Great People..

Humanize Asia
People of Asia - and active non-violence.

Complied in Hong Kong for 2 Oct 2007 Day of Non-Violence

Most striking and recent non-violent resistance organizations and people
active in providing non-violent alternates in Asia, that is, that have
made efforts to change things for the better in Asia using the active
non-violence approach.

Asia - Mario Rodríguez Cobos or Silo Born in Mendoza, Argentina, on
January 6th,1938. Does not profess any religion, nor is he affiliated to
any political party. He lives with his family in a small town near
Mendoza. Silo’s historic harangue, “The Healing of Suffering”, was given
on May 4, 1969. His ideas began to circulate more than three decades ago
in different parts of the world.

In the 1970s Silo was in Japan and the Philippines. In November 1981 an
Asian Tour took place, with 10,000 people gathered at Chowpatti Beach,
Bombay.

Active non-violence has been a fundamental tenet of Silo’s guidance.
Groups and organisations have formed throughout Asia under various
banners, all stemming from his activities in co-operation with members
of the Universalist New Humanist Movement.

Bangladesh - Khan Jahan local ruler and celebrated sufi saint. Khan
Jahan (popularly known as Khan Jahan Ali) was entitled Ulugh Khan and
Khan-i-Azam and flourished at Khalifatabad (Bagerhat) in the first half
of the fifteenth century AD when the later Iliyas Shahi Sultan
Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah was ruling at Gaur.

Khan Jahan, a noble under the Tughlaqs, seems to have come to Bengal
just after the sack of Delhi (1398) by Timur. He acquired the forest
area of the Sundarbans as jagir (fief) from the sultan of Delhi and
subsequently from the sultan of Bengal. He cleared up the dense forest
in the Sundarban area to set up human settlements, and soon got the
Masjidkur and adjacent areas on the eastern bank of the Kobadak suitable
for habitation through the untiring efforts of his deputies Burhan Khan
and Fateh Khan.

Local tradition ascribes to Khan Jahan the first Muslim colonisation of
a part of greater Jessore and Khulna districts. The titles Ulugh Khan
and Khan-i-Azam of Khan Jahan, as inscribed on his tomb, suggest that he
was not an independent freelancer but that he owed fealty most probably
to the Sultan of Gaur. He ruled over the pargana of Khalifatabad
stretching up to Naldi to the north of Narail.

Khan Jahan was a great builder. He founded some townships, built
mosques, madrasahs and sarais, roads, highways and bridges, excavated a
large number of dighis in the districts of greater Jessore and Khulna.
Besides his fortified metropolis of Khalifatabad (modern Bagerhat) he
built three townships, Maruli Kasba, Paigram Kasba and Bara Bazar. He is
said to have built a highway from Bagerhat to Chittagong, a twenty-mile
long road from Samantasena to Badhkhali, and a road running from
Shuvabara to Daulatpur in Khulna. The most notable of his architectural
monuments are Shatgumbad Mosque © 1450) at Bagerhat, Masjidkur Mosque ©
1450) at the village Masjidkur, his own tomb (1459) near Bagerhat and a
single-domed mosque attached to his tomb. Of the large number of dighis
and ponds excavated by him the most notable are the Khanjali Dighi
(1450) near his tomb and Ghoradighi (measuring 1500´x750´) to the west
of Shatgumbad Mosque. Khan Jahan introduced a new architectural style in
his buildings, which is named after him. The Khan Jahan style is seen in
a group of buildings in the greater districts of Khulna, Jessore and
Barisal. Khan Jahan who might have been an officer of the Gaur sultan
betrays in his buildings an affection for the Tughlaq architecture of
Delhi. This amply suggests his acquaintance with the Tughlaq style of
architecture and perhaps his earlier involvement in Tughlaq
administration.

