the roof of the world

by Mark Hunter Mulvey

Published: March 25, 2008

[Tibet] sits on a high plateau at 13,000 to 16,400 feet, hence its nickname “the roof of the world.” The capital, Lhasa, lies in a valley shielding it from the harshest weather. - A.P.

Protests led by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule turned violent in Tibet’s capital Friday, with shops and vehicles torched and gunshots echoing through the streets of the ancient city. - Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press Writer

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Harsh winds are slicing through the Himalayas these days. Violence is erupting from Buddhist protests, which is itself a phrase so mired in backward-facing logic that getting a hold of the scene requires a certain suspension of disbelief. Buddhist monks don’t turn violent. And if they do, surely it would not involve gunshots.

Well, perhaps. The rebellion turned serious following the 49th anniversary of Tibetan National Uprising Day on March 10th, 2008. In the days following, well over one hundred protesters were feared dead after a Chinese “crackdown” on dissent. A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Qin Gang, understated, “In the past couple of days, a few monks in Lhasa have made some disturbances in an effort to cause unrest.”

From China’s perspective a handful of monks are causing unrest, a deft Twirl of Logic that puts the onus on Tibet and ignores the fact that the unrest in question is, in actuality, an effect. The cause was China’s military takeover of Tibet in 1951, which threw Communism and Religion into a dramatic war of perspectives. Tibetan monks hoped to maintain a free state to practice their Buddhist teachings, while China viewed this freedom as “splitist,” and the movement’s leader, the Dalai Lama, as intentionally defiant. Through Communist goggles, though, I suspect one can spot plenty of defiance and general troublemaking running amok in the world at large.

The feud from ‘51 has been ongoing, and is now boiling over as China draws the gaze of all nations in its stage-setting of the Beijing Olympics this year. Tibet sees a potential for publicity where China spots an intense amount of stifling to be in order. Still, it’s hard to sympathize with an ideology focused on a militaristic squelching of behavior when its primary opponent is a religious man seeking peaceful reflection. Nobody likes a bully.

So, intense youths are aggressively protesting Chinese imperialism, while the Dalai Lama practices restrained moderation and hunger strikes continue in Kathmandu. This Tibetan struggle against Chinese takeover is spurring a clash of objection methods, each with its own degree of frustration and angst. The Tibetan Plateau, so-called “Roof of the World,” is now sheltering a volatile batch of feelings - the tinderbox for an Olympic torch that is set to throw some light onto this conflict for all the world to see.

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