TIBETAN (TRANS)NATIONAL IDENTITY: THE TENSIONS WITHIN
The institutional as well as the symbolic practices of the Dalai Lama-led Dharamsala establishment encourage people to act socially and cohesively as Tibetans in an "alien" environment. [69] The emphasis on constructing a unity does not mean an elision of differences within the community. As in any other vibrant society, one can find here differences based on generation, socialization, gender, religiosity, region, sect, period of departure from Tibet, class, and political opinions (see Ardley 2002; Diehl 1998). The popular tendency within the media, Tibet support groups, and many Tibetans themselves, is to represent the Tibetan diaspora community as united under the leadership of the Dalai Lama. However, significant differences can be seen within the diaspora between the Tibetans coming from the U-Tsang region and Khampas and Amdowas. Difference is definitely witnessed in religious matters, as in the Shugden affair [70] or the Rumtek monastery controversy, [71] or, for that matter, in less-publicized differences within the monasteries in South Asia between the old arrivals and the newcomers (see Strom 1997, 39-42). Significant generational differences are also found within the diaspora on matters such as the role of religion in society (is it an end in itself or a cultural resource?); outmigration from South Asia (whether to stay in the region close to the community or move out to Western countries for improvement in individual standard of living); influence of popular Indian and Western culture (should one assimilate with the dominant culture or retain separation?); and political priorities (whether to emphasize preservation of traditional Tibetan culture or focus primarily on the explicitly political demands). [72] In political matters too the diaspora is divided. Study of statements by the Tibetan government-in-exile reveals an ambiguity in their primary political demands (at http://www.tibet.com). While the right of Tibetans to self-determination is asserted, often it is argued in terms of significant and real autonomy within China, sometimes on the model of "One Country, Two Systems" as has been followed in the case of Hong Kong. On the other hand, there are more radical intellectuals and activists within the Tibetan diaspora who make a strong and unambiguous case for struggling toward complete independence (see Lazar 1998). [73] There are several other opinions on this matter. A middle ground is expressed in the Hear Tibet! campaign calling for a United Nations-backed referendum within Tibet allowing the Tibetan people themselves to choose their own political future (see Hear Tibet! 2001).
Thus, a unified Tibetan-in-exile identity espoused on behalf of the Tibetan diaspora is a rhetorical device and an imaginary construct. At the same time, it would be naive to dismiss considerations of the identity question on this ground only, for all the identities are in the last instance a product of the imagination. Following Butler:
To take the construction of the subject as a political problematic is not the same as doing away with the subject; to deconstruct the subject is not the same as doing away with the concept… but to call into question and, perhaps most importantly, to open up a term, like the subject, to a reusage or redeployment that previously has not been authorized. (1992, 15)
Though Tibetanness is an imagined and contested construct, it has its own truth effects on those who consider themselves Tibetans.
Recognition of Tibetans as an "imagining community" problema-tizes simplistic interrogations of Tibetanness. It does not undermine the quest of a people for self-determination.
CONCLUSION
Tibetan national identity both inside and outside Tibet is a product of constant negotiation and renegotiation. Personal experience mediates national identity. The "transnational" element is as significant a part of Tibetan nationalism as is the "indigenous element." Tibetanness among those living in exile is as much a discursive product of displacement (conditions of diaspora) as of sense of belonging (to a "distinctive nation"). It is a productive process of creative negotiation with Exotica Tibet. My analysis of the poetics and politics of Exotica Tibet seeks to blur the distinctions between the cultural and the political and to underline the constitutive relations between identity and representation within world politics in the postcolonial world. In order to carry on a postcolonial examination of the politics of Exotica Tibet, we have to move beyond the conventional sense of the term "political" and challenge the boundaries between the political and the cultural. This is what I do in the next chapter, where I offer new ways of theorizing Tibetanness through postcoloniality-inspired symbolic geography and a discursive approach that foregrounds the constitutive and performative role played by representation in identity. This should be seen as underlining a postcolonial analytical approach that will help provide a critical reading of world politics, taking into account the centrality of representation.
6. Postcoloniality and Reimag(in)ing Tibetanness
The fish which lives in water
Pray do not draw it up on dry land!
