When The Dalai Lamas Ruled: Hell On Earth
skepticl1
Here is another link to read after reading 'Hell on Earth.' It is
called 'Storming Heaven' about what the Maoist did to change things.
http://rwor.org/a/firstvol/tibet/tibet2.htm
The True Story of Maoist Revolution in Tibet, Part 1
When the Dalai Lamas Ruled:
Hell on Earth
Revolutionary Worker #944, February 15, 1998
Hard Climate, Heartless Society
Tibet is one of the most remote places in the world. It is centered on
a high mountain plateau deep in the heart of Asia. It is cut off from
South Asia by the Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world.
Countless river gorges and at least six different mountain ranges
carve this region into isolated valleys. Before all the changes
brought about after the Chinese revolution of 1949, there were no
roads in Tibet that wheeled vehicles could travel. All travel was over
winding, dangerous mountain trails--by mule, by foot or by yaks which
are hairy cow-like mountain animals. Trade, communications and
centralized government were almost impossible to maintain.
Most of Tibet is above the tree-line. The air is very thin. Most crops
and trees won't grow there. It was a struggle to grow food and even
find fuel for fires.
At the time of the revolution, the population of Tibet was extremely
spread out. About two or three million Tibetans lived in an area half
the size of the United States--about 1.5 million square miles.
Villages, monasteries and nomad encampments were often separated by
many days of difficult travel.
Maoist revolutionaries saw there were "Three Great Lacks" in old
Tibet: lack of fuel, lack of communications, and lack of people. The
revolutionaries analyzed that these "Three Great Lacks" were not
mainly caused by the physical conditions, but by the social system.
The Maoists said that the "Three Great Lacks" were caused by the
"Three Abundances" in Tibetan society: "Abundant poverty, abundant
oppression and abundant fear of the supernatural."
Class Society in Old Tibet
Tibet was a feudal society before the revolutionary changes that
started in 1949. There were two main classes: the serfs and the
aristocratic serf owners. The people lived like serfs in Europe's
"Dark Ages," or like African slaves and sharecroppers of the U.S.
South.
Tibetan serfs scratched barley harvest from the hard earth with wooden
plows and sickles. Goats, sheep and yaks were raised for milk, butter,
cheese and meat. The aristocratic and monastery masters owned the
people, the land and most of the animals. They forced the serfs to
hand over most grain and demanded all kinds of forced labor (called
ulag). Among the serfs, both men and women participated in hard labor,
including ulag. The scattered nomadic peoples of Tibet's barren
western highlands were also owned by lords and lamas.
The Dalai Lama's older brother Thubten Jigme Norbu claims that in the
lamaist social order, "There is no class system and the mobility from
class to class makes any class prejudice impossible." But the whole
existence of this religious order was based on a rigid and brutal
class system.
Serfs were treated like despised "inferiors"--the way Black people
were treated in the Jim Crow South. Serfs could not use the same
seats, vocabulary or eating utensils as serf owners. Even touching one
of the master's belongings could be punished by whipping. The masters
and serfs were so distant from each other that in much of Tibet they
spoke different languages.
It was the custom for a serf to kneel on all fours so his master could
step on his back to mount a horse. Tibet scholar A. Tom Grunfeld
describes how one ruling class girl routinely had servants carry her
up and down stairs just because she was lazy. Masters often rode on
their serfs' backs across streams.
The only thing worse than a serf in Tibet was a "chattel slave," who
had no right to even grow a few crops for themselves. These slaves
were often starved, beaten and worked to death. A master could turn a
serf into a slave any time he wanted. Children were routinely bought
and sold in Tibet's capital, Lhasa. About 5 percent of the Tibetan
people were counted as chattel slaves. And at least another 10 percent
were poor monks who were really "slaves in robes."
