It is the day before Losar and the husband is returning to the house following last minute shopping. He takes down the Bo, the Chemar container, and starts decorating it while singing, "Losar Marey, Lesar Rey (It is not Losar, but new more work, a reference to the amount of preparation that has to be made for Losar)." He calls to his wife who answers from the bedroom saying she has an headache.

As China rockets its way to the national glory of cosmic proportions with manned mission to the outer space, prospects for drawing a bit of its attention to the rather earthy matter of discussing the Tibetan issue could not be dimmer. Meanwhile the situation in occupied tibet is truly at its worst in history - and still worsening. The fact that there is some degree of apparent economic freedom and global openess there should not blind us to this core fact.

Two interesting development, one in the exile community and the other in China, made me think of the impact if internet message boards on the Tibetan issue.

Let me go first to the development in China.

After being away for several years I was able to spend quality time in the Tibetan settlement in Bylakuppe over the Losar holidays. This enabled me to take a look at the development in the largest Tibetan settlement in India.

There is a very interesting socio-political development taking placewithin the Tibetan community in exile. I am talking about the world of Tibetan politics and the approach of the Tibetan people towards it.

Tibetan Youth: Then and now... Author admits guilt to some of the (...) points.

It takes an act of courage, and even a dab of heroism, these days for political leaders of the world today to meet with the exile Tibetan leader, the 1989 Nobel Peace laureate and acknowledged advocate of universal coexistence—His Holiness Dalai Lama. Meeting with him is, of course, not terribly a big deal. In most cases it is not much more than a harmless, how-do-you-do contact gesture. But it is the principle behind the gesture rather than the substance of the issues to be discussed which matters...

Let us talk about films this month. Regrettably, in the post 1959 period there has been only a handful of Tibetans who have had an interest in this exciting field. There is Tenzing Sonam, now well known within our community for his documentaries, "The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche" and "The Shadow Circus". There is Tsering Rithar, residing in Nepal, whose documentary won him the first prize in a competition held by Himal magazine some years back. If you know Dharamsala, then you know "Uncle" (Lobsang Tsultrim) who was the audio-visual person of the Tibetan Government for many years. Now, he is in a different world while Choeyang, a self-taught Tibetan, is behind the camera.

Ten years ago the democratic international community shunned communist-ruled China as a pariah state. The abhorrent spectre of fully armed PLA tanks mowing down totally unarmed and peacefully, albeit vociferously, protesting students made the ostracisation of the communist regime inevitable. The military onslaught, the like of which one can only expect against an invading enemy army, was totally uncalled for by any standard of conduct by a government claiming to embody the will of the people..

The elderly Tibetan was telling me about an incident that took place in his town, not far away from Lhasa. "I heard that one day the soldiers came and surrounded the monastery. I was a little boy then. I heard that the soldiers asked to be let in so that they could meet the head lama. But the monks who were confronting them would not allow them in. Hectic argument began and the situation was becoming tense. By then the head lama, whose residence was above the monastery and so was observing the development,opened his windows and asked the monks to let the soldiers come and meet him. The monks relented."

Tibetans have hitherto charmed the world as a refugee community with their unique Buddhist culture and societal cohesiveness. We have been praised as the most successful refugee community in the world and have rightly basked in the accolade. The Tibetan children went to their own refugee schools and upon finishing their education returned to serve their exile community. The number of those finishing college and university was not many, and those not returning to serve their exile community thereafter tended to be frowned upon as betrayers of the community’s faith. There was hardly any who after finishing college or university education could not find job placement in the exile community.

In July we saw a flurry of activities in the United States to celebrate the 20th anniversary of man's first lunar assault, you know the bit about "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." I was reminded of this historic and historical statement upon seeing a slim volume titled, Anything for Tibet, My Beloved Country. (Paljor Publications, New Delhi, 1999. Indian Rs. 95.00). It is a fictional novel about life in present-day Tibet with the inevitable tale of courage and sacrifice. The writer is a young Tibetan, Thupten N Chakrishar.

China is once again a nation in turmoil, and in quest for long term stability. The million dollar question is what kind of stability. Certainly not of the iron-fisted Maoist kind, for that would require the populace to be effectively insulated from all outside world influences, with all aspects of people’s lives totally regimented to the drum beat of the communist authorities receiving their orders from an undisputed dictator. China has already come too far away from it all and there is no way it can go back. Nor can it be the stability of the Dengist kind, for that was merely transitional. And, of course, it cannot be the stability of the kind which prevails in the democratic free world, for the so-called communist regime of China is determined that neither the country should be a democracy nor its people should be free. The Communists, it seems, would fight to the end rather than submit to the will of the people.

