Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth

I've always wondered who is worse for the Tibetans...the Dali Lama or China's Communist party. Pick your dictator I suppose.

 

Still carrying water for the Chinese suppression of Tibet? Gotta have more threads? Hey, basso will love the competition! He might not be crazy about Michael Parenti, however. I'm familiar with Parenti. He's a well known American academic, considered a radical by many, who has written several controversial works over the last 35 years or so. Parenti makes me look decidedly centrist! He also can play fast and loose with the truth, when it suits him. Want an example? (from his own website and the first chapter of one of his books) It concerns China, as a matter of fact.


Frances Moore Lappe and Rachel Schurman found that of seventy Third World countries, there were six—China, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Chile, Burma, and Cuba—and the state of Kerala in India that had managed to lower their birth rates by one third. They enjoyed neither dramatic industrial expansion nor high per capita incomes nor
extensive family planning programs.

The factors they had in common were public education and health care, a reduction of economic inequality, improvements in women's rights, food subsidies, and in some cases land reform. In other words, fertility rates were lowered not by capitalist investments and economic growth as such but by socio-economic betterment, even of a modest scale, accompanied by the emergence of women's rights.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Imperialism101.html



Parenti blithely ignores China's one child policy. He says "They enjoyed neither dramatic industrial expansion nor high per capita incomes nor extensive family planning programs." That is patently false when applied to China, which is a world leader in radical family planning. Family planning whether you like it or not. Why Parenti would choose to make such an incredible statement is curious. If he is willing to ignore or change the truth to make his "point," I'm not sure he is the best source for attempting to support an argument, but you go right ahead. I was also stunned by his description of "the emergence of women's rights" in those countries as being a major factor in the reduction of their birth rates. Women are told how many children they can have by the PRC. Female infants in rural India are far too frequently put to death because they are not born male. I have read of the same practice soetimes occurring in rural China. Burma? Hell, no one has rights, unless you are in the military or part of the junta.

Does he just make this stuff up as he goes along? I wouldn't deny Tibet had a system of government when it was invaded and occupied by the PRC that we in the US would find backwards and curious to the extreme, but it was their system, for good or ill. The same can be said of the oligarchy in China. A relative few hold the power over 1.3 billion Chinese. They are allowing economic freedom that helps the standard of living of some of the population, but hundreds of millions still labor in rural China, and political control at the top is in the grip of a few. There is no doubt that things have improved in China immensely, but Tibet is finding its culture being devoured, and these disturbances reflect the anger at Chinese control of their homeland. My opinion is that China would be wise to give autonomy to Tibet. I'm sure you disagree.

And unbiased? That's the last word I would use to describe Parenti. Heck, he'd probably be insulted himself!



Impeach Bush.

 

Free Sikkim

 

Injuns!

 

Death to cultural genocide otherwise known as Hollywood movies.

 

Yea, I just watched a couple more videos of Parenti who I wasn't familiar with before and that guy is a bonafide loon.

Still though, his point about the Dali Lama is still valid though I guess you could also make a lot of the same accusations (taxes and corruption etc)against the KMT in the 1940's before the Communist took over...and I'd think everyone would agree China would have been better off had that not happened.

 

Uh, arguing that things were worse for Tibet in the 1960s then it is now doesn't go anywhere. If anything, doesn't that actually go against your argument (i.e compare 60s China to present-day China)?

Anyways, it's somewhat flawed. "Tibet was a *****hole, so our invasion was legitimate?"...that's just something on principle that I cannot accept. This doesn't legitamize China's invasion; it puts it into the category of exploitation. Fine, maybe you can say that "hey, at least Tibet WASN'T a nice place before we got there", but it's not a reason you can use to back up taking an entire country. That's just European-style colonialism at it's finest. Ironic considering China's history.

It was somewhat revealing though. Maybe things aren't as bad as I assumed they were. But after skimming through the piece, I'm still convinced that Tibet and China cannot co-exist and after reading about the Dalai Lama and what he would've done, I'm convinced there would've been a better Tibet under the Lama.

 

You didn't pick the best evidence to discredit that writer. He cited some others work if you notice.

I find even old Sam can bring in some relevant information sometimes that I　find interesting. You on the other hand seems to stuck in the political fight mode.

 

ignorance and double standard at its finest. US invaded Iraq cause they got WMD. i think that's a worse excuse. and better under the lamas? they would be poorer than the Mongols right now, which is pretty darn poor.

anyways, i am so sick of arguing. i hope i won't talk anymore today. i was exploited by the capitalist at work today for almost 10 hours. sigh... what can a comrade do to have a better life?