The lamaist system tried to prevent any escape. Runaway slaves
couldn't just set up free farms in the vast empty lands. Former serfs
explained to revolutionary writer Anna Louise Strong that before
liberation, "You could not live in Tibet without a master. Anyone
might pick you up as an outlaw unless you had a legal owner."
Born Female--Proof of Past Sins?
The Dalai Lama writes, "In Tibet there was no special discrimination
against women." The Dalai Lama's authorized biographer Robert Hicks
argues that Tibetan women were content with their status and
"influenced their husbands." But in Tibet, being born a woman was
considered a punishment for "impious" (sinful) behavior in a previous
life. The word for "woman" in old Tibet, kiemen, meant "inferior
birth." Women were told to pray, "May I reject a feminine body and be
reborn a male one."
Lamaist superstition associated women with evil and sin. It was said
"among ten women you'll find nine devils." Anything women touched was
considered tainted--so all kinds of taboos were placed on women. Women
were forbidden to handle medicine. Han Suyin reports, "No woman was
allowed to touch a lama's belongings, nor could she raise a wall, or
'the wall will fall.'... A widow was a despicable being, already a
devil. No woman was allowed to use iron instruments or touch iron.
Religion forbade her to lift her eyes above the knee of a man, as
serfs and slaves were not allowed to life the eyes upon the face of
the nobles or great lamas."
Monks of the major sects of Tibetan Buddhism rejected sexual intimacy
(or even contact) with women, as part of their plan to be holy. Before
the revolution, no woman had ever set foot in most monasteries or the
palaces of the Dalai Lama.
There are reports of women being burned for giving birth to twins and
for practicing the pre-Buddhist traditional religion (called Bon).
Twins were considered proof that a woman had mated with an evil
spirit. The rituals and folk medicine of Bon were considered
"witchcraft." Like in other feudal societies, upperclass women were
sold into arranged marriages. Custom allowed a husband to cut off the
tip of his wife's nose if he discovered she had slept with someone
else. The patriarchal practices included polygyny, where a wealthy man
could have many wives; and polyandry, where in land-poor noble
families one woman was forced to be wife to several brothers.
Among the lower classes, family life was similar to slavery in the
U.S. South. (See The Life of a Tibetan Slave.) Serfs could not marry
or leave the estate without the master's permission. Masters
transferred serfs from one estate to another at will, breaking up serf
families forever. Rape of women serfs was common--under the ulag
system, a lord could demand "temporary wives."
The Three Masters
The Tibetan people called their rulers "the Three Great Masters"
because the ruling class of serf owners was organized into three
institutions: the lama monasteries possessed 37 percent of the
cultivated land and pasture in old Tibet; the secular aristocracy 25
percent; and the remaining 38 percent was in the hands of the
government officials appointed by the Dalai Lama's advisors.
About 2 percent of Tibet's population was in this upper class, and an
additional 3 percent were their agents, overseers, stewards, managers
of estates and private armies. The ger-ba, a tiny elite of about 200
families, ruled at the top. Han Suyin writes: "Only 626 people held 93
percent of all land and wealth and 70 percent of all the yaks in
Tibet. These 626 included 333 heads of monasteries and religious
authorities, and 287 lay authorities (including the nobles of the
Tibetan army) and six cabinet ministers."
Merchants and handicraftsmen also belonged to a lord. A quarter of the
population in the capital city of Lhasa survived by begging from
religious pilgrims. There was no modern industry or working class.
Even matches and nails had to be imported. Before the revolution, no
one in Tibet was ever paid wages for their work.
The heart of this system was exploitation. Serfs worked 16- or 18-hour
days to enrich their masters--keeping only about a quarter of the food
they raised.
A. Tom Grunfeld writes: "These estates were extremely lucrative. One
former aristocrat noted that a 'small' estate would typically consist
of a few thousand sheep, a thousand yaks, an undetermined number of
nomads and two hundred agricultural serfs. The yearly output would
consist of over 36,000 kg (80,000 lbs.) of grain, over 1,800 kg (4,000
lbs.) of wool and almost 500 kg (1,200 lbs.) of butter... A government
official had 'unlimited powers of extortion' and could make a fortune
from his powers to extract bribes not to imprison and punish
people.... There was also the matter of extracting monies from the
peasantry beyond the necessary taxes."
