By Kass Stone
Cedar Lake — A small band of Tibetans, brought together by Bloomington- based International Tibet Independence Movement paid a visit to Hanover Central High School history students Tuesday morning.
The troupe, led by Jigme Norbu, nephew of the Dalai Lama and son of the Dalai Lama’s brother, Thubten Norbu, a founder of the movement, is marching from Indianapolis to the Chinese consulate in Chicago to protest China’s occupation of Tibet and its oppression of the Tibetan people.
Between Indianapolis and Chicago, the marchers are stopping at local colleges and high schools to educate students on Tibet’s history, religion, culture, people and the deprivations they have suffered under Chinese rule.
Jigme Norbu, along with his fellow marchers — Tenzin Jamyang of Chicago, Ngawang Norbu of Boston, Passang Passang of Indianapolis and Ngawang Dolma of Minneapolis — took turns speaking to the students assembled in the school’s gymnasium. They recounted the history of the Tibetan people since China’s invasion of Tibet in 1949 and the Dalai Lama’s escape into exile in 1959.
They spoke passionately about the Chinese government’s efforts to erode traditional Tibetan culture, make the Tibetan people a minority in their own land through transplanting large numbers of Chinese into Tibet and the overall atmosphere of fear and oppression the Tibetan feel.
The Tibetans urged the students to boycott Chinese-made products, for both the good of the Tibetan people, who they say are forced to work as virtual slave labor in Chinese factories, but also for the economic well being of the United States.
“We’ve had a very good response,” said Jigme Norbu, about the troupe’s visits through Indiana’s small towns and schools. “We get a better response at the high schools than we do at the universities.”
“This is very good for us because a lot of small towns are not aware of the situation in Tibet. They have not been exposed to it, and we are here to let them know about it,” he said.
“It is no matter. It doesn’t matter the size, big or small, of an audience,” said Ngawang Norbu, who took time off from his job as a lab assistant at the Human Genome Center to support his fellow Tibetans. “It doesn’t matter if it’s hundreds of people or one or two people. We need to meet people and make them aware of our cause. The situation in Tibet these days gets worse and worse and that’s why we are walking.”
Following their presentation at Hanover, the Tibetan freedom marchers returned to Lake Village, where they had stopped for the night, to resume their march. Their plan was that by the end of the day Tuesday they would be back in Cedar Lake, where they would stay the night.
This morning they will travel to Merrillville High School to speak to students and then return to Cedar Lake to resume the march to Chicago.