Khan Jahan died on 25 October 1459 (27 Zilhajj 863 AH) and was buried in
the tomb built by himself. He is revered by people and numerous people
visit his tomb. An annual fair is held on the dargah premises in the
bright half of the lunar month in the Bengali month of Chaitra. [Muazzam
Hussain Khan]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh - Muhammad Yunus
Born June 28, 1940 in Chittagong, then British India. Today a resident
of Bangladesh - religious belief Islam - is a Bangladeshi banker and
economist. A former professor of economics, he is famous for his
successful application of the concept of microcredit, the extension of
small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank
loans. Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank. In 2006, Yunus and the
bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to
create economic and social development from below." He is the author of
Banker to the Poor and a founding board member of Grameen Foundation.

Aung San Suu Kyi: Burma/Myanmar - born 19 June 1945 in Yangon (Rangoon),
is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League
for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma), and a noted prisoner of conscience. A
Buddhist, Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom
of Thought in 1990 and in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her
peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship.

Her father, Aung San, negotiated Burma's independence from the United
Kingdom in 1947, and was assassinated by his rivals in the same year.
Suu Kyi was educated in English Catholic schools for much of her
childhood in Burma.

She continued her education at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and at the
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She also
worked for the government of the Union of Myanmar. In 1972, Aung San Suu
Kyi married Dr. Michael Aris, a scholar of Tibetan culture, living
abroad in Bhutan. Two sons.

Political beginnings
In 1988 the long-time leader of the socialist ruling party, General Ne
Win, stepped down, leading to mass demonstrations for democratization on
August 8, 1988 (8-8-88, a day seen as favorable), which were violently
suppressed. A new military junta took power.

Heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, Aung
San Suu Kyi entered politics to work for democratization, helped found
the National League for Democracy on 27 September 1988, and was put
under house arrest on 20 July 1989. She was offered freedom if she would
leave the country, but she refused.

One of her most famous speeches is the "Freedom From Fear" speech, which
begins:

" It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts
those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who
are subject to it.

In 1990, the military junta called a general election, which the
National League for Democracy won decisively. Under normal
circumstances, she would have assumed the office of Prime Minister.
Instead, the results were nullified, and the military refused to hand
over power.

The country name: Criticism concentrates on the fact that the military
regime, not democratically elected, had no legitimacy to change the name
of the country. However, it should be remembered that the military
regime did not change the official name of the country in Burmese, but
merely changed the name of the country in English. Opposition leader 1.
Aung San Suu Kyi at first opposed the new name "Myanmar", pointing out
at the hypocritical justification of inclusiveness put forward by the
military regime. Opposition parties, although they oppose the English
name "Myanmar", do not oppose the official Burmese name Myanma, and no
opposition party is proposing to use the colloquial name Bama as the
official name of the country.

Cambodia - Yos Hut Khemacaro. Seeks peace building initiatives which
are grounded in the local Khmer culture and sees Buddhism as the sole
institution which cuts across the deep political divisions separating
Cambodians today. The tendency to see it as a passive religion has often
led its great potential to be overlooked by outsiders. Khmer Buddhism's
timeless message of non-violence and compassion offers an important
platform for promoting constructive social and political change in
Cambodia today.

Buddhism has always been much more than a religion in Cambodia: it is a
social doctrine encompassing all aspects of life. Most Cambodians
consider themselves Buddhists. The village-based monastic system which
developed over many centuries in Cambodia effectively linked
enlightenment with community involvement. Under the direction of monks,
wats (temple-monasteries) became not only religious centres but also
sources of popular education and social services. Buddhism, as a
consequence, became the main medium through which the Khmer language and
culture was transmitted, explaining why it remains intricately woven
into the current social fabric despite Cambodia's tumultuous past.

The Dhammayietra ('pilgrimage of truth') peace marches are the most
visible expression of Khmer Buddhism's condemnation of violence. The
'army of peace', as it came to be known, made its first historic journey
in 1992. A large party of refugees and monks from Cambodia and other
countries were led by the Venerable Maha Ghosananda on a four-week march
from the Thai border into Cambodia. By the time the army of peace
reached Phnom Penh, it was 1,000-strong and had attracted the world's
attention to Cambodia's problems.

This massive peace demonstration has become an annual event in Cambodia
and traverses some of the country's most insecure regions.

