A Reminder To China That The World Has Not Forgotten Tibet
It has been decades since calls for greater independence in Tibet have been so vocal. Now acts of defiance against Chinese rule in the region are springing up all over the world.
Red-robed Tibetan Buddhist monks have taken to the streets of the capital Lhasa to mark the 49th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army crushing an uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule, which forced the Dalai Lama into exile. It appears to be the largest open protest in Lhasa since demonstrations in the late 1980s led to imposition of martial law in Tibet in 1989, when China’s current president, Hu Jintao, was Communist Party chief there.
Now, scores of Tibetan activists have begun a perilous journey on foot from Dharamsala, home to the exiled Dalai Lama, to Tibet. The veteran Tibetan activist Tenzin Tsundue said: “I am walking to Tibet again… I am returning home; why should I bother about papers from the Chinese colonial regime who have not only occupied Tibet, but are also running a military rule there; making our people in Tibet live in tyranny and brutal suppression day after day, every day for 50 years.”
The refugees’ odyssey hit an early setback when they were blocked by Indian police in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh state until further notice, but the refugees have vowed to continue their march.
China’s presence in Tibet is likely to become one of the most controversial issues in this year’s Olympic Games, and Tibet activists hope to use the sporting extravaganza to breathe more life into their freedom movement, drawing attention to religious oppression and the damage wreaked to the region’s cultural heritage.
All around the world, supporters of Tibetan independence have taken to the streets to mark the anniversary. In Nepal, many protesters were hurt on Monday when police used batons to break up a march on the Chinese embassy; in Greece, activists complained of harassment by police when they lit a torch at Olympia, site of the ancient Games. Last week, the Dalai Lama rejected charges that he was trying to sabotage the Olympics, saying he had always supported Beijing’s right to host the Games.
But the 72-year-old Nobel Peace laureate added: “Repression continues to increase, with numerous, unimaginable and gross violations of human rights, denial of religious freedom and politicisation of religious issues. For nearly six decades, Tibetans have had to live in a state of constant fear under Chinese repression.”
Those most at risk were the 300 monks who took to the streets of Lhasa. They were demanding the release of monks detained last year after demonstrations to celebrate President George Bush awarding the Dalai Lama a Congressional medal. Military trucks, police vehicles and ambulances were seen near the site of the protest, witnesses said, and access to the Drepung monastery was blocked by the army.
China shows no sign of yielding to pressure on Tibet. As far as Beijing is concerned, Tibet is part of its inviolable territory and always has been. Beijing stresses the role it has played in bringing economic well-being to the poor enclave. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, confirmed there had been a protest, which he described as “an illegal activity that threatened social stability”.
He added: “Related departments dealt with them in accordance with the law … We will continue to maintain social stability in accordance with the law and strike hard against all illegal, criminal activities.” He gave no details on what became of the protesters. If anything, China’s position on Tibet has hardened. The country’s leadership has reiterated its tough line, linking stability in the Himalayas to overall stability in China, and urging leaders to focus on economic development, a clear warning to those seeking more autonomy in an Olympic year.
“Tibet’s stability has to do with the entire country’s stability; Tibet’s safety has to do with the entire country’s safety,” President Hu told Tibetan members of parliament, calling on leaders to promote “sound and rapid economic development”. Photographs showed Mr Hu smiling with Tibetan leaders gathered in Beijing for the National People’s Congress.
The Chinese condemn the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist, and have brutally suppressed demonstrations by Tibetans. Beijing’s defence is that it is spending billions of dollars to develop the region and improve living standards.
The Tibetan Communist Party chief, Zhang Qingli, said on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress that “the instigation of ‘Tibet independence’ is doomed to fail” and said the Dalai Lama was trying to undermine the Olympics.
The Tibetan activists marching to the region said they expected it to take six months. “2008 is a huge opportunity for the Tibet movement to present the injustices the Tibetans have been subjected to, when China is going to attract international media attention,” said Tenzin Tsundue, who was jailed for three months in Lhasa in 1997. “For how many days can they jail us for just walking peacefully? And why should the Indian government stop Tibetan refugees voluntarily returning home on foot?
“I have climbed buildings to shout for freedom, thrown myself at the Chinese embassy gate in New Delhi, spent months in jails, got beaten up by police, fought court cases, but I never lost the dignity of the struggle: my belief in non-violence,” said Mr Tenzin. “The March to Tibet will be non-violent; it is a sadhana, a spiritual tribute to the truth and justice we are fighting for.”
