Giovanni Negri is a member of Parliament for the social-democrat group, coordinator of the inter-parliamentary group for Tibet and member of the federal council of the radical party.

The newsflash from New Delhi with which Tenzin Gyatso announced to the world his intention of being the last Dalai Lama in the history of Tibet and of humanity, surely roused deep emotion and bewilderment in the people of the "Country of snow" and in millions of Buddhists all over the world.

The Western press devoted great attention to the fact, commenting on it with surprise and respect, pointing out that the announcement was combined to a second, apparent act of remittal: Tibet's willingness - expressed through the person who is also its exiled political leader - to turn not into an independent state, but into an autonomous region, included in the People's Republic of China.

The announcement, given toward end July (a crucial date in the history of Tibet) appears, therefore, as an explosive, combining the extinction of one of the highest religious institutions of the world and the renounce to any plan of independence on the part of the "Roof of the world".

But if it is legitimate to look at the announcement from New Delhi as an act of final resignation of a population worn out by the extenuating confrontation with the giant of Peking, the interpretation of the Dalai Lama's step in the sense of an international non-violent initiative appears even more justified, a step aimed at shaking the numbness of the world's conscience, and at imposing a concrete resumption of the negotiations on the Tibetan issue.

An initiative addressed to the North of the world

At a closer examination, the XIV Dalai Lama's message is first of all addressed to the North of the world: to the superpowers that have a leading role in the United Nations; to the Western countries that have silently consented to the genocide, from 1950 to date, of over a million Tibetans, and to the destruction of a religious, cultural and artistic patrimony, the value of which is equivalent to that of the Mediterranean civilizations. To these people, to the powerful who, like Gorbachev and Bush, must deal (both in and out of their countries) with the fundamentalist religious thrusts, the Dalai Lama recalls the non-violent but decisive role that Buddhism plays for peace and détente in Asia.

In other words, the political and religious self-elimination of one of the highest symbols of Buddhism and of the Tibetan identity would not be bearable, neither in the immense plateau of Tibet - the heart of the troubled Asian continent - nor in millions of consciences who recognize themselves in a religious philosophy void of dogmas and fanaticism, but not for this reasons scarcely influential.

The message of the Dalai Lama, in fact, directly invests also the public opinion of the North of the world, where Buddhism is spreading and taking root, and with it the interest for Tibet, which is the birthplace of Buddhism. In the North, freed from the Wall and the cold war, in the West of the decline of ideology, in the developed countries where the request for values is becoming pressing, it is not casual that many - and among these often the most acutely aware - turn to a philosophy of meditation, and toward a fascinating population, capable of embodying, in Western eyes, something different, from the point of view of a religion, an astronomy, a medicine, based on a knowledge and an approach to knowledge so broad and alien to ours.

The XIV and perhaps last Dalai Lama

From a political point of view, the announcement given by the XIV and perhaps last Dalai Lama definitively removes the alibi of "Tibetan theocracy", of the "feudal power of the monks", and all those negative prejudices and labels that were forced on him to justify indifference, and among these the most ridiculous one: that of a "King-God", whereas his religion does not contemplate the person of God, and today he already reigns only on the sufferances of his people.

After the announcement of Delhi no one will be able to state that the Dalai Lama's goal is that of "reinstating monastic medieval feudalism, replaced by the Chinese socialist modernization; and no one will be able to ignore the democratic Constitution of exiled Tibet and its democratically elected Parliament.

But apart from the North of the world, the other major interlocutor of the Dalai Lama's speech is precisely his direct opponent, the man of Tien an Men, the giant with clay feet. In a distant challenge, the Tibetans have been capable of listening to the new wind, brought about by the many problems that trouble the master of Peking: democracy consolidates itself at his borders, albeit slowly, in Mongolia and in Nepal. Inside his country, Deng must deal not only with dissent and the Tibetan issue, but also with the Chinese Turkistan and internal Mongolia, immense regions which ferment with a tension equivalent to that of the nationalisms that devastate the Soviet empire.

The Dalai Lama takes an alibi away from Deng too; he solemnly renounces to any temporal power and to claims of independence, offering Tibet's integration in a new China.

A demonstration of humbleness

It is a demonstration of humbleness (historically Tibet is completely alien to China, and has preferential relations or relations of affinity with Mongolians), but especially an already federalist answer to the nationalisms that potentially threaten Peking. Deng's refusal to sit at the negotiations table now would sound jarring and void of farsightedness. But the perspective traced by the Dalai Lama also has a strategic value that cannot have been ignored by international observers: a Tibet cushion of peace-zone, temple of Buddhist spirituality but governed by democratic autonomous institutions, placed at the heart of the continent, where the destinies of the world will probably be decided in the new millenium.

A wise political-religious leader

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th reincarnation of the 1st Dalai Lama Gedun Trupa, great master of the Gelugpa Buddhist school since 1931, still now considered by millions of people the reincarnation of Buddha, of the compassion and protection of the Country of Snow, has taken an important step.

Like the V and the XIII Dalai Lama, he will perhaps one day earn himself the name "the great XIV".

What is certain is that not only as a true Nobel Prize for Peace, but also as a wise political-religious leader, he is facing the most difficult task in order to conduct his people past the storm of diaspora and violence toward the promised mountain. And what is equally certain is that he needs help, like all men who are strong and have no fear of showing their fragility".