China - The Tiananmen Square Protest 1989 was for democracy in China

China - Rebiya Kadeer - born 1947 - because of her support for western
China's Uyghur ethnic group and is one of China's most prominent
advocates of women's rights. She has shown great courage in opposing the
Chinese authorities' repressive policies. She has said, ''I will
continue to speak out against China's persecution of not only the Uyghur
people, but also Tibetans, Mongolians, and the Chinese people themselves
until all of them can enjoy their rights and freedoms.''

Kadeer, who lived in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region -
Xinjiang is also known as East Turkistan - was jailed for eight years in
1999 on charges of endangering national security by giving state secrets
to foreigners. She was released early on ''medical parole'' in 2005 and
moved to the United States. Kadeer maintains she is a woman of peace,
but that is rejected by the Chinese authorities.
.
India - Gandhi - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. October 2, 1869 – January
30, 1948. a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian
independence movement. He was the pioneer of Satyagraha - the resistance
to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa
(non-harming) or total non-violence — which was one of the strongest
driving philosophies of the Indian independence movement and inspired
movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

In India, he is officially accorded the honour of Father of the Nation
and October 2nd, his birthday, is commemorated each year as Gandhi
Jayanti, a national holiday. On 15 June 2007, the United Nations General
Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution declaring October 2 to be the
"International Day of Non-Violence."

India - Christian priest, Jesuit, Cedric Prakash, who has lived in
Ahmedabad for many years and who has seen the carnage left by rioting
before, including the 1968 Mumbai riots, those of 1969 throughout
Gujarat, and the Delhi anti-Sikh riots of 1984.

Until recently Prakash was the Director of Saint Xavier’s Social Service
Society, a small non-governmental relief organization working in some of
Ahmedabad’s many slums where he spearheaded a number of initiatives
aimed at promoting interfaith harmony. One of the most inspiring has
been the setting up of informal ‘peace committees’ whose primary job is
to counter inflammatory propaganda spread mostly by Hindu extremists and
designed to encourage violence against Muslims. As soon as a rumour
begins to circulate, the peace committees spring into action, holding a
community meeting in the slums to determine how the rumour started, by
whom and why. In this way the community meetings act as a safety valve,
allowing the local people to come together, ask questions and learn the
truth. With rumours travelling at lightning speed through the twisted
alleys of the city’s slums, the ‘myth busting’ work of the peace
committees is a potent antidote to the fears and mistrust that often
lead to violence. Now Prakash has set up his own organization, Prashant,
which means ‘all-pervasive peace.’

India - Asghar Ali Engineer - of the Dawoodi Bohra - was born in Bohra
priestly family (amil's family) on 10th March, 1939 in Salumbar,
Rajasthan (near Udaipur) where Sheikh Qurban Husain, his father, was an
amil at that time. Asghar Ali was given training in Qur'anic tafsir
(commentary), Tawil (hidden meaning of Qur'an) fiqh (jurisprudence) and
hadith (Prophet's sayings). He learnt the Arabic language from his
father and further developed it himself. He has studied all the major
works of Fatimi Da'wah by Sayedna Hatim, Sayedna Qadi Nu'man, Sayedna
Muayyad Shirazi, Sayedna Hamiduddin Kirmani, Sayedna Hatim al-Razi,
Sayedna Jafar Mansur al-Yaman and several others.

Mr. Engineer also acquired secular education besides religious one. He
graduated in civil engineering from Indore (M.P.) with distinction and
served for 20 years as an engineer in Bombay Municipal Corporation and
then took voluntary retirement to plunge himself into the Bohra reform
movement. He began to play a leading role in the reform movement
from1972 when the revolt took place in Udiapur. He wrote several
articles on the reform movement in the Seventies in the leading
newspapers of India such as The Times of India, Indian Express,
Statesman, Telegraph, The Hindu and others. He was unanimously elected
as General Secretary of The Central Board of Dawoodi Bohra Community in
its first conference in Udiapur in 1977 and has continued in the post
ever since. He devotes a great deal of his time for the reform movement
and has internationalised the reform movement through his writings and
speeches.