© 2008 The Independent
What the hell are you talking about, the world hasn’t forgotten Tibet?!?!?! Maybe the Tibetan Diaspora hasn’t but for all intents and purposes, I believe most of the rest of the world has. Yesterday the US removed China from its list of human rights abusers. India is not allowing Tibetan protestors to stage marches from its soil. THe rest of the world isn’t boycotting the olympics or challenging China in any way. In fact they’re doing all in their power to court China because of its economic prowess. This suggests to the world that human rights is a farce which is only worth bringing up whenever some uppity african or third-world leader from a not very powerful country decides to challenge the global order. Call ‘em a human rights abuser and you’ll receive a carte blanche to bomb em back to the stone age. Other than that, this whole human rights thing is nothing but a sick joke.
It seems that Tibetans have become politically active over the issue, and perhaps they can challenge the Chinese much in the way of the Tamil Tiger’s challenge to Sri Lanka. But to expect a few raggedy ass hippies waving free tibet signs in the face of a world that worships power and wealth is rather indifferent to anyone who stands in their way, is a reminder only to China and the world that might makes right. If you want to oppress and disenfranchise an entire people just make sure you have military and economic prowess before you start.
The British and us Americans are supposed to save Tibet by promoting an anti-China campaign yet again? What do liberals and Common Dreams hope to come out of such a campaign at a time where the US and Britain are involved in an endless war against the world? Never have calls for ‘humanitarian’ interventionism looked so absolutely bankrupt as these bleeding heart calls do now.
An independent Tibet should also mean an independent Scotland, Hawai’i, Basque Country, Brittany, Chiapas, Kurd Country, Chechnya, Quebec …the list goes on and on. The question is, does every little region need to be its own country? This doesn’t always seem to be for the best. Look at Moldova as a fine example (but look quick, before it re-attaches itself back onto one of its neighbors!) And one wonders how Kosovo will (eventually) be anything but a financial burdon on the EU.
The ugliest part of this, of course, is the utter smugness with which westerners approach the subject. It really is a matter to be handled between China and Tibet …if the Tibetans want independence that much, if it is so crucial to them, they will find a way. Indeed, if INDEPENDENCE is the word we’re going to use, then they must find their own way …otherwise they’ll only be getting something else. Smug, snotty, half-informed fools from the other side of the world add nothing substantial to this situation. There are more problems than the west can handle in its own hemisphere. What right do we have even talking about Tibet? Let’s talk about Lakotaland first.
All relevant posts, however there is no reason to give up on the Tibetan issues.
Some things just take time.
And on the political side of the discussion it is important to remember that Amerika played a direct part in the oppression of the Tibetans with our pro-China detente that began around 1973 and with the corporate investment schemes that followed.
Unfortunately China has become a sad imitation of a very empty Amerika.
One simple act of conscience and activism is to avoid Chinese products.
However, I have been pondering the Tibet dilemma since I first stumbled into a Kakachakra ceremony in Dharamsala in 1970.
The world was insane then as it is now, but what the Tibetans conveyed to me about altruism has been a comfort all of these years.
Yet, the Tibetans were once a war oriented culture until Buddhism was introduced from India. It took centuries for Dharma wisdom to create a different culture and national character.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the Tibetan Diaspora is that genuine Buddhist teachers are now all over the world teaching and publishing and planting seeds of thought and cultural change.
And to be optimistic about the current cancerous collapse of the Amerikan empire, it is possible that once the system is exposed for the cruel farce that it is, and the decline becomes unquestionably obvious, there will then be a great opportunity and amazing open space for exploring alternatives to the present system.
In the meantime it is useful to keep the issues and cultural ideals alive.
” Kindness is my religion ” H.H. Dalai Lama
Oh really Stilba?
and what are you doing to hold the western powers accountable for their crimes?
Are you implying that the Tibetans’ plight is not of our business?
