Month: May 2015

The Nation, the State, the Nation-State: How do we talk about what we are?

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Let us be very frank. “Identity” does not really exist, at least not as an external object, out there somewhere in material reality. This may seem like a harsh statement to some, but think about it! If I...

Who is a Bhutanese?

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here I recall that it was in New York in 1980, when I was Bhutan’s permanent representative and ambassador to the United Nations that Dale Djerassi1 interviewed me for the 1982 PBS documentary, Bhutan- A Strange Survival. One of the...

What makes you not a Bhutanese?

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here What does it mean to be Bhutanese, or not? Is there more to it than just being born in Bhutan of Bhutanese parents? I have a friend who was not born in Bhutan and whose parents are not Bhutanese,...

What is the “Bhutanese-ness” of the Bhutanese people?

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here World leaders, anthropologists, philosophers, stateless people around the world have pondered over the question of national identity, trying to define and re-define it at different times, under different circumstances, in different perspectives. Many believe that it is not really...

What would a 21st century Bhutanese identity be?

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Our inheritance Bhutan’s journey from the 20th into the 21st century is one that the Bhutanese take great pride in. Our Fourth Druk Gyalpo regarded as a wise, skillful and compassionate leader worked tirelessly to build on the foundations...

Bhutan as recognised by history

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Is there such a thing as a Bhutanese “national identity?” If so, how can it be defined, and how did it arise? Of related interest is the question of governance. Over the past thousand years or so, Bhutan has...

The cultural construction of Bhutan: an unfinished story

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Our future sovereignty as a nation-state will continue to depend upon the articulation of a cultural imperative that asserts our distinctive Bhutanese identity.* Most Bhutanese would be familiar with the postulation that Bhutan’s survival as an independent nation rests...

Language and identity in Bhutan

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here In 1812, the famous linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote that the difference between nations is most clearly manifest in their languages. In 1856, August Pott wrote that language is the key trait defining nationhood. In 1987, Emil Cioran wrote...

Beyond cultural preservation: contemporary art and identity in Bhutan

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here “While a few may have succeeded to integrate the two seamlessly, thus having the best of both worlds, most modern Bhutanese are in a cultural limbo, having relinquished the old but not fully reached the new.” – The History...

Manufacturing Singapore

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here At Singapore’s Changi international airport, a tourist from Delhi gets into a local yellow taxi for a ride into one of the city’s many luxurious hotels. Eager to learn more about the island nation known as a marvel of...

What does it mean to be an Indian?

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here “Ind” or “Sindh-stan” was a Greek and Persian construct referring to the river Indus as a territorial marker. Historians tell us that it was only after the late 14th century that residents of India began to refer to India...

Nationalism in a new republic

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here “A yam between two stones” is how Nepal’s founding monarch, Prithvi Narayan Shah, described the unified kingdom he forged out of dozens of feuding Himalayan principalities in the 18th century. Even back then, it was evident to the king...

Being a Bhutanese means being a GNH citizen

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here There is a totally different level of pride, perhaps the best kind, that I feel when I call myself Bhutanese. It is a beautiful feeling one gets when one thinks about the best thing in life. It makes us...

What it means to be Bhutanese

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here “We Bhutanese are an endangered species,” my friend, the former Gelephu National Council Member, is fond of saying. He means that partly in jest. But, in many ways, I find that to be true indeed. In an increasingly complex...

What does it mean to be a Bhutanese?

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Being born in Bhutan is not enough for an individual to call himself or herself a Bhutanese. One has to have all the moral values and attitudes that make the Bhutanese distinct from any other people in the world....

My identity as a person and as a Bhutanese

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Strictly speaking, from a Buddhist philosophical point of view, the conception that “I” am Dorji Wangchuk or that Bhutan is “my” country would be a misconception or misconstruction. This is because although the historical Buddha himself seems to have...

Living the Bhutanese life abroad

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here I am a Bhutanese woman living abroad. Without trying to make the statement sound like an epiphany, I know my story is the story of many other Bhutanese women who have left our country deep in the mountains of...

I guess you can never really leave

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here “Where are you from?” I am often asked. “Bhutan,” I reply. “Oh, the happy country?” That is what most people know of Bhutan. I’m pleased and also a little embarrassed at the same time. The aspiration of Gross National...

The way we think matters more

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Sixty-five-year-old Lopon Kunzang Thinley has been a researcher and writer for 31 years. He is the author of four dictionaries, including Bhutan’s first Dzongkha dictionary, and some 20 notable books. After passing out of the erstwhile Rigzhung Lobdra in...

Conversation with the Bhutanese farmer

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Chimmi Dem, 57, is a Bhutanese farmer living in a village not far from Thimphu. This interview is extracted from my conversations with her. Q. What is life like in the village these days?          ...

Religious History of the South: a very late review

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here Sometime in the 10th month of Iron Hog year, 1731, Tenzin Chogyal, the prelate who later became the 10th Chief Abbot of Bhutan, offered a cup of fine tea before the physical remains of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, the founder...

The History of Bhutan: A review

Spring Edition , May 24th, 2015 You can download this Article as a PDF by clicking here This is a big book in every way: long, heavy, expensive, and content full. But far more than that, it is a big book because of the role it should, indeed must, play in the history of Bhutan itself....

National Identity

Events , May 24th, 2015 The launch of the Druk Journal is dedicated to the fourth Druk Gyalpo, His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck, as the nation celebrates the Diamond Jubilee of his birth date.