What I mean is: Those former political system, who did what stuff are important in fact-checking, and political bickering China often forced to partake. However, those past stuff has little bearing beyond that. China's sovereign claim does not hinge on that, nor does it pertinent to how to further healthy development of Tibet. In the unlikely event that Dalai Lama participates in the political process, or in the hypothetical, the next-to-none chance of achieving independent theocracy, There's no chance of him to turn political clock back to the pre-1950 serf system. Will the theocracy class seek privileges? sure. Is it possible to return to the old system? no. History simply past that. So, it's kind futile to dwell on that. Same as if and when Taiwan rejoins China, it's not possible for China to impose draconian Great-Leap-Forward economic policies on Taiwan.
I'm surprised Foster Stockwell wasn't mentioned until the middle of the first page - now there's a real tibet scholar for you....he's definitely from the old school, the school of "Baghdad is not surrounded by tanks!" Carry on gentleman - if we can dredge up enough historical "evidence", we won't feel as guilty in 25 years when Tibetans no longer exist within the borders of the PRC except as a few tourist showpieces. And we can pretend like the invasion, occupation, and today's cleansing never happened.
Well, I am familiar with Parenti. I find it telling that instead of addressing why he would misrepresent (to put it mildly) the facts in the quote I provided, from his own writing and his own website, you pontificate on the value of "a well written, well sourced argument over dismissal by attacking credibility any day of the week." Adding, "Surprisingly, I actually do read what people of different opinions have to say when it's a well written piece." Terrific that you find that of value. Telling that you ignore Parenti playing fast and loose with the facts. So Parenti, who you claim to know nothing about (and who am I not to believe you?) has "a well written, well sourced argument" when you find it convenient? And "dismissal by attacking credibility," I suppose, must apply only when the "facts" support your position? Fascinating indeed. Impeach Bush.
The Dalai Lama's Nazi connections This is something new even for me, but I knew the Nazis had a deep fascination with Tibet and believed the Aryan race came from there.
The Dalai Lama with Shoko Asahara, the Japanese cult leader and terrorist who spread Sarin gas in the Tokyo subways, apparently a friend of Dalai and contributed over $1 million to his cause. You learn something new everyday.
nice try. In stead of providing directly evidence of where the article stated wrong, like you are so apt to do with that family planning quote, you totally ignore the original question and harped on that one line. Is that because your knowledge about the issues regarding China is limited to family planning etc, the usual suspects? And you totally ignored my question about the essence of the article too. hmm, I've seen that before. Actually it's plenty in those political debates. And, why am I suppose to be the person to tell you why Parenti wrote as is? He could mis-cite, it could be typo. I checked original article, I've address that. Or, he could have this giant agenda as you speak. LOL, and you really think he's counting on slipping through such things as family policy in China which is a publicly known policy and that every dumb person in the world knows to further his agenda? Hmmm, could be. but, then again, the guy has a PHD.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/opinion/11zizek.html How China Got Religion By SLAVOJ ZIZEK Published: October 11, 2007 London THE Western liberal media had a laugh in August when China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs announced Order No. 5, a law covering “the management measures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism.” This “important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation” basically prohibits Buddhist monks from returning from the dead without government permission: no one outside China can influence the reincarnation process; only monasteries in China can apply for permission. Before we explode in rage that Chinese Communist totalitarianism now wants to control even the lives of its subjects after their deaths, we should remember that such measures are not unknown to European history. The Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the first step toward the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years’ War, declared the local prince’s religion to be the official faith of a region or country (“cuius regio, eius religio”). The goal was to end violence between German Catholics and Lutherans, but it also meant that when a new ruler of a different religion took power, large groups had to convert. Thus the first big institutional move toward religious tolerance in modern Europe involved a paradox of the same type as that of Order No. 5: your religious belief, a matter of your innermost spiritual experience, is regulated by the whims of your secular leader. