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High-tech sherpa
Milwaukee native links Dalai Lama, Tibetan mission to world via Internet
By TOM HEINEN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Jan. 12, 2001.
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's charismatic spiritual and political leader, is
reaching out to the world
over the Internet from a remote site in the Indian Himalayas with help
from a native
Milwaukeean.
The Dalai Lama's government-in-exile has launched an official Web site -
from Dharamsala, India, where he fled after a 1959 uprising against
Chinese rule failed.
And Dan Haig, 37, who was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Glendale, is
the Webmaster guiding this ancient Buddhist culture from the Himalayas
through cyberspace like a high-tech Sherpa.
"The air and water are clean, the Tibetans and local Indians are very
nice and interesting people, the mountains are stunning," Haig, who
moved there from California last spring, said this week in an e-mail
interview with the Journal Sentinel. "My commute involves a half hour
walk on stone paths through the Himalayas, which beats taking the subway
to San Francisco from Oakland every single time."
The Web site, which began formal operation last Friday, is in four
languages - Tibetan, English, Hindi and Chinese. Although different in
several respects, it parallels a growing number of Tibet-oriented Web
sites in western countries that have been fueled by rising popular
interest in Tibet.
"With the sudden proliferation of Tibet-related Web sites, it is my hope
that a virtual Tibetan community can be created in cyberspace, to be
freely accessible to everyone interested in Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan
culture and Tibet's present tragic fate," the Dalai Lama said in a
message on one of the site's pages.
"I have always believed that as more unbiased information is made
available to the international
community, it will become more supportive of the Tibetan cause and will
make concerted and sustained efforts to end the suffering of the Tibetan
people in Tibet."
The Web site's more than 800 pages include descriptions of the
operations and goals of various
ministers and offices within the Central Tibetan Administration, as the
democratic government-in-exile is known.
The pages also allege efforts by the Chinese to crush Tibetan culture by
destroying more than 6,000 monasteries, displacing Tibetans with
millions of immigrant Chinese, outlawing allegiance to the Dalai Lama,
arresting large numbers of Tibetans for political reasons, denying
Tibetan children adequate health care and education, torturing Tibetans
and violating other human rights.
The Web site also reports widespread deforestation, uncontrolled mining,
erosion, nuclear waste dumping, declines in endangered animals and other
environmental abuses in Tibet. It and Haig also contend that such
changes are adversely affecting the world climate and threatening the
water supply for a major part of the world's population downstream from
Tibet.
"When China invaded Tibet in 1950, Tibet was the last of the great
ancient civilizations still
intact," Haig said. "It would be as if the Egyptians, or the Mayans, or
the ancient Greeks
were still living the way we know of only from books.
"Isolated on the vast Himalayan plateau, the Tibetans not only preserved
but advanced the traditions and world view handed down from thousands of
years ago. Many people feel that Tibetan civilization holds the key to
wisdom that the 'developed' world has lost - respect for the environment
and a focus on developing the potential of the human spirit, for
instance - and must regain before we destroy the world we live in.
"My work is to help provide the means for this ancient wisdom to survive
and propagate throughout the world," Haig added.
The Dalai Lama has been to Madison four times. The most recent visit was
in 1998, when he met with Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, addressed a joint
session of the Legislature, spoke to 13,000 people in the Kohl Center,
and instructed more than 1,000 people from across the Midwest in
Buddhist teachings at the Dane County Expo Center.
There are hundreds of English-language Buddhist centers in the United
States, but Madison had one of the first ones. It's now in nearby
Oregon. The center's leader, Geshe Sopa, served 30 years as an associate
professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and trained many
professors who teach Buddhism in the U.S.
Haig helped build many U.S. and foreign Web sites as a volunteer for
organizations that support the Dalai Lama and his cause, said his
sister, Barbara Haig, 41, an independent communications consultant from
Milwaukee.
Dan Haig, a Nicolet High School graduate, became interested in Tibet
after he graduated from UW in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in the
history of science, taught English for a year in Taiwan, and then
hitchhiked from China into northeastern Tibet. When he returned to the
U.S., he enrolled in a graduate program at UW to study Tibetan Buddhist
logic with Sopa as his adviser.
