Published on 12 February 2016 – AL.com
After the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in 2014, Birmingham will get a follow-up visit from the Tibetan prime minister.
The Birmingham Committee on Foreign Relations will host Dr. Lobsang Sangay, the elected head of the Central Tibetan Administration and political successor to the Dalai Lama, who is now 80.
Sangay will be in Birmingham from Feb. 15-17, Monday through Wednesday. He will tour the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Birmingham Museum of Art, and will be introduced at a Rotary Club meeting and meet with dignitaries.
“He’s going to see the city,” said Catherine Sloss Jones, president of Sloss Real Estate Co., who is helping coordinate the prime minister’s visit. “This is an international conversation.”
When the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, relinquished political leadership in 2011 to strengthen the democratic structure of the Tibetan movement, Sangay was elected the first Sikyong, a secular leader equivalent to Prime Minister for Tibetan people in exile. China took over Tibet in 1950. Thousands of Tibetans fled to India and set up an exile government there in 1959.
“In 2011, the Dalai Lama said, ‘I’m no longer going to be the political leader; I’m just going to be the spiritual leader,’” Jones said.
Sangay’s visit is a follow-up to Dalai Lama’s visit to Birmingham in October 2014, when he participated in an interfaith discussion at Alabama Theatre and addressed thousands of people at Regions Field.
Sangay has a law degree from Harvard University Law School. His doctoral dissertation, “Democracy and History of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile from 1959-2004,” was awarded the Yong K. Kim’ 95 Prize for Excellence. In 2008, Harvard Law School appointed him a Senior Fellow.
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