<Reasons why there has been a decrease in the responsibility and patriotism among young Tibetan and how to improve it.>
Sangdong kyab SOG_World Peace University.
To begin with this article, I will remind you the famous quotation by John F. Kennedy, 35th president of United State of America. It says, "ask not what your country can do for youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ask what you can do for your country.â&#x20AC;? As a matter of fact, this quotation is universally accepted as a formula of an individual's political parameter, in terms of loyalty, dedication and devotion to one's country. But now it is a time, where, this quotation is totally reversed both theoretically and practically in our society. On top of that, people of young minds already started forgetting the originality and the sense of belonging, at the same time, Tibetan identity and cultural significance in our day to day life is being trapped by the force of materialistic culture and western hegemony in the name of modernity, where, money matters as an ultimate way to life and nothing more to hold on as the treasure priority and national heritage as such. In this era of competitive and material oriented today's world. The sense of responsibility and patriotism is a matter of questionable state and mostly find it hard to experience the oceanic wave for our country and of course the rate of decreasing nationalism is obviously a critical consciousness that should be brought under public debates and discussion in enhancing a wholistic realisation at large. Without which, the very existence of our nationhood is at the verge of extinction and that must be reviewed wisely before the ignorance take it far behind the reconstruction for a better society. The very collapsing of the nationhood in the young minds has both internal and external factors that can be discussed in the aspects and perspectives of losing interest in learning Tibetan language, pursuing Tibetan cultural value system and lastly the clear phenomenon of economic orientations in our society.
However, in a nutshell, all these grassroots failures lie in our crucial primary education system as a whole and its malpractice for some extend. Where, the
very concept of Tibetaness is not being able to nurture in a better way but it enhances more factors and agents to lose our national and racial identity of the home country.( Tibet)
Firstly, language issues in our society is not something new in our day to day life as we all know that it has been a historical profound problem since the time of first day in exiled life. But our elder generation has never failed in preserving our identity and language beside keeping the promises of returning to home country before long. For them, no matter how hardship they are undergoing in everyday life, their belief system always reflects that returning to home is only a matter of time and so as get prepared and live accordingly. However, before Shattering their dreams into pieces, the very situation with younger generation is a great matter of concern in losing the identity and disfavouring in studying Tibetan language. The fact is that the society is mingled with main Indian social stream and norms where Tibetan language does not serve their interests and will for some extend if you step out of the door once, on top of that, of course our education system has a huge impact and become the agent of degenerating the spirit of learning Tibetan language so as the sense of Patriotism and responsibility is being haunted even in our dreams apart from the daily life. Most of us being nurtured and educated in exile and well experienced the pros and cons of education system as a whole. where Tibetan teaching and the level of language enforcing on children, and of course the content of the syllabus itself are something, that is the hammering force in eliminating the interest and spirit in pursuing the Tibetan language. Being an Eyewitness who are brought up under this kind of education system, I am the right person to raise my voice Loud and let the people heard of it for a better change. What we all are taught is somewhat like methodological stories that has nothing to do with practical knowledge and nationalism orientated field of study. for nurturing brilliant youngsters, there should be visionary advices that is up to expectations and unifying force in dreaming high and putting the effort accordingly. Sadly, our society even do not have a shadow of that kind of counsellor or educationist. As result of this, many of the youngsters were not being able to identify their capabilities in keeping long term visions for the motherland. I still clearly remember many of my class mates who are haunted by Tibetan classes and desperate in facing the exam eventually. In such a way, the content of the syllabus is not suitable for the children to digest and more than that it enforces a certain kind of pressure in
nurturing and educating the young minds. Ultimately, the concept of Tibetan language is more like unprecedented challenges that cause a psychological problem for the young learner in dreaming of serving the society in particular and nation in general. But I am not justifying or arguing that all the youngsters hate Tibetan language by birth.
