My best friend for years and years was Chinese-born American, and although she was often critical of Chinese culture, she defended the Chinese occupation/annexation/I don’t even know of Tibet because, according to her, the Tibetan monks were really cruel and despotic toward ordinary people.
How accurate is this assertion?
The only thing I’ve ever heard about this, is the Dalai Lama wants to turn Tibet into an absolute monarchy.
But whether that’s true or not, I have no idea. It’s just something I heard a couple of years ago.
Not very.
Honestly, mainland Chinese have been subject to an unholy amount of propangda regarding Tibet. Certainly there were bad things that happend in the pre-China “liberation” of Tibet. But let’s just say there’s a pretty big incentive for the Chinese to paint anything to do with religion, culture and Tibetan nationalism in the worst light possible.
Think GWB and the rationalizations for invading Iraq. You know, Saddam’s rape rooms and all the rest.
And it would be a complete crock. The big guy has pushed for democratic reforms since he was a teenager. And the Dalai Lama’s were the Temporal and Spirtual Rulers of Tibet, and the succession at least theoretically was done via reincarnation rather than primal geneture (sp?)
primogeniture
Short answer: No, they’re pretty much like everyone else.
Slightly less short answer: Not really. One of the important things to consider in the case of premodern Tibet is that especially from the 13th century onward Tibetan Buddhism and the government were extremely intermingled, and a lot of the most brutal aspects of Tibetan culture (premodern criminal law is often cited) are cultural, not religious, and would have persisted regardless of whether the authorities were monks and other religious figures or civilian politicians.
In my experience, Tibetan monks are just like everyone else: there are some really exemplary ones, a lot of normal guys, and a couple of real assholes. Discipline is extremely strict in a lot of the monasteries, and a lot of times guys are pretty naive and sheltered, but the vast majority of the monks I’ve known are pretty high quality guys. (There are lazy monks though: most monasteries have at least a couple of guys who were sent to the monastery as little kids to get an education and who go through the motions because it’s a better job than anything they could do as a secular guy, and there are usually a couple of people who you know are going to return their vows in their 20s or early 30s and go on to be secular dudes.)
If anyone has any related questions I would be happy to answer, but I’m not really sure what else I can add. ^^
I asked a friend of mine who is a socialist to sign an online petition seeking to have Australia ask China to leave Tibet. He refused on the grounds that returning Tibet to its pre-China state would be no kindness to the average Tibetan.
He pointed me to this. Upon reading it I realized that my idealized view of old Tibet was a crock.
That article is written from an extremely biased perspective though, and a lot of the stuff on slavery and sexual exploitation in the monastery is overdone. Premodern Tibet was a massively brutal place, but it was no worse than a lot of other medieval societies- the farmers and laborers who empowered the nation were at the bottom of the ladder and the rich exploited the heck out of pretty much everyone else.
Something else to consider is that there were a lot of monks in Tibet. There were times during its history when well over 50% of adult men were ordained monks, and a lot of them were very poorly educated and ended up working as craftsmen, soldiers, and the like while ordained. It was (and still is) an extremely massive bureaucratic agency, and like any agency it had its fair share of corruption and power brokering at high levels.
However, while this is just an opinion I feel that the vast majority of issues that people have with Tibetan Buddhism stem from their starting with unrealistic or idealized expectations.
If you are interested in the subject, I can’t recommend the book Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French, highly enough. This guy was the head of the Free Tibet movement in the UK, and the book is an account of an illegal journey through Tibet, as well as his personal journey away from the movement, containing a lot of history that gets glossed over in the West. It’s well written and fascinating.
In summary: Tibet was never a Shangri-La (pardon the pun), despite western propaganda; the Chinese government were indeed bastards but many Tibetans were complicit in Chinese domination of the country and the evils that followed; not everything China has done there has been bad; most of the pro-Tibet posturing we indulge in in the West is counterproductive to the Tibetans’ cause.
It’s a thoughtful and very well informed book, written from a point of view of great respect for the culture, but not blind: it’s realistic and balanced. It changed and nuanced my view of the subject.
