I saw this as a statement in the “controversial beliefs” thread in the pit and wondered what the scoop was. I know that Richard Gere and others make a big deal out of “freeing Tibet”, but I know little about what the Tibetans are all about. Is it worthy of admiration?
My take is that it was not particularly laudable, but hardly comes close to the sort of brutual cultural genocide, rape camps, and “shooting you dead as target practice” that the Chinese seem to consider “liberation.” Tibet was a somewhat feudal society with a definite class-based social structure, and as such, it’s not like us enlightenment democrats can really praise that. However, it was relatively stable and peaceful, and the replacement is pretty obviously much worse: China is not democratic in any real sense either, and worlds more brutal and totalitarian than any feudal system could ever manage.
I agree. The backwardsness of Tibetan society does not in any way justify the excesses of the Maoists in their campaign to erase Tibetan culture and replace it with Han culture and ethnicity, through low-level “cleansing” and more customary “swamping” (as some here have called it). I guess I’d say, given a choice, I admire it a lot more than what’s been done to it lately, but that’s faint praise.
The Dalai Lama was titular head of the Yellow Hat sect of Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism, which is a quite distinct phenomenon from the forms known in the West otherwise). Until 1951, Tibet was an autonomous state under the nominal suzerainty of China but ruling itself. However, that rule tended to be fairly theocratic, the peasantry and traders supporting the monks and the monks supporting the lamas.
Historically, there was a medieval Tibetan monarchy, but power shifts ended up with the Red Hat and Yellow Hat sects competing for control and then the Yellow Hat domination that was the case since Tibet became at all known to the outside world. During the 1950s Red China dominated Tibet but left the ruling elite in place as their puppets, replaced after 1959 by more direct authority. The Dalai Lama fled to India and then to the West.
The present Dalai Lama takes seriously his role as a spiritual leader. One does not have to belong to his belief system to see the sincerity behind what he essays to teach. He was an extremely young figurehead for most of his “rule” before fleeing. And his teaching approach seems to be much more down-to-earth, practical, Western oriented, than the typical “Eastern religion” mission.
My impression is that the “Free Tibet” movement is less interested in reinstating the Yellow Hat theocracy than in giving Tibet its freedom from Chinese hegemony. Coupled with that is a rather woolly sense of Tibet as a place of spiritual growth owing to New Age cultural trends playing off “ancient Tibetan mysticism” (a small part of which is really derived from Tibetan Lamaism, rather than the popularizers’ own belief systems) and the admittedly real role of the present Dalai Lama.
Prior to Chinese occupation, Tibet was ruled by both an aristocracy and theocracy simultaneously, or sometimes alternately (when there was a space between locating the reincarnated Dalai Lama).
Those of us who prefer to *elect * our political officials don’t find much fairness in a government run by either succession or by the divine appointment of rulers.
China invaded Tibet to exploit the natural and human resources there, and to increase its geographic footprint as a world power. It did so under the guise of communism, and to liberate Tibetan people from imperialism and “poisonous religion”. Were theocracy and imperialism fair forms of government? Not to this democrat. Was Mao providing a service by quashing Buddhism and destroying thousands of years and art and architecture in order to stamp out religion? Not to this art and history lover.
Were many Tibetans living in poverty? Yes, but ask a devout Buddhist if poverty is a complaint or a virtue.
So while I both admire and sympathize with Tibetans and Buddhists, I do not feel that their previous form of government was fair, or admirable. I do, however, feel that it was none of my business, until and unless human rights violations became so rampant that outside help was required, Tibet should have been left alone. Tibetans were relatively peaceful and independent, and for many years the rest of the world had no interest in exploiting any of the resources there save for a couple of tempting mountain peaks.
I doubt that Tibet would be able to or even desire to restore the theocracy. But I would like to see a free Tibet in which Tibetans could return to making a fulfilling living from a harsh and forbidding environment. And more than anything I would like to see Tibetans free to worship in the manner of their choosing, without fear of punishment, ridicule, or death. It is a shame that Buddhist’s spiritual leader is recognized by most of the world to be a great mind and peaceful man, and yet numerous Tibetans are killed each year during pilgrimages to see him because he is not welcome in any Chinese territory.
And I’m sorry for revising, I have should have proceeded my statements with this: The statement “I don’t feel that Tibetan theocracy is worthy of admiration” is fractional and deliberately provocative with regards to the cause or hope for a free Tibet.
