Rapga Pandatsang. The ROC government. Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. Chushi Gangdruk. One China Principle. CTA.
So, is the world just moving on from China being suspicious at the beginning of the pandemic? Let alone forget that they've become even more offensive militaristically since the pandemic?
No one wants another War. But has China already started the next silent war? China isn’t playing by any rules, they’re making the rules. What’s scary is no one is willing to question them on it. This is what happens when megalomaniacs rule, and by that, I mean Xi Jinping. No longer are we in the era of politicians who pretend to care about the word.
angrytibetangirl reblogged
So, I just read HH’s statement and I’m a little scared. He talked quit a bit about emanation, which leads me to believe he has plans to install either a religious or secular head in the position he occupies right now. But here’s my concern, can someone else really fill in HH’s shoes? They are several centuries DEEP!
The Tibetan people have had a relationship with the Dalai Lama’s since the 5th was installed the spiritual and political head of Tibet by the Mongolians. Tibetans have sustained that devotion and dedication up until now. So what happens when all of a sudden someone who is not the Dalai Lama or his incarnation is installed in his place? It took centuries for the Tibetans to develop the type of devotion HH receives, can you really expect people to have that same type of relationship (again, developed over CENTURIES) to someone completely new? and some one possibly not even a spiritual (secular) leader?
This is SCARING THE CRAP OUT OF ME! I really hope HH is not planning on appointing a young Rinpoche or worse, Lobsang Sangay, in his place because they are virtually “STRANGERS” to the Tibetan people when it comes to the realm of leading both politically and spiritually the Tibetans have only experienced the leadership of the Dalai Lama and especially the 13th and 14th. So anyone stepping into those shoes who is not the Dalai Lama is, for me, a stranger!
Can the Tibetans accept a stranger as their leader over night? I mean WHAT THE HELL, I’m not ready for a STRANGER! I’m sorry but anyone besides HH in HH’s position is a STRANGER no matter what you say…lemme stress, HH has been in this position SINCE THE 17th CENTURY!
I think the Tibetans will try their best to support HH’s wishes but that does not mean confusions won’t rise, giving opportunity to chaos and China will be hovering around like a hungry Hyena. As someone mentioned, it took 15yrs of war the last time something similar happened. After the 6th Dalai Lama’s passing. So what really is the best option? Emphasis: when I say STRANGER, I’m not devaluing any of the potential emanation or worse non spiritual emanation. But, when it comes to filling HH’s shoes, those shoes are several centuries OLD!
I wrote the above post in 2011, right after HHDL resigned from his political role as head of the Tibetan government. With the end of the Lobsang Sangay Sikyongship, we are by now finally able to realize how lucky we have been in having HHDL as our leader for all these years. We are also realizing that no one can ever fill his or his predecessors shoes when it comes to Leading. With HHDL we could afford blind faith. Not the case anymore with vested interests running the elections.
The Dalai Lama himself oked and legitimized the transformation of powers from him to Lobsang Sangay when he was elected in 2011 to lead as Sikyong. It was HHDL who introduced LS in Bodgaya to the Tibetan people and legitimized him as HHDL’s political successor following the elections. Making it possible for LS to begin his job without opposition. Ushering in the 1st elected Sikyong of the Tibetan government, who is also from the Kham background (a platform Lobsang Sangay himself ran his campaign on). Fun fact, Samdong Rinpoche is also Khampa.
How ironic that its the Kham MPs who are now standing in the way of the complete transference of power from the old Sikyong to the new, and stalling the Tibetan government from functioning. Even after the ceremonial ritual, the ritual involving the transference of powers from the old to the new Sikyong took place with HHDL in attendance. They couldn’t just read the Charter properly, taken the proper oath, and debated their issues within the parliament. Instead, they’re busy encouraging insurrection and anarchy. Anarchy against the Tibetan government only works to advantage China, not Rangzen. The dumb, leading the dumb. Loosing the plot completely.
Paging all regionalist...I'm waiting for your nationalism to start kicking in.
