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Remarks at the Presentation of the International Campaign for Tibet's 2005 Light of Truth Award
Carl Gershman, President
The National Endowment for Democracy

Washington, D.C.
November 15, 2005

It's a great honor for The National Endowment for Democracy, for the NED staff who have worked on our Tibet grants program, and for me personally to receive the Light of Truth Award, and to receive it from His Holiness the Dalai Lama who is someone we all cherish and profoundly respect. I also want to thank Paula for her kind words. I can think of no better tribute to her competence and commitment than to note that her greatest fan as Special Coordinator for Tibet is Lodi Gyari, who is a superb judge of character and someone who's very hard to please.

I'm gratified that our Tibetan friends feel that NED support has been valuable to their struggle for freedom. But I want them to know that the NED has benefited at least as much from this relationship. As democracy promotion has grown as a priority of U.S. foreign policy, and as this field of work has become professionalized and expanded into areas of state-building and institutional development, there has sometimes been a tendency to forget that aiding democracy is fundamentally a moral vocation, a calling that involves helping people who are fighting for freedom and the right to fulfill their potential as human beings. Our connection with the Tibetan movement, and through it with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the values he defends and embodies, helps remind us of who we are, what we're all about, and why we do what we do. So we have a lot to thank you for.

I also believe that the Tibetan movement has a special place in the global democracy movement. The Tibetan people have suffered a grave historical injustice. But rather than falling into the trap of victimization, which has crippled so many national movements, they have transformed their suffering into a source of moral strength. In so doing, His Holiness and the Tibetan people as a whole have become a unique voice for the idea of universal moral responsibility. They are a beacon of hope and a model for others who have also suffered injustice but who often languish in anonymity and despair.

The Tibetan movement is a symbol of democratic aspiration and possibility. It is often forgotten that the first elections among Tibetan refugees in India were held in the summer of 1960, just months after the Dalai Lama arrived in Dharamsala, and that a democratic constitution was promulgated in 1963 on the fourth anniversary of the Lhasa uprising. By my calculation, that's two decades before the NED was founded. What His Holiness said at the time was that it was not enough to oppose Chinese totalitarianism. It was also necessary to offer a democratic alternative.

This brings me to my third and final point, which is that the struggle for democracy in China is intimately connected to the struggle for the human and national rights of the Tibetan people. There is a tendency today among China specialists and policy-makers in the West to think that China, with its booming economy, is stable, and that democracy is a long way off. The intellectuals and activists we speak with in China see a very different and less stable picture. They see pervasive corruption and widespread anger at self-seeking party elites. They note that there are literally hundreds of thousands of protests that take place every year over land disputes, environmental issues, massive lay-offs of workers in privatized state enterprises, and resistance to forced abortions and China's one-child family policy. They see a brittle system that may not be able to survive an economic setback since it lacks institutionalized means for political expression and accommodation.

No one knows if a crisis in China, if indeed it comes, will lead to a democratic breakthrough or to the rise of a new militaristic nationalism. We hope for the former and need to work to help bring it about. But even in the event of a democratic opening, the Chinese people will have to find a way to overcome the spiritually and morally crippling legacy of communist totalitarianism, the effects of which have now been compounded by rampant materialism and environmental degradation. It is in that context that China may need to turn to Tibet for insight into spiritual healing and cultural rebirth.

It is not just my own view that the Chinese people might benefit from Tibetan Buddhism. Here is something I received by email just today from a posting on a discussion group in China by someone described to me as a very knowledgeable person: "A vice governor said...in the late 1990s, 'We are the guardians of a dead religion but need to hang on for the sake of social stability.' Some Chinese speak of feelings of a moral vacuum. I wonder if there could be a religious revival....A Chinese friend told me that the Dalai Lama is highly respected by Han Chinese Buddhists..."

In accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace, His Holiness said that the relationship between Tibet and China should be based on mutual respect and benefit. He referred to the principle defined by treaty nearly 1200 years ago and carved on the pillar that still stands in front of the Jokhang, Tibet's holiest shrine in Lhasa. It reads: "Tibetans will live happily in the great land of Tibet, and the Chinese will live happily in the great land of China." I would suggest a small amendment to that principle, which is that the Chinese will live more happily even, let us hope, in democracy -- if they can find a way to draw upon the spirituality of Tibet. It is a precious human resource that that has survived more than half a century of oppression and exile and that now enriches the life of all mankind.

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