Young Tibetan Monks in Kardze. Throughout greater Tibet, objection to Chinese rule have become increasingly nihilistic.
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More than 60 years after communist forces marched in, the high-altitude grasslands of Kardze still feel like an occupied territory. The prefectural capital's Chinese name, Kangding, can literally mean "stabilize Kham." Giant propaganda billboards loom above grazing yaks and tidy Tibetan settlements. "The police and citizens together share a common purpose to foster development," says one in Chinese, a language that many Tibetans cannot read. "Red flags across the sky," says another. "In the same boat we work together to build a peaceful environment." Police jeeps rumble across unpaved paths past Tibetan nomads with gold-capped teeth, who squint through the swirl of road dust. Monasteries I visit are staffed with plainclothes police officers, easy to distinguish with their buzz cuts and alert eyes. It's not just the thin air of a region that rises well over 13,000 ft. (4,000 m) above sea level that makes moving around here tiring. So many people, one feels, are either pretending not to watch anything or watching too carefully. The attention is exhausting.
Across Tibetan regions, owning a picture of the man Beijing calls "a wolf in monk's clothes" invites prison time. But in Kardze, I see the Dalai Lama's visage everywhere. Each monastery I go to has his picture tucked away somewhere. Maroon-clad monks pull cell phones out of their thick robes to show me snapshots of their spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama's image nestles between packets of peanuts and toilet paper in a small provisions store. A woman wells up with tears when I tell her I have been to Dharamsala, the Indian hill station where he lives.
Despite the locals' reverence, the Dalai Lama's message of nonviolence and compassion--precisely what makes the Tibetan movement so popular abroad--seems to be fraying. All the Kardze monks I ask say they understand why their fellow clerics immolated themselves, breaking Buddhist vows against the taking of life. "They did this not as individuals but for the Tibetan people," says a 20-year-old monk. "I admire their courage."
Monks on fire grab headlines. News of the ritual suicides has traveled fast through Tibetan regions, even as the Chinese government has severed Internet connections and suspended text-messaging services in certain areas. But when talking with young, rosy-cheeked monks in Kardze, in their dormitory rooms with posters of the Dalai Lama next to those of NBA stars, it is easy to feel the futility of the immolations. The Khampas may have once been proud warriors, yet they are hardly a fighting force now. Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, ran a story last month about weapons being smuggled from Burma to Tibetan separatists. But rusty guns from a third-world backwater can hardly compete with the technological might of the People's Liberation Army. Those who note that a street vendor's self-immolation catalyzed a revolution in Tunisia must also accept that the Han majority's sympathies do not lie with the Tibetans. The Han have their own frustrations with the ruling Communist Party. The treatment of Tibetans is not one of them.