A new book giving a compelling 21st century perspective on the non-violent struggle for freedom in Tibet will be launched tomorrow in the Netherlands by the Chair of the International Campaign for Tibet, actor and activist Richard Gere, as part of a week of events in the Netherlands on today’s anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising on 10 March 1959.
The book Incomparable Warriors: Non-violent resistance in Contemporary Tibet offers compelling insights into the nature of Tibetan resistance against Chinese rule, by leading Tibetan, Chinese, Uyghur and Western novelists, poets and journalists including Dr Jonathan Mirsky, a leading China expert, Ma Jian, one of China’s finest contemporary novelists whose books are banned in China and Eliot Pattison, award-winning author of The Skull Mantra and other novels set in Tibet.
Incomparable Warriors – which takes its name from a line in a poem written by the 17th Karmapa when he was escaping from Tibet into exile in 2000 – is dedicated to the memory of five courageous nuns who died in the notorious Drapchi prison in June 1998 after suffering severe torture.
The book includes:
- eyewitness testimony and analysis on how the fierce nature of the Tibetan struggle against invasion was transformed into non-violence under the leadership of the Dalai Lama, by Dr Jonathan Mirsky, one of the world’s leading commentators on China
- a rare image of Tibetans participating in demonstrations with Chinese students at Tiananmen Square prior to the crackdown in June 1989
- a moving personal commentary on Tibet’s resistance by Chinese novelist Ma Jian, who writes: “…the more I saw of Tibet and the damage that Chinese rule had inflicted on the country, the more I understood the Tibetans’ hostility to me. For the first time in my life I felt that I was walking through a part of the world where I had no right to be”
- new voices from Tibet – outstanding
contemporary poetry written in prison and smuggled out to the West - an insider account of the increasing interest in the Dalai Lama in China
- a new account of the death of a group of nuns in Drapchi prison, Lhasa
- a message of hope from the Dalai Lama to young Tibetans in Tibet
- the new strategic alliances being forged between Uyghurs from East Turkistan and Tibetans in exile today by a leading Uyghur commentator in exile
- a powerful account of the inspiration Tibet offers to the world, by award-winning writer Eliot Pattison, who has written a series of thrillers including Skull Mantra set in Tibet
Richard Gere launched the report today at a press conference held to commemorate the presentation of an award, the Geuzen Medal, to the International Campaign for Tibet from an organization of Dutch resistance veterans who fought the Nazis during the Second World War. The award honors the work of organizations characterizing the spirit of resistance and repression.
