Reflections on Tibet

When I was in my teens and early twenties I read a lot of books about Buddhism, mysticism and similar subjects as I searched, like you do, for some deeper meaning to life than was being peddled by the consumer culture in which I had grown up. One recurring subject in many of these was Tibet, a mysterious country full of priests and monks, secret traditions and spiritual understanding, which was always written about in almost mythical terms as if it were more a legend than a real place somewhere north of India. I was fascinated by this ancient and inaccesible land where initiates could apparantly fly and yogis would be buried alive for days only to be dug up again alive and well after practising ancient techniques of bodily control, and I started to search for more books about the country, it's people and their beliefs.

I came across many memoirs by westerners who, in the early years of this century and at the end of the last, had been equally captivated by the magic and mystery of this forbidden place and who, with minimal equipment and in disguise, had tried to make the journey to Lhasa, Tibet's capital, drawn by the wonders which must surely await anyone who could finally make it through the inhospitable terrain and unwelcoming authorities. For this was the era of great expansion by Britain and Russia in central Asia and both nations had their eye on Tibet's strategic location and rumoured mineral wealth, a fact of which the Tibetans were only too well aware and had decided, as a matter of self defence, to close their borders to all westerners in order to protect their integrity and independence.

Most of the attempts to penetrate the 'roof of the world' were doomed to failure, often involving unthinkable hardship and sometimes even death, as one explorer after another tried to overcome the physical and political barriers in their path, but one book I came across told a very different story and changed my view of Tibet for ever. It was the story of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer who found himself in a British prison camp in India at the outbreak of World War 2 and who, with a fellow prisoner, resolved to escape and make the journey to Lhasa. His adventure followed the same pattern as those before, fraught with hunger, cold, accidents and fear of discovery, but he succeeded in reaching his goal and incredibly became accepted by the authorities in Lhasa, even becoming the Dalai Lama's personal tutor and chief engineer of the country. His account of his seven years in Tibet is a fascinating insight into the meeting of 2 cultures and the friendships which developed but it also tells of events of which, until reading this, I had had no idea and which shattered my dream of ever making the journey to the magical land myself.

For in 1950 the Chinese army invaded Tibet and soon occupied the country, claiming that it was in fact a part of China. Under the pretence of liberating the Tibetan's from feudal rule they set about destroying the culture and traditions of the country, targeting especially the monastaries which have always been the centre of Tibet's religion, education and culture. Since the invasion nearly all of the monastaries have been destroyed and over a million Tibetans have been killed in one of the most brutal occupations in history. At various times the Chinese have practically outlawed Tibet's religious traditions and arrested thousands of monks and nuns, locking them up in prisons which officially do not exist and, according to those lucky enough to have escaped, applying the most brutal tortures which would make even the Spanish Inquisitors cringe. The catalogue of human rights abuses by the Chinese is staggering; an offence as seemingly insignificant as owning a photograph of the Dalai Lama (Tibet's exiled spiritual and secular leader) carries the most horrendous penalty whilst speaking out against the Chinese can severely shorten a Tibetan's life span.

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