By Indira Guerrero
Dharamshala, India, July 3 (EFE).— Hollywood star Richard Gere threw his weight behind the Dalai Lama’s bold succession plan on Thursday, urging China to take heed as he declared the Tibetan struggle a cause for all humanity.
“This extraordinary culture of Tibet doesn’t just belong to Tibet anymore. It belongs to the world. And it is a jewel,” Gere warned in a fiery speech to exiled youth, a day after the spiritual leader’s challenge to Beijing with a reincarnation proposal.
He was speaking at the opening of the International Tibetan Youth Forum in Dharamshala, a Himalayan town that is home to exiled Tibetans.
Gere’s presence marked the culmination of more than 30 years of his activism that helped bring Tibet’s struggle into global focus.
It began with his unscripted remarks at the 1993 Oscars, where he denounced the “horrendous human rights situation” in Tibet.
That speech led to his ban from the academy for years and made him persona non grata in China. It also fueled the “Tibetmania” of the 1990s, inspiring films like “Seven Years in Tibet” and the “Tibetan Freedom Concerts.”
Speaking briefly to reporters before his address, Gere recalled asking the Dalai Lama if he could step back from activism during a moment of exhaustion.
“You can stop when I stop,” Gere said, recalling what the Dalai Lama told him.
“I mean, this is not a one lifetime commitment. This is many lifetimes of commitment, not just for Tibet and for something wonderful to happen to people who were highly abused, you know, for many, many decades.
That was the core of his message to hundreds of young Tibetan activists, most of them second- or third-generation born in exile.
Gere recalled his first encounter with a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal, where he felt he “walked through a magical door and to a different reality structure.
And most of the people there were not highly educated.”
He said there were refugees who had come from old Tibet following “different system, a different idea of happiness, a different idea of what’s of value.”
At 75, Gere said it won’t be his films he remembers on his deathbed.
“I really would like my kids to be proud of me, that I’ve done something meaningful in the world. And the conduit of me doing something meaningful in the world has really been through His Holiness, through the Tibetan cause, through the visionary possibilities of Tibetan culture.”
Gere’s speech came at a critical moment, just a day after the Dalai Lama, about to turn 90, ended decades of speculation by announcing his roadmap for succession, a direct challenge to China.
“You really hold these, these two passports, passports into the past and a passport into the future in an extraordinary way. I’m excited for all of you as beginning this adult part of your life,” Gere told the young Tibetan leaders. EFE
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