March 20, 2008
A Revolt to Make Tibet More Tibetan
Gabriel Lafitte on the revolt in Tibet, in openDemocracy:
The Tibetan revolt of March 2008, like those of 1959 and 1987, will be crushed by the overwhelming might of the Chinese military. No match could be more unequal: maroon-clad nuns and monks versus the machinery of oppression of the global rising power. In recent months, fast-response mobile tactical squads whose sole purpose is to quell the people have been overtly rehearsing on the streets of Tibetan towns for just what they are now doing.
What is the point of revolt if it is almost certainly suicidal?
This uprising has many uniquely Tibetan characteristics. At street level, a favourite item seized from Chinese shops was toilet-rolls - hardly the usual target of looters. Not that Tibetans, over millennia, have felt much need for the paper rolls, or even for the basics of the Chinese cuisine such as soy sauce. What the Tibetans did with the loo paper was to hurl it over power lines, instantly making Lhasa, and other Tibetan towns, Tibetan again. Right across the 25% of China that is ethnically and culturally Tibetan, the unrolled toilet paper looks like wind horses, the white silken khadag [or kata] scarf with which Tibetans greet and bless each other. As all Tibetans know, they carry their message on the wind: victory to the gods!
That is what this revolt is about: making Tibet Tibetan once more.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 03:13 PM | Permalink
Comments
It's just Nature and its ways. The Chinese will be routed as the oppressors have always been when the will of the opressed so desires...
As the French and the American fled Viet-Nam and the US will leave Irak!
Posted by: Felix E. F. Larocca MD | Mar 20, 2008 6:58:52 PM
It's just Nature and its ways. The Chinese will be routed as the oppressors have always been when the will of the opressed so desires...
As the French and the American fled Viet-Nam and the US will leave Irak!
Posted by: Felix E. F. Larocca MD | Mar 20, 2008 6:59:21 PM
I saw a TV documentary on Tibet a while ago. The ordinary working people were treated like slaves by the Buddhist priestly class. Can Chinese rule be worse than that?
Posted by: Jared | Mar 20, 2008 7:38:49 PM
I would love to share your optimism, Felix, but I think it's quite a stretch to suggest that oppressors "have always been [routed] when the will of the oppressed so desires..." I think history shows quite the opposite, actually. Oppressors endure, in case after case, with only a handful of contrary examples. Think of the many indigenous populations around the world that have been all but obliterated. Did they not desire the rout of their oppressors?
Posted by: ghostman | Mar 20, 2008 8:05:51 PM
To Dr. Larocca I would say: Having visited Mexico and seen the plight of the "natives," still marginalized by their colonial-blooded oppressors after 500 years, I would suggest that Nature takes a LONG TIME to affect such changes as you suggest. And meanwhile lives, human lives which are short in comparison, are spent in suffering. Having visited Egypt I can tell you that the "Egyptian" natives — which is to say the Nubians and Copts — have been under foreign rule for 1300 years. For your statement to mean anything to US, humans, whose span is short, Nature's yardstick is a poor choice to await in hopes that it might rectify inequities an end pain and brutality occurring NOW!
Posted by: Samson vanOverwater | Mar 20, 2008 8:07:46 PM
To Dr. Larocca I would say: Having visited Mexico and seen the plight of the "natives," still marginalized by their colonial-blooded oppressors after 500 years, I would suggest that Nature takes a LONG TIME to affect such changes as you suggest. And meanwhile lives, human lives which are short in comparison, are spent in suffering. Having visited Egypt I can tell you that the "Egyptian" natives — which is to say the Nubians and Copts — have been under foreign rule for 1300 years. For your statement to mean anything to US, humans, whose span is short, Nature's yardstick is a poor choice to await in hopes that it might rectify inequities an end pain and brutality occurring NOW!
Posted by: Samson vanOverwater | Mar 20, 2008 8:08:07 PM
As the Romans left Carthage? Doc, I hope you are right...Samson, sadly and with regrets, I'm in your camp.
Posted by: Pete Chapman | Mar 21, 2008 3:06:12 AM
Seems to me that China is bringing a feudal theocracy into the 21st century and that the Tibetans can only benefit. It is the priestly class that stands to lose power. To portray China as "colonial oppressors" and draw an analogy between what the US did in Iraq, Vietnam, etc and what China is doing in Tibet is ludicrous.
Posted by: Jared | Mar 21, 2008 9:25:26 AM
It's nice to see a full-blown Chinese apologist on the boards like Jared.
Note the first post, which is framed as a question, something to think about. Then, when ignored, the second part is regurgitation of Chinese talking points.
Let's unpack the talking points carefully, because they are important. Apparently, the "21st century" involves rule by foreign elites (remember there is no real democracy or political say by non-elites in China) who neither speak your language nor offer you economic opportunity.
The "priestly class" has to lose power to Han Chinese overlords from China who are somehow destined to rule Tibet. (Tibetans have little representation in the government of Tibet even now, and the boss is always a Han Chinese.)