When the fuck is CHINA going to be held responsible for this global pandemic?
All these 'live talks' on zoom etc. regarding China by Tib orgs seem pretty pointless. They're only competing for Tibetan views that are busy following Tibetan instagram dramas drummed up by our Tibetan instagram famewhores within the diasporic community. Isn't the whole point of these targeted efforts the world outside the Tibetans? If you're targeting China, shouldn't you have more specific targets like international bodies, state governments, universities? Courting the Tibetan audience seems pointless, cause they're already a convinced audience. It's starting to feel as though Tibetan political advocacy groups are confused as to who the target of their efforts should be.
Slowly loosing the plot.
The #Xi Jinping state is spending lots of $ on media around the world to change the #COVID19 narrative as 'saviors' and 'aid-givers' of needy 1st and 3rd world countries suffering from the virus #China 'gifted' the world.
We are living in the Chinese state given realities beyond Chinese borders. Tibetan political advocacy groups, it’s time to hold China’s feet to the fire, especially when China has done and continues to do this spectacularly in front of the world. Stop getting caught up with Fundraisers!
China unleashed COVID against the world. Now they're busy playing the spin game. Tibetans, where you at? It's your Time. GO!
This has been the year of the “Tibetan Women” platformers
It seems there aren’t enough Tibetan women writers or poets for Tibet related platforms to promote. Or at least that’s what they seem to promote.
It’s always the same 5 women in exile that gets promoted as ‘the face’ of it all. And out of the 5, 4 of them are the usual suspects who have consistently promoted and publicized themselves as such ‘figures’ without actually having produced anything of substance worthy of attention.
Gender issues have become a platform for careerist self-promotion.
It’s all a bit circusy. Parroting the white ‘feminist’ career industrial complex.
angrytibetangirl reblogged
Wana become super famous in our tiny #tibetan diaspora? Open a twitter & FB account
I’ve been realizing more and more that certain Tibetan personalities that would do really well as entertainment personalities on TV such as talk show hosts and so on, enter Tibetan politics in order to become a Super Star in the Tibetan diaspora. It makes sense, we don’t have a country to have a diverse range of TV shows that these spotlight hungry personalities can be on. We’d first need a free country for that opportunity to arise for such personalities. But in the meantime there’s no way of getting attention outside of the Tibetan political scene. Just ask our Tibetan pop and film stars, more people know political personalities than them.
But it’s alarming that we have such attention loving performers not in theater but in politics.
All it takes these days to become a Tibetan superstar in our Tibetan scene is to open a Facebook and a twitter account, and maybe create hashtags or take from trending ones and memes and obsessively post on Tibet. No matter how ill informed. Not saying social media activism is useless, there are a few Tibetans who know how to use it to highlight Tibet and not so much themselves. But having these specific attention loving people represent us to the outside world while many of them seem so uninformed on the Tibet situation either outside or inside Tibet erks me out a lot.
For ones id like to see community members champion those who are actually slaving away behind the scenes building and informing community and never asking for validation. Instead, we get swept up by these types, some of whom have no record of being active on the ground but are good at hastaging it, posting the most on Tibet and are not always entirely informed, yet love being the voice. I judge people on their actual involvement with actual work on the grounds.
And if you’re going to scream so loud over social media at lest try to hide that you’re trying to promote yourself and be more informed on what little you think you know. It’s annoying and lazy. And don’t think the rest of us are too dumb to notice what your screaming on social media is all about (it is about you, not community). At least try to deserve all the networks and speaking opportunities you’re trying so hard to get using your social media platform.
2 years later, this is increasingly true. Aspiring celebrities becoming politicians or figureheads through the use of social media increasing in the diaspora and worldwide. #FameWhores running the world.
so what the fuck is Tibetan Global Youth Icon 2019? It’s an entire thing that just happened and no one knows where it came from. It seems this competition was entirely premised off social media activity: promotion and voting.