The ruling serf owners were parasites. One observer, Sir Charles Bell,
described a typical official who spent an hour a day at his official
duties. Upper class parties lasted for days of eating, gambling and
lying around. The aristocratic lamas also never worked. They spent
their days chanting, memorizing religious dogma and doing nothing.
The Monasteries: Strongholds of Feudalism
Defenders of old Tibet portray Lamaist Buddhism as the essence of the
culture of the people of Tibet. But it was really nothing more or less
than the ideology of a specific oppressive social system. The lamaist
religion itself is exactly as old as feudal class society. The first
Tibetan king, Songsten-gampo, established a unified feudal system in
Tibet, around 650 A.D. He married princesses from China and Nepal in
order to learn from them the practices used outside Tibet to carry out
feudalism. These princesses brought Tantric Buddhism to Tibet, where
it was merged with earlier animist beliefs to create a new religion,
Lamaism.
This new religion had to be imposed on the people over the next
century and a half by the ruling class, using violence. King Trosong
Detsen decreed: "He who shows a finger to a monk shall have his finger
cut off; he who speaks ill of the monks and the king's Buddhist policy
shall have his lips cut off; he who looks askance at them shall have
his eyes put out..."
Between the 1400s and the 1600s, a bloody consolidation of power took
place, the abbots of the largest monasteries seized overall power.
Because these abbots practiced anti-woman celibacy, their new
political system could not operate by hereditary father-to-son
succession. So the lamas created a new doctrine for their religion:
They announced that they could detect newborn children who were
reincarnations of dead ruling lamas. Hundreds of top lamas were
declared "Living Buddhas" (Bodhisattvas) who had supposedly ruled
others for centuries, switching to new bodies occasionally as old host
bodies wore out.
The central symbol of this system, the various men called Dalai Lama,
was said to be the early Tibetan nature-god Chenrezig who had simply
reappeared in 14 different bodies over the centuries. In fact, only
three of the 14 Dalai Lamas actually ruled. Between 1751 and 1950,
there was no adult Dalai Lama on the throne in Tibet 77 percent of the
time. The most powerful abbots ruled as "regent" advisors who trained,
manipulated and even assassinated the child-king Dalai Lamas.
Tibetan monasteries were not holy, compassionate Shangrilas, like in
some New Age fantasy. These monasteries were dark fortresses of feudal
exploitation--they were armed villages of monks complete with military
warehouses and private armies. Pilgrims came to some shrines to pray
for a better life. But the main activity of monasteries was robbing
the surrounding peasants. The huge idle religious clergy grew little
food--feeding them was a big burden on the people.
The largest monasteries housed thousands of monks. Each "parent"
monastery created dozens (even hundreds) of small strongholds
scattered through the mountain valleys. For example, the huge Drepung
monastery housed 7,000 monks and owned 40,000 people on 185 different
estates with 300 pastures.
Monasteries also made up countless religious taxes to rob the people--
including taxes on haircuts, on windows, on doorsteps, taxes on
newborn children or calves, taxes on babies born with double
eyelids...and so on. A quarter of Drepung's income came from interest
on money lent to the serf-peasantry. The monasteries also demanded
that serfs hand over many young boys to serve as child-monks.
The class relations of Tibet were reproduced inside the monasteries:
the majority of monks were slaves and servants to the upper abbots and
lived half-starved lives of menial labor, prayer chanting and routine
beatings. Upper monks could force poor monks to take their religious
exams or perform sexual services. (In the most powerful Tibetan sect,
such homosexual sex was considered a sign of holy distance from
women.) A small percent of the clergy were nuns.