To consider China as a colonial oppressor is somehow ludicrous, even though it matches all the characteristics of colonialism. Ethnically distinct invaders occupy the levers of power (particularly the police and military) and systematically disenfranchise the local population. Squint your eyes, and it looks exactly like Algeria or Kenya.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 21, 2008 9:51:40 AM
Although I have travelled extensively in China, I have never been to Tibet, so I freely admit that I do not know much about the situation there. What I do remember clearly is seeing a documentary on TV several years ago that showed Tibetan farmers grovelling on their knees as they brought food to the monks. The image was disgusting. It seems to me that Tibet was a backward theocracy. As for the current situation - China says the riots are instigated by the Dalai Lama to embarrass China prior to the olympics. This may be true - who knows?. In the TV footage I saw last night, the Chinese store owners seemed to be the main victims of violence, not Tibetans. There are two sides to every story, and I am simply tired of the knee-jerk "Free Tibet" response that seems to be the only PC view allowable in the West. The British are especially virulent in their criticism of China, which is ironic considering their history during the opium wars.
Posted by: Jared | Mar 21, 2008 10:11:20 AM
A comment from the BBC:
"There are too much emotion involved in this issue. On one hand misty eyed westerners think Tibet is a paradise ruined by the CCP, and the other Chinese people think that the CCP brought Tibetan people out of slavery under a brutal theocratic regime. Probably some truth to both."
I agree. There is some truth to both, in my opinion. There is also a very large element of China-bashing in the "Free Tibet" movement from western countries who have been far more imperialistic than China and who now resent China's rise.
Posted by: Jared | Mar 21, 2008 10:50:22 AM
So, Jared, your problem isn't with the Tibetan "priestly class" itself, it is with certain people who you believe hold objectionable ideas in the West, including "the British". Why don't you take that up with them directly, instead of talking about grand visions of bringing people you have never met and have no understanding of "into the 21st century" through blood and fire.
You "don't know much about the situation there", but you have decided that Tibet was a "backward theocracy", so it's praiseworthy to convert it into a colonial military dictatorship instead?
Every colonial venture disparages the previous government and discusses how it is civilizing and uplifting the locals. It's precisely this feature of Chinese propaganda that is so redolent of other colonial enterprises.
I'm also surprised that you actually believe Chinese government television.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 21, 2008 11:21:10 AM
Hektor,
I admit I don't know much about Tibet, having never been there. May I ask what is the basis of your expertise, and how you can be so confident of your opinions? How many years have you spent in Tibet?
Posted by: Jared | Mar 21, 2008 11:52:46 AM
Jared,
I haven't been to Tibet either, though I do know people who have, but then I haven't made any strong statements about the situation in Tibet beyond widely known (and essentially uncontested) facts.
I alse don't have a childlike belief in Chinese government television, China's civilizing mission (or as the French used to say mission civilitrice), or an axe to grind with certain Western intellectuals.
You feel free to completely toe the Chinese government line even though you have no real information. You haven't challenged any of the things I have said so far. As far as I can tell, you are ideologically wedded to support for Chinese colonialist authoritarianism, based largely on your dislike for certain Westerners.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 21, 2008 12:25:12 PM
I don't think this is so much a case of "misty eyed westerners" who "think Tibet is a paradise ruined by the CCP," but rather a case of colonial fatigue.
The issue for many of us is quite simple: Tibet was once autonomous; now it is not.
Posted by: ghostman | Mar 21, 2008 12:26:12 PM
Hector,
I conclude that you have no more first hand knowledge of Tibet than I have. Since the only politically correct position in the west seems to be the "Chinse oppressors - free Tibet" line, I am interested in a more balanced view. I most agree with the BBC comment - ""There are too much emotion involved in this issue. On one hand misty eyed westerners think Tibet is a paradise ruined by the CCP, and the other Chinese people think that the CCP brought Tibetan people out of slavery under a brutal theocratic regime. Probably some truth to both."
It is worth remembering that it is the Europeans and Americans who have been the aggressive imperialists. How many military bases does China have around the world? How many does the US have?
Posted by: Jared | Mar 21, 2008 12:36:09 PM
Jared,
You don't have a balanced view - you have exactly the view of the Chinese government, word for word. You personally still state everything in terms of Europeans and Americans, which has nothing to do with Tibetans themselves.
Are you really saying that China is constitutionally incapable of being an imperialist power? That no matter what China does, it isn't imperialism because imperialism is only what Westerners do?
You want to excuse China's behavior by comparing it to the US (or maybe Europe, you're a little fuzzy on that). Amazingly, I believe that it is possible for multiple countries to behave badly at the same time, and it is possible for outside observers to recognize that.
I understand that you want to talk about anything else but the situation in Tibet because you don't actually know anything about Tibet now or the last 100 years of Tibetan history, but try to keep to the point.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 21, 2008 1:09:56 PM
Hektor: Just found this fact from wikipedia:
n October 1998, the Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged that it received US$1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the U.S. Government through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and had also trained a resistance movement in Colorado, (USA).[34][35][36][37]
So the Dalai Lama admits to being on the CIA payroll. Interesting, don't you think?
Posted by: Jared | Mar 21, 2008 9:33:04 PM
Link to CIA reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzin_Gyatso,_14th_Dalai_Lama
Posted by: Jared | Mar 22, 2008 9:30:33 AM
For more information on the Dalai Lama, see:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8426
Posted by: Jared | Mar 24, 2008 4:20:09 PM
Post a comment