André Lacroix: I.T.A.S. and the state of Tibetology

Mr Lacroix is a retired College Professor, and author of Dharamsalades.

He also realised the translation of The Struggle for Modern Tibet by Tashi Tsering, William Siebenschuh and Melvyn Goldstein 

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An international Tibetology conference organised by the I.A.T.S. will soon be held in Prague.
Are you familiar with the International Association for Tibetan Studies?

To be honest, before you told me about it,

I didn't know the International Association for Tibetan Studies, I.A.T.S. in English.

I informed myself this morning on the question and I noticed that it was an association which had been founded in Oxford in 1979, and I say 1979 is strange, it is precisely the year when Deng Xiaoping, wanting to put the Tibetan problem behind him, had organized high-level conferences between representatives of Dharamsala, therefore representatives of the Dalai Lama and representatives of the People's Republic of China. These negotiations finally failed because of the Tibetan negotiators' demands. They wanted to create, it was not a request, it was a claim, to create a greater Tibet which would have cut off China from a quarter of its territory, which obviously was an inadmissible claim for the Chinese representatives.

I also note that a following meeting of this association was held in Narita, Japan in 1989, that is to say the precise year during which the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize. There are bizarre coincidences, and I also discovered that it was at this meeting in Japan that the association wrote its statutes, and among these statutes is the fact that the members co-opt each other, which makes me apprehend that the work now held in Prague by this association is not imbued with the most complete objectivity. I'm afraid it's more or less tainted by anti-Chinese feelings.

In your opinion, what is good Tibetology?
Whom do you consider as a model Tibetologist?

Ideally, Tibetology should of course encompass history, the study of texts, the study of the philosophy, myths, legends, religion, religions. Because it is often believed that there is only Buddhism in Tibet, whereas there, the pre-existing religion was the Bön religion, of which there are still obvious traces today. So, all from a perspective that does not mask the geopolitical dimension, because it is certain that since the end, the fall of the Manchu empire, Tibet as been at the crossroads of all the imperialist attempts of the West, the Russians, the British and so on, it has always been part of the Chinese empire which is currently denied by the people of the International Campaign for Tibet. But it is a historical reality.

By taking advantage of the serious difficulties of the young Chinese Republic from 1911, which was a victim of the warlords and then from the struggle between communists and nationalists, the Japanese invasion and so on, China could not maintain its control over this remote Tibetan province. The British took advantage of this to make it a kind of protectorate which was unilaterally declared by the 13th Dalai Lama as an independent Tibet, but it's an independence that has not been recognized by anyone. So when Mao came to power, he simply recovered this province which for a time had escaped control because of the many difficulties of the young Chinese Republic. But, for me, a true Tibetologist, the paragon of Tibetology is Melvyn Goldstein who really is a master who fluently speaks Tibetan, who has been to Tibet dozens of times and travelled it in all directions, he is a very rigorous historian who obviously knows Tibetan who knows the history and has published studies which are really authoritative on the question. So all the little monographs are good to take, which reinforce and nuance, but I find that the essentials on Tibet have been said. In any case, he wrote a masterful book that we can never do without.

The Covid epidemic has disrupted international studies and exchanges, do you think that this epidemic has influenced Tibetan studies?

It is certain that the impossibility of travelling there certainly did not contribute to a better knowledge of the situation on the spot. On the other hand, insofar as many of these Tibetologists are scholars who study texts and so on, who communicate with each other by videoconference, and so on, I don't know if it influenced the studies so much, I don't know, but, of course it's always better to go and see what's going on. As a Tibetan proverb says: better to seeing once than to hear a hundred times, and this is very true, when you go there, you have another, a completely different understanding than when you just read.

What do you think of the new generation of Tibetologist, is there a positive change in their mentality?

Unfortunately no, compared to the great Tibetologists to whom I refer, I am thinking of people like Melvyn Goldstein who probably is the greatest Tibetologist in the world, who fluently speaks Tibetan, who roamed Tibet in all directions and who has a true Geopolitical vision, who has an enormous historical dimension. He is a gentleman who is, I believe, about my age, that is to say, he is an elderly man, I am thinking of Tom Grunfeld and so on. I can't think of anyone precisely, maybe I'm not informing myself well enough, but I do not see a lot of changes.
Maybe Barry Sautman who is younger but in any case I find that, it is also something that struck me, it is that Tibetology, good Tibetology it must be recognized, is unfortunately very often Anglo-Saxon. French Tibetology, for example, is quite lamentable. INALCO, the National Institute of Oriental Language and Culture in Paris, I would say, is a nest, with a few exceptions, of people who do not even hide the fact that they are against Communist China and whose studies are tainted by this anti-Chinese sentiment. It's quite lamentable. I would mention the names of Françoise Robin, Katia Buffetrille, Anne-Marie Blondeau and so on. These are not quite reliable personalities.

What do you think of the many scholars of Tibetan who have never been there? Is it possible for these people to express a real objective opinion?

In my opinion, it must be very difficult. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it would take someone who is extremely curious, who really wants to be informed without prejudice and who is a polyglot, who handles Chinese, Tibetan, English, French, German and so on. So maybe, but does this kind of character exist? I do not know. In any case, it's sure that when you set foot somewhere, you immediately have another vision than what you simply find in books. Myself, when I for first time went to Tibet, I thought, based on the Lonely Planet, a relatively reliable travel guide, this guide was talking about cultural genocide. Then, eyes like saucers when I first set foot there and I saw the omnipresence of monks and so on. I asked myself, but what is this travel guide talking about? And it was from that moment that I started to study, in particular Melvyn Goldstein, who has really done masterful works on the history of Tibet from the origins to the present day, with this quite remarkable aspect on history and geopolitics.

Internationally, the vast majority of experts on Tibet have long believed that the Chinese government has an unfair policy toward ethnic minorities.

Having visited Tibet several times, what do you think?

Unfortunately, experts, often the ones who are called to our media, are experts who are steeped in the Atlantic climate, which means that China remains the number one threat, and I believe everything can be explained by the fact that the United States are slowly loosing their hegemony, they cannot accept it, they therefore need an enemy to try to saving their leadership. They realise well as they are not stupid that this leadership is shifting towards China, they do everything to slow it down. How should I put it? It is a bipartisan struggle where Democrats are as hostile towards China as Republicans.

Do you think the conference in Prague will bring some positive and apolitical results for the field of Tibetology?

I tried to find out what topics were going to be covered but couldn't find them on the internet. I only found the conference timetable and which conference rooms et cetera, but I don't know who is invited to speak.

I don't know what topics will be covered, there will surely be some very interesting topics during this conference, but I cannot tell.

I'm still wary in general of the ambience, which is likely to be quite anti-Chinese.