During the Dalai Lama’s recent visit to the United States he met a group of Tibetan students in Madison, Wisconsin. One of them asked a question that, to put it mildly, made him very upset. The student stumbled over his words and was generally so awkward that it seemed to me he had been set-up …
Lhasa, Eternal City (2)
1980-2000 The next phase of Communist China’s destruction of Lhasa came innocuously enough with Deng Xiaoping’s “Liberalization”, starting from the turn of the eighties. In the groundbreaking cartographic study published by the Amnye Machen Institute, Map and Index of Lhasa City by Christophe Besuchet, a more specific time period is provided in the introduction. “The …
Lhasa, Eternal City (1)
. Tsering Woeser-la’s recent clarion call ““Our Lhasa is on the Verge of Destruction! Please, Save Lhasa!”, stirred me to undertake this modest history project. I thought it would be worthwhile to provide, as aide mémoire, brief overviews of the different periods in the destruction of the Holy City, which began when the Red Army …
Reading Jn in a Banakshol Teahouse
. Its not every day that you can make both your enemies and your friends happy with the same blog post, but I have something special here that I think will do do the job. It was sent to me by a friend who discovered it on a website in Tibet: Sangdhor.com . My detractors …
Highest Mountains to Lowest Gutters
In a somewhat lame effort to divert attention away from the widening discussions on the Dharamshala instigated attacks on TYC and Chushigangdruk, some on the religious right have been circulating this photograph of me taken at Camp Hale, Colorado in 2010, where a commemorative plaque was being dedicated to the memory of the 300 Tibetan …
The Strange Case of The Counterfeit Khampas
1974 PRC propaganda photograph of “Khampa” militiaman assisting the PLA . When Andrug Gompo Tashi set up the Chushigangdruk (Four Rivers Six Ranges) in Lhoka in the summer of ‘58, and commenced resistance operations, Chinese garrisons and outpost in those areas were taken by surprise. Fearing that the local population might join or support Chushigangdruk, …
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“Tibet’s Next Incarnation?”
. CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS, CONFUSION AND CONSPIRACIES AT THE CENTRAL TIBETAN ADMINISTRATION For some months now, large-scale protests and violent street battles have been raging throughout Cairo and other major cities of Egypt. Thousands of Egyptian liberals and secularists have come out on the streets to protest what they called President Mohamed Morsi’s “power-grab”, after he …
New RFA Director
Although I haven’t written anything for a while, a few of you readers have been keeping up a small discussion on the RFA issue on the comment section of my previous blogs. Tenzin Tethong’s appointment as RFA director has received favorable comments from many of you who have have pointed out that he is probably …
A Brief Overview of Events That Led to the 13th Dalai Lama’s Proclamation of Tibetan Independence
At the request of the organizers of the TIBETAN INDEPENDENCE DAY celebration at New York City, on the 13 of February 2013, I was asked to give a talk on the background story, as it were, of the events and personalities that contributed to the creation of an independent Tibet in 1913. JN. The profound …
To Celebrate or Not To Celebrate?
That is the question. “The exile Tibetan administration has called for a boycott of festive celebrations during Losar.” Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay, has requested all Tibetans to forgo the usual new year festivities this year, given the “continuing tragic situation” in Tibet, and instead hold prayers and perform religious rituals. But there is another point …
