Future Tibet - Text And Photographs By N. RAM | FRONTLINE Magazine (2007)
Reality check 2007 shows that China is in firm control and `Tibetan independence' is a hopeless cause.
A view from the train on the roof of the world.
TEN years from now, a visitor to Tibet is likely to find it transformed into a region of middling prosperity. It is likely to have quite high living standards; a robust industrial base; modern agriculture and modernising animal husbandry; a well-educated, relatively young population; a high cultural level; a strong infrastructural spine and network supporting the development of a vast region; and active linkages and contacts with the rest of the world. It is more than likely that the autonomous region will enjoy political and social stability. It is certain not just that Tibet will be a still autonomous but much better integrated part of China but also that rising China will be very much in charge of Tibet's future. A significant part of `Tibet in Exile' could be back home, participating in shaping this future. A quarter century from now, possibly earlier, Tibet will reach the status of a developed society.
These predictions can be confidently made on the strength of two visits I have made to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) over the past seven years.
The FIRST visit, over five days in July 2000, gave me an opportunity to attempt some reality testing of Dharamsala's main campaign themes. In psychology and psychoanalysis, reality testing is defined as the technique of objective evaluation of an emotion or thought against real life, as a faculty present in normal individuals but defective in some psychotics. The technique is increasingly used in other contexts, for example in conflict resolution where the objective is to `adjust' conflicting perceptions that do not `conform to the realities of the situation.' In the case of China's Tibet, the reality testing was not against what the protagonists and victims of the `independence for Tibet' campaign felt or believed - in exercise of what is known as the `ego function' - but against the defining themes of the campaign.
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Read further at:
FRONTLINE Magazine (just search the site link as i can't put its link here at present), by Narasimhan Ram (or often shortened as N. RAM)
Volume 24 - Issue 14 :: Jul. 14-27, 2007
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU
OR TRY this shortcut: h-tt-p :// j.mp / 1c0eq8E
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As about N. RAM's FIRST visit to Tibet in 2000, one may read his impression and experiences here:
TIBET - A REALITY CHECK
Frontline, 2000-09-02
by Narasimhan Ram (September 2000)
2000/09/15
Volume 17 - Issue 18, Sep. 02 - 15, 2000
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU
TIBET - A REALITY CHECK
N. RAM writes, after a five day visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
"The sky is turquoise, the sun is golden,
The Dalai Lama is away from the Potala,
Making trouble in the west.
Yet Tibet's on the move.''
FOR an Indian in Tibet who has no sympathy whatsoever for the Dalai Lama's separatist, revanchist and backward-looking agenda, this passable adaptation of an old Tibetan song seems to fit contemporary realities. A careful reading of the facts of the case reveals that this ideological and political agenda, pursued essentially through external agency, is three projects rolled into one - splitting Tibet from China, carving out a 'Greater Tibet' through ethnic cleansing, and restoring a moth-eaten theocracy , the ancien regime with some modest, if not quite cosmetic, 'democratic' changes. Each one of these projects can be seen to represent a pipe-dream, especially if one remembers that - unlike in the case of Kashmir - there is not a single country and government in the world that disputes the status of Tibet, that does not recognise Tibet as part of China, that is willing to accord any kind of legal recognition to the Dalai Lama's 'government-in-exile' based in Dharmasala.
An array of apartment and office buildings in central Lhasa. The transforming effects of modernisation are very visible in Tibet's capital.
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just search the link
OR TRY this shortcut: h-tt-p :// j.mp / 1e91azq
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Personally I don't think there's any problem between the Tibetan people and the Han people; it's just a problem between the Dalai Lama and his cliques vs. China.