In Hope We Trust

Tenzin Nyinjey

Everything that has been done in this world is done by hope --Martin Luther King

'Exile', said Salman Rushdie, 'is the dream of return; dream of returning to one's homeland'. The Tibetan exiles too dream of returning to their country one day. This is the dream that sustains us; the dream of uniting with their brothers and sisters, the dream of reconstructing Tibet on our own terms and conditions. This is the dream that has survived strongly in us against all odds. Wars, famine, and the almost total destruction in our country of our civilization, our culture, of what we most value and cherish, have not deterred us from giving up our dream. We strive always to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dreams, they say, can come true if we stubbornly cling to them, and do not lose faith and courage.

We Tibetans hope against hope that our country will be once again free from Chinese bondage, destruction and slavery. Hope is what carries us forward and strengthens our belief that global common sense and rationality, that ultimately peace and justice will prevail. Hope is what sustains us, encourages us to move forward and work even harder for our country, our freedom, our human right to exist.

It is this hope, this strength, that has kept the issue of Tibet alive. It is this hope that inspires good people of the free world with moral conscience to support the Tibetan cause. It is this hope that gives we Tibetan exiles a meaningful and purposeful life. It is this hope - the hope to return to a free Tibet, where we will have the freedom to speak our minds, the freedom to practice our religion, the freedom to write in our own language without any grim reprisals, fear and suspicion– that has made us survive and endure the wearying complexities of an often depressing exiled life.

And then the most inspiring of all are our brothers and sisters in Tibet. The indomitable spirit and resistance of the Tibetans inside Tibet, their heroism and sacrifices, many even giving up their very lives for Tibet; the fact that they have not strayed from the principles of peaceful and non-violent struggle, in spite of being subjected to the worst forms of indignity and humiliation, give us the vigor and strength to move on. We live our lives with them always in our minds and our hearts.