SIGH. So people have all the time in the world to come up with stupid competitions with stupid prizes instead of focusing on China. I guess CTA is partly to blame since it seems they started the whole trend of gamifying everything into competitions.
The hoard of new faces benefiting from social media, which allows for the promotion of the cult of their own personalities trend in Tibetan cyber space is making it hard for our civil society to identify effective leaders from super-star wanabes. Happening inside Tibet and in diaspora. Too much fake news makes it hard for people to identify real news. Individually produced hype takes up the attention needed on real Tibet issues that we need to be paying attention to and tackling. We are experiencing deficiencies in how we conceive leadership and the ‘influencer’ culture promoted by Tibetan NGOs and now CTA is partly to blame.
angrytibetangirl reblogged
Wana become super famous in our tiny #tibetan diaspora? Open a twitter & FB account
I’ve been realizing more and more that certain Tibetan personalities that would do really well as entertainment personalities on TV such as talk show hosts and so on, enter Tibetan politics in order to become a Super Star in the Tibetan diaspora. It makes sense, we don’t have a country to have a diverse range of TV shows that these spotlight hungry personalities can be on. We’d first need a free country for that opportunity to arise for such personalities. But in the meantime there’s no way of getting attention outside of the Tibetan political scene. Just ask our Tibetan pop and film stars, more people know political personalities than them.
But it’s alarming that we have such attention loving performers not in theater but in politics.
All it takes these days to become a Tibetan superstar in our Tibetan scene is to open a Facebook and a twitter account, and maybe create hashtags or take from trending ones and memes and obsessively post on Tibet. No matter how ill informed. Not saying social media activism is useless, there are a few Tibetans who know how to use it to highlight Tibet and not so much themselves. But having these specific attention loving people represent us to the outside world while many of them seem so uninformed on the Tibet situation either outside or inside Tibet erks me out a lot.
For ones id like to see community members champion those who are actually slaving away behind the scenes building and informing community and never asking for validation. Instead, we get swept up by these types, some of whom have no record of being active on the ground but are good at hastaging it, posting the most on Tibet and are not always entirely informed, yet love being the voice. I judge people on their actual involvement with actual work on the grounds.
And if you’re going to scream so loud over social media at lest try to hide that you’re trying to promote yourself and be more informed on what little you think you know. It’s annoying and lazy. And don’t think the rest of us are too dumb to notice what your screaming on social media is all about (it is about you, not community). At least try to deserve all the networks and speaking opportunities you’re trying so hard to get using your social media platform.
2 years later, this is increasingly true. Aspiring celebrities becoming politicians or figureheads through the use of social media increasing in the diaspora and worldwide. #FameWhores running the world.
so what the fuck is Tibetan Global Youth Icon 2019? It’s an entire thing that just happened and no one knows where it came from. It seems this competition was entirely premised off social media activity: promotion and voting.
SIGH. So people have all the time in the world to come up with stupid competitions with stupid prizes instead of focusing on China. I guess CTA is partly to blame since it seems they started the whole trend of gamifying everything into competitions.
Is Mariko the Tibetan stand-in for how liberal and tolerant we are as a society?
Well according to Tibetan organizers it seems to be so.
They invite her to come perform in their fundraiser activities to dance and basically be THE transgender Tibetan on-stage. It all feels a bit gimmicky, and dare I say, tokenizing.
Symbolic representation is important, I won’t deny that. But it also isn’t all that simple. I fail to see why she is called upon Tibetan stages over and over again other than to perform her sexuality as Transgender (in the Hijra style) and to assuage our (or organizational?) representation of ourselves as accepting and liberal, enough to monetize off her tokenization.
It all feels a bit strange and circus-y, but the organizers know that the audience will pay for a show as long as the organizers are bringing show-runners running on talent or, in Mariko’s case, her gender and sexual identity.
Who’s ready to see Mariko dance?
When you go from seeking social media attention by being a righteous 'feminist' group attacking HH the Dalai Lama to becoming 'victims' of social media attention. Tibetan Feminist Collective, get your shit together.
