In light of the new geopolitical order clearly unfurled by 2017, it has become ever more challenging for all countries across the globe to achieve the cohesion to oneness for one common goal amongst their populace. EU and USA for instance has been tearing apart between the far-rightists and leftists.
A similar fashion has also been occurring within the atmosphere of Tibetan Diaspora since the last election race for the post of Kalon Tripa despite frequent calls by His Holiness the Dalai Lama for unity within Tibetan Communities. Specially by the sudden eviction of Mr. Penpa Tsering, the former speaker of Tibetan Parliament in Exile and the finalist candidate for the 2016 election, off the post as the representative of Dalai Lama to North America by the Tibetan Cabinet led by Lobsang Sangay, those wounds caused to our unity during the last election seems to be reopening once more.
A great deal of despair and displeasure is clouding the internet-world of Tibetans. The main factor escalating to this social unrest amongst Tibetans is not merely the case of the ousting of the representative but often the half-baked speculations or the so called fake news circulating on social media which often drives the Tibetan mass, before releasing the empirical explanations from the concerned bodies, to blow out angry words at each other based on nepotism and regionalism. I don’t want to consider this as a reference point for the education-level of the Tibetan mass but I personally found that running after fake news without conducting a proper analysis reflects a very low standard of education and a sheer act of stupidity. Unless we are awakened to this realization, the fake news on social media including those insidious WeChat groups presage a portentous danger to our unity. When different words are said and articulated, the reality becomes distorted and distant. I don’t see anything more dangerous to Tibet than something which endangers our unity!
We ought to take off the glasses of regionalism and look at the things from a wider perspective. For example, replacing a representative is not the end of the world to our common cause nor is it the finishing line for Penpa Tsering himself to serve Tibet. Rather I see it as an opportunity for him to build his strategy for the next Kalon Tripa or Sikyong (President of CTA). I am also a supporter of him but I found our unity more important than digging the internal power fictions and forget the common ground. Because we all are well conscious of the fact that we are living in a time of great tensions. Tensions building up with the Chinese against the age of the Dalai Lama, tensions about the existence of our status as Tibetans while China is gaining more or less everything in its favour across the world by exercising its economic might in every possible way, tensions over merging the dividing forces between the Middle Way Approach and Rangtsen, tensions about the direction of our newly born democracy which we see time and again falling prey to the devil of regionalism making our situation ever more critical. What is happening now defines this best.
Therefore, it’s not a time to let our unity be blown away by waging war over personal motives of Lobsang Sangay or Penpa Tsering. Let politicians play their games alone. But history remembers forever how much they have disappointed us at a time of such criticality. For example, Kashag’s press conference over this matter was as vague and cheap as Lobsang Sangay’s answers to his overseas-Chinese-passport issue to which, no matter how many times he was asked in the public, he adamantly kept running around the bush. Many questions as such had never been clear to the public! Lack of transparency and being less truthful to public is one of the reasons why more and more people (specially the educated ones) are turning away from CTA and why the number of yearly green book registrations is not growing as much as the growth of Tibetan demography. If we yearn deep down in our heart for CTA and the future of our democracy, more transparency and more accountability is needed from our leadership.
To draw my final say, let me bring to you an ancient wisdom: “United we stand, divided we fall.” It seems that higher His Holiness the Dalai Lama ages, weaker goes our unity. Isn’t this the highest level of risk to our common cause? In my conviction, the only way to reverse this pattern is to let us unanimously and wholeheartedly follow the missions and visions shown by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So long there is unity amongst us, there is the hope for Tibet. Thus, let us all be one: one Tibet. Let us all stay united specially in situations like this. Nothing is more important than to have unity amongst Tibetans! Because unity is the life of our struggle, neither Lobsang Sangay nor Penpa Tsering.