TibetWrites releases its new title
BABA PHUNTSOK WANGYAL: WITNESS TO TIBET’S HISTORY
Brief
As co-founder of the Tibetan Communist Party in his late teens, and later of the revolutionary Tibetan Authority of Kham, Baba Phuntsok Wangyal (aka Phunwang) was playing a seminal and unique role in 20th century Sino-Tibetan politics from his earliest youth.
Today, at 85, he remains an influential figure in Beijing and actively influences the world beyond the People’s Republic of China through his writings. Of the political essay and letters to Hu Jintao - which form the contents of BABA PHUNTSOK WANGYAL - WITNESS TO TIBET’S HISTORY - eminent China Watcher Isabel Hilton writes: "This trenchant analysis of China’s catastrophic mistakes in Tibet, by one of Tibet’s leading Communists, proposes a constructive way forward for both Tibet and China through real negotiations with the Dalai Lama and a true autonomy for Tibet. It is essential reading for anyone with Tibet’s interests at heart - beginning with Hu Jintao."
With the recently-concluded power struggle in Beijing - and the fact that the world did not see the amount of mistrust and back-stabbing that went into the making of the New King - there was a missed opportunity to truly understand the mechanisms of the consolidation of power in Chinese politics.
At this time, reading Baba Phuntsok Wangyal - who tells us in detail what goes into making the Small King in a small province of China, in this case the Tibet Autonomous Region - we realize he himself could have been the Party-Secretary of the administration in Lhasa, the very position from which Hu Jintao forged his meteoric career.
Being there, right at the heart of Chinese politics in Beijing, Phunwang complains to Hu Jintao, in the series of letters translated in this book, and creates a political whirlpool by suggesting to him - seriously and sincerely - that Hu should welcome back the Dalai Lama to Tibet which Phunwang suggests will be "…good for stabilizing Tibet".
In his Third Letter of August 1 2006, Phunwang writes: "If the inherited problem with Tibet continues to be delayed, it is most likely going to result in the creation of ’The Eastern Vatican of Tibetan Buddhism’ alongside the Exile Tibetan Government. Then the ’Tibet Problem’, be it nationally or internationally, will become more complicated and more troublesome."
Baba Phuntsok Wangyal - the man who sparked off the Communist Revolution within the Tibetan community in the later 1930s, and lived on throughout the Cultural Revolution in China, even undergoing 18 years of imprisonment - now, at 85, is still referred to and consulted by the young and hip China’s intellectuals and social-political activists who live their lives running an underground movement in Beijing and Shanghai.
Phunwang concludes his last letter to Hu by warning: "Comrade Jintao, a single matchstick is enough for the arsonist, but putting out the fire would take a great effort," while affably wishing today’s President "…health and happiness, Tashi Delek!"
With a Foreword by Kasur Sonam Topgyal, former Kalon Tripa
And a Preface by Serta Tsultrim, Member of the Exile-Tibetan Parliament
Book Release: October 26 2007
Lhakpa Tsering Hall
DIIR, Dharamsala, INDIA
Translated from Baba Phuntsok Wangyal’s Mandarin Chinese manuscript by the TibetWrites team: Tenzin Losel (Jampa), Jane Perkins, Bhuchung D. Sonam and Tenzin Tsundue.
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