ABSTRACT
In listening to Tibetan survivors of torture, the author indeed lived through many internal battles and conflicts. It was in bearing witness to the testimonies of long-term, ex-political prisoners and young torture survivors that he traversed through a most difficult internal terrain in which several of beliefs and ideals were questioned and challenged. The act of questioning the official’s ideological loyalty suffused Palden with a sense of victory. ‘Exhilarated by the encounter with the official and infused with a sense of triumph’, it was thus that Palden entered the tile factory at Nyethang Lhuanwa Chang. In this intergenerational meeting of prisoners, a new role awaited people like Palden. Almost automatically, they assumed the responsibility for mentoring the younger generation. Without a prior plan and without a conscious decision, following the death of a young prisoner, all of them participated in the first-ever demonstration staged within the confines of the prison walls.
