By Topden Tsering
April 24 – Around forty Tibetans staged a solidarity hunger strike and rally in downtown Berkeley in California as three Tibetan youth entered their 22nd day of indefinite hunger strike before the UN building in New York.
Elderly Tibetan men and women recited prayers under tents festooned with prayer flags, placards, banners and posters for Free Tibet, as youngsters milled around the bustling “Earth Day Fair” crowd distributing flyers, spreading the word about the New York hunger strike and the upcoming massive supporters’ rally in downtown Berkeley next Saturday.
The forty-something hunger strikers, still and serene under the drone of their prayers, amplified in a surreal image the precious conviction of the Tibetan freedom struggle: non-violence and peace amid the chaos of violence, both in the guise of terrorism and anti-terrorism. They brought home the pathos of sunken cheeks and hollowed eyelids of the New York hunger strikers to denizens of Berkeley who dutifully responded with car honks and eager lines at petition tables.
Sangye, a 13 year-old boy, took upon himself, with a friend for an aide, the task of putting up “May 1 Rally for Tenzin Delek” posters for a great stretch of the downtown street. Before that, he had to listen out one more time from this writer the symbolic power of the act as originating from heroic resistance of young nuns and monks in Tibet. He liked also to listen about young children doing their bit in the movie: “Battle of Algiers”. It was another matter that most of the posters he had put up were way below the level average Americans would bend to read. In between our bursts of passion, we had neglected the logistics of height.
“Chocho (brother), can you believe this?” came to this writer a tearful young girl, a flyer distributor, handing me a torn “Tenzin Delek poster”. On it somebody had scrawled in black marker: “Who the F*** Cares?” She was hurt beyond words. It was an initiation in Tibet activism one should have spared a sixteen-year-old. But by the time her eyes dried up, she was a soldier hardened by at least one battle: that of reality.
The hunger strike was concluded with a rally through the downtown to celebrate the Panchen Lama’s birthday, during which speakers called upon China to release the Panchen lama, the 15-year-old Tibet’s second highest spiritual leader.
The hunger strike was organized by the San Francisco Tibetan Youth Congress, with the support of Tibetan Association of Northern California and Tibet Justice Center. The next hunger strike is on May 1, which will be concluded by a massive supporters’ rally through downtown Berkeley.