 

What would you prefer? I took a quick look at his own website, which is where I got my quote. It's right there. Google it. Do you deny that it is an inaccurate statement on Parenti's part? You have nothing else to add except to say I'm "stuck?" Hey, I haven't always disagreed with Parenti, but I wouldn't trot him out as the best source for historical information. He most definitely has an agenda. That's OK... we allow that in this country. Parenti can raise as much "hell" as he wants. I just don't have to buy everything he says. Sue me.



Impeach Bush.

 

I'm Canadian. YAY. (I use my country too much...)

Also, use of a double standard pretty much says "I'm wrong, but I can justify that by saying you're WRONGER!". Well, at least we're at step one in the Twelve Steps...

But, that said, I sympathize with you. I've had the last couple of days off...but uh, the capatalist is coming back to chain me up. Save me.

 

i thought Canada was Socialist. maybe i'm wrong, maybe i'm right.

i think a lot of you may have mis-understood a lot of the Chinese posters here. in reality, none of them want to treat Tibetans badly. everyone just want a harmonious society where everyone is rich and happy. whether to split or to unite will remain to be seen. i think democracy and freedom kind of created a trend in the world, where every group want to split. in North America, this is not a problem because this is how the country was built and based upon. however, in the old world, where borders are always questionable. power rises and falls. people's ego remains the same. it will continue to create problems. in Europe, Africa, Middle East, East Asia, etc.

the difference, in some aspect between Chinese expansion comparing to Western or Islam is that, the latter relied on religion much more than Chinese. China never tried to convert people in the expanded territory to Chinese culture, sans the tribes within the Chinese nation itself. most people in ancient China considered outsider to be barbaric, unworthy of conversion. so when Chinese leave for a while, the locals never had much disruption of their culture. this is my vague and confused thought.

 

And in turn, I think you have mis-understood some of the posters here. Well, at least me. I've got no beef with individual Chinese...just with the CCP/Chinese Gouvernment. I'm sure there are some irrational folks down in China (just as there are here) but I'm pretty sure nobody really wants to see people hurt. I understand national pride; it's something many folks (including me) embrace in North America and something that is sometimes an obstacle to rational arguments. But I think it's pretty important to look past that if it's shrouding your vision...it may be hard to shed away, but national pride does give you a tinted view on things.

Also, for the record, Canada has socialist elements (free medicare/gouvernment-owned corporations) but the country's economic model is based on capitalism.

 

looks like US maybe turning into Socialist as well.

you may know this already, but the CCP and the government represent the people. majority of the people think they are doing a good job. if they are so bad, there would be massive rebellion already. i think they understand what needs to be done in order to stay in power. they will probably give "sufficient" freedom for most people to enjoy their life. no more no less. they are still working on that though. i can honestly say that, comparing to my childhood and now, China is so much better than before. i can feel the progress made every time i return. you can't compare the progress with the west due to the fact that China started much later. before the CCP, China was so corrupt it's not even funny. so for Chinese people, especially the older generation, they all remember the past and they truly appreciate SOME of the things the government has done for them. of course there are bad things as well, but it's a learning process. so really, it's not as bad you as think. and some people outside of China, especially in the west can't understand that. because, most of them have never experienced true oppression and exploitation. if any of you have ever experienced that like my grandfather's generation, you will appreciate things in China much more. and things are getting better too. if China as a nation progresses faster, it will only mean that other ethnic groups will get better.

 

The beauty of well cited opinion and sourced information as a way of exchanging ideas is that it can be proven WRONG--as apposed to more permeate debates technique on this board, which is often to discredit and dismiss by association.

Take Paul Krugman for example. He is certainly a divided figure on this board and often dismissed right from start by the other side. But I have no problem reading his more seriously papers as long as he gives credits, sources and assumption of where he's coming from.

What do I prefer? I'd much appreciate people discuss with substance. I have no idea who the Parenti guy is, but I would take a well written, well sourced argument over dismissal by attacking credibility any day of the week. Surprisingly, I actually do read what people of different opinions have to say when it's a well written piece.

BTW, I actually read that article and find the central theme of it, as the writer put it:"We can advocate religious freedom and independence for a new Tibet without having to embrace the mythology about old Tibet." Do you actually have a problem with that?

 

Found this well-researched article, http://www.antiwar.com/chu/c121799.html , written by a Taiwanese-American architect, that might be of interest---providing a keen analysis on Tibet.

Let's face it -- the European record on indigenous populations, Africans and Amerindians for example, isn't that great. America is carved out of many Native American nations. Africa was repartitioned into artificial states, now only to be troubled by ethnic strife, due to borders that Europeans set up. It seems, that the 'white men' has indeed wreaked havoc on the globe.

