The Western fascination with protesting monks from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma to the autonomous region of Tibet in the People’s Republic of China is usually told in the following scheme: open-minded peaceful religion under siege by autocratic authoritarian regime with ideological leanings derived from the West be it a military junta in Burma or a nominal Communist regime in Beijing.

As much as I admire the Dalai Lama, he is nothing more than an absolute monarch who uses religion as a means to give political legitimacy to his exile government headquartered in Darjeeling, India. This is no different from the Pope who claims to the “vicar of Christ” or the ulema who impose their will on the Iranian masses.

Most people are not aware that there is a small Muslim Tibetan population, like their Buddhist cultural and ethnic kin, they are subjected to cultural assimilation into mainstream Han Chinese secularization. However, China is home to some 45-70 million Muslims, the exact number of Muslims in China is not known, we only have estimates at best. Muslim Chinese are a diverse group of people consisting of several ethnic groups and spoken languages, their relationship with China varies depending upon location, an emerging sense of cultural nationalism, and their place and status in Chinese society. These factors affect how they perceive themselves in Chinese society and whether their communities feel a sense of grievance or contentment with being a minority in China.

The Chinese constitution does guarantee freedom of worship, however, some would say that religion is tolerated so long as it state-sponsored. When it comes to Islam, the Chinese government prefers Hanboli fiqh and Saudi-style Salafism, in fact some would say that some segments of the Muslim Chinese community are undergoing Gulf Arabization. This may true for some isolated pockets of this diverse community, more Chinese Muslims are experiencing a resurgence in cultural nationalism (and for some a desire for political independence) and a sense of a pan-Turk identity (a sense of collectivism with Turkic peoples from Central Asia to Turkey).

But going back to Tibet, the irony of Tibet is that many Tibetans in the mid-20th century looked to China for salvation from a culture dominated by clerical rule and serf-owning landlords. Even during the Chinese civil war between the Communists and Nationalists who fled to Taiwan, both parties considered Tibet a province of China. Under Communist rule, material wealth accumulated in Tibet and the introduction of modernity, but to prevent Tibet from ever gaining legitimacy from the international community to acquire political independence, the Chinese implanted ethnic Han Chinese to settle and migrate to the “roof top of the world.”

This demographic shift was intentional and with it came the Mandarin language. The language of instruction in the academic setting is Mandarin Chinese. Even for ethnic Tibetans who wish to resurrect their ancestral language, they must study Tibetan in Chinese translation.

This article is not to excuse the real persecution that the Tibetans experienced under Chinese rule, but to provide an alternative perspective to the news headlines we see in the West. Political Buddhism is no more benign or malignant than political Islam, in all religious groups, politics and power are often at play. This article is to make mention that Tibetans themselves wished and desired for modernity, often looking to China for a model. Many Tibetans destroyed monasteries and temples under the Cultural Revolution and were fervent Red Guard members. So while some Tibetans desire the return of the Dalai Lama to Lhasa, others are not so eager.

The interplay between tradition, nationalism, the role of religion in public life, and modernity are themes confronting Islam and the Muslim peoples. But the same is true of South Indian Christians from Kerala or sub-Saharan Africa.

But while the Chinese may destroy traditional Tibetan culture inside Tibet and China in general, the Chinese may unintentionally keep traditionalist Tibetan culture alive in the Diaspora that is centered largely in South Asian countries like Nepal and India.

The story of modern Tibet and its predicament will have consequences for minority relations with Muslims in China and the mainstream there. Diaspora cultures thrive on a sense of nostalgic return and jealously guard “tradition” as if they were precious family heirlooms. This can be seen in minority communities throughout the United States, from the Cubans of South Florida, to Iranians in Southern California, to the Jewish peoples who witnessed the destruction of the second Jewish commonwealth in Palestine under Roman rule and suppression, and after nearly 2,000 years, the Jewish yearning to return to Zion has been fulfilled.