Schwartz and more than 200 other Tibet experts have signed an online petition calling for the Chinese government to negotiate over Tibetans' grievances, but he says he is not optimistic.
"Patriotic education" is one of the Tibetans' major grievances against Chinese rule. The Communist Party intrudes into the minutiae of religious life, dictating which deities can be worshiped, what clothing can be worn, and the procedures for reincarnation -- a core belief in Tibetan Buddhism.
"Patriotic education is a euphemism for brainwashing," said Chukora Tsering Agloe, a researcher at the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Most provocative to Tibetans are the denunciations of the Dalai Lama. The 72-year-old monk and Nobel peace laureate is revered by Tibetan Buddhists as a deity; statements against him are considered blasphemous.
Monks who refuse to speak out against the Dalai Lama in patriotic education sessions are usually expelled from the monastery and sometimes are arrested. Last month, two monks were reported by Tibetan activists to have committed suicide because of the pressure.
Many of the recent demonstrations have been triggered by Chinese authorities' attempts to confiscate banned photographs of the man Tibetans refer to simply as "his holiness."
Teaching materials reveal the extent to which the Communist Party feels threatened by the Dalai Lama. Although the Dalai Lama has stated repeatedly that he favors more autonomy for Tibet rather than independence, teaching materials accuse him of being a pawn of "Western capitalists" who want to break up China.
"His aim is to cause chaos and split the motherland, to struggle in competition with us to control the minds of the people," reads a pocket-sized pamphlet published in 1997.
Another text from 2002 describes the relationship between China and Tibet dating back to the 6th and 7th centuries when Tibetan kings were married to Tang dynasty princesses.
"It is clear that the Tibet region has had close relations with the motherland throughout its history," it says.
The booklet (titled "Handbook for Education in Anti-Splittism") goes on to describe how Chinese Communist rule lifted Tibetans out of feudalism and predicts a rosy future:
"The 1.3 billion children of China are striving without rest toward a renaissance of all China's nationalities and one of the most glorious epochs in our 5,000-year history beckons."
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barbara.demick@latimes.com