After liberation, Anna Louise Strong asked a young monk, Lobsang Tel�,
if monastery life followed Buddhist teachings about compassion. The
young lama replied that he heard plenty of talk in the scripture halls
about kindness to all living creatures, but that he personally had
been whipped at least a thousand times. "If any upper class lama
refrains from whipping you," he told Strong, "that is already very
good. I never saw an upper lama give food to any poor lama who was
hungry. They treated the laymen who were believers just as badly or
even worse."
These days, the Dalai Lama is "packaged" internationally as a non-
materialist holy man. In fact, the Dalai Lama was the biggest serf
owner in Tibet. Legally, he owned the whole country and everyone in
it. In practice, his family directly controlled 27 manors, 36
pastures, 6,170 field serfs and 102 house slaves.
When he moved from palace to palace, the Dalai Lama rode on a throne
chair pulled by dozens of slaves. His troops marched along to "It's a
Long Way to Tipperary," a tune learned from their British imperialist
trainers. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama's bodyguards, all over six-and-a-
half feet tall, with padded shoulders and long whips, beat people out
of his path. This ritual is described in the Dalai Lama's
autobiography.
The first time he fled to India in 1950, the Dalai Lama's advisors
sent several hundred mule-loads of gold and silver bars ahead to
secure his comfort in exile. After the second time he fled, in 1959,
Peking Review reported that his family left lots of gold and silver
behind, plus 20,331 pieces of jewelry and 14,676 pieces of clothing.
Bitter Poverty, Early Death
The people lived with constant cold and hunger. Serfs endlessly
gathered scarce wood for their masters. But their own huts were only
heated by small cooking fires of yak dung. Before the revolution there
was no electricity in Tibet. The darkness was only lit by flickering
yak-butter lamps.
Serfs were often sick from malnutrition. The traditional food of the
masses is a mush made from tea, yak butter, and a barley flour called
tsampa. Serfs rarely tasted meat. One 1940 study of eastern Tibet says
that 38 percent of households never got any tea--and drank only wild
herbs or "white tea" (boiled water). Seventy-five percent of the
households were forced at times to eat grass. Half of the people
couldn't afford butter--the main source of protein available.
Meanwhile, a major shrine, the Jokka Kang, burned four tons of yak
butter offerings daily. It has been estimated that one-third of all
the butter produced in Tibet went up in smoke in nearly 3,000 temples,
not counting the small alters in each house.
In old Tibet, nothing was known about basic hygiene, sanitation, or
the fact that germs caused disease. For ordinary people, there were no
outhouses, sewers or toilets. The lamas taught that disease and death
were caused by sinful "impiety." They said that chanting, obedience,
paying monks money and swallowing prayer scrolls was the only real
protection from disease.
Old Tibet's superstition, feudal practices and low productive forces
caused the people to suffer terribly from disease. Most children died
before their first year. Even most Dalai Lamas did not make it to 18
years old and died before their coronations. A third of the population
had smallpox. A 1925 smallpox epidemic killed 7,000 in Lhasa. It is
not known how many died in the countryside. Leprosy, tuberculosis,
goiter, tetanus, blindness and ulcers were very common. Feudal sexual
customs spread venereal disease, including in the monasteries. Before
the revolution, about 90 percent of the population was infected--
causing widespread sterility and death. Later, under the leadership of
Mao Tsetung, the revolution was able to greatly reduce these
illnesses--but it required intense class struggle against the lamas
and their religious superstitions. The monks denounced antibiotics and
public health campaigns, saying it was a sin to kill lice or even
germs! The monks denounced the People's Liberation Army for
eliminating the large bands of wild, rabies-infested dogs that
terrorized people across Tibet. (Still today, one of the "charges"
against the Maoist revolution is that it "killed dogs"!)
The Violence of the Lamas
In old Tibet, the upper classes preached mystical Buddhist
nonviolence. But, like all ruling classes in history, they practiced
reactionary violence to maintain their rule.