The problem lies in the content selection of the Tibetan syllabus and the level of the language used in the text books are not appropriately chose for the young minds. Of course, many of the lessons are about complex Buddhist philosophies and the biography of those ancient Buddhist scholars instead of framing a nationalism oriented lesson about recent heroes and heroines who sacrificed their precious and lives for the cause of Tibetan independence struggle. at the same time, more of heart breaking stories of our forefather struggling for national security and its related conceptions like how Tibetan armies have captured the Chinese capital city in history should be promoted. For me, born in Tibet and studied in Tibet as well and clearly experienced that some of those great nationalism orientated lessons in Chinese academic syllabus are politically strategized in the promotion of nationalism and patriotism at the grassroots ground. And those movies and stories of Great War in between Japan and china are the tactic so as all the people in china think that Japanese is always their enemy and this concept is still firmly kept at every corner of Chinese society. I am also one of them who always used to think that Japan is the only country that one should fight for the revenge. As a matter of evidence, many of such blood boiling great lessons regarding invoking nationalism are like (One Last lesson), (Five Heroes on the Jangsang mountain) and ( the nationalistic man). All these tell us the pathetic situation of how one feel when he or she realised about discontinuing the of their own language. In the same way. Many of these lessons' teaching at the young age have depicted a great pathos of the whole atmosphere where the very existence of a nation and a race is being questioned and how one should be able to face all these to safeguard it by any means and method. Thus, it glorifies the legacy of our forefather in protecting our nation and at the same time it obligates the younger generations to visualise the future safeguard of our nation and race in carrying out their responsibilities in a better way. Our former prime minister, Scholar Samdong Rinpoche famously quoted that our exile education system is based on Slavery education where children
taught how to live a life of slave. Specially fanaticising the western life is more like perfect choice to live a better and comfortable life instead of teaching them to fight back the Chinese occupation of our country. This can be proved by many circumstantial evidence in many field, as an eyewitness and indisputable evidence, we can see that many of Tibetans in various settlements across India is being safeguarded by those grandfathers and grandmothers. One hardly finds any youngsters in the settlement. They all are left to the western countries and earning their livelihood by slaving the foreigners. That is why, His holiness the 14th Dalai Lama mentioned on a special occasion that it was sad to learn that many of those youngsters are flying in a wrong direction when they are feed well here like a bird. overall, we the younger generation have started forgetting that we are not staying for our career but for a cause of whether let Tibet will be vanishing away like a rainbow or to struggle for our sovereignty.
As result of disfavouring Tibetan language, the nation- state prioritised ideology lost its ground and the very sense of belonging is also remain unanswered in many contexts of multidimensional perspective in our daily life. In such a way, one is not able to identify the significance of traditional cultural values in general and the sovereignty of nation-state in the political contextual aspect in particular. Thus, the community based orientation has no room but individual obligation is further more intensified at the cost of Tibet as a country. In regarding to this situation, Tibet as a country to their mind is more like imagined Tibet. They barely know about Tibet and its culture. Their imagined Tibet has nothing to do in the daily life. After first and second generations, new generation is being dissolved into multi-cultural idealism and the question of Tibet will be a dream for them any at point of time. And one more degenerating factor is that our youths are deeply carried away by the psychological misconception of fashion trends in many ways like dressing and speaking style. Where, wearing our traditional clothes and speaking pure Tibetan language are the subject of backward classes and often being counted as less educated and less modernised as well. So as their mixture of everything is considered as a liberal sign of modernity and that is widely spread among Tibetan youths. But unfortunately, they are the jack of all but master of non-in any case and that is another indirect way of putting our values into the trash.