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Chinese government is not antireligious. Its stated worry is social “harmony” — the political dimension of religion. In order to curb the excess of social disintegration caused by the capitalist explosion, officials now celebrate religions that sustain social stability, from Buddhism to Confucianism — the very ideologies that were the target of the Cultural Revolution. Last year, Ye Xiaowen, China’s top religious official, told Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, that “religion is one of the important forces from which China draws strength,” and he singled out Buddhism for its “unique role in promoting a harmonious society.” What bothers Chinese authorities are sects like Falun Gong that insist on independence from state control. In the same vein, the problem with Tibetan Buddhism resides in an obvious fact that many Western enthusiasts conveniently forget: the traditional political structure of Tibet is theocracy, with the Dalai Lama at the center. He unites religious and secular power — so when we are talking about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, we are taking about choosing a head of state. It is strange to hear self-described democracy advocates who denounce Chinese persecution of followers of the Dalai Lama — a non-democratically elected leader if there ever was one. In recent years, the Chinese have changed their strategy in Tibet: in addition to military coercion, they increasingly rely on ethnic and economic colonization. Lhasa is transforming into a Chinese version of the capitalist Wild West, with karaoke bars and Disney-like Buddhist theme parks. In short, the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers terrorizing Buddhist monks conceals a much more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation: in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of the Native Americans in the United States. Beijing finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police forces, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations? It is all too easy to laugh at the idea of an atheist power regulating something that, in its eyes, doesn’t exist. However, do we believe in it? When in 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, many Westerners were outraged — but how many of them actually believed in the divinity of the Buddha? Rather, we were angered because the Taliban did not show appropriate respect for the “cultural heritage” of their country. Unlike us sophisticates, they really believed in their own religion, and thus had no great respect for the cultural value of the monuments of other religions. The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to “culture.” All human sciences are turning into a branch of cultural studies. While there are of course many religious believers in the West, especially in the United States, vast numbers of our societal elite follow (some of the) religious rituals and mores of our tradition only out of respect for the “lifestyle” of the community to which we belong: Christmas trees in shopping centers every December; neighborhood Easter egg hunts; Passover dinners celebrated by nonbelieving Jews. “Culture” has commonly become the name for all those things we practice without really taking seriously. And this is why we dismiss fundamentalist believers as “barbarians” with a “medieval mindset”: they dare to take their beliefs seriously. Today, we seem to see the ultimate threat to culture as coming from those who live immediately in their culture, who lack the proper distance. Perhaps we find China’s reincarnation laws so outrageous not because they are alien to our sensibility, but because they spill the secret of what we have done for so long: respectfully tolerating what we don’t take quite seriously, and trying to contain its political consequences through the law. Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the author, most recently, of “The Parallax View.”
Why does it always come down to the PRC or the Dali Lama? Why aren't the people of Tibet being engaged and asked what they want? Let them decide if they want to be part of China or if they want the Dali back or maybe they want to create a new government of their own.
This is the ole the victim is better off having been a victim argument. With respect to the Chinese we could use Japan as example. If Japan still controlled part of mainland China, the Chinese standard of living would obviously be much higher since they'd be working at Toyota and Sony factories instead of making toys and undershirts for Wal-Mart. Of course Chinese women might be prostitutes and Chinese culture would be decimated but think of how much better off they'd be!
like that would happen. look at the history, how many times did chinese culture change under foreign control? the foreigners turned into chinese instead.
i want to create my own government with the territory of my house. would the government allow that? i vote for it, 100% pass.
I've only skimmed this but I find it sad that people supporting the PRC position are still throwing out these red-herrings regarding the Dalai Lama as wanting to reimpose a theocracy or that he presided over a theocracy. The Dalai Lama hasn't denied that many bad things had happened in Tibet's past and has vowed to not repeat those: http://www.tibet.com/DL/biography.html [rquoter]In 1963, His Holiness promulgated a democratic constitution, based on Buddhist principles and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a model for a future free Tibet. Today, members of the Tibetan parliament are elected directly by the people. The members of the Tibetan Cabinet are elected by the parliament, making the Cabinet answerable to the Parliament. His Holiness has continuously emphasized the need to further democratise the Tibetan administration and has publicly declared that once Tibet regains her independence he will not hold political office.[/rquoter] Also to blame the current Dalai Lama for what happened in the past is also a red-herring since he was never in position to do anything about it. He was only 15 when he ascended to the throne and by then the PRC was already in Tibet so he never got the chance to weild power in Tibet. So almost even while the Dalai Lama himself agrees there were bad things that happened in Tibet and things needed to be changed that can hardly be blamed on him.