The lamaist system of government came into being through bloody
struggles. The early lamas reportedly assassinated the last Tibetan
king, Lang Darma, in the 10th century. Then they fought centuries of
civil wars, complete with mutual massacres of whole monasteries. In
the 20th century, the 13th Dalai Lama brought in British imperialist
trainers to modernize his national army. He even offered some of his
troops to help the British fight World War I.
These historical facts alone prove that lamaist doctrines of
"compassion" and "nonviolence" are hypocrisy.
The former ruling class denies there was class struggle in old Tibet.
A typical account by Gyaltsen Gyaltag, a representative of the Dalai
Lama in Europe, says: "Prior to 1950, the Tibetans never experienced a
famine, and social injustices never led to an uprising of the people."
It is true that there is little written record of class struggle. The
reason is that Lamaism prevented any real histories from being written
down. Only disputes over religious dogma were recorded.
But the mountains of Tibet were filled with bandit runaways, and each
estate had its armed fighters. This alone is proof that constant
struggle--sometimes open, sometimes hidden--defined Tibetan society
and its power relations.
Revolutionary historians have documented uprisings among Tibetan serfs
in 1908, 1918, 1931, and the 1940s. In one famous uprising, 150
families of serfs of northern Tibet's Thridug county rose up in 1918,
led by a woman, Hor Lhamo. They killed the county head, under the
slogan: "Down with officials! Abolish all ulag forced labor!"
Daily violence in old Tibet was aimed at the masses of people. Each
master punished "his" serfs, and organized armed gangs to enforce his
rule. Squads of monks brutalized the people. They were called "Iron
Bars" because of the big metal rods they carried to batter people.
It was a crime to "step out of your place"--like hunting fish or wild
sheep that the lamaist declared were "sacred." It was even a crime for
a serf to appeal his master's decisions to some other authority. When
serfs ran away, the masters' gangs went to hunt them down. Each estate
had its own dungeons and torture chambers. Pepper was forced under the
eyelids. Spikes were forced under the fingernails. Serfs had their
legs connected by short chains and were released to wander hobbled for
the rest of their lives.
Grunfeld writes: "Buddhist belief precludes the taking of life, so
that whipping a person to the edge of death and then releasing him to
die elsewhere allowed Tibetan officials to justify the death as 'an
act of God.' Other brutal forms of punishment included the cutting off
of hands at the wrists, using red-hot irons to gouge out eyes; hanging
by the thumbs; and crippling the offender, sewing him into a bag, and
throwing the bag in the river."
As signs of the lamas' power, traditional ceremonies used body parts
of people who had died: flutes made out of human thigh bones, bowls
made out of skulls, drums made from human skin. After the revolution,
a rosary was found in the Dalai Lama's palace made from 108 different
skulls. After liberation, serfs widely reported that the lamas engaged
in ritual human sacrifice--including burying serf children alive in
monastery ground-breaking ceremonies. Former serfs testified that at
least 21 people were sacrificed by monks in 1948 in hopes of
preventing the victory of the Maoist revolution.
Using Karma to Justify Oppression
The central belief of lamaism is reincarnation and karma. Each living
being is said to be inhabited by an immortal soul that has been born
and reborn many times. After each death, a soul is supposedly given a
new body.
According to the dogma of karma, each soul gets the life it deserves:
Pious behavior leads to good karma--and with that comes a rise in the
social status of the next life. Impious (sinful) behavior leads to bad
karma and the next life could be as an insect (or a woman).
In reality, there is no such thing as reincarnation. Dead people do
not return in new bodies. But in Tibet, the belief in reincarnation
had terrible real consequences. People intrigued by Tibetan mysticism
need to understand the social function served by these lamaist beliefs
inside Tibet: Lamaist Buddhism was created, imposed and perpetuated to
carry out the extreme feudal oppression of the people.
