Religion Dispatches: José Cabezón on Why Tibetan Monastics Protest
Dr. José Ignacio Cabezón, the XIVth Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara and principal investigator for the Sera Project, has posted a two-part op-ed piece about the situation in Tibet at Religion Dispatches. Parts I and II of his “Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets?” offer an insightful, thorough, and accessible analysis of the reasons for the protests in Tibet. At the heart of his analysis is this observation about the media’s understanding of the conflict:
- The media has tended to focus only on the political dimension of the protests. This is understandable, given that it is the most dramatic aspect. After almost 60 years of living under Chinese rule, there is no denying that most Tibetans continue to believe that Tibet is an independent country. They tear down the Chinese flag from public buildings, raise the Tibetan flag in its place, and chant Pö rang wang! (Tibetan Independence!). Many Chinese, for their part, claim to be baffled: “Why do Tibetans feel this way? Have we not modernized Tibet? Tibetans now have electricity, roads and medical care. Aren’t Tibetans more prosperous than they were sixty years ago?” Despite these material advances–which in fact are confined almost exclusively to urban areas–most Tibetans feel as though they are second class citizens within the PRC, lacking the same rights, privileges and economic opportunities that the Han Chinese enjoy. They also feel as though their culture is under siege, and not simply because Tibetans are increasingly a minority in their homeland–especially in cities. Tibetans feel as though their culture is devalued and that it is steadily eroding. To take just one example–a symptom of the underlying problem, not its cause–at Tibet University in Lhasa, the only officially recognized institution of higher learning in the TAR, Chinese continues to be the official language of instruction, and there is little support or academic programming related to Tibetan language, literature, culture or the arts.
The conflict between Tibetans and the Chinese government over the status of Tibet is complex and multi-faceted, involving issues of race/ethnicity, economics, language and education–not just politics. Aside from the political, most of these other factors have been overlooked in Western media coverage, while coverage of the role of religion has been particularly unnuanced. Aside from noting that most of the protests have involved the Buddhist clergy, little attention has been paid to the role that Buddhist monks and nuns have played in these events, and especially to their motivations for protesting. Monks and nuns have been at the forefront of public demonstrations in Tibet since the 1980s. As with the earlier demonstrations, the most recent round of protests began with monks. They escalated, spreading to the laity, when these monks were beaten and arrested. But why do Tibetan monks engage in public protests in the first place? Those earlier demonstrators who are currently living in exile in India have stated that, being unencumbered by the responsibilities that come with having a spouse and children, they consider themselves more free than their lay counterparts to engage in political action. They have cited this as one of the principal reasons for becoming politically active. If imprisoned or killed, they have said, they have no dependents who would suffer as a result of their actions. The monks and nuns who have taken part in the recent protests are undoubtedly of the same opinion. But statements like this still provide us with few clues about the clergy’s actual grievances–what injustices they feel need to be redressed. To understand the monks’ and nuns’ motivations for protesting is not, of course, to understand the whole of the Tibet issue, but it is to understand one of the sparks that has led to conflagrations like the ones we have witnessed this last week.
In a recently released public statement, the Dalai Lama hints at what is at stake for the clergy. “It is common knowledge that Tibetan monasteries, which constitute our principal seats of learning, besides being the repository of Tibetan Buddhist culture, have been severely reduced both in number and in population. In those monasteries that do still exist, serious study of Tibetan Buddhism is no longer allowed; in fact, even admission to these centres of learning is being strictly regulated. In reality, there is no religious freedom in Tibet.” It may seem strange to an outsider that the regulation of monastic institutions–for example, the control of the number of monks in monasteries–should be such an important issue for Tibetans. Let me try and explain why monks and nuns risk years imprisonment, and indeed their own lives, to protest this and other government policies aimed at controlling their institutions.
Religion is at the very heart of Tibetan ethnic identity, and monastic institutions are one of the hallmarks of Tibetan religion. According to the most conservative estimates, before 1959 monks constituted 10-12% of the total male population in central agricultural regions (the percentage of nuns being somewhat lower). Most Tibetans had close family members—children, siblings, aunts or uncles—who were ordained. Monasteries served as a focal point for many lay religious practices, including important village or regional festivals. Because of the importance of monasteries to Tibetan religious and cultural life, it is not surprising that Tibetans should view the Chinese government’s attempts to control monasticism as a threat to Tibetan cultural identity. Tibetan monks believe that they must have internal autonomy: the freedom to establish their own policies, to manage their own affairs, and not to be subject to ideological pressures or other forms of interference from the state. In Tibet today it is precisely the issue of autonomy—the freedom to opt for a Buddhist way of life and to establish such a way of life institutionally—that is the greatest source of conflict between the clergy and the Chinese state. Viewed from this perspective, the question of Chinese policy in regard to the Tibetan monasteries is the “Tibet question” writ small. How much autonomy is necessary to make monks (Tibetans) happy? How much is the Chinese government willing to grant them? Can a compromise be reached? The most recent round of protests suggests how far the Tibetan clergy and the Chinese government are from a compromise.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policy in regard to Tibetan monasticism must undoubtedly be seen as the historical legacy on the part of Chinese (and perhaps, more generally, East Asian) polities to (micro)manage institutions at all levels of the culture: to bring them under the bureaucratic control of the state. Among the various types of institutions, religious ones have been seen as a perennial and special object of concern, in part because of the extent to which they penetrate all levels of the society, and in part because of their potential to challenge the power of the state. Without getting into the details of the bureaucratic apparatus that has been put into place to control Tibetan monasteries in contemporary China, suffice it to say that such an apparatus exists in the form of a superstructural bureaucracy that regulates monasteries from above, and an infrastructural apparatus (including government informants) embedded within monasteries to control them from below. This bureaucracy allows for control of various aspects of monks’ and nuns’ individual and institutional lives.
Cabezón has much more to say, and I strongly encourage you to read his marvelous piece. (Thanks to Joel for the pointer.)
