Walk Home Together

Today I want to talk with you about going home. This is the time of year when all of us feel a tug at our hearts for home.China’s unjust rule in Tibet has led to the killing of a million Tibetans, the destruction of thousands of temples and monasteries, the diluting and destroying of the Tibetan language and culture, and the irreversible damage to the natural environment on the Tibetan plateau, and it has also resulted in the 55 year long exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and produced nearly 200,000 Tibetan refugees, condemning them to a state of permanent exile. Scattered around the world as a minority among minorities, their existence is a constant battle for political recognition, financial survival and cultural continuity. “There is no place like home.” Returning home is an exile’s greatest dream and being stranded in a foreign land his greatest sorrow.

For all the tragedies and hardships faced by the Tibetan people today there is one constant root, exacerbating or causing all the others in turn: China’s block on the Dalai Lama and his people’s right to return to their homeland. Let’s listen to the saffron flames in Tibet. Through their heroic act of self-immolation, the nearly 130 Tibetan martyrs have expressed the great desire of all Tibetan, both in and outside Tibet, “Let the Dalai Lama Return Home”!

This voice, reverberating around all the time, often makes my heart burn and my eyes well with tears.

As remarkably kind, compassionate, tolerant and patient as His Holiness may be, this need to return must burn hot on his heart as He faces this beloved new generation of Tibetans, who either remain in their raped homeland without their spiritual leader or live with their spiritual leader in free lands that are not their own.This is a grave humanitarian emergency, which is getting worse day by day. It is disheartening that an emergency can be as old as 55 years.

I know the Dalai Lama and his people have traveled a long journey toward home but nobody knows when they might set their foot on their homeland.  Many good people seem to have been convinced that political realities make such an ultimate justice impossible.  But the voice from the saffron flames has told us otherwise! The voice deep in our hearts is telling us otherwise!

If the past journey has taught us any thing, it is that there is no short cut or easy way home. We must battle every day to move forward. We must battle against the hard hearts and iron arms of the Chinese rulers as well as the indifference of the world community and its leaders.

Now we must intensify our global campaign of truth and force China, a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Community, onto the defensive about the right of return which is enshrined in Article 13(b) of the UDHR “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” The world community must recognize that the Right of Return for the Tibetans is a national, historical and individual claim and that recognizing Tibetans’ right to return home is not an option but a must.

Are you missing home?

So I ask you, speak up about your plight. You should let everybody you meet know that you have been unjustly uprooted from your homeland. Let them know of your aching desire to return. You should educate the whole world that the roots of the Tibetans in Tibet are older than the roots of the British in Britain, and much older than the roots of most Americans in America.

The Tibetan self immolators’ act would be unthinkable and pointless if they did not have a profound confidence in the conscience of man.  We must carry their spirit of compassion forward to appeal to the conscience of the people around the world. Especially, we should make special efforts to reach out to the Chinese people with the Truth about Tibet and empower them with compassion for them to recognize the truth and end their silence. I believe that the Tibetan selfless martyrs had a strong belief that compassion can clean consciences, including that of the Chinese, and a clear conscience does not hide from the truth. I believe that with your courageous efforts to meet the Chinese with compassion, more Chinese like myself will be awaking to the Truth, will be set free of the bondage of bigotry and malice, and will be particularly reminded of Confucius’ teaching “Don’t do to others what you don’t wish for yourself ” and realizing that our Tibetan brothers and sisters love their homeland and love living in their homeland, no less powerfully than we Chinese to our own homeland.

Many of Chinese democracy fighters, including myself, have been forced into exile for nearly 25 years following the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre.  We share the Tibetans’ excruciating pain of homesickness. Not long after the massacre, I got to know Tibetan exiles and the nature of your struggle. I soon understood that we were at least 30 years late in coming to the aid of your cause.  Yet we came together in brotherhood and we have walked arm in arm. Today, on this painful anniversary, we recommit ourselves to continue to walk together toward freedom and home. With each step we take together in the path of truth, justice and compassion, we are closer to our goal.

Let me close with a little story which I have told many times and which I think is worth being told again.  On March 10, 2010, the 51stanniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising, in Dharamsala, I led a group of Chinese freedom fighters in the audience with His Holiness.  At the end of the meeting we all stood up together.  I noticed that His Holiness had a pair of shoes of very good quality.  I whispered to His Holiness that he had a pair of very fine shoes; much nicer than mine. “Yes” his Holiness replied.  “I will walk home in them”.  I replied, “Yes, your Holiness, I will walk with you”.  We suddenly found ourselves embracing each other.
Dear brothers and sisters, let’s walk home together!Free Tibet.
Let the Dalai Lama return home.

Thank you all.