Barbara Demick's Eat the Buddha is a clear-eyed look at how the situation in Tibet evolved from the early twentieth century, when Tibet was largely independent until today when 'Free Tibet' is the first thing many of us, especially in the West, think of when he hear mention of this place. (Full disclosure: the first thing I think of is that the Tibetan plateau is widely regarded as the most remote place on earth, requiring a journey of 21 days - one by car and 20 by foot - from the nearest city, Lhasa. True story, and one that I include in my urbanization lecture each semester, but I digress.)
Like so many geopolitical issues facing the world today, we can thank the British Empire for meddling where they shouldn't have, and setting in motion the chain of events that has led to the current situation. As Demick notes, it was the euphemistically labeled "expedition" into Tibet by British colonel Francis Younghusband in 1903 which turned Chinese attention toward the strategic importance of this vast but lightly people plateau. And it's not just me blaming the British; as Demick writes, "many Tibet scholars blame Britain for the subsequent calamities that befell Tibet" (p. 20). Clearly, then, we can put this up there was the Opium Wars and the Sykes-Picot agreement.
Brits aside, the challenge for the Tibetans, once China turned its full attention in that direction is that it lacked a major "sponsor" (such as the US or USSR) and was ruled by a teenager - the Dalai Lama. Although one can argue the damage has been done, Demick does state the obvious, lest the reader miss it: picking a successor [to the Dalai Lama, ruler of Tibet] be reincarnation is admittedly a dysfunctional system" (p. 258). Likewise, she can't help but pounce on the absurdity of the Chinese Communist Party declaring that it alone will control the selection of the next Dalai Lama, writing "the idea of these Communist technocrats weighing in on matters of reincarnation prompts much hilarity."
Although Demick's sympathies are clearly with the Tibetan people, her account comes across as balanced (she was a staff writer for the LA Times, after all), and provides a fascinating look at a little known corner of the world, particularly as she focuses her attention on the area around Ngaba, which is located in China proper, not, frankly, all that far from Sichuan and other better-known regions of that vast country. At a time when journalism frequently comes under attack, Eat the Buddha also serves as a reminder of the importance of the craft - and the run of the mill hazards journalists face under the best of circumstances (i.e., when they're not evading hostile security forces). For example, in the course of writing this book, Demick fell into an open sewage ditch. Good naturedly, she remarks that it wouldn't have been so bad, except that the water at the hotel was not working and she was unable to bathe. Journalism in Tibet is clearly not for the faint of heart for oh-so-many reasons.
In any event, Ngaba drew Demick's attention originally for the frequency of the acts of self-immolation that occurred there. (These Demick describes in detail, including the shocking, and horrifying, fact that many of those who committed the act would first consume petrol in order to burn from both the inside and the outside. On the plus side, this preparation virtually guaranteed death; as Demick explains, the only thing worse than self-immolating might be to survive such an attempt.)
As a result of these regular acts of defiance, China cracked down on the region, and cracked down hard, such that from 2011 to 2013, it was nearly impossible to do so much as place a phone call from Ngaba to Beijing.You could forget about Internet, which was entirely unplugged, and heaven help you if you've spared so much as a thought for obtaining a passport. (Even leaving the immediate area to travel elsewhere in China can be daunting, requiring significant paperwork in a place where, not surprisingly given that much of the population still herds goats and yaks, "bureaucratic requirements were challenging for Tibetans raised in a nomadic culture that wasn't strong on paperwork." Strong on paperwork, me thinks is a euphamism about on par with Younghusband's "expedition" that left several thousand dead.)
No wonder, then, that so many Tibetans, especially young Tibetans, sought to flee, typically to India by way of Nepal. Demick follows this harrowing journey, including the necessary zip line across the roaring Sun Kosi River, whose rushing rapids comprise the border from Tibet proper to Nepal. The cost of this one way trip is $10,000 per head. Mercy.
Eat the Buddha, whose title derives from the starving Red Army soldiers who resorted to looting the monasteries and eating the flour-and-butter religious statues, which to Tibetans, made it seem as though they were eating the Buddha, should be required reading for anyone who wants to better understand the tensions in Tibet, the history between China and Tibet, and the role outside powers, including Britain and the U.S. have played in the region over the years. More than that, though, this is an intimate look at lives lived much as they were centuries ago - men and women who herd yak and burn butter lamps, collect yak dung and caterpillar fungus, who generally want little more than to be left in peace, albeit with the same conveniences - cell phones and electricity, say - that are elevating the quality of life the world over.
Demick's story ends on the cusp of today - the coronavirus makes an appearance in the closing pages, with Demick speculating how societal changes as a result of the public health emergency may lead to longer lasting measure even after the epidemic has passed. As she poignantly notes of those who have left Tibet - but which one could reasonably assume also applies to those who remain, "they were regular people who hoped to live normal, happy lives...without having to make impossible choices between their faith, family, and their country" (p. 273). Were that it were so simple, in Tibet and everywhere.
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