In the forty years since the flight of the Dalai Lama, more than 140,000 Tibetans have followed him into exile. Every year, and still today, some 3000 people choose to cross the Himalaya, despite the risks, rather than endure the Chinese presence. Though the Tibetan diaspora mostly resides in India and Nepal, it is now present on every continent. The Tibetan community in exile includes all types of refugees, freedom fighters of the early days, some living another life for the past 40 years and perhaps holding a foreign passport, others, newly arrived and povertystricken, must make their way in communities which do not anymore greet them with open arms. Then there are the third generation children who know nothing of Tibet, other than what they hear from their grandparents. The Tibetan community in exile is now an established society, with its diversity, its social ranks, its problems of unemployment, violence, delinquency, with its newly rich, its sub-groups reconstituted according to the social or geographic origins of its members. No more nor less than any other established society, but on foreign soil, with all the inherent obstacles. The leitmotiv of the heads of this community – preservation of the homogeneity and identity of the Tibetan people through the teaching of Tibetan culture – has helped postpone the inevitable. But we now see the first signs of disintegration of this society; a growing separation between the exiled and the six million Tibetans remaining in the country; a gap which is also widening between the generations, with young people more concerned with attaining western paradise than with preserving their identity. As for the fight for freedom, it is an ongoing reality for only a small portion of the population in exile, even though on March 10th every year, to commemorate the uprising of 1959, the entire community takes to the streets.
RHS2018772 - Tibet in exil, myth and reality © Pierre-Yves Ginet / RAPHO 13 rue d’Enghien 75 010 Paris (33) 1 44 79 31 30
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