This image from the official media shows the ‘four loves’ campaign being taken into the monasteries in the ‘TAR’, with a particular emphasis on preparing for the 19th Party Congress in Beijing later in the year. ICT
As the 19th Party Congress coming to its unveiling this fall, the Party-state has been endorsing in full swing a new ideological campaign called “four stresses and four loves” (སྣང་ཆེན་བཞི་དང་དགའ་ཞེན་བཞི།) in the ‘Tibet Autonomous Region.’ The ideological campaign has germinated in the beginning of this year and inevitably penetrates into all levels of society and every aspects of life in the ‘TAR’. The International Campaign for Tibet, a Tibet advocacy group based in Washington DC, wrote “Officials have promoted the campaign in monasteries across the TAR, indicating the priority of ensuring compliance with CCP policy among Tibetan monks and nuns, and also in schools and Tibet University”.
སྣང་ཆེན་བཞི་དང་དགའ་ཞེན་བཞི།
༡ ཏང་གི་བཀའ་དྲིན་ལ་སྣང་ཆེན་གྱི་སྲོག་ཤིང་ལ་དགའ་ཞེན།
༢ མཐུན་སྒྲིལ་ལ་སྣང་ཆེན་གྱི་མེ་རྒྱལ་ལ་དགའ་ཞེན།
༣ ལེགས་སྐྱེས་འབུལ་རྒྱུར་སྣང་ཆེན་གྱིས་ཁྱིམ་གཞིས་ལ་དགའ་ཞེན།
༤ ཤེལ་དཔལ་ལ་སྣང་ཆེན་གྱིས་འཚོ་བར་དགའ་ཞེན།
The definition of the “four loves” དགའ་ཞེན་བཞི། derived from state media articles:
- Love for the “core interests” of the CCP
- Love for the motherland
- Love for one’s hometown
- Love for one’s livelihood
Since there is no stated definition for the “four stresses” (ནན་ཆེར་བརྗོད་པ་བཞི།) one could simply translate according to the meaning of the Tibetan words by understanding the context in which the words are used.
- Gratitude and loyalty for the CCP
- Unity of the motherland
- Appreciation and recognition for distinguished service
- Education and economic prosperity
The ICT cited Tibet Daily article says that “The Chinese authorities have launched a new ideological campaign in the ‘TAR’ aimed at ‘diluting the negative impact of religion’ and strengthening “ideological education work for the masses”.
A great deal of emphasis was placed on scientific education to transform Tibetan people’s mindset. It is of utmost importance to integrate essence of socialism into school curriculums and nurture people who sincerely uphold socialist ideology. Teachers from Mainland China with science and math background are being encouraged to teach in ‘TAR’.
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*Tenzin Tseten is a research fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Tibet Policy Institute.