I Stand For Tibet

I attended this candlelight march tonight in Dharmsala, a Tibetan settlement of the Dalai Lama. It is a beautiful town set in the foothills of the Himalayas. Among the landscape are prayer flags draped across the mountain ending at monasteries built into the mountains. The streets that curve up the mountain side are lined with tea shops, book stores, and kasmiri goods. With Tibetan refugees outnumbering Indian residents it makes for a completely different feel than any other city I have visited while in India. In this backdrop I joined Tibetan monks, Tibetan refugees and other foreigners. I walked with candle in hand along the one way streets all the way to the temple where earlier that day i had seen the Dalai Lama and heard his teachings. in the temple grounds we sat, segregated. On the far right side sat the monks and the nuns with shaven heads adorned in robes of maroon and gold. They were the face of the tibetan resistance. in the middle were Tibetan families and to the other side were the foreign tourists. I wonder if most of them joined the march for the same reasons i did. I had just come out of dinner and saw there was some sort of rally forming. I went to go see and i was told I could join the march . I took a candle and joined the crowd. In my head I was thinking, this is pretty rad, two days before the Olympics and I am with a bunch of Tibetans protesting and asking for human rights. No one could top this story. I am an advocate for human rights, I'll join. They made the foriegn tourists go behind the monks and then the tibetans could follow. I hated that, I hated having being divided when it would have felt more comfortable to be among the other tibetans, the one's were fighting for. I think the committee was really excited to have international people involved.
But we sat as the youth, mostly young adults, talked with great passion about their homeland, human rights and China. One of the speakers addressed us in English. He told us of the many human rights violations. Time had come, Tibet would not be ignored. Free Tibet! They went on to show an hour long documentary about the uprising that happened in the former Tibet in spring 2008. The documentary was mostly in Tibetan but a man assured us, via the microphone, that he would show the english version for all the non-tibetans. The documentary displayed Chinese guards cracking down day after day on peaceful, or what looked like peaceful, protests that were supported by the Tibetan monks. It was moving and convincing. Where was I when this was happening? How did I not know about it? This candlelight march was in memory for all those that had lost their lives in Spring Uprising of 2008, most of them monks.
At the end of the documentary there were only five tourist left. There were about fifty at the beginning. Which leads me to believe that the tourists weren't very passionate about the cause but maybe thought it would be a cool story. One of the organizers approached me and said it looks as if there are not enough non-Tibetans to show the english version. He invited me to come by his office to get the documentary for free. I am going to come by so that I can talk him more, because I don't know enough. I would love to hear his story, how did he end up displaced from Tibet? Tomorrow there is march to lower Dharmsala, it is to protest the Beijing Olympics, which I am all about, but I think I am going to skip it. I need to rest for a minute, gather thoughts about protesting and write.
First of all, I feel silly being among the white people that protest. The is the Tibetan's cause and I feel I would be most effective supporting them in my own country where their voices are muted. Sometimes I kick myself for my apathy, where are my causes? I don't need to be passionate about everything but don't i need to passionate about something, stand up for something. I think it is a shame to come from a culture that is extremely moderate.