Also, this isn’t the first time you guys tried to get in on the media frenzy generated by click-bait media on HH’s comments on refugees and his possible future reincarnation being a woman. You guys have tried each time to gain some of that click-bait momentum by generating your own condescending contents on him and even, at times, speaking out as Tibetan-talking-heads for news articles on the very topic. So you thought trying to throw HH under the bus while the media world is trying to do the same was going to go unnoticed by the Tibetan audience? Also, here’s the thing about public opinions that you want to be heard in the public arena, it isn’t a one way street, the public will sometimes speak back and not always in the manner you wish. If you want the lime-light, then learn to deal with the heat that comes with it. And next time, maybe reconsider your own ignorances and assumptions on what you think is going on before you jump the gun. Like maybe wait before the full interview is uploaded before assuming and speaking FOR HH as if you know.
China’s down, where r u at Tibetan political NGOs?
Trump may be the worst thing to happen to the USA in recent times, but damn is his trade war with China working in our favor. China is actually feeling the hurt economically, with their market slowing down, thankfully from this trade war.
NOWs the time to hit China while they’re hurting Tibetans and Tibet NGOs. Why does it feel as though the Tibetan political movement has been slow to pick this up while the tide is swinging in our direction hard.
The US’s stance against China in terms of trade and diplomacy seems to have been the trigger for Canada and Europe to follow. With Canada’s decision to hold Chinese telecommunications CEOs accountable for surveilling illegally in Canada, not to mention how they’re using Chinese international students to carry out their own political agendas.
I’m glad Canadian-Tibetan MP Bhutila has been able to maximize on this moment to safeguard Canadian citizen’s rights. I hope she pushes to investigate weird Chinese embassy espionage activities on Canadian soil.
Also the US’s reciprocal visa act for China has been picked up by European politicians too.
So it seems the West has decided to finally grow a spine and play China at their own games.
But where the fuck are the Tibetan NGOs? Right now is the moment to hit them hard with political campaigns while the wind is blowing in our favor strategically (anytime the wind blows against China, it’s OUR TIME).
GET IT TOGETHER Tibetan political groups. You guys are loosing out on the momentum.
angrytibetangirl reblogged
The imagination of humanitarian work as neutral and one that maintains independence from any political inclination has allowed aid agencies unencumbered access to victims of war and natural disasters. Yet, it has also helped maintain the structural conditions of risk and precarity by de-limiting its scope and handling disasters without engagement with the politics that leave so many at the brink.
White People who work for the Tibet cause, you welcome!
For all the white people who have had the fortune of working for the Tibetan cause or issue and being supported financially and professionally to progress their livelihoods to support themselves and begin families, I take this moment to say, you welcome! Your paychecks would not have been made possible without us. I say white because most of the ones doing this are white.
Being in solidarity is usually understood in terms of ‘giving,’ but such a self-centered way of conceiving solidarity leaves out all the one sided benefits of such a solidarity. I’d say it’s quite the opposite when you have watched some enjoy the benefits of such a solidarity (through solidarity related jobs and income) transform into personal careers that have allowed them to maintain or start new families. Not only does such notions of solidarity impose a hierarchy of status to such individuals, with the ally ‘giving’ and the recipient ‘receiving,’ it also ignores the many benefits such positioning allows for the ally. Privilege is automatically accorded (and expected) in such scenarios to the ally rather than interrogated and negotiated.
That’s why I’m always tempted to say ‘you welcome’ instead of the usual ‘thank you’ whenever I encounter such white Tibet related income makers. This isn’t about individuals per say but the structures of power that play favorably for such individuals whether they want to acknowledge this or not.
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche says “China protects Buddhism”
“Much is made of the so-called Chinese communist destruction of Buddhism. Yet today, China still has more than half the world’s population of Buddhists, and some of the largest thriving Mahayana and Tibetan monasteries as well as learning and meditation centres are flourishing there.