"I left grad school and moved to California in 1994, where I learned how
to use computers and got sucked into the Web explosion," Dan Haig said.
"I first came to Dharamsala in 1995, when I quit my job at CNET to take
courses at the Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute and get my Tibetan
studies back on track.
"I met the director of the Tibetan Computer Resource Centre at the time,
and everything has happened from there."
Since 1996, Dan Haig has run Tibet Online, a Tibet support group Web
site, with his own money and time.
In 1997, he organized a team of five computer-industry friends to
voluntarily build a local
area computer network for the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala,
where he estimated there are 10,000 Tibetans and 25,000 Indians.
Bringing 165 pounds of cable and hardware in backpacks, they installed a
Web server, created an e-mail system for the government and linked its
ministries with high-speed connections.
Haig's current job grew out of that effort. His position is being funded
"on a very tenuous"
basis by a California company, he said.
As part of the ongoing project, the Dalai Lama's government plans to
launch a Web-based e-mail service - www.tibetmail.net - on Monday to
allow the estimated 130,000 Tibetans living outside of Tibet to write to
each other in Tibetan script. The intent is to encourage Tibetans to
preserve their language and reduce their dependence on English.
"Life in the Indian Himalayas is good for us," said Haig, who moved
there last May with his wife, Zoe, and their daughter, Tashi, 3. "Our
daughter, Tashi, is picking up a fair amount of Tibetan playing with the
kids downstairs, Zoe is learning Hindi, teaching English to Tibetans and
has much more time for her writing. She's a poet. And I get to focus on
my Tibet work without having to hold down an outside job - at the moment
anyway.
"We have no plans to return to the States any time soon."
Articles in this Issue:
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World Tibet Network NewsWednesday, January 17, 2001 |
3. High-tech sherpa
Milwaukee native links Dalai Lama, Tibetan mission to world via Internet
By TOM HEINEN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Jan. 12, 2001.
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's charismatic spiritual and political leader, is
reaching out to the world
over the Internet from a remote site in the Indian Himalayas with help
from a native
Milwaukeean.
The Dalai Lama's government-in-exile has launched an official Web site -
from Dharamsala, India, where he fled after a 1959 uprising against
Chinese rule failed.
And Dan Haig, 37, who was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Glendale, is
the Webmaster guiding this ancient Buddhist culture from the Himalayas
through cyberspace like a high-tech Sherpa.
"The air and water are clean, the Tibetans and local Indians are very
nice and interesting people, the mountains are stunning," Haig, who
moved there from California last spring, said this week in an e-mail
interview with the Journal Sentinel. "My commute involves a half hour
walk on stone paths through the Himalayas, which beats taking the subway
to San Francisco from Oakland every single time."
The Web site, which began formal operation last Friday, is in four
languages - Tibetan, English, Hindi and Chinese. Although different in
several respects, it parallels a growing number of Tibet-oriented Web
sites in western countries that have been fueled by rising popular
interest in Tibet.
"With the sudden proliferation of Tibet-related Web sites, it is my hope
that a virtual Tibetan community can be created in cyberspace, to be
freely accessible to everyone interested in Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan
culture and Tibet's present tragic fate," the Dalai Lama said in a
message on one of the site's pages.
"I have always believed that as more unbiased information is made
available to the international
community, it will become more supportive of the Tibetan cause and will
make concerted and sustained efforts to end the suffering of the Tibetan
people in Tibet."
The Web site's more than 800 pages include descriptions of the
operations and goals of various
ministers and offices within the Central Tibetan Administration, as the
democratic government-in-exile is known.
The pages also allege efforts by the Chinese to crush Tibetan culture by
destroying more than 6,000 monasteries, displacing Tibetans with
millions of immigrant Chinese, outlawing allegiance to the Dalai Lama,
arresting large numbers of Tibetans for political reasons, denying
Tibetan children adequate health care and education, torturing Tibetans
and violating other human rights.
