Dibyesh Anand - Geopolitical Exotica

The support of the "Free Tibet" movement is often based on the supposed cultural uniqueness of Tibetans rather than on the recognition of the political right to self-determination. Richard Gere, the Hollywood actor, uses the analogy of David and Goliath to offer hope to the Tibetans and reminds them, "You must maintain that sense of uniqueness and that genuine cultural commitment to nonviolence. If you pick up arms and become like the Palestinians, you'll lose your special status" (in Schell 2000, 56). As Baird recognizes in the New Internationalist (1995) special issue on Tibet, the romantic image has hampered the Tibetan struggle for self-determination: "If Tibetans are presented as a dreamy, unrealistic people, obsessed with religion, their struggle is unlikely to be taken seriously by a world driven by more secular values. Their demand for independence will be seen as pie-in-the-sky and their ability to rule themselves will be open to question" (1995, 1).

However, rather than paint Tibetans as victims, we can view the Shangri-la image in a different light. Exotica Tibet is not only restrictive of options but is also "a soft power resource that can be manipulated to get attention and to get some access to the stages of world politics" (Magnusson 2002, 211). For instance, Klieger (1997) argues that Tibetans have been active in the creation and presentation of their own identity. [64]Not only have they participated in portraying an image of themselves to outsiders but their self-perception too has been a result of this self-reflexivity. Calling this conscious and selective presentation of self "Tibetan hyperreality," he writes: "Tibetan hyperreality is created from a conscious and selective presentation of self to an audience with highly conditioned expectations. Tibetan culture as currently presented in most Tibetan cultural centres in the West is idealized, homogenated and pasteurized. It has… remarkably allowed the perpetuation of Tibetan identity despite the vicissitudes of exile" (ibid., 67).

In the process of strategically deploying their culture to the Western audience for mobilizing political support, Tibetans have redefined and reconstructed Tibetan culture and identity. The Dalai Lama-led government-in-exile self-consciously makes representations of reflexive, politicized notions of culture and identity that are dependent upon the globalized production of institutions and the flow of cultural resources made possible through the onslaught of modernity (see Huber 2001; McLagan 1997; see also Shakya 2001). Not only have they embraced modern technologies such as the Internet (see McLagan 1996) to promote their cause [65]but they have also projected their culture as being compatible with universalizing discourses such as environmentalism, (world) peace, and nonviolence. Representations, politicized culture, and an interaction with a Western audience affect the "domestic" and "international" politics of the Tibetan elite in the diaspora. In their search for outside support, the Tibetan elite have been learning the language of international politics dominated by the Western powers (see Frechette 2002; Kolas 1996).

"We live in a nationalised world" and we tend to see the world with a "nationalising eye" (Cubitt 1998, 1). Recognizing the dominance of nationalism as a source of legitimacy in contemporary international politics, for example, the Tibetan government-in-exile has molded its expositions on Tibetan identity accordingly. Though "Old Tibet" had elements of natio (Lopez 1998, 197-98), Hobs-bawm's protonationalism (Dreyfus 1994), and what Smith calls eth-nie, a modern sense of nationhood was absent (Ekvall i960, 382). Tibet as a nation is not a historical reality but a product of post-exilic imagination. [66]The Western influence can also be seen in the evolving cultural and political discourses, including the structure of the government-in-exile. In fact, the Dharamsala establishment has been moving toward democratization (see Boyd 2004) for gaining legitimacy in the West. These developments may be explained in terms of an image-building exercise, steps taken toward keeping up with the times, response to pressures from within the refugee community, and finally, the Dalai Lama's personal initiative.

In complying with dominant representational regimes, Tibetans are following tactics common to many groups who try to counter their relative powerlessness by negotiating within the dominant representational regimes and selectively appropriating favorable aspects. All third world resistance groups have to "negotiate both the post-cold war reframing of global politics and the lingering traces of Western post-colonial fantasies about their country and culture" (Bishop 1998, 123; see also Bishop 2000). Gandhi's adoption of the Orientalist trope of spiritualist Indians, feeding it into a wider political struggle against British imperialism as well as social evils within the Indian society, is a good example.

At the same time, these presentations should not be seen only in terms of a response to Orientalist representations, for often there are elements within the traditional society that facilitate this appropriation. Aris argues that the current predicament of Tibetans seeking Western support against an "Eastern" power (China) can be understood within traditional Tibetan historiography: "All Tibetan chronicles contain a stock chapter which speaks of the key process by which the embers of the doctrine in central Tibet were revived from the west and caused to flame from the east" and therefore "the idea of destruction, whether caused by external attack or internal collapse, is bound up with the idea of flight to a place of refuge and the possibility of return" (BOD MS Or. Aris 14 1990, 65, 67).

The Dalai Lama speaks about spirituality and the peaceful nature of Tibetans. His Strasbourg Proposal of 15 June 1988 is an example: "My country's unique history and profound spiritual heritage render it ideally suited for fulfilling the role of a sanctuary of peace at the heart of Asia" (His Holiness the Dalai Lama 1988). Though some historians argue that there is a strong tradition of warriors among groups of Tibetans (Norbu 1986), this does not undermine the Dalai Lama's claim about a "profound spiritual heritage," for elements of compassion and the principle of nonviolence were present within traditional Tibetan society. Such strategies are more about the selective appropriation of historical narratives for contemporary purposes than about specific historical truths. The specificity of these strategies is shaped by the contemporary vocabulary available for expression. The vocabularies of nationalism and transnationalism are two such discourses that the Tibetans have adopted to make their case.

Quite often, diasporas are considered to exist in opposition to nation-states, with diaspora consciousness correspondingly incommensurate with nationalism. Clifford, for example, argues that diaspo-ras can never be exclusively nationalist because they imply multiple attachments (1997, 135-36). However, in the case of the Tibetans, nationalist discourse is a product of the diaspora. Imagining Tibet as a nation is to a large extent a postexilic phenomenon. The most sophisticated articulation of Tibetan national identity thus comes from the more radical sections of the Tibetan diaspora. Western representations and diaspora conditions have also contributed to a shift in emphasis away from ethnicity (Tibetans as tsampa eaters) to religion (a "modern" version of Tibetan Buddhism) as the basis of Tibetanness (Lopez 1998, 198). In contrast, Shakya (1993) argues that the shift has been away from "faith" to "flag" as a result of the hegemony of nationalistic discourse.

At the same time, transnationalism, engendered substantially by the transnational Tibet movement, has been an integral part of Tibetan diasporic identity. This is not surprising given that "the Tibet movement represents an emergent form of transnational, inter-cultural political activism, one that is dependent upon the complex production and circulation of representations of 'Tibetanness' in various arenas that cross cultural and national boundaries" (McLagan 1997, 69; emphasis in original). Tibetan identity has strong constructive elements of transnationalism (Mountcastle 1997), including those that emphasize environment (on "green" Tibetan identity, see Huber 1997), peace, spiritualism, international human rights, universal compassion, and eclectic beliefs. As pointed out earlier, these are distinctly connected to Exotica Tibet. The constituency of Tibetan supporters often overlaps with other transnational social movements. Economically and politically, as well as symbolically, transnational connections feed into the Tibetan diaspora's nationalism. While recognizing the essentially modern aspect of the nationalist and transnationalist discourses prevalent among the Tibet diaspora, it cannot be denied that the traditional Tibetan principles of operating with the external powers have also facilitated this.