It has become fashionable to conveniently portray the Chinese are somehow the "White Men" of the east. By comparing regions of China such as Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan to the territories of Native Americans or blacks, the liberals (Richard Gere, Marlon Brando, etc.) as well as right-wingers (Rust Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Larry Elder, etc.) have attracted mass sympathy for these peoples. This works because it touches the politically-correctness sensitivieties of the Americans. After all, since the Native Americans and blacks were oppressed, and the Tibetans and Xinjiangese are in the same situation, the Han Chinese must be the perpetrators!

CHINA'S WEST IS NOT THE AMERICAN WEST

One especially disturbing aspect of the Tibet crusade in America is that Hollywood, academia, New Agers and the Washington establishment have drawn patently misleading parallels with American history. These comparisons of European immigrants to Han Chinese, and American Indians to Tibetan Chinese, have led to a grotesque collective misunderstanding.

This dangerously egocentric, even narcissistic way of experiencing the world may get America into deep foreign policy hot water. In fact, it has. When such historically irrelevant parallels are drawn what non-Chinese get is worse than ignorance. What non-Chinese get is the illusion of understanding.

Unfortunately most of what is readily available in English on the web regarding contemporary Tibet is predictable "Political Correctness" orthodoxy. The few rebuttals which are available in English are summarily dismissed by the intellectual orthodoxy as not credible simply because they are posted by Chinese or ethnic Chinese sources and do not support the "correct" conclusions.

Tibet is a region of China. It has been since the 13th century.Obviously one needs to refer to Chinese history and Chinese historians to learn about it. Most of that data is obviously going to be in Chinese. Yet it is only virulently anti-China Tibetan secessionist propaganda written in English which is automatically accorded the status of unassailable truth . The China bashers' attitude reeks of colonialist arrogance.

Far better to not know anything, and retain the humility that accompanies such ignorance, than to imagine that one knows all one needs to know to pass moral judgment and demand military intervention. As the old saw goes, "the problem isn't what people don't know, it's what they know that just ain't so."

TIBETAN CHINESE ARE NOT AMERICAN INDIANS

For example, projection of "collective guilt" over the mistreatment of American Indians is with little doubt the psychological root of most pro- Dalai activism. Unfortunately the pro-Dalai faction has confused its own internal psychology with a foreign nation's history.

• Just because they feel "white guilt" about America's Indian minority does not mean that China's history actually conforms to their internal guilt and historical misunderstanding.

This is why so many western sympathizers of Tibetan independence are taken aback, stunned even, when they discover that most Tienanmen pro-democracy leaders do NOT support, and in fact vehemently oppose Tibetan and Taiwan independence. The sympathizers' projection has been so extensive that they are trapped in a "virtual reality" of their own making.

The relationship between majority Han-Chinese and minority Tibetan-Chinese does NOT historically parallel that of European-Americans and Native Americans. The territory of modern China includes Tibet not because "the Han-Chinese conquered Tibetan-Chinese" the way European-Americans conquered American Indians and Hawaiians. (E.g., "Dances with Wolves").

Instead both Tibetans and Hans were conquered by the Mongols under the leadership of Chenghis Khan and grandson Kublai Khan in the 13th century. When the Mongol or Yuan Dynasty collapsed a century later, it was supplanted by a Han-Chinese dominated Ming Dynasty, which inherited jurisdiction over the Mongol empire, including the Tibetan region. This is how Tibet, and of course Mongolia, became part of China.

Those who insist on "victim-victimizer" dichotomies might be tempted on leap to yet another equally simplistic conclusion, that "both Tibetans and Hans were victims of Mongol aggression." This ignores the fact that both "victims" and "victimizers" subsequently intermarried extensively, not under duress, but of their own volition, rendering the issue of victimization moot and irrelevant. The bottom line is that Tibet was not "invaded" or "annexed" by China in 1959.

• Because by then the Tibetan region had been part of China for seven centuries, five centuries longer than these United States of America have even been in existence.

REDS, NOT RED HERRINGS

The false equation of Tibetan-Chinese with American Indian has predictably led to the false attribution of racist motivations to Beijing's abolition of serfdom and crushing of Tibetan secession. Beijing's Tibet policies are being falsely equated with everything from Nazi genocide of Jews to Nato's allegations of Serbian "ethnic cleansing."

If one is determined to force the Chinese experience into an American mold, one could perhaps equate

• the militarily powerful Mongols with one of the aggressive, nomadic tribes such as the Comanche, and

• Tibetans and Hans with less aggressive, agrarian tribes such as the Hopi or Navahoe.

The point is that all of China's major ethnic subcultures are native Chinese, including so-called Hans.

Now that communism is dead, sympathizers of the Dalai Lama, many of whom were sympathizers of Mao Zedong, seem to have forgotten what communism was all about. Communism was a political ideology obsessed with economic equality. Communism adjudged who was good and who was bad on the basis of its fatally flawed economic theory. To communist true believers the relevant question was to which economic class do you belong. Are you a capitalist victimizer or a proletarian victim? Ethnicity to communism was always irrelevant. The Chinese Communists were no exception. They committed their atrocities because they were fanatical radical egalitarians, "coercive egalitarians." The Lamaist theocracy was targeted because it engaged in the economic exploitation of Tibet's serfs.

