Q. What is the purpose of your visit to New York?
A. Being the President of Tibetan Youth Congress, I have come
here to organize this hunger strike.
Q. Can you give us a brief background to this hunger strike?
A. Hunger strikes are the best of nonviolent methods of highlighting
the lack of human rights in Tibet and we are doing this to let
the United Nations know of the situation in Tibetan.
Q. After 17 days of staying on hunger strike, what is the
impact of it so far?
A. There are many ways in which we can see the impact of hunger
strike. First, based on the response of United Nations to demands
of the hunger strike we can judge the impact. If you look at
the history of hunger strikes, most of the time their demands
are not fulfilled. When I say their demands are not fulfilled
— it doesn’t mean that our demands will not be fulfilled.
There are cases where their demands are fulfilled. On small
issues, they generally get what they want but our struggle is
of a nation and race and it cannot be solved by two nations
or by United Nations in a short period of time. However, it
is not impossible. In another perspective, we have to see how
much this hunger strike can affect the United Nations and cause
to work for Tibet. So far, most of our struggle doesn’t
receive any proper response from the United Nations. Since,
we do not get any response from United Nations; we don’t
know how much has improved. So, if this hunger strike can make
United Nations and Human Rights commission show some concern
and make promises to help, then we can consider the hunger strike
as successful. It is fact that lot of people and nations support
and believe our struggle, although not with a strong political
stand. But for Tibetans, the issue of our struggle depends how
much they put their support and cooperation. That’s how
they should see the impact of this hunger strike.
Q. What message you have for the people in New York?
| "...the
younger generations should know what their parents have
been through and try to follow in the struggle." |
 |
A. In our Tibetan society, there is a lack of telling personal
stories to the youngsters. When we talk of our struggle, the
older generation should tell their histories to the younger
generations. These days in New York or any other abroad, they
forget the past, forget their nationality and roots and also
they don’t know what their parents went through in their
life. Parents do not tell their kids their difficulties as they
think it is unnecessary. The children should know all these.
If the elders didn’t talk about their past and youth don’t
ask about it, there is no chance that struggle will continue
in future.
You can encourage the struggle to continue by telling the younger
generations about the past and Tibet’s history. Today’s
generation should know their roots and continue to follow our
struggle. By forgetting the past, the new generation cannot
start a new struggle and if so, it won’t succeed.So the
younger generation should continue the struggle from the older
generation.
For example, if the river starts from a mountain, it continues
to flow to the seas but if it does from somewhere in the plains,
it cannot flow for long. So in short, the younger generations
should know what their parents have been through and try to
follow in the struggle.