In response to safiyyah and Stilba’s: apparently you have missed the point. Buddhism is predicated on non-violent action. This is a type of resistance that the Tibetans have been using since the first day of Chinese oppression. You think if it was crucial to them they could find a way? I think you are completely ignorant to the efforts they have pursued. The reason they have not been able to put up a stronger resistance is because it is one of the few cultures the world has ever seen sufficiently dedicated to their moral principles to avoid violently responding to impingements on their own survival. “Bleeding heart calls”? If you would like to attach an unnecessarily ineffectual title to support for independence, then I say the blood is well spent. Tibet stands for everything we can learn from the peaceful eastern religions that were dedicated to sustainability in a spiritual way long before so few westerners even began their largely intellectual concern for the environment. They recognized the spiritual tie, physical tie, or whatever kind of tie you want to call it - for there is a tie - to the environment humans have as a core of their culture. And I think this is one fight that would garner world opinion and aid the U.S. rather than ruin it (not that i’m calling for intervention, just saying).
“In the meantime it is useful to keep the issues and cultural ideals alive.” - While I agree in principle, I must say that this concept is entirely insufficient. Cultural ideals are inextricably tied to a physical culture. It will be almost impossible for the Tibetan way to survive very long at all with only the bland, dissolved age of technology to support it. The Chinese are destroying monastery after monastery. Without the land and the buildings of Tibet, the Tibetan way can not last.
Perhaps the genius of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is having instilled “pure” Tibetan culture as a “practice” or even more humbly as as a “concept” in the hearts and minds of so so many non-ethnic-Tibetan people…. Perhaps in this way Tibet still is “independent.”
If one reads Chairman Mao’s rewriting of Buddhist history or recalls other examples of how a native culture has been utterly obliterated by an occupier, then Tenzin Gatsyo’s achievement does not appear trivial.
After all, considering how the sutras describe the equanimity of the ones “awake,” the horrors visited by the Chinese on so many Tibetans are EXACTLY those eschatological types the sutras describe as NOT perturbing the “awakened” …
Let us give His Holiness the credit of being at least not completley asleep!
loven: “Buddhism is predicated on non-violent action.”
Not from what I read about Sri Lanka …but we’re not talking about religion, we’re talking about nationalism. If having a nation is important, and what they’re doing isn’t working, then they’ve got to find a new way. The last thing I want is for MY country to get involved in any more foreign entanglements. If we want to really foster change abroad, we need to get our goddamn noses out of the affairs of other countries and build something people abroad WANT to emulate. We can’t liberate everybody (look how it’s turned out in Afghanistan), and scolding Chinese leaders, in addition to being smug, will only create barriers while providing no concrete change.
ladybug: “Are you implying that the Tibetans’ plight is not of our business?”
Absolutely. Being a Yank, the plight for independence of the Sioux, the Cheyenne, and the Hawaiians is also none of my business. It would be smug and foolish to think it were. Are YOU implying that we risk war with China over Tibet?
Fine example we set!
“The Chinese condemn the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist, and have brutally suppressed demonstrations by Tibetans. Beijing’s defence is that it is spending billions of dollars to develop the region and improve living standards.”
Isn’t China supporting “genocide” in Darfur while making oil agreements/contracts with Sudan?
America refuses to place China on the list of “human rights” violators. Perhaps because the U.S. owes them $$billions.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you!
Where did some of you get the idea that being a buddhist necessarily means that you are peace-loving. That’s not true at all. People don’t necessarily actualize their religious teachings in reality. Look at Sri Lanka. To the Tamils massacred in pogroms in the Early 80’s , the buddhist sinhalese may not appear so peaceful. General Ne Win of Burma is a buddhist. Saying that someone is peace loving because they’re buddhist is just baseless stereotyping. The Tibetans weren’t particularly peaceful historically. They were rather quite a menace to Dynastic China. When the communists escaped the rapacious slaughter of CHiang Kai Shek during the Long March, they were sometimes waylaid by Tibetan bandits who raided and killed many of them. This isn’t some pre-buddhist time , but rather recently.
I didn’t say all of that to espouse some anti-Tibetan values. I support the Tibetans’ desire for sovereignty. They aren’t angels is what I’m saying, nor should they have to be to deserve self-determination.
I think some of the earlier commentators are right in that humanitarian intervention smacks of imperialism, especially when we have fish to fry in our own backyard vis a vis Native Americans. Such interventions are seldom motivated by human rights and are more a way to punish errant leaders from ’slave’ countries who wish to challenge the global order.
