China's claim that "Old Tibet" was a feudal serfdom is fiction
Lionheart
Tibet.net[Monday, January 04, 2010 17:37]
Beijing speak
Old Tibet was a hell on earth, a theocratic feudal serfdom headed by Dalai
and his upper class clique oppressing ninety percent of Tibet's population.
It was a dark, reactionary, barbaric, cruel, backward society infested with
imperialist agents.
So, China sent over 20,000 PLA troops − to pacify the reactionaries and to
peacefully liberate Tibet thus freeing over a million serfs. The emancipated
Tibetan masses were united with Motherland where they live harmoniously with
all other ethnic minorities.
Let's hold on for a minute. Beijing sums up Tibet, its civilization and
nationhood in two small paragraphs. Incredibly absurd − and awfully naive as
it is − this is the fundamental argument that the China has, and will ever
have, to assert its claims over Tibet and to justify its violent occupation.
Yang Shang-kun, President of China and a Long March survivor, advised,
"Historical problems should be studied in general, not in detail ... We
should only describe the great importance and the decisive role of the Red
Army's Long March ... Once we go into detail, we will run into numerous
problems which cannot easily be solved." He was speaking to Party
historians.
Yang, like his Party, gave the green light to create myth and avoid truth.
The result of such myth creation is obvious − such as the omission from the
history of the Long March of the two defeats the 1st Army suffered in the
battles at Tucheng and Zunyi. Mao led the army in both the fights and
suffered heavy losses.
Truth is a bitter pill. It has the power to cure illnesses too. However, for
Beijing, truth is a stranger like the rule of law, individual freedoms and
democracy. Even truth about its own historically crucial event like the Long
March is unpalatable enough to be deleted.
No wonder then that China has been reiterating the same lies about Tibet for
over fifty years. One must envy Beijing's Propaganda Ministry for its rich
epithets to describe "Old Tibet." One can only guess that what they lack in
truth must be supplemented by vivid adjectives. After all painting the Old
Tibet as an evil society is the only reason that legitimises Beijing's
control over Tibet.
Our Tibet Their Tibet
Before the Chinese invasion in 1949, Tibet was neither an ideal society nor
"a feudal serf system." It was a politically independent, economically self-
sufficient and culturally distinct nation with a different way of
administration than many countries around the world at that time.
Starting with Songtsen Gampo in the seventh century, Tibetan rulers issued
codes of ethics based on Buddhist principles. The essence of this was that
the rulers should act as parents to their subjects. This was reflected in
Songtsen’s "Sixteen Moral Principles" and Phagmodrupa's "Thirteen Guidelines
of Procedure and Punishment" in the fourteenth century.
As in any other society, Tibet had many methods of punishment sanctioned by
law, some of which were indigenous. However, according to contemporary
Tibetan scholar Jamyang Norbu, most of these penal punishment such as the
cangue − which Tibetans appropriately call the gya-go or “Chinese door” −
and execution by decapitation originated from the Manchus. (Read full
article)
These measures were never lightly used but were decreed only in cases of
repeated crime. In 1898, Tibet passed a law abolishing many of the above-
mentioned forms of punishment, except in rare cases of high treason or
conspiracy against the state. Banishing convicts to distant places within
Tibet was the preferred punishment; this was the fate of Kunphel-la, who was
exiled to a remote monastery in Kongpo. Kunphel-la was the favourite of the
Thirteenth Dalai Lama, but was later charged and found guilty of failing to
report the fatal illness of the Thirteenth to the Cabinet.
The legal system, and the rule-of-law, became more advanced over the
centuries and by the beginning of the 20th century any citizen who was not
satisfied with a legal judgement passed by the local administrator − or was
mistreated by an estate-holder could directly appeal to the Dalai Lama,
Tibet's supreme temporal and religious leader.
Compared to China of that time and even today's China where the ordinary
citizens do not have fair trials, or the rule of law and individual
freedoms, 'Old Tibet' was a far more civil society. This was attested by
"the testimony of Tibetans, Chinese and other foreign visitors [to Tibet] of
the time," Warren Smith writes in China's Tibet? Autonomy or Assimilation.
All land on the Tibetan Plateau belonged to the state. "The Tibetan
government administered most of Tibet indirectly through traditional
princes, nomadic chieftains, [and] monasteries," writes Smith. For their
services, the government gave them the power to collect taxes from the area
under their jurisdiction. The state, in turn, received revenues and services
from estate holders.
