LOSAR TASHI DELEK! ལོ་གསར་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས། BOD GYAL-LO! བོད་རྒྱལ་ལོ།

This is a special Happy New Year greeting to my Tibetan friends in the U.S., Europe, India, Nepal, and elsewhere. I’ve been remiss because I feel I’ve lost touch with Tibet and her culture of late. Not that I’m not still translating some dharma texts, not that I’m not aware of the PRC’s continued attempt to crust Tibet and Sinicize her. No, I’ve been focussed on writing about and fighting the encroaching fascism in this country, right down to the state I live in.

The U.S.  may not have quite as notorious a system as the lao gai in China, but we still incarcerate more people per capita than any country in the world, including China. As more detention centers are built across the country, we can only assume that they will replicate conditions not so different from Drapchi, say.

There are extensive reports of abuse ranging from starvation to beatings to sexual assault in many of the ICE concentration camps (let’s call them what they are), but anyone who’s followed the plight of the incarcerated, knows that most prisons in the United States turn a blind eye to the violence faced in any given unit. Sadly, most people on the outside don’t care, very often thinking that “well, they’re in prison; they deserve it” or “it’s not my concern; I’ve got my own problems” and this is disregarding those who are innocent of any crime or just frankly, the lack of understanding that we focus on punishment more than rehabilitation, so a “let them rot” attitude is not unexpected.

Similarly, the apathy with which the world has regarded Tibet continues. In the nineties, it looked as though there might be a chance for real change in Tibet, that the PRC might actually allow Tibet genuine autonomy, but soon enough, we learned that after many “dialogs” between the Central Tibet Administration (CTA) and the Chinese government, chains were being yanked and “the liberation of Tibet” would continue same as ever.

In Kathmandu, I ran into an old Tibetan friend I’d met years before in India. He was now a pretty successful businessman working out of Chengdu. He made no apologies, nor I suppose, should he: to be a Tibetan in Tibet is to be regarded a second-class citizen in your homeland. Leaving Tibet and managing a business in India provides more clout when you go to China and you’re more likely to earn a genuinely decent living and maybe even have some social status. Also, Chengdu is not Beijing; it’s a, relatively speaking, more liberal city. Nevertheless, you still won’t/can’t/shouldn’t present your Tibetaness. No doubt, you’re already under scrutiny upon entry to China and surely, once you have achieved some degree of success, you face even more state control. Be openly proud of being Tibetan and representatives from the government will be happy to re-educate you. 

A Faustian bargain? For sure. But I find it hard to begrudge people who want to be with their family and earn something like a quality life, returning to a government that doesn’t have your best interests at heart. 

Too many people think that because Tibet isn’t in the news as much as it used to be, that everything is better. This is nonsense.

At the 25th EU-China Summit, “the EU noted that the situation in China has further deteriorated.” Indeed, China has reinforced persecution and clampdown on education in Tibet. Anything indigenous is suspect and removed from curricula; worse, punishment for teaching Tibetan language, music, art, and religion (Buddhism and Bön, and likely, Islam and Christianity) is severe. I recommend reading Human Rights Watch’s Daily Brief from March 10, 2025 for more information, but I want to quote Andre Stroehlein’s brief here:

“Independent civil society — that is, people peacefully organizing themselves around shared interests — simply cannot happen. The Chines government has decimated what little Tibetan civil society remained.

“It shut down Tibetan websites that promote Tibetan language and culture. It essentially forced the use of Mandarin Chinese as the medium of instruction in schools. It closed privately funded schools, even those that followed the government-approved curriculum.

“In “whole-village relocation” programs, authorities have evicted people en masse from their long-established villages to new, government-built and government-managed settlements. Hundreds of thousands more were moved under “individual household relocation” schemes.

“Taken together, these repressive policies seem intended to hollow out and erase Tibetans’ unique culture, language, and identity.”

Strohleim notes that what can be done is for governments “that profess their support for human rights should step up their assistance to Tibetan groups worldwide.” He emphasizes groups that document human rights abuses in Tibet and those that are trying to preserve Tibetan identity and culture.

On an individual level, he recommends each of us continue talking about Tibet. As he notes, “As with other crimes committed by China’s authorities, like crimes against humanity in Xinjiang or the Tiananmen Massacre, the Chinese government wants the world to ignore and forget its abuses in Tibet.” Again, please read his brief as it has links to more articles and information.

Of course, I’m not inured to the claim that it is increasingly rich that Americans will care so much about Tibet while there own country is on fire or call out China for its abuses while our government is, now more than ever, growing toe to toe to China in terms of leveling those abuse on its own citizens and treating immigrants and minorities with similar egregiously criminal tactics.

That said, we aren’t quite there. Plus, we are seeing popular, legislative, and even judicial pushback against the regime. Thus far, we haven’t had a Cultural Revolution or a Krystalnacht just yet. As long as people remain uncooked and angry enough to fight the regime, the U.S. will continue to differ from the People’s Republic of China.

That we - and others around the world - can still care and offer our support for Tibet, her people, and her culture, ensures we are still quite a distance from the PRC. 

Nevertheless, my energy has been siphoned off into dealing with the problems in our backyard. This does not mean that Tibet is ever far from my heart. Her people  and her culture have given me great benefit as a human being over these past four decades  and I will never not support her. 

Bod gyal-lo!

Resources 

Human Rights Watch

https://www.hrw.org/sitesearch?search=Tibet

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights[a] (OHCHR): https://www.ohchr.org/en/search?query=Tibet+

International Campaign for Tibet: https://savetibet.org

Students for Free Tibet: https://studentsforafreetibet.org

Resources for this post:

Paul, Ankita. EU Condemns China's Expanding Human Rights Violations in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong. Republic. https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/eu-condemns-china-s-expanding-human-rights-violations-in-xinjiang-tibet-hong-kong. 10 December 2025. Retrieved February 13, 2026.

Stroehlein, Andrew. Daily Brief, March 10, 2025. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights/2025/03/10. Retrieved February 13, 2026.

Türk, Volker. “Turbulence and unpredictability” amid growing conflict and in divided societies, Türk tells Human Rights Council (statement delivered at the 58th session of the Human Rights Council). https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2025/03/turbulence-and-unpredictability-amid-growing-conflict-and-divided. UN Office  of the High Commissioner for Rights. 3 March 2025. Retrieved February 13, 2026.

Earlier entries:

Sixty Years: Language Matters

http://dimensionallybarrett.blogspot.com/2019/02/sixty-years-language-matters.html?m=1

Sixty Years: From Independence to Invasion

http://dimensionallybarrett.blogspot.com/2019/03/sixty-years-from-independence-to.html?m=1

Happy Birthday, Your Holiness

http://dimensionallybarrett.blogspot.com/2021/07/happy-birthday-your-holiness.html?m=1