On all my travels in Tibet, mainly in 1985-89 in what is now the Sichuan and Yunnan Tibetan areas. These were extremely remote areas then (some boast airports now) and many of the places were accessible only on foot. I always asked the locals if they thought life was better or worse. I had *one *guy say better and everyone else was universal in saying things were better pre-Chinese takeover.
These were villagers, nomads, remote monastaries.
There is very obvious segregation and racism in Tibet now against the native Tibetans.
I need to check out French’s book. Everyone of my 80’s trips were illegal as well 
It was a theocracy, not a monarchy; almost the opposite. A ruling oligarchical elite who happened to be a priesthood ( not unlike soviet communism given a few centuries ); had the Papacy entirely defeated the German Empire in the 11th - 12th centuries and established complete domination — not that this was practicable nor even desired outside the deranged mind of a few priests such as Gregory VII — a similar arrangement could have ruled Europe.
The present Dalai Lama has given no reasons to imagine that he seeks such power or desires to return to the old ways.
On the other hand, yeah they were pretty bad.
I have somewhere a large yellow book published sometime around 1908, just after Tibet was opened to the West with the Younghusband Expedition and when people were fascinated by other civilisations ( and long before the CCP renewed China’s not completely unjustified claim to Tibet as tributary ). and whilst admiring, the author made it clear that the lamas weren’t the ideal choice as a master class.
In particular, — and remember this was written back in genteeler times — I was surprised to learn what they sold to the credulous peasants as Sovereign Medicine to cure aught that ail’s ye, in powered form. Apparently the lamas, if not the peasants, regarded anything excreted from a holy man’s [ eg: a lama ] body as blessed.
Does it seem to anyone else that Tibet is particularly prone to being made out to be whatever a person wants it to be, without much regard as to what it really is?
It was comparable to most any medieval society. It certainly fell short of our ideas of a free and just society, but it wasn’t anything exceptional in world history.
I can never figure out why people think an independent Tibet would operate like old Tibet. If the Basque country gained independence, do you think they’d want to return to medieval times?
I was in Tibet last year. Whatever you have to say about traditional Tibetan society, the place is currently absolutely occupied. Lhasa has cops in riot gear on the street corners and sharpshooters on the rooftops. Further out, the Chinese security facilities stand out in contrast to the still vast poverty. Everywhere I went, people were willing to tell me exactly what they thought of the Chinese presence.
Typical lack of understanding or outright colonial bigotry. I was tought these are called “ribus” in Tibetan but a Bing search didn’t turn up any hits. Here is an intro page on Traditional Tibetan Medicine.
Traditional Tibetan Medicine includes herbal pills made up in a very spiritual way (chanting prayers, imparting healing “forces” into the medicine, etc). Also Tibetan Buddhists believe that certain people such as the reincarnate lamas are “holy” and their blessing, blessing of medicine the or including parts of their body (including excreted) to have healing power. It’s nothing as crass as a little “Lama poop is good for what ails you.”
I still have some ribus given to me by a few different lamas from when I traveled in Tibet 25 years ago. I also have some claimed to be from the Dalai Lama given to me by the head of the Tibetan Children’s Home in Taiwan. I’ve never taken them but they reside in my little personal portable shrine (gaowu). Having them is a spiritual comfort. I or my family have never been sick enough to warrant taking them. I don’t really believe they would heal me, but the sentimental value is huge.
Christian churches are full of ritualized cannibalization, relics are worshiped and imbued with healing powers, but conquering British colonists label the Tibetans as barbarians for equivalent practices. Pot, kettle, black.
Incidentally I have actually heard urban legends and misunderstandings about the excrement thing from young monks as much as from foreigners. I read a biography from one monk whose duties included rinsing out his main teacher’s chamber pot every morning. He used to treat the contents as a blessing of sorts, but when his teacher found out about it the guy got really concerned and decided that given his pupil’s adoration it was unhealthy for them to keep working together, and so he sent his student to another monastery to do his academic studies.