Lamaists today tell the story of an ancient Tibetan king who wanted to
close the gap between rich and poor. The king asked a religious
scholar why his efforts failed. "The sage is said to have explained to
him that the gap between rich and poor cannot be closed by force,
since the conditions of present life are always the consequences of
actions in earlier lives, and therefore the course of things cannot be
changed at will."
Grunfield writes: "From a purely secular point of view, this doctrine
must be seen as one of the most ingenious and pernicious forms of
social control ever devised. To the ordinary Tibetan, the acceptance
of this doctrine precluded the possibility of ever changing his or her
fate in this life. If one were born a slave, so the doctrine of karma
taught, it was not the fault of the slaveholder but rather the slaves
themselves for having committed some misdeeds in a previous life. In
turn, the slaveholder was simply being rewarded for good deeds in a
previous life. For the slave to attempt to break the chains that bound
him, or her, would be tantamount to a self-condemnation to a rebirth
into a life worse than the one already being suffered. This is
certainly not the stuff of which revolutions are made..."
Tibet's feudalist abbot-lamas taught that their top lama was a single
divine god-king-being--whose rule and dog-eat-dog system was demanded
by the natural workings of the universe. These myths and superstitions
teach that there can be no social change, that suffering is justified,
and that to end suffering each person must patiently tolerate
suffering. This is almost exactly what Europe's medieval Catholic
church taught the people, in order to defend a similar feudal system.
Also like in medieval Europe, Tibet's feudalists fought to suppress
anything that might undermine their "watertight" system. All observers
agree that, before the Maoist revolution, there were no magazines,
printed books, or non-religious literature of any kind in Tibet. The
only Tibetan language newspaper was published in Kalimpong by a
converted Christian Tibetan. The source of news of the outside world
was travelers and a couple of dozen shortwave radios that were owned
only by members of the ruling class.
The masses created folklore, but the written language was reserved for
religious dogma and disputes. The masses of people and probably most
monks were kept completely illiterate. Education, outside news and
experimentation were considered suspect and evil.
Defenders of lamaism act like this religion was the essence of the
culture (and even the existence) of the Tibetan people. This is not
true. Like all things in society and nature, Lamaist Buddhism had a
beginning and will have an end. There was culture and ideology in
Tibet before lamaism. Then this feudal culture and religion arose
together with feudal exploitation. It was inevitable that lamaist
culture would shatter together with those feudal relations.
In fact, when the Maoist revolution arrived in 1950, this system was
already rotting from within. Even the Dalai Lama admits that the
population of Tibet was declining. It is estimated there were about 10
million Tibetans 1,000 years ago when Buddhism was first introduced--
by the time of the Maoist revolution there were only two or three
million left. Maoists estimate that the decline had accelerated: the
population had been cut in half during the last 150 years.
The lamaist system burdened the people with massive exploitation. It
enforced the special burden of supporting a huge, parasitic, non-
reproducing clergy of about 200,000--that absorbed 20 percent or more
of the region's young men. The system suppressed the development of
productive forces: preventing the use of iron plows, the mining of
coal or fuel, the harvesting of fish or game, and medical/sanitary
innovation of any kind. Hunger, the sterility caused by venereal
disease, and polyandry kept the birthrate low.
The mystical wrapping of lamaism cannot hide that old Tibetan society
was a dictatorship of the serf owners over the serfs. There is nothing
to romanticize about this society. The serfs and slaves needed a
revolution!
In Part 2:
Tibet Meets the Maoist Revolution
Through the 1930s and '40s, a revolutionary people's war arose among
the peasants of central China. Under the leadership of the Communist
Party and its Chairman Mao Tsetung, the revolution won overall state
power in the heavily populated areas of eastern China in 1949. By
then, U.S. intrigues were already starting at China's northern border
with Korea, and French imperialists were launching their colonialist
invasion of Vietnam along China's southern border. Clearly, the Maoist
revolutionaries were eager to liberate the oppressed everywhere in
China, and to drive foreign intriguers from China's border regions.