I think the activists who support the Tibetan cause and the Tibetans who want independence ought to concentrate on making life difficult for China. terrorism and guerilla warfare are a better way of accomplishing that purpose than relying and bending over backward to please fickle foreign friends, who were more interested in commercial dealings than the cause. Stop spending time painting your face in the colors of the Tibetan flag and start figuring out the finer points of Gelignite. That would be a way to go.
I empathise with the Tibetans, however there are a few matters that indicate, to me, that their issue won’t become one I’m particularly concerned about; and without any disrespect, hypocrisy, … intended or involved.
For one thing, I recently read that it’s not only mainland China, i.e., People’s Republic of China, PRC, that is a problem with the Tibetans getting what they want, to be totally independent, but TAIWAN, i.e., Republic of China, RC, is also guilty. And the guilty states are many; including the UN itself, apparently.
I haven’t read except some of the following pages, but they’re the resource I started reading, a little, over the past week or so. These are copies of Wikipedia, and if people prefer the originals, the just go to Wikipedia and enter ‘Tibet’ and then access the pages I only provide the search terms for below.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Tibet
The additional pages, which are linked in the above page:
*) ‘Tibet Autonomous Region’; and,
*) ‘Tibetan sovereignty debate’.
Based on what I gathered from those pages, part of Tibet is within India, and I guess India doesn’t want to approve total independence for or of Tibet, either. PRC and RC both deny independence for Tibet, both saying Tibet is part of PRC, but at least PRC is said to have been long enough prepared to respect self- or autonomous governance as an (I guess) province of PRC. I’m not sure what RC’s position is on the self-governance matter, and I’m not going to make it an urgent need to read these pages on Tibet, for there are much more pressing issues, IMO.
Anyway, and secondly, people of the West should start by preaching by example being made the STANDARD and required way, and if this is done, then the North American Indians, First Nations (as called in Canada), will all be granted their full rights to self-governance, and plenty of due reparations.
Then there are Palestine, the forcefully removed population of Diego Garcia, populations and states in Africa, of course IRAQ and Afghanistan, populations and states of South America, … for a sampling.
Imo, I can’t start joining campaigns for the independence of Tibet when we have all of these other above populations to demand respect and freedom for, and the efforts for the sovereign rights of the North American Indians and the First Nations of the USA and Canada has reached what level? IT IS TOTALLY ABSENT!
It is NOT up to the USA to do … whatever for Tibet, as well as Taiwan; the USA only wants dominion and worship of itself there for the sake of imperialist-West elites, not for any honest and honourable reasons. So the really best thing for the USA to do is to completely remove itself from the affairs of the Far East; like it or not!
Clean up your own act before pretending that you can preach to others, iow.
Dalai Lama has gotten a lot of favour from the HYPOCRITE and world terrorist U.S. govt, and he has said, recently enough, that G.W. Bush is not really a bad man, that he’s personable, a “nice guy”, and the Dalai Lama only disagrees with some U.S. foreign policies. Dalai Lama evidently can’t SEE STRAIGHT, and speaking of what’s obvious to MOST people in the world; needs to turn some lights on the next time he speaks with Bush in face-to-face contact! If he really believes this of Bushes, then he really isn’t particularly bright at all; while if he’s really lying about this so-called view of his, of GW BUSH, then the lying should be stopped. They’re NOT words that will be beneficial to either of them, or to anyone else, and it makes the Dalai Lama seem to be a very serious FOOL, which is not a characteristic that draws [respect]. If it’s the way he really is, he’s not lying, then he loses [credibility] and many people would be justified to disregard his cries for Tibet to be respected in full independence.
Also, WHO ON EARTH REALLY HAS FULL INDEPENDENCE?!! NO ONE, except the rich and powerful ruling elites of imperialist West, and all their devil allies around the world.
NONE of us have full independence, or anyone who does is bound to be like a hermit monk living in some desert or desolate place someplace where there are no or else very few other people.
Given that that is reality, Tibetans should be very thankful that the PRC has been offering to respect self-governance for Tibet. The PRC doesn’t only do that, its constitution requires that Tibet’s leader be Tibetan, ethnically; according to the above Wikipedia pages.
NONE of us have full independence, and the North American Indians, the First Nations of Canada, the indigenous of South American countries, etc., are lucky to have whatever little real self-governance they’re imperialistically permitted to have. The FNP of Canada don’t have self-governance when a particular FNP lives in resource-rich areas of the country; neither!