The stag which grazes on the hills
Pray do not lure it down to the vale
– TIBETAN VERSE (TRANSLATED BY W. Y. EYANS),
wentz, modern political papers
Tibetanness, or Tibetan identity, is a contingent product of negotiations among several complementary and contradictory processes. These processes may be looked at in terms of different pairs of contrastive dynamics, such as the imperatives of a culture- in-displacement and the need to present an overarching stable identity; interaction with host societies and an avoidance of cultural assimilation into hegemonic cultural formations there; emphasis on tradition as the defining characteristic and the presentation of exiled Tibetans as "modern"; the desire to represent Tibetan culture as unique while at the same time highlighting its universal features; interaction with a sympathetic Western audience and emphasizing difference from Western cultures; and finally, the wish to project a sense of continuity with the past while distancing oneself from oppressive elements of history. These dynamics impact the theory and praxis of Tibetanness at several overlapping and hierarchical levels. [74]
By putting the symbolism of Dharamsala/dharmashala/dharam-shala (note the difference in the placing of the "a," highlighting different pronunciations) under a postcolonial critical scrutiny, I offer a deconstructive reading of the Tibetan identity problematic that, instead of jettisoning Tibetan agency, affirms it. The politics of Exotica Tibet-this politics is about the effect of representations on the represented and questions the arbitrary boundary between the cultural and the political-is evident both in the symbolic geography of Dharamsala and in Tibetanness. In the course of this inquiry, I emphasize the symbolism of Dharamsala/' dharmashala/ dharamshala as contested, put forward the dominant story of Tibetanness before offering an alternative reading, and finally, propose a new way of theorizing Tibetanness as discursively constituted by both roots and routes.
[69] The connection between the symbolism implicit in Tibetan government-in-exile structure and the homeland of Tibet is evident in the evolving democratic system with a National Assembly at the top (see Mag-nusson 1997). Here, a quota system operates according to which there are an equal number of representatives for three principal regions of Tibet, the same number of representatives from each of five major religious sects, a few representatives from outside South Asia, and finally a few nominated members. The Tibetans in diaspora therefore vote to make a symbolic claim to Tibet rather than represent their own interests.
[70] Dorje Shugden is an important protector deity of the Gelugpas, the politically dominant Tibetan sect headed by the Dalai Lama. The fierce Shugden protects the purity of the Gelug way, especially against contamination by the sometimes rival Nyingma sect. Early in the twentieth century, a charismatic "revival" movement grew up around Shugden, strongly influencing later generations of Gelug monks and increasing tension with the Nyingma. But in 1976, on the advice of the Nechung oracle, the Dalai Lama banned the worship of Shugden, sparking a controversy that has lately become quite bitter and occasionally violent. This controversy received significant publicity in the international media. Though some media accounts paint Shugden supporters as fundamentalists clinging to Tibet's shamanic past, Lopez (1998) argues that the struggle may actually represent a desire to reassert regional and specifically Tibetan culture. In contrast, the Dalai Lama, in order to constitute Tibet as a unified nation and avoid sectarian tensions, is focusing on universalistic Buddhism.
[71] The Kagyupa sect has its headquarters- in-exile at Sikkim's Rum-tek Dharma Chakra Center. The Rumtek monastery has been wracked by controversy over who is the "real incarnate" of its founder, the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, who died in 1991.
[72] Magazines including Tibetan Review often provide space for the dissenting voices of younger generations. An interesting difference is seen when it comes to assessing the assimilative influence of dominant culture on Tibetan life-while the new refugees' "Sinicization" is ridiculed and considered as unpatriotic, elements of "Indianization" and "Westernization" are often tolerated as necessary strategies of survival.
[73] Tibetan intellectuals, while demanding independence, also reveal an awareness of the need to learn from historical experiences of decolonization.
For instance, Tsarong (1997) suggests possible ways in which the Tibetan struggle may learn from the decolonization in most of Asia and Africa during the twentieth century.
[74] My contention is that drawing upon critical social and cultural theories and deploying them contextually is a better approach than shying away from them out of a fear of theoretical imperialism. Often well-intentioned scholars avoid using Western theoretical ideas in the case of the non-West in general and Tibet in particular since history is replete with examples of similar moves to the detriment of local people. However, moving toward a purely empirical study is not the right solution since this idea of pure empiricism is the most hegemonic of Western paradigms. It is complicit with dominant regimes of patriarchal and racialized power. So in my opinion it is better to adopt the critical theory-inspired idea of theorizing everything since it reveals all practices as political and therefore contestable. Even though these themes have originated in the West, they question the assumption of the superiority of the West and thus leave room for alliances with "progressive" ideas from the non-Western world. Approaches that deny a role to theory often operate on unconscious theoretical assumptions that are left uninterrogated.