Feature

By Mayank Bubna

Contemporary Bloggers: Tibet's New Hope?

Tibet has always fascinated people. Otherwise known as the roof of the world, pilgrims and foreigners go there in search of spirituality, consolation and adventure alike. Yet the Tibet of their imagination
has little in way of the reality of the experience. Ever since the Dalai Lama was forced to flee in 1959, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have trodden the tough and dangerous path across the Himalayas and leading south through Nepal into India. The ones who stayed back had to serve time in prison and were cut off from the rest of the world.

In the mid-1990's, Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China, slacked the Martial Law imposed in Tibet in an attempt to integrate and unite Tibetans with the Chinese. However, the Chinese also augmented efforts to oppose international patronage for complete and unconditional Tibetan autonomy. One of the ways to stamp out any internal resistance or external pressure was cutting out any form of communication with the outside world. Tibetans within Tibet lacked the very basic infrastructure necessary to give voice or meaning to their plight.

At a time like this, one modern day tool changed the face of the Tibetan cause more than any prior force. The internet, and more specifically blogging, became the great equalizer and democratizer of information. There are several blogs today that serve to enlighten people on Tibetan culture, people and history. Here's a run-down of a few:

Friends of Tibet - masterminded by Sethu Das, a computer guru from Borivli, a suburb in Mumbai city. Mr. Das' tryst with Tibet began with an accidental visit to Dharamsala where he met ex-political prisoners, ex-military men and some of the Dalai Lama's closest friends. While in the mountainous campsite he photographed refugees who had been tortured at the hands of the Chinese. Upon his return to Mumbai, a burning desire to create awareness and share his experiences led him to start an e-newsletter that provided news from Dharamsala and other Tibetan refugee camps in India. Slowly but surely the membership grew from a handful of activist-friends to several hundreds of people from around the world. Today, among the several writers posting their work online are Indian cartoonists like R K Laxman to columnists, activists, Tibetan poets, spiritual leaders and even a French dentist-turned-Tibetologist living in India.

Tibetwillbefree.blogspot.com - Based primarily out of New York City, the site is operated by six bloggers simultaneously. Some are graduates from prestigious universities and schools in the US, others use pseudonyms to conceal their identity. But all are activists who recognized blogging as an alternative and were quick to clutch at it. This blog also serves as an off-shoot from students-for-a-free-Tibet (SFT) and several articles and posts are dedicated to SFT activities around the globe.

The Times of Tibet - A popular online site to catch up on Tibetan news. Posted articles go beyond just a political agenda and explore Tibetan culture and entertainment. So much so that there is even a post on an interview with last year's Tibet's beauty pageant winner. What makes this site special however are the blogs. An innovative scholarship program gives three writers up to $100 a year for contributing at least two articles every month. This program has prompted editorials from several prominent Western and Tibetan authors.

World Bridges Tibet - While still in the developmental stage, World Bridges is using internet transmission of video and audio, something more popularly known as webcasting or podcasting. This new concept within the world of blogging allows Tibetans living in exile to post videos of cultural, political and social events. Effort is being made to make these podcasts more interactive with end users.

These are but few examples of ongoing demand for more information about the region. And these bloggers might just doctor the birth of a new Tibet, being among the first to create order out of the pandemonium that is strangling the country. However, most of these efforts are being directed from outside Tibet. The foreign nature of these blogging activities raises several questions: how successful has cyberspace been as an outlet for public opinion to further pressure for increased democracy in that region? And how are these websites impacting what is happening within Tibet?

Some writers might answer by suggesting that their blogs are simply mouthpieces of dissent. Turns out, even this might be too optimistic. Chinese authorities have managed to considerably bridle the availability of internet facilities within Tibet. Internet penetration remains very low. Lhasa continues to experience a dearth of information because of limited access to internet, television and other means of communication. Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, two radio stations with offices around the world, have been important pioneers in bringing outside Tibetan voices into their homelands. Despite continuous efforts by the China Information Network Center (www.cnninc.net.cn/en/index) to monitor and censor internet traffic and data (specially designed software automatically removes search terms like "dalai"), and signal-jamming by Chinese engineers, VOA and RFA manage to come up with ingenious ways to counteract these suppressive forces (one common tactic is to keep changing channel frequency making it very hard to block radio messages).

Yet these efforts are simply not enough. Reports filed by the International Campaign for Tibet based out of Washington DC and the Tibet Information Network complain about the human-rights atrocities still prevalent in the region. Oser, a Tibetan poet famous for her banned book "Notes of Tibet" and her defiance of Chinese authorities has been restricted from leaving the country, receiving a salary or medical care. Even the traditional tea houses that Tibetans use as public spaces to discuss big issues have been restricted to petty every-day chats.

Yet despite these off-sets, there is a ray of hope. The global nature of blogger ideologies leaves little room for propaganda and misinformation. Furthermore, blogs have enabled Tibetans living in exile to return to their roots. This form of ready transmission of knowledge and instruction on the web empowers Tibetans world-wide and has led to the formation of a distinct "Tibetan-ness".

Tibet's story is a mix of the spiritual, an undaunting spirit and the cataclysmic. It is quite possible that bloggers might be the ones to fill the Dalai Lama's sandals in the near future.

Mayank is a grad student at NYU. He is also what Pico Iyer once described as a "nowherian."

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