But Tibet posed a particular problem: In 1950, this huge region had
been almost completely isolated from the revolutionary whirlwind that
swept the rest of China. There were almost no Tibetan communists.
There was no communist underground among Tibet's serfs. In fact, the
serfs of Tibet had no idea that a revolution was happening elsewhere
in their country, or even that such things as "revolutions" were
possible.
The grip of the lamaist system and its religion was extremely strong
in Tibet. It could not be broken simply by having revolutionary troops
of the majority Han nationality march in and "declare" that feudalism
was abolished! Mao Tsetung rejected the "commandist" approach of
"doing things in the name of the masses." Maoist revolution relies on
the masses.
In Part 2 of this series, we will discuss how Maoist revolution got
its foothold in Tibet, and how the revolution grew into great mass
storms that blew away the lamaist oppression.
Sources:
The Anguish of Tibet, ed. Petra Kelly, Gert Bastian and Pat Aeillo,
Parallax Press, Berkeley, 1991. A collection of pro-lamaist essays.
Avedon, John F. "In Exile from the Land of Snows," in The Anguish of
Tibet. Avedon, an author and Newsweekjournalist, is a prominent
apologist for lamaism.
Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile--The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama,
Harper Collins, N.Y., 1990.
Grunfeld, A. Tom, The Making of Modern Tibet, Zed Books, 1987.
Grunfeld, A. Tom, "Tibet: Myths and Realities," New China, Fall 1975.
Gyaltag, Gyaltsen, "An Historical Overview," an essay published in The
Anguish of Tibet. Gyaltsen Gyaltag is a representative of the Dalai
Lama in Europe.
Han Suyin; Lhasa, the Open City--A Journey to Tibet, Putnam, 1977.
Hicks, Roger, Hidden Tibet--The Land and Its People, Element Books,
Dorset, 1988.
China Reconstructs, "Tibet--From Serfdom to Socialism," March 1976.
Peking Review, "Tibet's Big Leap--No Return to the Old System," July
4, 1975.
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Here is a link to a page with six article links to stories from a
Socialist perspective:
http://rwor.org/a/firstvol/tibet/tib-in.htm
Here is another link to read after reading 'Hell on Earth.' It is
called 'Storming Heaven' about what the Maoist did to change things.
I can smell your brain
>Everyone is talking about Tibet and the Dalai Lama.
>
Yes, those pesky Tibetans that keep getting shot,
killed, arrested, or re-educated by their
enlightened masters... err... liberators who are only
armed to protect the Tibetans from themselves.
Stink
skepticl1
> On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:23:37 -0700 (PDT), skepticl1 <skepti...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Everyone is talking about Tibet and the Dalai Lama.
>
> Yes, those pesky Tibetans that keep getting shot,
> killed, arrested, or re-educated by their
> enlightened masters... err... liberators who are only
> armed to protect the Tibetans from themselves.
>
> Stink
The Contra style war the USA waged against China and Tibet killed so
many. Just another corner in the bloody world Capitalism and the USA
makes so miserable. Now its time for the Olympics and the USA is
trying to tell China that they are better than them.
Sydney Diego
> On 31 Mar, 07:28, I can smell your brain <p...@flop.net> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:23:37 -0700 (PDT), skepticl1 <skepti...@aol.com> wrote:
> > >Everyone is talking about Tibet and the Dalai Lama.
>
> > Yes, those pesky Tibetans that keep getting shot,
> > killed, arrested, or re-educated by their
> > enlightened masters... err... liberators who are only
> > armed to protect the Tibetans from themselves.
>
> > Stink
>
> trying to tell China that they are better than them.
They are.
Try being an Anti-Governement dissident in China.
skepticl1
Mainland China is Capitalist today SD. On their borders is a genuine
Maoist insurgency in Nepal. The Chinese government opposses the
Maoists.