As a matter of fact, we all that many of the youth in our society today is not well educated with Tibetan languages and even HH 14th Dalai Lama publicly used to announce this pathetic situation at an occasion and that is still recorded in 429th weekly publication of “Tibetan times” and in the same way Tibetan parliament had a great debate over the matter and lastly accepted that complete default as result of inactive leadership and professional ignorance of the concerned authorities. This quoting from the “Tibetan express” 210th publication and the tittle of the article is “Educational default of last thirty years”
However, there can be many factors that I have to discuss but parliamentary special session and report of this educational default is taking as more accurate and authentic compare to an individual’s supplementary views. In such a way, in highlighting the very roots of this default, this report is taken as a base to review and work on so as we can dream a new generation with more nationalistic spirit to reconstruct the whole society. For that, three basic field that we must focus on is cultural, historical and Having a common enemy against all of us. These three things can be explained in multidimensional context in enhancing the patriotism and nationalism. But here, I am relating all these three pillars in the context of resetting the education systems for younger generations in our exiled society and roles of Centre Tibetan administration can start on. Nationalism is further oriented towards developing and maintaining a national identity based on shared characteristics such as culture, language, race, religion, political goals or a belief in a common ancestry. Nationalism therefore seeks to preserve the nation's culture. It often also involves a sense of pride in the nation's achievements, and is closely linked to the concept of patriotism. Cultural nationalism is referred to the origin of a common language, through which, it creates a certain mentality and attitude for sharing many things in common. No matter of what, languages plays the most important roles in creating unchallenged and undefeated factors. Therefore, Tibetan language should be the first pillar of creating nationalism and it has more to do with education system again. For that, our current education curriculum should be examined closely and replaced it by a new education system with help of professional political analysts, language experts, think tank and special educationist in selecting the content of the subjects and languages
appropriateness in accordance with children’s capacity and interest. In such a way, it should cover more of the tragedy that has happened during cultural revolution and how we Tibetans are displaced and become political refugees in foreign land. However, the sense of pathos and pains should be nurtured and sustained in educating process and that must be the base of all to set a dream for this degenerating country in today’s time. And specially the attitude of survival for the fittest and individualism in terms of western pursuing life style should be proved wrong and that Centre Tibetan Administration also should adopt a policy regarding this critical splitting factors and work more on predominantly Tibetan occupied settlements and make sure that our common goal is to preserve our traditional culture, language national identity as whole. For that, Centre Tibetan administration should try to create a commercial centre, non-governmental organisation and research centres to reunite the people and get them employed. In such a way, we can pursue a political strategy and educational vision for our own community. And in the same way, the very goal of preserving our originality is being safeguarded with a practical and full-fledged base. Being a young man having many dreams for our country. Sad to learn that more than five hundred Tibetans have applied to Indian password this year alone and I am shocked to see the report by “Times of India.” Yes, it is true that we have the individual right to apply for that but politically and morally it is historical shameful act to do so when we have our own government and calling our self as a political refugee. And obviously we have some parliament members holding Indian password and representing our society. These things should be brought under public debate and discussion. On top of that, it was said that many Tibetan are bound to participate in Indian election system and that is another serious issue to be thought twice before jumping to the practical ground. For the last sixty years, we have lived a peaceful coexistence relation with the local people and we need to think that is the same friendly relation will remain forever if we Tibetans started joining Indian election. This will be a matter of unpredictable questions of our longterm visions for the future generations to come. From another side, Unexpectedly, the very psyche of our politicians is playing a dirty game to have invoked the sensitivity of regionalism based on provinces. That is often being reflected in every parliamentary session and many of these vivid counter argument of regional favouritism is another great challenge that is unnecessary centrifugal force. Which encourages more of disintegrational pathos for
further social fragmentation instead of unifying common people to march for the national cause. We all know that new comers from Tibet is completely stopped since 2008 and many of our schools and monasteries are now being fully packed with Himalayan people. Those who are already here is also rushing for western countries and many more have started applying for Indian Citizenship. If this phenomenon is not changed before long, then talking about nurturing nationalism and patriotism is more like build castle in the air. It is not only laughable but also blasphemous by all the means. For this, CTA should have a basic policy regarding all these things if we are really fighting for our country. Otherwise, the continuous chain of our struggle will come to an end the very hope of Tibetans in inside Tibet will not reach anywhere.
སྒང་གི་ལུང་འདྲེན་དང་དཔྱད་གཞི་ཁག་གཤམ་འཁོད་ཀི་དཔྲེ་དྲེབ་དང་གསར་ཤོག་ཁག་ནས་ཟུར་དུ་བཏོན་པའོ། ༡༽ ༧གོང་ས་མཆོག་་གི་ཤྲེས་ཡོན་ལམ་སོན། ༢༽ སོབ་དཔོན་ཟམ་གདོང་རིན་པོ་ཆྲེ་མཆོག་གི་གོས་ཚོགས་ཀི་གཏམ་བཤད་གལ་ཆྲེན་ཁག་ཕོགས་བསྡུས། ༣༽ བོད་ཀི་དུས་བབ། ༥༽ བོད་ཀི་བང་ཆྲེན། ༦༽ རྒྱ་གར་གི་དུས་བབ་གསར་ཤོག