By LISA VAN DUSEN
Notwithstanding what you might have heard on the street, the Dalai Lama doesn’t play hardball.
The 72-year-old Buddhist spiritual leader, portrayed by the government of China as a stealthy, Machiavellian “splittist,” devotes as much of his meditation to the people of China — and their government — as to the plight of his own people in Tibet and elsewhere.
That same compassion is what puts the Dalai Lama and his envoys at a fundamental disadvantage in their dealings with China.
Of all the ethnic, religious, political and territorial intra-national disputes of the past two decades, China’s feud with Tibet begs more than most for a United Nations-appointed mediator.
Beijing was pushed into a resumption of its stalled dialogue with the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan government-in-exile recently by the public relations disaster of the repeatedly thwarted Olympic torch relay and by growing international support for the Free Tibet movement.
China’s horror at the prospect of an escalation — athlete disruptions during medal presentations and possible boycotts of not just the opening ceremonies but of the August games themselves — helped Beijing see the need to resume talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives, which were suspended last year after a handful of fruitless sessions. Nudging from President George W. Bush, the U.S. Congress and the International Olympic Committee didn’t hurt.
BUSH FACTOR
“It’s important that there be a renewed dialogue — and that dialogue must be substantive so we can address, in a real way, the deep and legitimate concerns of the Tibetan people,” Bush told a gathering in Washington last week, before the two sides met in Shenzhen, China, on May 4.
But none of the growing number of leaders from the West willing to confront China on this issue has publicly suggested mediation and China has repeatedly told the Tibetan envoys this is an internal matter, meaning they’ll balk at outside interference.
The agenda on May 4 was about containing the violence in the streets of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, where the Tibetan government-in-exile says more than 200 people have been killed and at least as many have been arrested since protests began on March 14.
The broader issues of human rights and autonomy are not yet back on the table, and China has not yet agreed that they will be.
Meanwhile, China’s agreement to “resume talks” with the Dalai Lama’s envoys has created the illusion of both a real negotiating process where none exists and a misleading calm before the likely storm of the Olympic torch’s arrival next month in Lhasa.
The Tibetans have a unique window between now and the Olympics to ask for what they need while the world is watching, while the Dalai Lama is still alive and before an increasingly radicalized generation of young Tibetans further escalates this cause in respectful defiance of the Dalai Lama’s policy of non-violence.
MEDIATION
In any other dynamic, international mediation would have already been demanded by the weaker party or leveraged by the United States and/or the United Nations as a matter of course, as was the case in disputes over Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Kosovo, East Timor, Kashmir, the Middle East and elsewhere. (The highly respected former Finnish president, Marti Ahtisaari, who just wrapped up his mandate in Kosovo, might be a good choice as envoy).
But the same overwhelming economic weight and trade power that give China a pass on other human rights files inform the international community’s behaviour in this dispute.
So while the Dalai Lama is far from isolated, his popular support was worthless in pressuring Beijing until the Olympics inflated the currency of public perception.
This is why his side needs to demand a mediator now because it will never happen once the Games are over, and if it doesn’t happen, the likelihood of his other demands being met is drastically reduced if not nullified.
There is a theory of political activism embraced by dissidents and writers who lived under Soviet repression called the “as if” approach.
It proposes that, when dealing with a dysfunctional, repressive regime, one should behave “as if” things are normal instead of second-guessing official insanity and anticipating neurotic intransigence.
EXPOSED
That way, the extent of the regime’s corruption is exposed as a matter of course.
In the longer term, as another step in China’s integration with the international community, it will be part of the Dalai Lama’s legacy to have done the world’s work for it.
Not only is there something fittingly Buddhist about it, it just might work.
