INSIGHT April 10, 2008
A New Path for China with the Dalai Lama

When Gandhi took his followers on the Salt March in 1930, and they were beaten by the police for collecting free salt from the beach, a U.S. journalist said, in effect: With these cruel blows on unarmed demonstrators, Britain has forfeited entirely the last shred of legitimacy for its rule over India.

Gandhi’s nonviolent mass movements would occasionally spill over into violence by his supporters, which he would unfailingly deplore and he would immediately call a halt to the otherwise principled nonviolent actions.

Today, with the brutal military crackdown on the peaceful protests of Tibetan monks and nuns—who are calling for their religious freedom, for their right to their devotion to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and for the release of the imprisoned youth they consider the rightful Panchen Lama—China has forfeited, on a global scale, any last tattered shred of its pretension to the legitimacy of its rule over Tibet. The basically unarmed response of lay Tibetans to Chinese suppression of the freedom of monks and nuns spilled over into recent violence, with long repressed emotions bursting forth in entirely regrettable destruction of property and some civilian lives. Click here to read the full article.