The “Three Consciousness Campaign” indicates that the CCP is bothered about the success of the Tibetan non-violent resistance movement.

It all started in May when Buddhist monks and nuns were gathered all over Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and invited to participate in re-education programmes that would teach them the three consciousness- national consciousness, citizen consciousness, and rule of law consciousness. They already understood before the programme started that “national consciousness” represents supporting the Chinese rule in Tibet and criticizing “separatism,” and “citizen” and “rule of law” consciousness signifies learning to obey without inquiry the CCP, the Central Committee, and Xi Jinping.

Beleaguered Tibetan monks and nuns have been submitted to a variety of re-education programmes before, yet they inform that this one is somewhat new and unexplored. They knew what they would be taught to support, but this time they were asked to particularly sacrifice and criticize four movements.

First, they should denounce Tsethar or “merit release”- the Buddhist practice of unleashing animals predestined for slaughter. The practice has its critics among environmentalists, who contend that the animals released into the wilderness may develop an unbalance in the ecosystem. Nevertheless, what concerns the CCP is Tsethar’s religious meaning and the point that it happens outside a system of dealing with domestic animals that are rigorously controlled by the authorities.

Second, monks and nuns are asked to criticize the Saka Dawa fasting. Saka Dawa- the holy month around Vesak, the feast- celebrating birth, enlightenment, and Buddha's death. Many Tibetans fast for two or three days and do not eat meat or non-veg during the whole month (despite Western misunderstandings, many Tibetan Buddhists are not vegetarian).

Third, monks and nuns are asked to commemorate Losar, the Tibetan New Year, and prompt lay Buddhists to do the same. This thing may seem strange to outsiders as Losar is a superior Tibetan festival connected with the Tibetan calendar, and it would appear that its celebration reinforces the Tibetan identity and opposition to Sinicization. However, behind the bloody repression of the mass uprising of 2008, Tibetans inside the borders of China chose to protest by refraining from celebrating Losar.

The movement started in 2009 and was a great success. The CCP has frequently argued that those who don't celebrate Losar are manipulated by the monks. Every year, monks are arrested, and the paradox resumes as the CCP, on the one hand, systematically demolishes Tibetan culture. On the other hand, CCP asks monks and nuns to encourage Losar festivals because not observing them is perceived as a protest against China.

Fourth, monks and nuns are trained to take a perspective against the farmers' strikes, another state of non-cooperative protest in which farmers deny cultivating their land to protest the suppression of the Tibetan language and culture. The protest commenced in parts of historical Tibet that are now included in the Chinese province of Sichuan but spread to TAR as well.

All these are forms of non-violent protest which specifically concern the CCP. The Chinese lead usually does not know how to respond without provoking more protests. They appear to consider their own mythology that all protests by Tibetans are organized by monks and nuns and therefore try to compel the latter to cooperate, or else. Shushing and silencing nuns and monks, however, will not stop the increasingly successful resistance of an entire people.

News Source: Central Tibetan Administration