Social media and Tibet

On Sunday (May 27, 2012), I was engrossed and shouting to the television which is airing the final cricket match of IPL (Indian Premier League) when I received a text message from my girlfriend notifying that there is an unconfirmed report of yet another self-immolation by two Tibetans in Lhasa. While the news stirred me out of the IPL excitement, it slowly dawned on me how she has come about from a seemingly hopeless reader of Tibetan news to a potent one. No, she still doesn’t read much but she religiously follows newsfeeds on facebook where much of what she knows come from.  And as expectedly, she got the news from facebook!

The advent of internet is to a large extent a positive development in a number of ways. The social media has transformed the way in which the whole effort of creating awareness about various issues, including Tibet’s, in a totally different way. The mainstream media now has very little to offer if it concentrates the content of news to just the hard stuff which is almost instantly flashed on social networking sites like facebook and twitter within minutes of occurrence.

It wouldn’t be an exaggerated or rather false statistical count to assume that more than 90% of literate Tibetans now have accounts of facebook and twitters although the later is yet to gain popularity among Tibetan users thanks largely to its “unfriendly user-interface” to average people.

Many Tibetan Facebookers seem to have found the social networking site as an outlet to advance the cause of Tibet be it promoting awareness, disseminating news, notification related to Tibet, updating events related to Tibet in their respective areas. Many users have identified their Tibetan descant in how they have chosen their user name. Tendor, director of Students for a Free Tibet, for instance, uses facebook under the name “Tendor Tibet Dorje བསྟན་རྡོར.” How interesting! The trend is now followed by many Tibetans and many now have Tibet as initial, middle or last name. The act may be small but it sure makes one conscious of our Tibetaness almost effortlessly just by the name.

Going a step further, many now uses Tibetan letters in their user name to identify themselves in the virtual world of social networking and carving their niche as people belonging to Tibet and not to People’s Republic of China.

Every Wednesday, if one fails to remember it is Lhakar, it wouldn’t be hard not to notice someone reminding it subtly by writing something for a status update in Tibetan and one is instantly notified! The other advantage of facebooking in Tibetan is that it creates a cohesive element among our race as Tibetans.

The advent of facebook has heralded the coming of age for Tibetan issue to get publicized as widely as possible. For someone not keenly following the news reports, op-ed and columns of Tibetan issue in mainstream media, it is almost likely one of their friends would have posted a link on their wall and he/she can follow it.

Realising the potential of facebook as an avenue to disseminate the news related to Tibet and China, Mr. Lobsang Yeshi, who is now an MP, has come up with an interesting idea of posting every day the headline stories on his facebook which can be viewed by his friends some of whom, if they are kind enough, will choose to share thus creating an unprecedented chain of readers who will be aware of Tibet and the happenings related to it.

If words alone are not enough, Tibetans exploit multi-media features that facebook offers allowing the sharing of videos and images of common concern. The recent waves of self-immolation that rocked and continue to rock Tibet are amplified in the exile diaspora thanks to the images and videos secretly smuggled out of Tibet by citizen journalists. The effect of such visual is evident. Without going far, the picture of Jamphel Yeshi, who set himself on fire in New Delhi on the eve of China’s President Hu Jintao’s BRICS’ summit visit to India sent shockwave not only among the Tibetan but across the world. Facebook aided in furthering the awareness of the Tibetan plight as Tibetans share the image and video of Jamphel Yeshi’s self-immolation.

It is such capability of social networking site that Arab Spring last year was ignited and successfully toppled the dictator regimes in Arab countries most notably of Libya’s Gaddaffi. Given the potential of facebook as a platform to bring people together for a common cause, one can reasonably hope it will act as a major factor, in a not distant future, when all Tibetans can come in an untied spirit to fight for their Country. Be it Middle-way or Independence, facebook helps both equally.

Written on May 30, 2012.