Monasteries served as schools, universities and centres for Tibetan art,
craft and medical care. The role of monasteries as highly disciplined
centres of Tibetan education and intellectual hubs was central to the
traditional Tibetan way of life. They also performed religious functions for
the government.
The largest proportion of land in 'Old Tibet' was held by the peasants who
reimbursed the state directly. This was the main source of revenue for the
government. These taxes were mostly paid in produce such as grain, wool,
butter etc. They could also be paid in labour and transport services to
government officials.
A very small percentage of the population − mostly in Central Tibet − were
tenants. They held their lands on the estates of aristocrats and
monasteries, and paid rent to the estate-holders in kind or in physical
labour. According to Smith, they became "relatively wealthy and were
sometimes even in the position of loaning money or grain to the estate. They
also had legal rights to initiate legal action against the estate owner. The
final arbiter in such cases was the Dalai Lama himself."
No system is perfect, and the administration of Tibet before the Chinese
occupation was far from being exemplary. There were excesses on some estates
by over-enthusiastic owners because of which many tenants suffered. But on
the whole the system worked equally for rich and poor. Throughout her
history Tibet never experienced famine and the number of beggars could be
counted with your fingers.
Thus, to brand the entire system as "a backward theocratic feudal serfdom"
is Han-chauvinism and a total distortion of Tibetan civilization to suit
Beijing's political needs.
Tibet experienced its first-ever famine between 1959-'63 under Mao's Great
Leap Forward campaign. This was a mad mammoth plan that ended in full-scale
economic disaster, killing at least 36 million people in China and Tibet.
Worsening the situation was the creation of utopian people's communes
through which the Party, headed by Mao, according to Liu Xiaobo, one of
China's most outspoken critic, "[had] turned hundreds of millions into
pliant slaves." With no private property, individual freedoms and a total
ban on freedom of expression China itself became an Orwellian nightmare.
The tentacles of the Party's suppression have grown widespread in today's
China. Its economic success, writes Minxin Pei "obscures the predatory
characteristics of its neo-Leninist state. But Beijing’s brand of
authoritarian politics is spawning a dangerous mix of crony capitalism,
rampant corruption, and widening inequality." The gap between rich and poor
is one of the highest in the world.
The Party State controls over half of the country’s fixed industrial assets.
It has monopoly over all the important sectors such as automobiles, natural
resources, telecommunications, and energy. The Party uses these economic
leverages to shower business contracts on favoured elites. In other words,
Beijing practices a kind of feudal system in which the Party grants its
selected subjects expensive hand-outs, while leaving an overwhelming
majority of the population hungry, angry and dissatisfied.
Beijing's record in Tibet is even more dismal. Over the last fifty years,
Tibet's traditionally self-sufficient economy has been turned into a
potpourri where hardline socialist policies are practiced by a bunch of
"neo-Leninists opportunists" in capitalist garb to snatch hand-outs by the
State. Tibetan people are forced to witness their land and immense natural
resources being grabbed, and their culture irreparably destroyed. Any
dissenting voices from intellectuals, peasants and nomads are silenced by
relentless crackdowns, disappearance, lengthy jail sentences and executions.
Beginning with so-called Democratic Reforms in the early days of occupation,
to the creation of totally ludicrous events like Serf Emancipation Day in
2009, Beijing has systematically mapped out elaborate and often watertight
policies, directives and guidelines to turn Tibetans into permanently
pliable subjects.
As a result, Tibet has become "the shadow of a cruel and relentless
Darwinian reality ... a world of paid informers, secret police, prison
walls, torture, executions, unemployment, racism, threat of extinction, and
overwhelming cultural loss; revealing itself in individual lives families,
violence and growing hopelessness," writes Jamyang Norbu. This is the
reality Tibetans live under every day − far from the Tibet that Beijing
portrays in its official magazines featuring over-saturated colour photos of
smiling nomads on sky-embracing grasslands and the tall buildings in the
cities with no hearts inside.
Harmonious Mouths, Marching Disinformation
Beijing's Tibet publicity package is old wine in an old bottle. China has
been consistently mouthing the same false claims about Tibet being a dark,
backward feudal serfdom etc. etc. for over half a century. Lately, a few
Tibetan elites and Party cadres are given the responsibility to chant
Beijing's propaganda.
"In old Tibet, the serf-owner class, who made up merely five percent of the
Tibetan population owned the entire cultivated land and grassland and the
majority of livestock and they controlled the freedom of serfs and
slaves..." − Lhakpa Phuntsok, director-general of the China Tibetology
Research Center.
