Lisa Mertz

The fourth meeting of the 2019-2020 Fredonia Shakespeare Club year was held on Oct. 31 at the home of Joyce Haines. President Lucille Richardson welcomed 15 members.

Priscilla Bernatz read the minutes from the Oct. 24 meeting. The minutes were approved as written.

A short business meeting was lead by President Lucille Richardson.

The Club’s area of study is Nobel Prize Winners. Dr. Lisa Mertz read her paper “Nobel Peace Prize 1989” which is summarized as follows:

In 1989, then Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Egil Aarvik presented the Nobel Prize for Peace to the leader of the Tibetan Government in Exile, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in recognition of his nonviolent campaign of over four decades to end Chinese domination of Tibet. The award followed the violent suppression of the Chinese Democracy Movement in June of 1989 with the bloody military takeover of Tiananmen Square as well as the crushing of pro-independence demonstrations and the imposition of martial law in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

According to the New York Times (Oct. 6, 1989), “the selection of the Tibetan leader … resembled that of several other choices in recent years in seeming to reflect an attitude, expressed in the past by Mr. Aarvik, that world peace is more and more considered a matter of human rights.” The award consisted of a diploma and a gold medal along with a cash prize worth about $455,000 at that time. The Dalai Lama used much of the award prize to create The Foundation for Universal Responsibility.

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso was born on July 6, 1935. At the age of 15, he officially became the temporal leader of Tibet, facing the threat of war with the Chinese. On March 10, 1959, the Tibetan People’s Uprising began in Lhasa. Then on March 17, facing potential assassination, the Dalai Lama, disguised as a soldier escaped across the Himalayas arriving in India on March 31. The Chinese Army suppressed the Tibetan revolt by March 21, ending in a bloodbath.

In 1960, the Tibetan Government in Exile was established in Dharamsala, India, where it stands today. The Dalai Lama has ever since travelled the world making clear how the Chinese occupiers who invaded Tibet eviscerated the country’s traditional culture. He has always advocated for the use of nonviolent solutions when possible. Now, 84 years old, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has been the leader of the Tibetan Government in Exile for 69 years.

President Richardson assisted at the tea table.

The next meeting of the Club will be held at the home of President Richardson when Priscilla Bernatz will read her paper Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1973.