"Voice for the Voiceless," Dalai Lama - A Review

 

I have been working on a TOTD, which I had hoped to have out yesterday, but its complexities have caused a delay. We often know what we want to say, but finding the right words (and avoiding the wrong ones) is never easy. However, it should be ready by next Friday.

 

The Dalai Lama’s short book – the subject of this essay – I found fascinating, not only in his descriptions of his ongoing plight with China’s Communist rulers, but in his incredible patience and his persistence in his belief that non-violence is key to protests. The book may also, as it did me, prompt you to reference an atlas to better understand this country, where Mount Everest defines the border with Nepal.

 

My wife joins me in wishing everyone a Happy Easter.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

Voice for the Voiceless, Dalai Lama

April 19, 2025

 

“However, as I have thought about it over the years, what is lacking in

Marxism is compassion. Its greatest flaw is the total neglect of basic

human values, and the deliberate promotion of hate through class struggle.”

 

For sixty-six years the Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, has had to live as an exile from his ancestral lands. India accepted him as a refugee and thousands of other Tibetans in 1959, nine years after Chinese Communists first occupied his Country. Thus, Dharamsala has been his (and the Central Tibetan Administration’s (the government in exile), home for almost seven decades. In 2011, after a Tibetan Buddhist monk self-immolated, the Dalai Lama gave up his role as head of state. 

 

This is a short book – 222 pages, including 74 pages of appendices – that describe his experiences as a refugee and his attempts to reach some sort of a rapprochement with the Chinese government, including letters. Early on, he realized advocating for full independence would be futile. He wrote of a meeting in Switzerland in 1988: “I stressed at this gathering of Tibetans that the essence of what we aspired to – the ability protect our language, culture, religion, and our identity as a people – could be achieved within the framework of the People’s Republic of China” – a policy he termed as a “Middle Way” approach.

 

In the appendices he cites the relevant articles of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that would allow such freedoms. But China’s Constitution is written for show, not adherence. He spoke to the adoption by the United Nations, in December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of how, in 1976, it acquired a legal basis: “Almost immediately after the Universal Declaration of human rights was adopted, China began what has been more than seventy years of systematic abuse of the human rights of the Tibetan people.”

 

Throughout his years in exile, the Dalai Lama has been a strong advocate for non-violence in his people’s repudiation of Chinese enforcement, even as excessive mining, deforestation, and the burying of nuclear waste has devastated the Tibetan plateau. Over the years, the Dalai Lama visited with all of China’s leaders, beginning in 1950 when he was sixteen and met with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. After each visit, he felt assured that his wishes would be honored, yet time proved his hopes fruitless. “At its core,” he wrote, “the issue (for him and Tibetan Buddhists) is not about bread and butter. It is about the very survival of Tibetans as a people.”

 

This reader sensed a naivete on the part of the Dalai Lama, but on reflection realized His Holiness is driven by non-violence and the knowledge that six million Tibetans are no match against 1.4 billion Chinese. He is correct when he suggests that if China were to recognize the multiple nationalities that live within its territories, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) would achieve modern status. Sadly that won’t happen in a totalitarian regime intent on controlling the thoughts of its citizens.

 

As much as the book is evocative of the Dalai Lama’s devotion to his people, their culture and religion, it is also an indictment of the malignancy of China’s Communist Party.