On Friday we had another trip to Mcleod Ganj. We first went to visit the Tibet Museum which holds an exhibit about the 1951 Chinese invasion into Tibet and the military occupation that followed.
Originally entering on the basis of helping the Tibetan people, the Chinese forces assured the people of Tibet that they would leave after they had helped them advance as a society. It quickly became apparent to many Tibetans that the Chinese were only attempting to gain their trust as they gathered lists of the aristocrats of each village and recorded the wealth and property of each citizen. The degradation of religious figures such as rinpoches, recognized incarnations of previous teachers, lamas and the monastic community in general acted as a clear signal to the people that the Chinese presence was not benevolent.
-This is the shirt of one prisoner brought out of a Chinese prison for Tibetan dissidents. The stains, of course, are blood.-
Eventually the military presence was quite large in many regions of Tibet, the foremost being Kham, and any resistance to the Chinese forces began to evoke extreme retribution. People would be thrown into trucks, taken away to prison camps, put into forced labor, interrogated and tortured. Public humiliation sessions called thamzings were held in which those close to the victims, either friends, family, or family servants, were forced to verbally and physically abuse the person in front of the town as an example of what happens to those who resist Mao’s communist regime. If they refused, military officials would take their place, beating the thamzing victims who would be kneeling in a row, arms tied behind their back, facing the crowd. It was not uncommon for people to perish during these sessions, or for a persistent resistor to suffer more than one.
-This is a statue in the museum done by a renowned Tibetan artist, whose name of course I cannot remember. It's an almost cartoonish depiction but is an expression of the deep anguish and terrible suffering of the Tibetan people during the Chinese occupation, but particularly the Cultural Revolution from 1966-1979. During this period the Chinese government attempted to destroy the "4 Olds:" Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. This meant that Buddhism was especially targeted as it was the strongest force tying many of the Tibetans together and many resistance movements were begun and headed by monastics.-
We met such a woman in Mcleod who now lives in the reception center for Tibetan refugees. Her name is Ama Adhe Tapontsang.
“Ama” means mother and everyone, including the Dalai Lama, calls her by this name out of respect and due to her intense motherly energy. There is a book entitled “The Voice that Remembers: The Heroic Story of a Woman's Fight to Free Tibet,” in which her story, as she remembers it, is translated to English. When we met her we each presented her with a “katak,” the traditional white scarf given in Tibetan culture as a sign of happy greetings, as well as protection. She returned each one to us, placing them around our neck, as is often the custom, and then embraced us in what was the most genuine hug I have ever received from someone who I’ve never met. She is an intensely warm spirited person and happily receives everyone. She speaks no English so we had Pasang-la translate for us as she told us some of her story which we had read before seeing her, and then when we asked questions following. She is now in her seventies, but is still in her heart, an activist for the Tibetan cause. She was one of many people arrested by the Chinese military forces for resistance to the regime because of the help she provided to the men of her village acting as a guerrilla resistance to the Chinese. When the military forces started to confiscate all items of wealth and all weapons from the people, it became painfully clear to all those who did not yet believe, that the Chinese were not there to help the people but to integrate them into the “united motherland.”
When Ama Adhe was arrested, she was one of 300 women who were taken and imprisoned and interrogated. Interrogations were sessions of information withdrawal in which any method of torture was a possibility, the most painful of which for me to read about was the forced insertion of fine bamboo stalk underneath the fingernails--still now it makes me uneasy. Ama-la recounted to us that after a short time in prison and many interrogations, she was one of 3 women remaining alive from the original 300, something they had accomplished only because they were assigned to the duty of feeding the pigs and were able to sneak food at rare occasions. One of the main causes of death was starvation, as they were given only a watery kind of porridge three times a day.
Her story is a very long one, and one better understood through reading her book. She was imprisoned for 27 years, starting at age 27, and went in and out of prison because as soon as she would be released she would continue in her resistance to the Chinese forces. To call her a warrior would seem lacking. However, now she stays in the reception center, helping those Tibetans who are able to get over the border and into India as they recover and deal with integration into a new and foreign society. She plans to travel to Australia soon to seek support for the Tibetan cause. She has been one of the most powerful encounters that we have had and I imagine that will remain the case throughout my experience here, and certainly we hope to see her again when we move up to Mcleod in several weeks.
While this exhaustive account may have you ready to quit reading, our day wasn’t over. We next went to Gu Chu Sum, the organization for ex-political prisoners from Tibet. We met the president of the organization who was once himself a prisoner as well, but he spoke more on the current situation in the Tibetan region inside China. The organization helps those released prisoners find a means for existence in a new and unfamiliar place, especially because many suffer from physical injury or persistent health conditions resulting from their imprisonment. The man we spoke with emanated intensity, in stark contrast to Ama Adhe. He spoke of how monks, protesters, and political dissidents are imprisoned without question. Monks are not allowed to return to their monasteries after imprisonment because the government controls them, and employment, property ownership, or basically anything is inhibited by the government for those released. Because of this, they seek to leave and come to India. Because of the uprising in Tibet in 2008 the Chinese government has tightened its grip on the region and has been issuing many life sentences for those being arrested. They’ve also tightened the borders, and far less refugees have been able to get out in the past two years than previously.
Now in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) if one wants to join a monastery they have to sign a document declaring that they support the communist regime, that Taiwan and Tibet are inseparable parts of China, and that they denounce the Dalai Lama and his followers and they will work against him. For all Tibetans, this is an unimaginable declaration as the Dalai Lama represents for them the most important religious and political figure in existence.
In actuality, the Dalai Lama no longer holds political power, because although he was put in control of the state during the 1950s, and represented the Tibetan government in exile, he has slowly eliminated his control over political matters. He had still control over two seats of parliament, with which he could assign anyone but has recently given that power up as well, finding that it is better if they all be elected by the people. The Tibetan government is now headed by a prime minister, elected by the citizens in exile, and a parliament of sorts exists. For most Tibetans, the Dalai Lama still represents the head of the Tibetan government, but this is now no longer the case. Still of course he remains the most influential figure in their society, and of course has proved influential in many international settings as well.
These last three are just some photos, the last two being from our last trip to Mcleod, including the dogs that populate the streets. They are surprisingly friendly and happy animals.
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