"[Tibet's] ... social system [was] characterised by theocracy under the
Dalai Lama. About one million serfs and slaves, 90 percent of Tibet's
population, were freed [by China]." − Karma, deputy director of the Standing
Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Regional People's Congress.
"Dalai Lama and his political backers [are] the 'chief representatives' of
the theocratic, feudal serfdom of the old Tibet." − Ragdi, vice-chairman of
the National People's Congress Standing Committee.
Lhakpa Phuntsok further said that "the masses of emancipated serfs and their
offspring living in Tibet are clear who are the guard for the Tibetan
people's fundamental interests and who are the saboteur of their happy
life." People inside Tibet clearly showed in March 2008 who are "the
saboteur of their happy life" with peaceful protests against Chinese rule.
Indeed, who is the saboteur and who is the guardian?
Lhakpa Phuntsok, Ragdi and other Tibetans officials in the pay of Beijing
are peddling a chain of self-serving delusions manufactured by the Party,
pleasing a leadership far removed from the reality in Tibet.
"Unless you [the Chinese Government] are able to break our love and respect
in our hearts, all your fruitless campaigns and activities will only
strengthen our unity and love for one Tibetan brother to another," wrote
Kunga Tsangyang, a young monk in Eastern Tibet, who was given a five-and-
half-year prison sentence because of his writing. (Read full article)
Such deep sentiments within the hearts of Tibetans in occupied Tibet clearly
express Beijing's failure to address the fundamental issue of Tibetan
people's rights and freedoms.
And "a common theme of Chinese propaganda has the Dalai Lama scheming to
return to Tibet so as to reinstitute the serf system, the assumption being
that he would then make himself the major serf lord. This is fantasy,"
writes Professor Elliot Sperling in the Far Eastern Economic Review. (Read
full article)
The issue is the freedom of six million Tibetans and never a question of
Dalai Lama's personal gains and prestige. The Tibetan leader is simply
asking for a democratic, transparent and peaceful Tibet based on equal
rights, where Tibetans can live without being commanded to sit, stand, speak
or act.
New Lords, Pot-bellied Party
In the aftermath of the large-scale peaceful protests throughout Tibet in
2008, Gongmeng Law Research Centre (Open Constitution Initiative)
investigated their root causes by sending researchers into Tibetan areas.
According to the findings of this bold and historic report, "[a] 'deep-
rooted' local power elite networks have formed in many Tibetan areas, where
it has become routine for the local authorities to be rent-seekers and for
the administration to be inefficient." These local Party elites, in
collusion with other vested interest groups, have formed a “new
aristocracy.” (Read full report)
Gongmeng report further mentions that "unlike the traditional aristocracy,
the characteristics of this new aristocratic class are: the senior positions
they occupy are legitimized, they have more complex social resources, and
they are even more powerful;" and "this new aristocracy derives its
legitimacy more from the 'external source' of central government
affirmation." As a result "their loyalty to the central government is much
stronger."
With total fragmentation of the traditional social structure and the way of
life, majority of the Tibetan people are sidelined by Beijing and the new
aristocrats, who engage in unaccountable activities to maximize their
profits. Such is the fate of the Tibetan people in the "New China" where the
ideal of classless society, which was loudly shouted about and preached in
its heydays, has long been gobbled up by the potbellied Party.
Conclusion
At the onset of its occupation, Beijing launched the Democratic Reform
campaign "to identify and repress the Tibetan opposition and to gain
complete social and political control over Tibetans' lives." China continues
to legitimise this stronghold by labelling the "Old Tibet" as a feudal hell-
on-earth and by painting itself as the shining liberator. But the liberator
has given rise to a "new aristocrats" who have the wherewithal to oppress
the majority of population without any retribution. In spite of all these,
Beijing has heightened its propaganda by using the newly-acquired wealth to
create a modern mass media to churn out the same old party line.
No matter how much Beijing polishes and repeats its absurd untruths, the
reality engraved on Tibetan bones cannot be erased by lies written with a
bamboo brush.
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The above is a response paper (CTA's RESPONSE-VI) by the Central Tibetan
Administration. Its publication on this site does not necessarily imply its
endorsement by the site.
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=26333&article=China's+claim
+that+"Old+Tibet"+was+a+feudal+serfdom+is+fiction
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Amnesty International Report 2009 on China:
http://report2009.amnesty.org/en/regions/asia-pacific/china