Mr. Engineer has also done a great deal of work on communalism and
communal violence in India since the first major riot in India in
Jabalpur in 1961. His work in this field is considered pioneering and in
recognition of his work Calcutta University conferred an honorary degree
of D.Lit. on him in February, 1983.

Dr. Engineer, as he is known since then, is also recognised as a
distinguished scholar of Islam and is invited for international
conferences on Islam by various governments and universities. Dr.
Engineer has lectured in several universities in USA., Canada, UK,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Germany, France, Thailand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Yemen, Mexico, Lebanon, Switzerland, Egypt, Tokyo, Uzbekistan, Moscow,
Leningrad etc. He has also lectured in all the universities throughout
India.

Dr. Engineer has received several awards on his work on inter-religious
understanding. He believes in showing equal respect to all religions and
he considers faith in religion as most vital for a meaningful life.
However, he does not believe in blindly accepting dogmas inherited from
the past. He believes in re-thinking issues and re-interpreting Islam in
keeping with the changed times. He is of the opinion that it is our
individual obligation to acquire Islamic learning and reflect deeply
rather than following any one blindly. See his Rethinking Issues in
Islam.

On India's Republic Day Dr. Engineer was given the National Communal
Harmony Award for 1997 by the Government of India in recognition of his
work for promoting communal harmony throughout the country. The award
carries a citation and Rs. one lakh in cash.

Asghar Ali Engineer - as scholar and activist - and Swami Agnivesh,
social activist, were jointly selected for the 2004 Right Livelihood
Honorary Award in recognition of their "unceasing work for social
justice and communal harmony."

Reading from the citation, Baron Jakob von Uexkull, Founder-Chairman,
Right Livelihood Award Foundation, said the award was given "for their
strong commitment and cooperation over many years to promote the values
of coexistence, tolerance and understanding in India and between the
countries of South Asia."

India - Vinoba Bhave, a follower of Gandhi. September 11, 1895 -
November 15, 1982. Considered as a National Teacher of India and the
spiritual successor of Mahatma Gandhi. He was associated with Mahatma
Gandhi in the Indian independence movement. In 1932 he was sent to jail
by the British colonial government because of his fight against British
rule. There he gave a series of talks on the Gita, in his native
language Marathi, to his fellow prisoners.

In 1940 he was chosen by Gandhi to be the first Individual Satyagrahi
(an Individual standing up for Truth instead of a collective action)
against the British rule. Bhave also participated in the Quit India
Movement.

Vinoba observed the life of the average Indian living in a village and
tried to find solutions for the problems he faced with a firm spiritual
foundation. This formed the core of his Cervidae (awakening of all
potentials) movement. Another example of this is the Bhadon (land gift)
movement. He walked all across India asking people with land to consider
him as one of their sons and so give him a portion of their land which
he then distributed to landless poor. Non-violence and compassion being
a hallmark of his philosophy, he also campaigned against the
slaughtering of cows.

Indonesia - Baku Bae - The Baku Bae movement in Indonesia brought
Christian and Muslim communities together by adopting bold conflict
resolution and
reconciliation methods. The initiators see these as a way of rebuilding
social capital and restoring trust through dialogue and community focus.

In 2000, as fighting between Muslims and Christians in Maluku,
Indonesia, spiralled out of control, peace activist Ichsan Malik began
knocking on militants’ doors. Neither side showed desire for
reconciliation.

Malik was confident his bottom-up approach would work, that the key was
to strengthen desire for peace at the grassroots (people actually
involved in, and affected by, the conflict) before getting the
authorities involved. That is the core idea of Baku Bae
(“Reconciliation”), a movement formed in 2000 that became one of the
most visible civil-society responses to the mass violence that broke out
in Maluku a year earlier. A five stage approach is used.

Japan - Makoto Oda, writer and peace activist who died July 2007 at the
age of 75. At the memorial service in Tokyo, Shuichi Kato, an
influential social critic, addressed Oda's picture on the altar, saying,
"You were and you still are a great campaigner who promoted the
anti-Vietnam War movement, fought for the establishment of a law to
support the victims of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake and engaged in
the recent pro-Constitution struggle."

