From: ljm@eden.com (Laura Jauregui)

Newsgroups: talk.politics.tibet

An Interview by Monica Flores, Pictures by Laura Jauregui

(*) Nam is not his real name.

Nam Gal* is a 36-year old Tibetan immigrant living in Austin, Texas. He's been here for two years, along with 16 other Tibetans who have sought refuge from Chinese political oppression in their homeland. I visited him at his apartment recently, where he told me his story: what life was like for him in Tibet, how he made it to the United States, how he has acclimated to life here, and what his future plans are. I had a list of questions, and I was expecting to get a pageful of answers. I wasn't prepared for the story I got, nor was I prepared for its implications.

Nam lives in an older apartment complex with a small group of Tibetan immigrants on Austin's east side. Most people I know wouldn't feel safe living in that area, but the building seems to be maintained fairly well, and there's a nice little courtyard in the center of the complex with a couple of park benches. A far cry from the view of the Himalayan mountains at the top of the world in his own country, but he's glad to be here. He has strung the vines of an ivy plant around the frame of his front window in an attempt to make the place homey.

Pictures of the Dalai Lama adorn the walls of every room and there's a shrine to His Holiness in his bedroom. He brings me a cold glass of water in one of those old-timey soda fountain Coca-Cola glasses, which no doubt he acquired in the same way he got his furniture and his microwave oven; all garage sale bargains, all donated by people who know enough about the situation to care.

Nam's English speaking skills have much improved since he arrived in Austin, nonetheless our interview is full of hand gesturing, puzzled expressions and repeated explanations. The transition to American life is a hard one for these Tibetans. "So many machines," says Nam. Nam has heard of the network of computers that talk to each other all over the world called the Internet, and he was elated that we'd be putting a story related to Tibet out there. I admitted sheepishly that I had little knowledge of the situation in Tibet before I met him, and he didn't seem surprised. "I want to tell people," he told me.

The situation is indeed one that calls for concern. The Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959, and since then have so changed the face of the country, that it "shocked" Nam when he went back to visit last year with his new American passport. He says there are "a lot lot of Chinese, very little Tibetans."

The Chinese government encourages Chinese immigration to Tibet, offering jobs that pay three times as much as they would in China, and investing hundreds of millions of dollars in commercialization projects.

Since the Chinese occupation, most of the Tibetan monasteries, historical architecture and natural landscape have been destroyed to make room for modern public squares and economic growth. Today, the cultural remnants of Tibetan civilization are used primarily for guided tours for Chinese visitors.

And it's not just the buildings and temples. By Chinese law Tibetans are allowed only two children. Women are routinely sterilized, without consent, upon delivery of their second child. Those who manage to conceive a third child are often victims of forced abortions. Nam told me of a instance in which the Chinese government went on a campaign to sterilize entire villages of Tibetan women. They set up tent compounds and ordered all the women to come and receive "medical treatment" in exchange for money. Nam wonders if there will be a generation to carry on what is left of Tibetan life.

Nam says that you can't speak out against China freely in Tibet, that there are Chinese "detectives" everywhere. Closed-circuit video cameras monitor activities in public squares and the military presence in major cities is strong. Dissidence is answered with swift imprisonment. Nam himself was imprisoned in 1979 for handing out anti-Chinese leaflets. In all, Nam served time in four different prisons, for a total of two years. He said there was never enough to eat, that he could never sleep, and that he never spoke to other Tibetans while there. He showed me the scars encircling his wrists from being tightly handcuffed in transport from one prison to another. He tells me how his arms had been raised and fastened to the roof of a police car for 11 hours while traveling on mountainous roads, and how both of his arms swelled up for weeks afterwards. But, he said, the worse thing about being in prison, even above being tortured every 2 to 3 days, was that he had no idea what was happening in Tibet on the outside

. Was it completely destroyed? Were all Tibetans imprisoned or obliterated? "I thought I would go crazy," he says.

Nam escaped twice from Tibet to Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan government is exiled. The first time, he hid in the back of a friend's truck behind a wall of luggage. The Chinese guard at the border crossing routinely inspected the contents of the truck, but didn't see Nam or hear his racing heart. Nam says if he had been discovered, it would have meant death for him and his accomplice. He escaped to India a second time in 1985 by hiking across a mountain pass in the middle of the night.

Our language barrier prevented a clear depiction of exact events, but I did understand that there were a lot of Chinese flashlights unsuccessfully piercing the thick fog, a lot of barking dogs, and a lot of running on his part. He managed to shake their pursuit with no more than a torn pant leg from a pursuing hound. The next morning, not having made it across the Tibetan border, Nam hiked up to a road to regain his bearings.

Once there he saw an entourage of trucks approaching. Assuming they were Chinese, he hid himself beneath a ledge in the snow just below the road. But as the group approached, he saw that they were "all happy faces, Tibetans, you know." He waved for them to stop, but they did not see him. He decided to follow the tracks of the vehicles down the road, and found that the trucks had stopped not too far ahead at a restaurant. Inside he learned that the group of Tibetans were being allowed to legally leave the country because of political connections. Despite the danger to all involved, it was decided among the Tibetans that they would try to smuggle Nam out as one of the group. It worked. Nam had made it to India a second time.

