And yet, the Chinese occupation of Tibet seems to have been met with little resistance from the worldwide community, despite a reported 127 self-immolations and a duration of more than than 50 years.

March 10 marked the 55^th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupation, and in 55 years very little has changed. With the severe repression of human rights, mass relocation of peaceful nomadic tribes, and an estimated 1.2 million deaths as a direct consequence of Chinese occupation, one might expect countries, like Canada, to voice strong protests, to threaten sanctions, and even to put severe pressure on China, as they did to other countries in similar situations.

Well, back in 2008, Stephen Harper did send a strongly worded statement to the Chinese government in regards to the then brutal crackdown on uprisings in Tibet. “Canada shares the concerns about what is happening in Tibet,” Harper said. “Canada calls upon China to fully respect human rights and peaceful protest. Canada also calls on China to show restraint in dealing with this situation.”

This seemed more than a little hollow however, as a few years later, in 2012, Harper agreed to a Chinese takeover of Nexen, despite the ongoing atrocities in Tibet, and protests against said takeover. Arguably, the Harper government is more interested in trade opportunities rather than human rights, despite previous statements to the contrary. According to Students for a Free Tibet at the time, this take-over “would give the Chinese government direct control over critical energy resources.” They added: “It will also make Canada complicit in China’s human rights atrocities in Tibet as the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) is heavily funding the forced resettlement of Tibetan nomads.”

But hey, on the plus side, at least we got those cuddly panda cubs.

To be fair, the Canadian government has been very supportive of the Dalai Lama since his exile, and made him an honorary Canadian citizen back in 2006. The Dalai Lama has also made several trips to Canada and met with Harper despite warnings from China, who branded him a “political exile who has long been engaged in activities aimed at splitting China under the camouflage of religion.” But this hasn’t been much help to those in Tibet, and the protests and calls for Canada to do better continue.

Protesters matching down Toronto’s Queen’s Street Monday in protest of China’s occupation of Tibet

In Toronto, more than 1,000 people marched to mark the 55th anniversary, and the sixth year since widespread protests have swept through the Tibetan region. It ended outside of the Chines consulate. “Despite 55 years of China’s brutal occupation and systematic attempts to wipe out Tibetan resistance, the Tibetan people’s hope for freedom is stronger than ever before,” Urgyen Badheytsang, national director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in a release. “March 10 is symbolic of the enduring spirit of the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom.”

He and others are calling on the worldwide community to hold China accountable for its actions. As Badheytsang told Inside Toronto: “I want China’s government to stop torturing Tibetan citizens, give back their human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, their freedom.”

When I returned from China over the summer, having worked there for a year and a half, people would ask me, “What was it like?” And I, like a child trying to verbalize their first lofty idea, was sort of tongue-tied. There are over a billion individual perspectives in the country, yet only one autocratic organization at its helm. It is barely reined in chaos. It’s wild yet it’s orderly. It’s filled with earnest workers and disingenuous ladder-climbers. It’s pro-gay and anti-gay. It inspires close scrutiny yet offers little in the way of answers.

One thing we can say with authority is that its government doesn’t have the finest track record for human rights—detaining activists, suppressing protest, heavily censoring the Internet, and just generally eschewing democratic processes. We’re talking about the rights of roughly one-sixth of all humans. That’s why, when the UN’s Human Rights Council opened up its first investigation of China since Xi Jinping became president, I expected the government to get a good public shaming.

I was … sort of satisfied. Some countries actually trumpeted China’s progress and human right’s accomplishments—Russia said, “We commend China on protection of rights of religious beliefs”, and Yemen applauded “China’s remarkable achievements in economic and social achievements [sic]”. Most Western countries, however, reproached China for the aforementioned issues (as well as its draconian capital punishment policies and stance towards ethnic minorities). Canada, among the most direct, said, “Stop the prosecution and persecution of people for the practice of their religion or belief including Catholics, other Christians, Tibetans, Uyghurs and Falun Gong… And eliminate extrajudicial measures like forced disappearances”.

But the real win this week goes to the Tibet activists who scaled the height of the UN’s Palais de Nations to unfurl a large 9X15-meter banner reading: “China fails human rights in Tibet—U.N. stand up for Tibet”. The banner was in response to China’s colonization of Tibet (China calls it a “peaceful liberation”) and their assimilative policies, which have led some, including the Dalai Lama, to use the term “cultural genocide”. Since 2009, there have been at least 122 self-immolations in Tibet in response to China’s unwanted presence. It’s good to see the issue continue to garner attention in the west, aside from those ubiquitous bumper stickers. As for the four activists responsible, they can’t be arrested, but they’re being sent back to their home countries (Denmark, UK) to be dealt with locally.

Sadly, we aren’t able to hear what the average Chinese citizen has to say about the human rights issue in China, as netizens are fiercely censored surrounding such topics. When I was teaching there, I polled my class of 25 16-year-olds on whether they thought homosexuality should be allowed in China, and all but two of them agreed that people should be able to love whomever they want. When I asked them about Tibet, however, they didn’t even know that it was an issue outside of China. These are, of course, anecdotes, but I use them to illustrate that there is a difference between Chinese citizens and the Chinese government, and if the people were only given access to more information, the world’s most populous country could really be a force for good. For now, we can take small solace in knowing that those who’re being persecuted and marginalized have a voice outside of China—it’s not ideal, but it’s a start.

“You cannot have outer revolution without inner revolution,” explains Kyoto-based Buddhist teacher Doug Duncan. As someone who has taught internationally for the last 30 years, he finds that this dynamic between inner and outer transformation is something people often fail to examine closely.

“We are skilled at manipulating our material world, devising technologies and policies,” he says while conducting a month-long meditation retreat at Clear Sky Meditation & Study Center in the mountains near Cranbrook, B.C. “All good things. But look at the government systems we collectively choose for ourselves: they reflect the mind state.

“And so we have capitalism as the preferred formation as it reflects our inner state: greed, hatred, delusion. We can’t handle enlightened theocracies like old Tibet, nor can we manage anarchy, arguably the highest form [of government] because everyone has to be utterly and totally responsible. We need the average person to realize awareness.”

A Canadian born in Regina, Duncan began his journey to acariya (Pali for “accomplished teacher”) at the age of 24 as a student of Namgyal Rinpoche, Canada’s first incarnate lama as recognized by the 16th Karmapa of Tibet’s Kagyu lineage. Duncan’s teaching bridges worlds, integrating the three major branches of Buddhism— Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajryana—as well as the teachings of western contemplative traditions, psychology, art, and modern science.

Known to many of his students simply as “Sensei Doug,” he describes his approach to teaching as asking questions, not prescribing outcomes. While his ethic is transformation, not politics or public relations, he observes a major imbalance between our inner and outer worlds. “The biggest problem with us these days is that we are materialists; our science is concerned largely with objects, not consciousness,” he says. “Yet objects exist only in relationship, subject to change.

“Ultimately, the rebellion is not against external authority, which may need to happen occasionally. It is rebellion against being subject to our inner states.” In other words, if you want to change things, look closer. Cultivate awareness and interest, observe new patterns, practice generosity. Look closer again. “The spiritual path is in essence not an escape from life but an immersion into life,” Duncan explains. “The fruition of life is to explore, discover, and share. The spiritual search, built on a foundation of bliss, is to investigate.”