Posted on: Saturday, September 20, 2003
Tibetan icon a rallying point for nationalists
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post
SHIGATSE, China — His picture is as common in Tibet as Mao Zedong's is in other parts of China. His broad, square face, often wearing a slight, mysterious smile, looks down from the walls of teahouses and temples, shops and restaurants, even nightclubs.
To the Chinese government, these portraits of Choekyi Gyaltsen are signs of patriotism. He was the 10th incarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-holiest figure in Tibetan Buddhism. But more important, officials say, the highly ranked monk who defended China's right to rule Tibet after the Dalai Lama fled into exile was a loyal servant of the Communist Party.
Many Tibetans honor the Panchen Lama for a different reason. Though some once considered him a traitor, they now remember him as a leader who made the best of a difficult situation, went to prison for challenging Mao's policies and continued fighting to preserve Tibetan language, culture and religion even after he was released.
To them, putting up the Panchen Lama's picture is a subtle protest against the restrictive cultural policies that China adopted in Tibet after his death in 1989.
"We love him because he wasn't afraid to stand up and speak out for the Tibetan people," said Basang, 61, who runs a small grocery store in Shigatse, Tibet's second-largest city and the traditional home of the Panchen Lama. "While he was alive, we had hope. But there's no one like him now. Everyone is too afraid."
Today, almost all of the policies he advocated have been dismantled or abandoned. Instead, the Chinese government is engaged in a campaign to weaken the influence of Tibetan Buddhism and silence those who believe Tibet should preserve a cultural identity separate from China's. The crackdown complements its efforts to tie Tibet more closely to the rest of the country by lifting limits on Chinese migration and pouring billions of dollars into the region.
Dozens of interviews conducted during an eight-day trip across Tibet provided a glimpse of the government's strategy. Adopted in the early 1990s, it reflects a conclusion by the Communist Party that liberal cultural policies such as those supported by the Panchen Lama fueled ethnic nationalism and resulted in a wave of pro-independence protests in Tibet in the late 1980s.
China's policies are based on the assumption that the best way to fight Tibetan nationalism is to limit expressions of its culture, particularly religion. The government maintains tight control of Tibet's monasteries, restricting the number of monks and nuns who can worship. It has banned religious teachings considered politically sensitive and has suspended various tests that would allow monks to advance in their studies.
In the late 1990s, China sent teams of officials to purge every temple of monks and nuns who refused to denounce the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. Hundreds of monks and nuns fled to India or were defrocked, and several were imprisoned, leaving the monasteries under more pliable leadership.
At Tibet University in Lhasa, officials said students are prohibited from praying at temples or taking part in other religious activities, and face expulsion if they do. Even in high schools and middle schools, students are often told not to practice religion, residents said.
The government is also trying to end the rural tradition of sending children to study in the monasteries, arguing that they should attend secular schools.
"In the monasteries, they only learn Tibetan and the sutras," said Deji, the top government official in Lhoka prefecture, who like many Tibetans has only one name. "They won't be well-educated because they won't have physics or chemistry or other modern subjects."