When Red Guards vandalized monasteries in Tibet they were doing precisely the same thing to Zen Buddhist monasteries, Taoist monasteries, Christian churches, Jewish synagogues all over the rest of China.

• They were not doing anything so narrowly parochial as singling out the Tibetan subculture for "cultural genocide."

Rather they were motivated by disgust for what they perceived as vestiges of unjust economic systems throughout Tibet.

The Dalai Lama's allegation that Chinese Communist violence against Tibet's serf-owning elite was racially motivated ethnic cleansing is a red herring. Chinese Communists were evil because they were coercive egalitarians. Chinese Communists were never racist.

IF THIS BE GENOCIDE, MAKE THE MOST OF IT

In fact if the Chinese Communists, CCP, had really been intent on committing genocide, they could have deliberately and cynically left Tibet's Ancient Regime in place.

Traditional Tibet's theocracy imposed a policy of "er xuan yi" (from two choose one) and "san xuan ER" (from three choose two) on the Tibetan people. They dragooned enormous numbers of hapless Tibetan boys into the priesthood , where they would remain celibate for life. This draconian policy resulted in an alarming decline in Tibet's population in recent centuries.

Adherence to a religious practice of strict celibacy led to the eventual extinction of the Shaker sect in America.

• CCP's non- intervention in China's Tibetan region would have, by default, abetted a similar process of Tibetan self-extinction.

CCP intervention has instead led to a population increase. Yet Beijing is ritually and reflexively accused by self-styled do-gooders of "genocide," both "cultural" and racial. Ironies abound

 

here are some sources for Tibet information

• http://users.ite.pl/jna/pomoc/tybet/tibetstat.html
  "Religion in China Today” – Foster Stockwell
  “Tibet: A Reality Check” – N. Ram, Frontline ( A Leading Indian Magazine) September 2000
  “Virtual Tibet” – Orville Schell
  “The Making of Modern Tibet” – Tom Grunfeld

According to Tom Grunfeld,History professor and Tibet expert, prior to direct Chinese administration, Tibet had an estimated population of 1.25 million. Today, Tibet has a population of more than twice that number, at 2.6 million. He explains that this increase in population, after Dali Lama's eviction, was a combination of several factors:
(Prior to 1950) the region's population was declining due to illness (Tibet had no hospital), poor pre- and postnatal care, and a sizeable proportion of men becoming celibate monks.

It is estimated, however, that the population has nearly doubled since that time, as a result of better health care, increased availability of food, and relative political stability.” Also note that the high number of celibate monks is the result of Tibet’s feudal society. Monkhood was one of the ways of escaping a life of servitude as a serf.

According to Grunfeld and Stockwell:
regardless of the legitimacy of China's administration over Tibet, there is strong evidence that the Tibetan people have fared a lot better now than the previous feudal theocratic system. Yes, there is persecution and discrimination against Tibetans; but Tibet today enjoys far greater standards of living, social mobility, access to education and access to health care than pre-1950 Tibetans.

Also, insofar as the field of literature, prior to 1950 Tibetans could point with pride to only a few fine epics that had been passed down through the centuries. Now that serfs can become authors, many new writers are producing works of great quality; persons such as the poet Yedam Tsering and the fiction writers Jampel Gyatso, Tashi Dawa, and Dondru Wangbum. As for art, Tibet for centuries had produced nothing but repetitious religious designs for temples. Now there are many fine artists, such as Bama Tashi, who has been hailed in both France and Canada as a great modern artist who combines Tibetan religious themes with modern pastoral images. Tibet now has more than 30 professional song and dance ensembles, Tibetan opera groups, and other theatrical troupes where none existed before 1950. No, Tibetan culture is not dead; it is flourishing as never before.

Tibet is in the midst of modernization---a far-cry from ethnic genocide. after 40+ years of Chinese rule, Tibetan (non-Han) population and child births (non-Hans) have increased.

What is indisputable, is that the average Tibetan suffered a great deal under the Dali Lama's whose family owned no fewer than 3,000 slaves) reign, insofar as:
-inability to make a living, other than serving the Dalai Lama and the elites, to attain a better standard of living
-scarcity of food
-non-access to healthcare
-non-aaccess to transportation
-non-access to education
-lack of social mobility

 

I actually suggest look past feudalism, it could have been worst stuff. That stuff serves little purpose beyond political pitting against each other. Tibet has no chance to go back to pre-1950 system, be it modernization under PRC or being independent.