In June the Voice of Tibet (VOT) aired a complaint from a member of the now defunct music group Rangzen Shonu asking why it had not sought permission for broadcasting one of the group's songs. VOT's response was that it had secured permission from another member of the group. While this problem may have been resolved thus, it raises an important question about intellectual property rights in the Tibetan community.

Even as the exile Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, walks hale and hearty at a sprightly 64 years of age and expresses confidence to live well beyond the ripe old age of 80 years—in fact up to 113 years—Beijing has redoubled its efforts to prepare for a communist Chinese reincarnate for him. We are being told that it has set up a special task force "to study the issue and map out a strategy." It has brought over to Tibet its very own nine-year-old so-called Panchen Lama to obviously play a proxy Chinese role in this murky business. Yes, I am talking about the one named Gyaincain Norbu whom China has to use force and intimidation to get the Tibetan people to betray an appearance of acceptance while the real Panchen Lama, the youngest political prisoner in the world and whom the Tibetan people have no problem at all in accepting as their very own, remains incarcerated at an unknown location and under god-knows-what conditions, with his family.

Between July and September (I think) Dharamsala will be announcing the best civil servant of the year. This award was instituted some years back. Also, those who graduated from Central Schools for Tibetans since the late seventies would remember that the Tibetan Department of Education also presents the Bum-kyon-sum-del ("Vase Devoid of Three Defects") award to the best student in each school every year. I am sure the awards are still being presented today. These, as also other awards like the Tibetan Youth Congress' Rangzen Award (for social works, etc), I believe, are well intentioned to generate a healthy competition among the Tibetan people. Competition of the right kind, as we know, is an incentive to do better. The awards, thus, were established to recognise the achievement of certain individuals and thereby be an incentive for others to follow that path.

If you look at the Tibet movement in the United States, or, for that matter, throughout the world, one of the glaring points is the absence of a major support base among the Black community. President Nelson Mandela of South Africa is the only African political leader showing an interest in Tibet. Among spiritual leaders we again have to turn to Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.

The profound Tibetan belief, the raison d’être of our professedly non-violent struggle, that truth and justice will ultimately prevail represents only half the truth about survival in this world. A more wholesome truth seems to be that unless backed or complemented by appropriately potent coercive elements, not necessarily violent, a cause, no matter how noble and sacred, cannot move beyond being a mere intention. All the public relations exercises that predominantly and necessarily determine the mode of carrying out a non-violent struggle remain by themselves mere manners of expressing noble aspirations and sentiments, depending on whether you are an embodiment or a supporter of such a cause.

At the end of April I was in Geneva in connection with a rally held on the birthday of the Panchen Lama, the hunger strike by the Tibetan Youth Congress and the session of the Comission on Human Rights. I arrived there the day after China was once again able to block a resolution condemning its human rights practices in China and Tibet.

I have always felt that some Tibetan artistes do not recognise their own value. At worst they not only underestimate themselves, but also the art. One former TIPA artiste when asked to do a performance is said to have remarked, ‘I have had enough to do with monkeyacting.’

On the other side there are Tibetans, not professional artistes, who take up Tibetan music for their sheer love of it. The members of the Nangma group in Switzerland falls into this category. Nangma initially began as a section of the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe, but today has an identity of its own. Its members work in banks and airlines during the weekday. They spend their leisure hours immersed in Tibetan music. I have had the occasion to see some of their performances in the early Nineties.

The 8^th ‘Seminar of the Intenational Association for Tibetan Studies’ took place between July 25 and 31, 1998 in Bloomingto, Indiana, in the United States. Thirty-six years ago, a ‘Conference on Tibet’ took place in the Italian town of Bellagio. That conference, held from July 2 to 8, 1962, was attended by 15 Western and Japanese Tibetologists. A comparative study of the two meetings reveals the extent of development in the field of Tibetan studies.

At no other point of time in our history have we been more confused about our national goal as we are today. This is a sad commentary on the political consciousness and maturity of the exile Tibetans. With our emotions daily tested to the limit by continuing reports of Chinese atrocities in Tibet and the humiliating conditions of statelessnes in which we are compelled to live in exile, one would have thought that no people in this world would be more politically charged, resolved and determined than us.