caught with a picture of the Lama.
The Chinese have long been able to quietly get away with cultural genocide. By building a high-speed rail into Lhasa, they have managed to flood Tibet with Han Chinese (the ethnic group that makes up the majority of China's population). Today, only one third of Lhasa's population is actually Tibetan. Potala Palace, the once proud spiritual and political center of Tibet, is now mockingly surrounded by an amusement park.
In possibly the most insidious aspect of its program, the Chinese government has determined to send the Tibetan language the way of ancient Greek and Latin. Destroying its language would be tantamount to destroying Tibet; as Orwell knew, when you control the language, you control everything. The Tibetans' reaction to this systematic murder of their culture -- whether they are living in Tibet or are numbered among those exiled -- has been a stoic endurance and a generally firm dedication to nonviolence.
But despite the Dalai Lama's call for peace, the Tibetan rioters succeeded in gaining something they hadn't seen for years -- an audience. Although the Tibetan cause poses obvious attractions to hipsters and idealists, it isn't exactly foremost in the thoughts of the average man on the street. The Palestinian cause, for example, generates a lot more emotions and a lot more fundraising. Suicide bombers are hard to ignore, and they demand an audience most fiercely. And even though they probably won't get you an actual nation, they will certainly get you an audience and cause funds and support to pour in from all corners of the globe. For years, Tibet was ravaged with nary a peep from the world's governments or the international media, but when the rioters finally had enough, the television cameras suddenly swiveled and focused.
One needs to question what sort of practical advantage the Chinese gain from oppressing Tibet. I think the answer is a simple one. Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism are beautiful. They are beautiful, and they run counter to the Chinese government's vision of the future: a quasi-capitalist, authoritarian state in which all citizens are just cogs in the machine, wheels within wheels -- an eternal boot in the face. China has to keep Tibet down, because if they did not, too much beauty would be accumulating at the gates, biding its time for an easy entrance.
Luckily, I think that the Chinese government is doomed to failure in this venture, although the political fortunes of Tibet maybe doomed as well. The Chinese may succeed in eviscerating Tibetan culture, but they will not be able to suppress the ideas it fathered forth. As the Lamas of Tibet have long realized, the utopian vision of Shambala, the eternal "Shangri-La", is not something that can exist in the outer world. It is a state of mind. Even now, increasing numbers of Han Chinese -- especially those who immigrated to Tibet -- are embracing Buddhism. Countless Westerners are also finding inspiration in Tibetan Buddhism. Though it may perish politically, the soul of Tibet seems destined to triumph in the wider world.
In the words of the poet Yeats, "All is changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born."