World War II and the consequent penetration of western values may have contributed to the decline and dire state of Buddhism in Eastern countries. The once-great 57-acre Daitoko-ji monastic complex in Kyoto, Japan, founded in the 14th century, today has fewer than a hundred monks remaining. And many will be shocked to hear that, seen from a different angle than that commonly presented, Americans may today be damaging the dharma more seriously than the Chinese did during the entire Cultural Revolution.”
And this response from a Malcom Smith (on the same post):
"Much is made of the so-called Chinese communist destruction of Buddhism. Yet today, China still has more than half the world’s population of Buddhists, and some of the largest thriving Mahayana and Tibetan monasteries as well as learning and meditation centres are flourishing there." I guess you feel that the kind of political education the Chinese govt. is force feeding monks in monasteries in Tibet constitutes "flourishing." You don't see a problem with forcing monks to prostrate to photos of Mao and President Xi? I think your admiration of the "flourishing" of Buddhism under Chinese rule is very strange. "World War II and the consequent penetration of western values may have contributed to the decline and dire state of Buddhism in Eastern countries. The once-great 57-acre Daitoko-ji monastic complex in Kyoto, Japan, founded in the 14th century, today has fewer than a hundred monks remaining. “ Buddhism in Japan began its gradual decline under the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1600. The building of new temples was forbidden, and the state favored Shinto and Neo-Confucianism, and brought Buddhism under very strict control. There was a hidden benefit to Buddhism, however. All families in Japan were required by law to affiliate with a state controlled Buddhist temple under the danka system. This was done in order to prevent the spread of Christianity, where families had to receive a certificate to prove they were not Christians. As one can imagine, this opened up a huge new avenue of blackmail and corruption by temple authorities, and in turn this led to popular discomfit with Buddhism and brought support for its suppression in the Meiji restoration. By the beginning of the Meiji period (1865), Buddhism was basically moribund in Japan. Under the Meiji restoration, suppression of Buddhism began again with renewed vigor under the Haibutsu kishaku ("abolish Buddhism and destroy Shākyamuni) movement. Between 1868 and 1872, more than 18,000 temples were literally torn down. All totaled, 40,000 Buddhist temples were destroyed during the Meiji period (1868-1912), about 80%. Your speculation above, therefore, is entirely baseless. "And many will be shocked to hear that, seen from a different angle than that commonly presented, Americans may today be damaging the dharma more seriously than the Chinese did during the entire Cultural Revolution." Thus is pure cultural chauvinism on your part. You have no evidence that this is so. At least Sakya Pandita, when he described the kinds of aberrations in which Tibetans of his day were indulging, described in detail the kinds of harm he observed. "It may not be “popular” to talk of such western threats to the dharma..." Thus far, you have failed to identify any uniquely Western threats to the Dharma.
This isn’t the first time he’s elevated China to such a status. In previous years, he’s written on India and Nepal needing to take cues from China on how to proceed with Buddhism.
What I've learned from all this is that Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche is not very convincing when given the chance to explain himself. If anything, he gives himself away as not knowing much on the issue but promoting his own agenda. And I’m curious as to know what his agenda is in elevating China to the status of Buddhism protector. Does it have anything to do with the fact that the Chinese make up the majority of his foreign following?
I have never looked to DKR as being well versed in the geopolitical history of Asia, let alone the world, but it seems he needs to maybe invest in understanding the trajectory and development of his own lineage history with its beginnings in Tibet to maybe think on how he’s separating culture and buddhism. Maybe he needs to revisit Buddhism’s point about interdependence and the fact that no “thing” exists separately and on its own. Also, he needs to check on himself on needing to speak on behalf of those directly affected by political atrocities he has no experience of. Tibetans know how China’s colonization of Tibet has affected them and Buddhism overall, don’t try to speak on such atrocities and on-going Chinese state moves to control Tibetans through the control of their Buddhist institutions as if you know. I get that DKR is a Bhutanese and a privileged elite, but lets not forget that he’s the grandchild of Tibetan refugee Lamas, so he should know better. But if he doesn’t know any better, it might help for him to STAY IN HIS LANE or COME CORRECT.