The FNP who are the real owners of the island of Montreal have been asking for their real right to titleship of this area be respectfully recognised, but the elites of Montreal, including elite schmucks of the RCC and maybe other churches of Canada, REFUSE to even recognise that MTL belongs to the FNP.
I have a LOT of things to think about before being worried for Tibetans and the so-called but surely bogus democracy of Taiwan, all of which is just more imperialist West … crap. We do NOT have real democracy here!
varda — “They aren’t angels is what I’m saying, nor should they have to be to deserve self-determination.”
Wow ! And you are the one who decides if anybody deserves self-determination I presume !! Such unbridled hubris …
stilba — “It really is a matter to be handled between China and Tibet ”
Really ?? You may be onto something. Why dont i just call up Hu (whoever the fuck the chinese premier is) and ask him to sort out this ‘issue’ with the Tibetans by ‘asking’ the Tibetans if its okay to invade, occupy, slaughter and claim their land. Im sure the Tibetans will be more than willing to comply !!
Mike Corbeil — Please do consider that it literally takes a saint to see good in geo the inferior, when you rant “Dalai Lama evidently can’t SEE STRAIGHT”
¿ Have you ever tried to hold people in (and to) their highest possibilities ?
BTW, it’s called
for a reason
Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
Many naive Westerners still cling to the image of old Tibet as Shangra-la, an image carefully nutured by Western propaganda. Here is a descrption by historian Michael Parenti of what life was like for the vast majority of Tibetans under the old feudal order, a description you will never get from the mainstream media:
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
“Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.” 10
Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” 11
Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. 12 Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” 13 In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.
Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. 14 The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.
In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. 15 The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care, They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land–or the monastery’s land–without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand.16 Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. 17
As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.
One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.”18 Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.19
The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery.20
The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation–including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation–were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.”21 Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. 22
In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.23
Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”24 As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.”
I did read Parenti’s account and yes tibet was no Shangrila, but how in the world can you justify occupying them and subjecting them to almost similar treatment is beyond me. Parenti doesnt seem to have answers either and judging by his Maoist leanings he probably supports the Chinese incursion/occupation.
If you can justify Chinese occupation of Tibet we can justify the American occupation of Iraq and a host of other similar comparisons will invariably pop up.
Riddimboy said it right. Maybe Tibet is no paradise but why do they have to be to deserve self-determination. That would be the justification for nearly every colonial war ever fought. Riddimboy is also correct that Parenti isn’t exactly the most objective guy in the world. I always get a flavor of soviet apologism in his writings.
I don’t know how many of you have been following but Lhasa has been occupied by protestors in one of the most open shows of defiance to Beijing in years. Check the news headlines for 3/14 to get a flavor for it. Might we see another Tiananmen square? Seems possible… though the Chinese being more integrated into the world economy couldn’t risk any bold maneuver like that.
My understanding is that while the Tibetan people have suffered terrible oppression and had their autonomy violently removed, their plight is both symbolic - challenging the world to recognize their right to independence which also symbolizes a solidarity with ALL peoples that have been stripped of their voice and rights; to Free Tibet is the beginning of Freeing The World. The other issue at stake is Tibet’s environment. Which, say what you will about Lords and serfs, the environment is suffering terribly in a way it never did before the brutal Chinese take-over. The clear-cutting Chinese have done, polluting of waters that are at the top of the food chain, machine gunning the animals that used to live on that land, and much more. I have always understood since I first learned about Tibet that its freedom is both symbolic and tangible. This is a microcosm of all that is wrong in the World. The Peace Plan the Dalai Lama came up with in the early 1990’s was brilliant. Say all you will about a feudal Tibet, I believe all of our future has to expose all of the bad and we all must evolve our needs as humans on this planet to survive. There is no room for the feudal Tibet in the vision of an evolved future. We could judge all the little people that have been overthrown as living in the dark ages and this justifies brutal take overs of their own homes/ land. We must all evolve. For example. I believe if Tibet were given back to the Tibetans, they would work on cleaning the environment and I believe that with the world watching, it would be difficult to return to things exactly as they were. After all the torture America is guilty of, maybe all torture will become reprehensible to all non sociopathic people, iow, the majority.
The leaders of the world should stand behind the exiled Tibetan leader and boycott the Olympic opening Ceremonies.
The Dalai Lama has pressed his followers for a non-violent protest. I know of one leader who has already committed - Prince Charles. What a better way to make your point!