Myanmar - Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese: born 19 June 1945 in Yangon
(Rangoon), is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the
National League for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma), and a noted prisoner
of conscience. A Buddhist, in 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship.

Myanmar - National League for Democracy. They are the only party in the
country to engage in the political struggle by solely nonviolent means.
In 2000, they stated publicly that their foreign policy will include
introducing to parliament at the soonest possible time the accession of
Burma to the Mine Ban Treaty as a mater of national urgency.

Myanmar - Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, carries a belief and hope for a
non-violent world. He is the South-east Asia coordinator of Nonviolence
International and Landmine Monitor researcher for the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines, the NGO which won the Nobel Prize for Peace
in 1997.

Nepal - Krishna Pahadi, a former chair of Amnesty International Nepal
and founder of the Human Rights and Peace Society; Dr Devendra Raj
Panday, former president of the anti-corruption organization
Transparency International-Nepal; Dr Mathura Prasad Shrestha, president
of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Nepal; and Shyam Shrestha,
editor of the political journal Mulyankan, are all leaders of the
Citizens' Movement for Democracy and Peace (CMDP). The CMDP has played a
key role in organizing pro-democracy demonstrations over the past year.

New Zealand- Parihaka
Parihaka is a small community in Taranaki region, New Zealand, nestling
half way between Mount Taranaki and the Tasman Sea.

It has less than 100 inhabitants today, but in the 1870s was reputed to
be the largest Maori village in New Zealand when it was the centre of an
important civil rights incident. It was there that the Maori Prophets,
Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu became involved in passive resistance to
the confiscation of Maori land by the New Zealand Government. Open
warfare had proved unavailing so Te Whiti developed a doctrine of
passive resistance such as the removal of survey pegs and the ploughing
up of access roads. This put the government in a quandary. It could not
use the justice system to stop the Maori obstruction because seizure of
the land had itself been illegal.

Several Taranaki tribes were affected by the Parihaka incident. Between
2001 and 2006, the New Zealand government provided redress and a formal
apology to four of those tribes, Ngati Ruanui, Ngati Tama, Ngaa Rauru
Kiitahi and Ngati Mutunga, for a range of historical issues including
Parihaka. Tens of millions of New Zealand dollars were provided as
redress to the tribes in recognition of their losses at Parihaka and the
confiscations.

Pakistan - Khudai Khidmatgar - an organization which name literally
translates as the servants of God. It represented a non-violent freedom
struggle against the British Empire by the Pashtuns (also known as
Pathans, Pakhtuns or Afghans) of the North West Frontier Province. The
movement was led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, known locally as Bacha Khan
or Badshah Khan c. 1890 – 1988 The Peaceful Pathan - Leader of the
non-violent independence movement in British India's Northwest Frontier,
known as the Frontier Gandhi. Alternate name: Badshah Khan.

Philippines - José Rizal. Born June 19, 1861 and died December 30, 1896.
National hero. Place of birth: Calamba, Laguna, Philippines. Place of
death: Bagumbayan (now Rizal Park), Manila, Philippines. Major
organizations: La Solidaridad and La Liga Filipina

José Rizal was a Filipino polymath, nationalist and the most prominent
advocate for reforms in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era.
He is considered a national hero and the anniversary of Rizal's death is
commemorated as a Philippine holiday called Rizal Day. Rizal's 1896
military trial and execution made him a martyr of the Philippine
Revolution.

Rizal was a polyglot conversant in at least ten languages and a prolific
poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous
works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. These
are social commentaries on the Philippines that formed the nucleus of
literature that inspired dissent among peaceful reformists and spurred
the militancy of armed revolutionaries against 333 years of Spanish
rule.

As a political figure, Rizal was the founder of La Liga Filipina, a
civic organization that subsequently gave birth to the Katipunan led by
Bonifacio and Aguinaldo. He was a proponent of institutional reforms by
peaceful means rather than by violent revolution. The general consensus
among Rizal scholars, however, attributed his martyred death as the
catalyst that precipitated the Philippine Revolution.

