The debate on the global Satyagraha for the freedom of Tibet continues, with an essay

by Tsewang NORBU, former President of the Tibetan community in Germany.

Taking the motto "better late than never" to heart, I am participating in the debate on the Satyagraha movement in preparation. It is comforting to know that this time there will be more thorough discussions in the columns of Tibet-Fax on the question of whether, when, how and where to start the Satyagraha movement towards highlighting the plight of the 6 million Tibetans under Chinese occupation and towards regaining the freedom of Tibet.

For me Satyagraha is a political philosophy of actively struggling for the truth and fighting for ones political and civil rights and not necessarily an instrument of political action. The essential difference between the middle path of the Dalai Lama and Satyagraha seems to be that the latter is more radical and active in the application of peaceful means in trying to reach the ends. In course of the Satyagraha movement we would not remain just passively non-violent but exert enough pressure on the Chinese regime to force them to comply with the just demands of the people of Tibet.

Boycotts, sit-ins, hunger strikes, rallies and demonstrations, peace marches, civil disobedience etc. may be some practical manifestations of satyagraha.

Usually in a national liberation movement one can not afford to be choosy as far as the means are concerned. However, I am happy that the Tibetans under the leadership of the Dalai Lama have decided to tread the path of non-violence in their freedom struggle and I, therefore, welcome the initiative of Satyagraha put forward by Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche which is now receiving broader international support.

Satyagraha or truth insistence is also one of the four points of the referendum in preparation which is currently being debated among the Tibetans in exile. Although I am against holding the said referendum on four reasons (reservations because of unclear terminology in Tibetan, reservations because of unclear legal implications of the referendum, reservations because of nonfeasibility of conducting the referendum in the occupied Tibet and reservations because of the danger of political boomerang, if the middle path of the Dalai Lama is included in this referendum), I do welcome in principle the idea of launching a Satyagraha movement. We got to try first with all non-violent means at our disposal to regain the freedom and the sovereignty of Tibet.

Mahatma Gandhi showed to the world how to carry out a satyagraha movement to a successful end. Dr. Martin Luther King repeated this to some extent in his struggle for civil rights. We should, however, bear in mind that conditions have changed since then. One almost rule out that Gandhi can repeat this success today, fifty years later. By all similarity of the coloniality of the rule, there are basic differences between the colonial rule of the British in India and Chinese in Tibet. Britain is far away from India and the British colonial population in India was a insignificant minority. China is our eastern neighbor and the Chinese already outnumber the Tibetans in Tibet. I completely agree with Klemens Ludwig that both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King struggled within a relatively democratic system and both even enjoyed support from certain sections of the media and public of the same system. We all know that this support was crucial for their success. For the time being we can expect such support neith

er from the Chinese people or nor from the Chinese media.

A successful boycott campaign in India did prove effective in the case of Indian freedom struggle. Even if all the Tibetans do participate in such a boycott campaign in Tibet, the effectiveness of this in the economic sense at best be just symbolic.

Strictly from a legal point of view Satyagraha or insisting that the truth is on our side could amount to violence and thus to a breach of law. It is not enough just to organize a civil disobedience inside Tibet with 10 or 50 or even 100 people. The participants of such political manifestations should be able to function as political catalysators to whole of Tibet.

The participants of satyagraha movement, therefore, should have high moral authority. They should be able to endure all odds inflicted upon them by potential adversaries. Do we have enough such personalities prepared to undertake this noble venture? Small scale satyagraha movements outside Tibet will not have much concrete impact on the freedom struggle. How is the movement doing to ignite the spirit of the freedom struggle inside occupied Tibet? Do we have personalities inside Tibet who command such high morality authority to keep the satyagraha a truly non-violent movement even in the event of worst case?

It would be naive to believe that a handful of ascetics can force the Chinese to quit Tibet. A successful Satyagraha movement must ignite the spirit of Tibetan masses to join the freedom struggle at a national level and international.

(Published by FREEDOM FOR TIBET/DEMOCRACY IN CHINA ! - Number 63 - 1 September, 1997)