Dorothy Berger

Announcement of the passing of Dorothy Berger, by Dennis Cusack, Co Chair International Tibet Network.

Photo: Dorothy facilitating at a Network Regional Meeting, Dharamsala India April 2008.

Our very good friend, Dorothy Berger, passed away 28 February 2011 in San Diego, California after a short and intense struggle with cancer.  She was only diagnosed a few months ago, so the quickness with which the disease overwhelmed her has stunned us.

Dorothy had been a member of the International Tibet Network’s Steering Committee since 2003. She was Co-Chair for four years from 2005 to 2008. She became involved with Tibet almost 20 years ago.  During much of that time she was on the board of San Diego Friends of Tibet, and had been serving as its Coordinator.

She was a retired professor of English with a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles.  Her career included teaching for two semesters at a Chinese university, where she taught British and American literature.  In San Diego, her courses included critical thinking (with the Tibet-China connection as the subject of students’ research), British literature, and Chinese literature and civilization.  She lectured extensively on Tibet to both community and academic groups.

I got to know Dorothy in 2006, when she found out I was writing a book about Tibet.  She offered to read a draft and encouraged me to finish it.  We discovered that we had similar ideas about the Tibet movement, in particular the need for a concrete strategy for the Tibet groups.

It was Dorothy who quietly, but persistently and irresistibly pushed me and Ali Reynolds to put together a task force to devise a strategic plan. She kept the group focused and moving forward.  I still remember the weekend that she and Ali and I spent at Dorothy’s house in San Diego pulling together the pieces of the puzzle that the task force had gathered, and hammered out a coherent plan.  When we presented the plan for the first time to Tibet groups at the February 2008 Regional Conference in Mexico City, we were not quite sure how people would react.  I can still see her face when we discovered at the end of the first day that attendees were already incorporating it into their campaign planning, even before it had been formally adopted.  “We did it,” she said, with tears in her eyes but glowing.  A few months later Dorothy had the honor of personally briefing His Holiness on the International Tibet Network's Strategic Plan.

She did not, of course, stop there. At the November 2010 International Conference of Tibet Support Groups in New Delhi, the Tibet Network unveiled our newest website, www.chinese-leaders.org, which provides biographies of Chinese officials responsible for Tibet policy, along with graphics showing where they fit into the governing structure.  This invaluable tool for the Tibet movement, as well as journalists and China researchers, was largely Dorothy’s handiwork.  We were sorry that she was not in New Delhi to see how positively the attendees responded to it.

Dorothy was a consummate teacher:  patient, sharp as a tack, compassionate, and with a wry and sometimes wicked sense of humor.  She could stand up in front of a crowd of unruly Tibet supporters and very calmly, as the best teachers can, bring the room to order by saying simply:  “So, we’re going to get to work now, yes?”

Last week, just before I visited Dorothy for the last time, Ali Reynolds sent me an email Dorothy wrote in August 2007, when the Olympics Campaign first kicked off.  I’m including it here, because it captures Dorothy’s personality so well.
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Friends,

As you probably know, on Saturday, in 11 cities across North America, Tibetans and Tibet supporters did the same thing:  we went to professional baseball games with the same banners, flags and flyers to help launch Team Tibet.

Yes, it took a lot of coordination.

The highlight of the game for most of the 43,000 baseball fans at the stadium here in San Diego (California), was a history-making home run that attracted massive media coverage. Not being at all interested in baseball, I can't give details, but after the game, people were offering to buy ticket stubs for $5, to sell on eBay, I guess.

The highlights for me were quite different, mostly small things.  For one thing, in our group of 50 was almost all of San Diego's tiny Tibetan community, 11 people ranging in age from 7 to I dare not guess how old, including three monks.  For most in the whole group, this was the first time they'd participated in any action.  They were excited and nervous but also emboldened and amazed when I told them what was going on in other parts of the world.  They suddenly felt like part of something big.

Another highlight was the security guard in our area.  He saw our first banner, couldn't read it from behind, and said to me, "I sure hope that banner doesn't say anything bad."  I told him what it said (Padres Fans Stand with Team Tibet), and he replied, "I hope to hell you're telling me the truth."  Expecting trouble, I put on my best smile, and he left us alone for the rest of the game though he was quite strict with other people.

A teenager sitting across the stadium from us in the most coveted (and expensive) seats--ground level directly behind home plate-- decided to join us because he cares about Tibet.

A candy seller asked to be put on my mailing list because he cares about Tibet.

An AP (Associated Press) video-cameraman came by twice because he knew we had two different banners.

And now the leap to musing about the International Tibet Network.  All through the game (which I really didn't watch), I kept seeing that dark, high-ceilinged room in Brussels where we held the Network meeting after the international conference in May.  I kept seeing us sitting in regional circles, looking at the booklet prepared by our Olympics campaign working group, coming up with ideas.  And there, all around me that night, was one of those ideas made real.  It was just a noisy baseball game, but it felt like something powerful. 

Dorothy Berger
Co-chair

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In her Tibet work, Dorothy never wavered from her belief that we have the power to make a difference for the Tibetan people.  She would say now, simply: “So, it’s time to get back to work, yes?”

Dennis Cusack
Co-Chair, International Tibet Network

A compilation of tributes from members of the Tibet movement can be downloaded here. (pdf file)