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US-style politician
leads Tibetan exiles
Tibet¡¦s new leader is bringing a new style and prominence to the role of
Tibetan prime minister, making him something of a global media darling
By Tim Sullivan / AP, DHARAMSALA, INDIA
Illustration: June Hsu
Lobsang Sangay is the prime minister of a
country that doesn¡¦t exist. His government fills a moldy cluster of yellow brick
buildings clinging to an Indian hillside. His budget depends on donor countries
and wealthy supporters.
However, with his well-tailored suits and carefully practiced sound bites,
Sangay is something new in this tattered hill town, home to Tibet¡¦s
government-in-exile.
He is an openly ambitious politician in a culture that traditionally frowns on
self-promotion. He is comfortable in front of TV cameras, charismatic and, his
critics say, willing to sow divisiveness to win votes. In a town where power has
long rested with elderly Buddhist monks and exiled bureaucrats who fled
Chinese-ruled Tibet, he spent 16 years polishing his resume at Harvard.
And unlike his predecessor, he is not venerated as a god-king.
Sangay, 43, is the first prime minister since Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai
Lama stepped down as head of the exile government last year.
The Dalai Lama¡¦s ¡§popularity, charisma, leadership ¡X it cannot be replicated,¡¨
Sangay said.
Sangay came to power in what might be the most critical moment for Tibet in a
generation: A wave of Tibetans have burned themselves alive to protest Chinese
rule, Beijing is undergoing a leadership transition and the 76-year-old Dalai
Lama is speaking openly of his eventual death.
¡§Tibet is in crisis,¡¨ said Youdong Aukatsang, a New Delhi-based member of the
exile parliament. ¡§But this is also a historic moment for us, with His Holiness
deciding to give up his political position. Lobsang Sangay symbolizes this
turning point.¡¨
Exile politics, long a genteel arena that plodded along in the Dalai Lama¡¦s
shadow, has never seen anything like Sangay.
¡§Tibetans normally want their leaders to be dignified and distant. Lobsang
Sangay went to the people,¡¨ said Tsering Shakya, a scholar of modern Tibet at
the University of British Columbia.
Sangay¡¦s two rivals were older men who had spent decades in the exile
government. Their campaigns were what people expected: a few speeches,
occasional interviews, reaching out to friends of friends.
Sangay, though, launched a campaign blitz.
He embarked on a whirlwind tour of Tibetan exile communities, shaking hands and
giving speeches from India to Minnesota. His supporters created Web sites to
back his campaign. Mild criticisms were met with volleys of online denials. He
relentlessly touted his hardscrabble childhood, the son of a struggling farmer
and trader in the Indian hills.
Despite spending almost his entire adult life at Harvard, first as a law student
and then as a research fellow, he became a master of Clintonian I-feel-your-pain
rhetoric, selling himself as a man of the people.
¡§I understand and can empathize with the average Tibetans,¡¨ he told the online
Tibetan Political Review, speaking of his childhood in a refugee settlement. ¡§I
know what it feels like to go through another season of poor harvest.¡¨
At times, it was an uncanny echo of US politics: A handsome man with well-combed
hair, a small-town stump speech and outsized ambitions.
It was also a shock to the Tibetan establishment.
¡§For some people this was distasteful,¡¨ Shakya said. ¡§But this is something you
learn in America: If you want something, you go and get it.¡¨
Sangay got it, winning more votes than his two rivals combined. While only about
one-third of the global exile community¡¦s 150,000 people voted (6 million more
Tibetans live in China, though it was extremely difficult for them to cast
ballots), his election was seen as a turn against an older generation of Tibetan
officials.
His critics, though, say his victory was partially rooted in the seamier side of
US political culture. Sangay¡¦s focus on his working-class roots was seen by some
in the community as a populist attack message, designed to divide Tibetans along
ancient class lines.
Certainly, it set Sangay apart from his main rival, Tenzin Tethong, a member of
an old aristocratic family.
While the exiled nobility lost much of its power long ago, many poorer exiles
believe they still wield immense influence in Dharamsala.
¡§A few people belonging to high-status families control everything,¡¨ said
Yangdon Tsekyi, 25, who works in a Dharamsala coffee shop, a comment echoed by
many Sangay voters.
¡§If you have the right family name, you can be successful here ... I¡¦m happy
Lobsang Sangay is from a normal family,¡¨ Tsekyi said.
Sangay insists he wasn¡¦t trying to be divisive, and points out that his wife
comes from an aristocratic family. His supporters say his campaign simply
reflected modern politics.
¡§Whether you call it divisive, or whatever, doesn¡¦t matter. I think he wanted to
win the election and wanted to connect with the masses,¡¨ Aukatsang said.
Six months after his swearing-in, Sangay has become skilled in political
banality, avoiding sensitive topics during an hour-long interview by piling
platitudes one upon the other. If pressed, he would sidestep by quoting the
Dalai Lama.
He is eloquent, though, when the topic turns to China, battering Beijing¡¦s rule
with passion and knowledge.
¡§What we fear is unfolding,¡¨ he said of Beijing¡¦s efforts to seal off Tibetan
regions amid the continuing wave of self-immolations: ¡§Tragedy.¡¨
Years of crackdowns, he argues, have given Tibetans no other way to vent their
frustration.
¡§You can¡¦t have hunger strikes, you can¡¦t have demonstrations, you can¡¦t write
petitions ... Given such repressive policies and actions, Tibetans are pushed to
the brink of desperation,¡¨ he said.
This is the real power of the exile government. Along with overseeing refugee
schools and finding jobs for young people, the Dharamsala government is a pulpit
to voice the Tibetan quest for autonomy.
Earlier exile leaders were practically invisible, eclipsed by the Dalai Lama¡¦s
fame. Giving up his political role was supposed to make it easier for Beijing to
negotiate with the Dalai Lama as a religious leader, not the head of a
government China reviles as illegitimate. He also fears a leadership vacuum
after he dies, when the Chinese government and senior Tibetan lamas will almost
certainly name rival reincarnated successors.
However, Sangay¡¦s political instincts, and the new prominence of the
prime-minister role, have helped make him a global darling. The international
media cover his speeches and foreign governments bestow honors on him.
He even gets attacked by Beijing.
¡§That government-in-exile of his, no matter who leads [it], it¡¦s all just a
separatist political clique that betrays the motherland,¡¨ a senior Chinese
official for Tibet said after Sangay offered to negotiate with China.
China accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking independence, though he and Sangay both
insist they only want greater autonomy for the region.
Sangay says much of his job now is finding a middle ground between a deeply
conservative culture and the modern world.
¡§In many ways I¡¦m trying to balance between continuity and change,¡¨ Sangay said,
when asked if he ever fears he has become too Westernized.
¡§I have to be very much Tibetan, but very much modern as well,¡¨ he added.
He is also simply getting accustomed to the new job.
¡§I am an ordinary guy who was given this extraordinary responsibility,¡¨ he said.
As with an experienced US politician, it was impossible to know if the modesty
was heartfelt ¡X or utterly insincere.
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