Here is Rizal speaking through his fictional character Father
Florentino: “...our liberty will (not) be secured at the sword's
point...we must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it. And when a
people reaches that height God will provide a weapon, the idols will be
shattered, tyranny will crumble like a house of cards and liberty will
shine out like the first dawn.”

Rizal's advocacy of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than
by violent revolution makes him Asia's first modern non-violent
proponent of political reforms. Forerunner of Gandhi and contemporary of
India’s Tagore and China’s Sun Yat Sen, all four created a new climate
of thought throughout Asia, leading to the attrition of colonialism and
the emergence of new Asiatic nations by the end of World War II. Rizal's
appearance on the scene came at a time when European colonial power had
been growing and spreading, mostly motivated by trade, some for the
purpose of bringing Western forms of government and education to peoples
regarded as backward. Coinciding with the appearance of those other
leaders, Rizal from an early age had been enunciating in poems, tracts
and plays, ideas all his own of modern nationhood as a practical
possibility in Asia. In the Noli he stated that if European civilization
had nothing better to offer, colonialism in Asia was doomed. Such was
recognized by Gandhi who regarded him as a forerunner in the cause of
freedom. Jawaharlal Nehru, in his prison letters to his daughter Indira,
acknowledged Rizal's significant contributions in the Asian freedom
movement. These leaders regarded these contributions as keystones and
acknowledged Rizal's role in the movement’s foundation layer.

See: Austin Coates, Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr (London:
Oxford University Press, 1968) ISBN 019581519X
(Above compiled using the Rizal wikipedia entry.)

Philippines - 1986 - People Power Revolution. Many people have long
debated on how millions of people were able to topple a two-decade long
authoritarian rule with almost no bloodshed. The event was quite
unprecedented in Philippine history. It was probably the first time
millions of civilians came to the aid of the military, which had long
been an instrument of repression and terror.

Thailand - Sulak Sivaraksa: This global activist is Thailand's most
prominent social critic and activist, and one of the major contemporary
exponents of socially engaged Buddhism. For the last 30 years he has
combined provocative intellectual work with continual grassroots
organizing in Thailand. Founder of rural development projects as well as
many NGOs dedicated to exploring, in Thailand and internationally,
alternative models of sustainable, traditionally-rooted and ethically-
and spiritually-based development, Sulak also runs an organisation
called 'Spirit in Education Movement'.

Periodically, Sulak has been persecuted by various dictatorships that
have mostly ruled Thailand since 1932. In 1976, following a coup and the
deaths of hundreds of students, he was forced to stay in exile for two
years. In 1984, he was arrested by the government for lese-majeste
(defamation of the monarchy), but after an international campaign on his
behalf, he was released. In September 1991, he was again charged with
lese-majeste and also with defamation of the Army Commander, General
Suchinda Kraprayoon, for a speech given in Bangkok on 'The Regression of
Democracy in Siam'; Sulak went immediately into exile. In December 1992,
he returned to face trial. In the meantime, Sulak was nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize in both 1993 and 1994, thereafter he won the 'Right
Livelihood Award' in 1995.

Sulak is a lawyer, teacher, scholar, publisher and a founder of many
organisations and an author of more than sixty publications.

Tibet - Dalai Lama or Tenzin Gyatso (born 6 July 1935) is the fourteenth
and current Dalai Lama. As such, he is often referred to in Western
media simply as the Dalai Lama, without any qualifiers.

The fifth of sixteen children of a farming family in the Tibetan
province of Amdo, he was proclaimed the tulku (rebirth) of the
thirteenth Dalai Lama at the age of two. On 17 November 1950, at the age
of fifteen, he was enthroned as Tibet's Head of State and most important
political ruler, while Tibet faced occupation by the forces of the
People's Republic of China.

After the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, Tenzin
Gyatso fled to India, where he was active in establishing the Central
Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government in exile) and in seeking
to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of
refugees who accompanied him.
A charismatic figure and noted public speaker, Tenzin Gyatso is the
first Dalai Lama to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread
Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility,
secular ethics, and religious harmony. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize.

Tony Henderson.