In 1991, President Bush agreed to allow some Tibetans to seek refuge in the United States. But not too many, not wanting to upset China, our very lucrative trading partner. So, out of the tens of thousands of Tibetans in India who wanted to come to the States, about 1000 of them won a sort of "lottery" to be admitted as permanent residents. Nam Gal won the lottery. His wife and children weren't so lucky.

Nam's spouse and one child are free, living in India, but he still has one daughter living in Tibet. He says his family is trying to arrange to get her some sort of passport or visa to get to India, but it's not clear how long that will take, or if that's a permanent way out of Tibet for her. Nam Gal speaks as though there is no question about whether his daughter will be reunited with the rest of the family in India, which surprises me considering the dangerous circumstances under which he himself had to escape Tibet. I suppose he can't allow himself to consider the alternatives. Perhaps today he is especially optimistic, because minutes ago he spoke to his daughter on the telephone for the first time in his two years in Austin. I get the feeling that Nam's patient, peaceful manner today isn't an aberration, but an enduring characteristic. He resonates the same self-assured positive energy when he tells me that he will send for his family in India as soon as he saves up the necessary $20,000 at his kite-mak

ing job, which pays $4.50 an hour.

First on Nam's agenda is to become fluent in English. He considered taking a second job to supplement his minimum wage income to expedite his reunion with his family, but decided that learning English "is more important for my life, more important than money." He is now in the process of looking for an American family to live with to expedite his English speaking skills. This will mean leaving the small Tibetan community he lives with now, but command of the language will help Nam to accomplish his next goal, to "get educated." I, ethnocentrically, stupidly, ask him what he wants to study. Study to be a doctor, a lawyer? Live the good life? No, Nam's goal is to be Tibet's number one political activist in America. Nam hasn't come to the United States to escape his Tibetan life, but to reclaim it. By learning English, Nam can tell people here about the situation in Tibet and about Tibet's 2000-year-old history on the verge of annihilation.

Nam Gal's convictions are amazingly strong considering the fact that he has never even experienced a free Tibet. He was born the year of China's military invasion, and troubles had been brewing there for a decade before his birth. Or maybe that's why his convictions are so strong. He grew up watching his identity being systematically wiped out, slipping away from him before he even had a chance to try it on.

Nam is convinced Tibet will be free again. The situation in Russia, a sad state of affairs to the rest of the world, is an encouraging scenario for Nam. It gives him hope that things can change for Tibet. "The truth is stronger than the Chinese power," he says. And he seems truly serene. Nam tells me that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has always advocated peaceful methods of regaining Tibet. Nam doesn't go so far as to say he disagrees, but he tells me that maybe there could be two methods of approaching the problem. Regretfully, shyly, Nam says that maybe violence should come first, so that peace can follow. Nam says that for years the Tibetans have always tried peace with the Chinese, but "the Chinese can't understand the Tibetans."

The last time the Tibetans tried to stand up to the Chinese was in 1988, and China understood that very well. A Tibetan uprising prompted the bloodiest riots since the 1959 Chinese invasion, killing hundreds of Tibetans. Marshal law was imposed in the capital city of Lhasa for the following entire year.

It's disturbing to hear Nam acquiese to the use of force in the reclaiming of Tibet because it seems to suggest that violence is inevitable. Nam's entire culture is based on compassion, love, and respect for human life, and yet even he can't envision a feasible solution to the oppression on those terms. If Tibet is freed through the use of violence, it will be a victory won at great expense because it will have been achieved by resorting to the enemy's despicable tactics. In doing so, it will reinforce the belief that perhaps violence is the best rule to follow. To teach such lessons to a nation full of gentle-hearted people like Nam here before me, will be a tragedy.

When I ask if the United States is doing enough to help the Tibetan cause, he says "it's okay." He is still conditioned not to be outrightly critical of the government, any government. I find myself taking up his cause, "But don't you think they're not doing enough? Don't you think all the Tibetans should be able to come to the United States? Don't you think the U.S. is being unfair?" Nam wouldn't use his own words, but he did say "yes, yes, yes" to mine. But Nam reminds me, "The United States and China, they're very good to conduct business, and it very hard for them to say Tibet is freedom, you know. He continues, "I think, in this world, you know, it's very difficult to get to the truth." I say "yes, yes, yes" to his words too.

Nam's plans to bring awareness to the Tibetan cause is both inspiring and depressing. His optimism is contagious, but living in this "free" country of ours I have learned to be cynical. Going up against the world's two most influential economic superpowers, Nam will need to tell an awful lot of Americans about his plight. And even if he accomplishes that challenging task, there's no guarantee that people will fight for him.

What if, and this is hard to consider because we all want to believe that people will do what is morally right and just, what if people decide that money and cars and tvs and video cameras are more important than the preservation of life, liberty and happiness? I can only hope that, this time, those of us who do choose freedom over oppression, are the ones with all the power and influence.