As a Westerner, the previous form of government in Tibet has nothing to do with my empathy for its citizens. I find China’s wholesale abolition of the Buddhist religion deplorable. It is the forced exile of the Dalai Lama, the destruction of all religious icons and temples, and the banning of Buddhist symbolism, and not the change in political structure that causes much of the rest of the world to have sympathy for Tibet- but China’s exploitation of natural and human resources in TIbet is the real travesty.
Anyone claiming that China did a political service by occupying Tibet is willfully ignoring the exploitation of resources and civil rights abuses that have occurred since 1949.
In any case, after the light of good posts here, the Tibetan government in exile, under the Dalai Lama, is set up to be a democracy when/if they regain their country. HH The Dalai Lama is quite open about this, and advocates a democracy beyond his status. Too bad Tibet doesn’t have massive oil reserves…
Hmmm, this being a public board and all. Let’s stick to a few facts.
- The Chinese “liberation” of Tibet started in 1950 and took most of the decade to complete. The Lhasa uprising and Dalai Lama fleeing to India IIRC took place in 1956.
- Dalai Lama is both the temporal and spiritual leader of Tibet, and has been since the 5th Dalai Lama was accorded this status by the Mongolians.
- The Panchen Lama, although the #2 leader in the Gelupa or Yellow Hat sect, was theoretically limited to spiritual matters. Although in practice that was not always followed.
- Tibet, like practically every country in Asia around WW2 was a feudalistic society. That feudal society also had Buddhist and Bonpo religions, and monks, that had pretty large land holdings and rented the land or had serfs depending on who’s view you take.
As far as Tibetans living in poverty, well, you try living a nomadic lifestyle 1,500 miles from the nearest ocean at 14,000 feet with 6 month long winters and virtually zero access to international trade, and explain where wealth creation is going to come from early this century? It’s not like Tibet is an agrarian paradise with surplus foodstocks.
Tibet absolutely was a “backward” and poverty stricken place in 1950. I’ll let someone else compare and contrast with China proper in that same time frame.
If you’re interested in Tibetan history, I highly recommend Bell, Charles (Sir). Tibet: Past & Present . Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1924. It’s a Microsoft ebook, so you have to download the free reader. There are many free books on Tibet in that collection, but you’ll have to look it up page by page under the China section.
“Free Tibet” does not necessarily mean “put things back the way they were before the Chinese invaded.” The Dalai Lama might be restored as a constitutional monarch or figurehead in a democratic Tibet.
I hope this isn’t a hijack, but how much of the Tibet the Dalai Lama fled is there left to free? I should think that regardless of anyone’s intentions in the “free Tibet” movement, putting things back the way they were is simply no longer possible, as it would require at minimum the reversal of the decades-long program of Han migration into the T.A.R., a task involving the displacement of millions of people.
Actually, Han Chinese and other non-Tibetans are still a minority in most regions of Tibet. Depending on how you define “Tibet.” The historical kingdom included what is now the Tibetan Autonomous Region, plus Qinghai province and parts of Sichuan.
See the table of population figures here.
Ah, hence the confusion on my part. Well, if we limit ourselves to the T.A.R. province proper, not much of a problem. Looks like if you want some restoration of other regions which are what most would consider “hospitable” to human life, you may as well forget it.
also parts of yunnan and gansu provinces.
the Han population transfer really started from 1982 and accelerated in the 1990’s.
Didn’t it start with prisoners in the 1960’s?
I wrote this last year after a few weeks in Tibet:
The book I read just before I went is Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French, the former leader of the Free Tibet movement in the UK, who resigned because he felt western efforts to “help” were proving counterproductive. I can’t recommend this book highly enough if you’re interested in the subject.
A very good post jjimm, it’s such a complex issue.
One thing to relate, for comparison: In 1998, I saw a group of Tibetan monks come to give a performance of their traditional arts in an auditorium. It was a wonderful performance, and, to close, a monk came forward and asked the audience to consider the plight of Tibet, and help, if they could, all in the gracious manner Tibetans, monks at least, have.
I got a pit pain in my stomach, there, realizing that all of us in that auditorium were there after a similar genocidal policy. We were all in this country after displacing Native Americans. It really hit me hard, one monk pleading his case for help, in a country that pushed aside so many for gain, in awful ways.
I’ve never figured out a way to make that right.