The Web site also reports widespread deforestation, uncontrolled mining,
erosion, nuclear waste dumping, declines in endangered animals and other
environmental abuses in Tibet. It and Haig also contend that such
changes are adversely affecting the world climate and threatening the
water supply for a major part of the world's population downstream from
Tibet.
"When China invaded Tibet in 1950, Tibet was the last of the great
ancient civilizations still
intact," Haig said. "It would be as if the Egyptians, or the Mayans, or
the ancient Greeks
were still living the way we know of only from books.
"Isolated on the vast Himalayan plateau, the Tibetans not only preserved
but advanced the traditions and world view handed down from thousands of
years ago. Many people feel that Tibetan civilization holds the key to
wisdom that the 'developed' world has lost - respect for the environment
and a focus on developing the potential of the human spirit, for
instance - and must regain before we destroy the world we live in.
"My work is to help provide the means for this ancient wisdom to survive
and propagate throughout the world," Haig added.
The Dalai Lama has been to Madison four times. The most recent visit was
in 1998, when he met with Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, addressed a joint
session of the Legislature, spoke to 13,000 people in the Kohl Center,
and instructed more than 1,000 people from across the Midwest in
Buddhist teachings at the Dane County Expo Center.
There are hundreds of English-language Buddhist centers in the United
States, but Madison had one of the first ones. It's now in nearby
Oregon. The center's leader, Geshe Sopa, served 30 years as an associate
professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and trained many
professors who teach Buddhism in the U.S.
Haig helped build many U.S. and foreign Web sites as a volunteer for
organizations that support the Dalai Lama and his cause, said his
sister, Barbara Haig, 41, an independent communications consultant from
Milwaukee.
Dan Haig, a Nicolet High School graduate, became interested in Tibet
after he graduated from UW in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in the
history of science, taught English for a year in Taiwan, and then
hitchhiked from China into northeastern Tibet. When he returned to the
U.S., he enrolled in a graduate program at UW to study Tibetan Buddhist
logic with Sopa as his adviser.
"I left grad school and moved to California in 1994, where I learned how
to use computers and got sucked into the Web explosion," Dan Haig said.
"I first came to Dharamsala in 1995, when I quit my job at CNET to take
courses at the Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute and get my Tibetan
studies back on track.
"I met the director of the Tibetan Computer Resource Centre at the time,
and everything has happened from there."
Since 1996, Dan Haig has run Tibet Online, a Tibet support group Web
site, with his own money and time.
In 1997, he organized a team of five computer-industry friends to
voluntarily build a local
area computer network for the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala,
where he estimated there are 10,000 Tibetans and 25,000 Indians.
Bringing 165 pounds of cable and hardware in backpacks, they installed a
Web server, created an e-mail system for the government and linked its
ministries with high-speed connections.
Haig's current job grew out of that effort. His position is being funded
"on a very tenuous"
basis by a California company, he said.
As part of the ongoing project, the Dalai Lama's government plans to
launch a Web-based e-mail service - www.tibetmail.net - on Monday to
allow the estimated 130,000 Tibetans living outside of Tibet to write to
each other in Tibetan script. The intent is to encourage Tibetans to
preserve their language and reduce their dependence on English.
"Life in the Indian Himalayas is good for us," said Haig, who moved
there last May with his wife, Zoe, and their daughter, Tashi, 3. "Our
daughter, Tashi, is picking up a fair amount of Tibetan playing with the
kids downstairs, Zoe is learning Hindi, teaching English to Tibetans and
has much more time for her writing. She's a poet. And I get to focus on
my Tibet work without having to hold down an outside job - at the moment
anyway.
"We have no plans to return to the States any time soon."
Articles in this Issue:
- India urged to raise Tibet issue (Tribune)
- PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
- High-tech sherpa
- China's Li, Indian PM meet
- The People's Liberation Army is the main obstacle to a Stable Relationship with Beijing
- China company to produce CFC replacement
CTC National Office 300 Leo-Pariseau, Suite 2250, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2X 4B3
T: (514) 487-0665 F: (514) 487-7825 ctcoffice@tibet.ca
T: (514) 487-0665 F: (514) 487-7825 ctcoffice@tibet.ca
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