New Delhi: Lonesome Tibet marks its national calamity. As they have unfailingly done each year since 1959, the oppressed and subjugated people of Lonesome Tibet marked their National Uprising Day yet again on the 10th of March.
Bemoaning the loss of their country to Mao’s brutal machine, Tibetans the world over commemorate their spirit of resistance and the unique identity of their motherland on this occasion.
This year however, there was a marked increase in processions and protests globally, evidently a result of the deepened sense of collective tragedy felt by Tibetans encapsulated by the recent self-immolation of a popular 25-year-old Tibetan singer, Tsewang Norbu, who chose to sacrifice his life on February 25th in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa for the cause of Tibet’s freedom. And yet, this was but the latest in a string of lives cut short by the repression wrought by Beijing, now in its seventh decade.
Tibetan exiles made their presence felt across the world. In Richmond City, California — home to the Tibetan Association of Northern California’s community centre and the third-largest Tibetan community in the US — Mayor Tom Butt officially declared March 10 as ‘Tibetan Uprising Day’ and the occasion was marked by a large gathering celebrating the cause.
In Schuman Round, Belgium, hundreds of Tibetans marched with Tibetan flags, photographs of the Dalai Lama, and Free Tibet posters. They chanted slogans decrying the perennial Chinese atrocities and human rights violations in Tibet, and shared clippings of a well-attended conference held on January 4 at the Brussels Press Club to highlight the Tibetan tragedy.
They marched towards the Chinese Embassy and then proceeded to Carrefour de L’ Europe near the Brussels Central station. Also present in support were functionaries of the International Campaign for Tibet as well as members of other Tibet support groups, such as the Tibetan Women’s Association.
A similar protest occurred in front of the Chinese Embassy in Toronto, the participants demanding an end to “Xi’s war on Tibetan language, culture and religion”.
Globally, hundreds of Tibetans marched and gathered in popular locations and near Chinese Embassies, including in Canberra, Djakarta, Oslo, San Francisco and Berkeley City, doing their duty unto their motherland — whatever little remains in their power — raising a defiant voice against Beijing’s determined attempts to extinguish the very identity of Tibet.
–IANS