China Guy, I don’t know if it’s exactly the same as what you are thinking of, but relic pills tend to be extremely common- the most common types are called rilnag and rinsel, and most of the time they are assembled from one of thousands of recipes combining flecks of gems or precious stones, plants and minerals (turquoise, gold and purified mercury are quite common), and occasionally parts from a teacher- sometimes very popular living masters (the karmapa comes to mind) will use bits of hair or nails, and the most precious relic pills tend to utilize slivers of bone, most often from the leg and arm bones. I believe there is one recipe that uses finger bones as well, but that is extremely rare- finger bones are more frequently preserved as artifacts or distributed to stupas, more like the eyes, tongue and heart.
Yep, that’s what I’m talking about. Most of mine came from monastaries at a piligramige site like a holy mountain.
Not really, the Younghusband Mission achieved nothing — except, once the fighting was over, mutual expressions of good will — Tibet was not colonized nor taken into the British Empire ( whose authorities were deeply opposed to the Expedition, and could see nothing to exploit there ), so they were neither conquering nor interested in propagandizing about those awful ‘others’. As they have done against the French, the Germans, the Russians, various Africans and any one else who came up against them.
This was a private treatise explaining, and in many ways extolling, Tibetans. It just made it clear that it was better to be a lama than a peasant, and that the latter were exploited by the former — just as much as if any other ruling class, whether foreign imperial or national oligarchy, were substituted.
James, Earl of Moray judicially drowned a few criminals in the 16th century ( drowning being a Scots method of execution, rather than in the rest of Britain ); doesn’t mean — on comparative ethics, ’ You did so, so there !’ — the lamas were justified in using this on uppitty peasants…
I would imagine that the average modern Tibetan, whilst in no way wanting Western culture or creeds ( whether political or religious ), would prefer an total absence of both the Chinese and the Lamist landlords in charge.
In some ways Tibet was, as stated, a medieval society. But in the modern world. Describing it as medieval is no proper excuse for its practice of slavery, serfdom, forced enrolment into religious orders, mutilation as a standard punishment for crime, and so on. Might not be exceptional in world history, but it stands out as one of the worst of places in the modern era, along with Idi Amin’s Uganda, Taleban controlled Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
Of course if Tibet was to become free today it would probably just become another third world country with a decent tourist trade, no doubt the Chinese conquest has had at least that positive long term effect, to permanently efface its worst atrocities. Of course it would also have an extremely large Han Chinese population, unless it indulged in a bit of ethnic cleansing.
As for the Dalai Lama, in his boyhood he associated with SS men while ruling as absolute dictator over a nation practicing the aforementioned terrible and primitive acts and doing little or nothing to alleviate the lot of the working man. Then he disapproved enough of the Commies’ liberalising efforts that he fled the country and became the figurehead of a CIA sponsored Contra war.
I second the recommendation for the Parenti article linked to above, as well.
I would debate this. There are plenty of otherwise un-extraordinary places in the world that engage in these practices right now. I came into contact with all these practices during my time in Cameroon. Where is the outcry and uproar? Should we give Cameroon to China as well?
Tibet was a bit different in that it was fairly well organized. But the actual human rights violations don’t even stand out today, much less 60 years ago. I’m sure you could find pretty similar practices during China’s own cultural revolution, which was after they annexed Tibet.
As for giving Tibet a pass for being medieval- it’s one of the most isolated places on earth! Even today huge chunks of it are barely touched. In the 1950s it was not a part of the modern world. How could you possibly expect it to adhere to values it largely had no contact with or experience with?
Yes, absolutely. Tibet is grossly misrepresented by both sides, IMHO more on the pro-Tibet side, though, because they have more of an interest in seeing Tibet painted in a certain way than the pro-Chinese side.
And when I went there I met plenty of Tibetans of all ages who told me they enjoyed being citizens of China and that their lives had improved since the so-called “invasion.” These were private conversations held between myself and perfect strangers I met on the street or in restaurants, without any guides or translators. I have no reason to believe they were coached or coerced in any way. Of course, I also met people who held negative views of the Chinese, but they were in the minority in my experience.