this is laughable. if the people still considers him the spiritual leader, how can the politics NOT be influenced by him. it would be elected government under his rule, which essentially is still theocracy. no separation of church and state. to have true separation of church and state, you hav to do what china did. over throw the emperor (he was the church and state in china). i don't think the pope have any government in the world. and if he didn't leave when he was younger, you bet tibet is going to be a theocracy still.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/behind-dalai-lamas-holy-cloak/2007/05/22/1179601410290.html Behind Dalai Lama's holy cloak Michael Backman May 23, 2007 The Dalai Lama show is set to roll into Australia again next month and again Australian politicians are getting themselves in a twist as to whether they should meet him. Rarely do journalists challenge the Dalai Lama. Partly it is because he is so charming and engaging. Most published accounts of him breeze on as airily as the subject, for whom a good giggle and a quaint parable are substitutes for hard answers. But this is the man who advocates greater autonomy for millions of people who are currently Chinese citizens, presumably with him as head of their government. So, why not hold him accountable as a political figure? No mere spiritual leader, he was the head of Tibet's government when he went into exile in 1959. It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues. (The Dalai Lama's own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.) The government set up in exile in India and, at least until the 1970s, received $US1.7 million a year from the CIA. The money was to pay for guerilla operations against the Chinese, notwithstanding the Dalai Lama's public stance in support of non-violence, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA's payroll from the late 1950s until 1974, reportedly receiving $US15,000 a month ($US180,000 a year). The funds were paid to him personally, but he used all or most of them for Tibetan government-in-exile activities, principally to fund offices in New York and Geneva, and to lobby internationally. Details of the government-in-exile's funding today are far from clear. Structurally, it comprises seven departments and several other special offices. There have also been charitable trusts, a publishing company, hotels in India and Nepal, and a handicrafts distribution company in the US and in Australia, all grouped under the government-in-exile's Department of Finance. The government was involved in running 24 businesses in all, but decided in 2003 that it would withdraw from these because such commercial involvement was not appropriate. Several years ago, I asked the Dalai Lama's Department of Finance for details of its budget. In response, it claimed then to have annual revenue of about $US22 million, which it spent on various health, education, religious and cultural programs. The biggest item was for politically related expenditure, at $US7 million. The next biggest was administration, which ran to $US4.5 million. Almost $US2 million was allocated to running the government-in-exile's overseas offices. For all that the government-in-exile claims to do, these sums seemed remarkably low. It is not clear how donations enter its budgeting. These are likely to run to many millions annually, but the Dalai Lama's Department of Finance provided no explicit acknowledgment of them or of their sources. Certainly, there are plenty of rumours among expatriate Tibetans of endemic corruption and misuse of monies collected in the name of the Dalai Lama. Many donations are channelled through the New York-based Tibet Fund, set up in 1981 by Tibetan refugees and US citizens. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar organisation that disburses $US3 million each year to its various programs. Part of its funding comes from the US State Department's Bureau for Refugee Programs. Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence. In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama. An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s. A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile's planning council and its Department of Health. A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile's Department of Information and International Relations. Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister. The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile. All these positions give the Dalai Lama's family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile. The Dalai Lama might now be well-known but few really know much about him. For example, contrary to widespread belief, he is not a vegetarian. He eats meat. He has done so (he claims) on a doctor's advice following liver complications from hepatitis. I have checked with several doctors but none agrees that meat consumption is necessary or even desirable for a damaged liver. What has the Dalai Lama actually achieved for Tibetans inside Tibet? If his goal has been independence for Tibet or, more recently, greater autonomy, then he has been a miserable failure. He has kept Tibet on the front pages around the world, but to what end? The main achievement seems to have been to become a celebrity. Possibly, had he stayed quiet, fewer Tibetans might have been tortured, killed and generally suppressed by China. In any event, the current Dalai Lama is 72 years old. His successor — a reincarnation — will be appointed as a child and it will be many years before he plays a meaningful role. As far as China is concerned, that is one problem that will take care of itself, irrespective of whether or not John Howard or Kevin Rudd meet the current Dalai Lama.
