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Report From Lhasa

Someone I know who has just returned from Lhasa sent this to me. It is deeply troubling. . Report from Lhasa: February 18, 2012 I have just returned from Lhasa. Tibetans are disappearing; everyone is terrified about the bloodshed which seems inevitable. Lhasa consists of approximately 1.2 million Chinese and approximately 200,000 Tibetans. The majority …

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Resistance Not Despair

This piece by our trusty web-chowkidar provides a whole new and illuminating perspective on the 17 self-immolations in Tibet. Check it out on this link: http://www.rangzen.net/2012/01/28/beacons-of-resistance-not-desperate-acts/

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Dr. Pemba la – In Memoriam

For a traumatized and disoriented refugee community, just having a role model like Dr. Pemba la, who scored first in the Royal College of Surgeons exams in London, was a comforting reassurance that we would be able to cope with and even succeed in an alien and modern world.

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Self-Immolation and Buddhism

The deed of the thirteen self-immolators is not only Buddhist in an unquestionably absolute sense, but furthermore comes from a within a heroic and action-oriented tradition of Buddhism. Some scholars have viewed this approach as truer to the original teachings of the historical Buddha…

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Shakabpa and the Awakening of Tibetan History

Shakabpa’s history can be read not merely as a record of the past but as a powerful revolutionary document, that even now, twenty-two years after the author’s death, is deeply disturbing to Beijing, and which frustrates and confounds those Tibetans attempting a final handover of Tibetan sovereignty to China.

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Igniting the Embers of Independence

Just this year, in Tibet, starting twelve days after the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, we have had eight self-immolations – so far. And there are unsettling rumors of more to come. The latest happened after I had actually finished writing this post and late last night …