Gary Rosen
"Sydney Diego" <all...@email.com> wrote in message
news:58c4e268-1dec-4c17...@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
Gary Rosen
"Sydney Diego" <all...@email.com> wrote in message
news:58c4e268-1dec-4c17...@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
They are.
-----------------------------------------------------
You know, I killfiled septic but it is still hard to escape
the dimwitted commie douchebag because he spams so
much of his deranged political horseshit on this NG. At
least I won't see his incoherent antisemitic response to
this post.
- Gary Rosen
skepticl1
Try walking to school if you are a Palestinian child Gary, the
Zionists might shoot you or break your bones with rocks, or imprison
you (Israel has 9,000 Arab [not to mention Semite!] children kidnapped
to torture and try to turn you into an infomer.
JW
As the great neurosurgeon, Dr. Yoshio Hosobuchi once noted, "the Dalai
Lama is a whiner." :) Skeppy seems to be ramping up his rhetoric
machine these days. It's a mental problem (another one, not the
current clustering of psychological maladjustment) brought on by the
impending marriage of Mariah Carey.
skepticl1
> On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:28:56 -0700, I can smell your brain
>
> >On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:23:37 -0700 (PDT), skepticl1 <skepti...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >>Everyone is talking about Tibet and the Dalai Lama.
>
> >Yes, those pesky Tibetans that keep getting shot,
> >killed, arrested, or re-educated by their
> >enlightened masters... err... liberators who are only
> >armed to protect the Tibetans from themselves.
>
> >Stink
>
> As the great neurosurgeon, Dr. Yoshio Hosobuchi once noted, "the Dalai
> Lama is a whiner." �:) � Skeppy seems to be ramping up his rhetoric
> machine these days. �It's a mental problem (another one, not the
> current clustering of psychological maladjustment) brought on by the
> impending marriage of Mariah Carey.
<<brought on by the
> impending marriage of Mariah Carey.>>
SHATTERED
Uh-huh, shattered
Shattered, shattered
Love and hope and sex and dreams
Are still surviving on the street
Look at me, I'm in tatters!
I'm a shattered
Shattered
Friends are so alarming
My lover's never charming
Life's just a cocktail party on the street
Big Apple
People dressed in plastic bags
Directing traffic
Some kind of fashion
Shattered
Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex
Look at me, I'm in tatters
I'm a shattered
Shattered
All this chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter 'bout
Shmatta, shmatta, shmatta -- I can't give it away on 7th Avenue
This town's been wearing tatters (shattered, shattered)
Work and work for love and sex
Ain't you hungry for success, success, success, success
Does it matter? (Shattered) Does it matter?
I'm shattered.
Shattered
Ahhh, look at me, I'm a shattered
I'm a shattered
Look at me- I'm a shattered, yeah
Pride and joy and greed and sex
That's what makes our town the best
Pride and joy and dirty dreams and still surviving on the street
And look at me, I'm in tatters, yeah
I've been battered, what does it matter
Does it matter, uh-huh
Does it matter, uh-huh, I'm a shattered
Don't you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side
Bed bugs uptown
What a mess this town's in tatters I've been shattered
My brain's been battered, splattered all over Manhattan
Uh-huh, this town's full of money grabbers
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots, huh
Shadoobie, my brain's been battered
My friends they come around they
Flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter
Pile it up, pile it high on the platter
SOME GIRLS
Recorded October thru December, 1977. Released in the US & UK on the
album Some Girls on June 9, 1978.Also released as US single in
December of 1978.
Lead Vocals: Mick Jagger Lead Electric Guitar: Ron Wood Pedel Steel
Guitar: Ron Wood Electric Guitar Solos: Keith Richards Bass: Ron Wood
Drums: Ron Wood & Charlie Watts Congas:Simon Kirke Piano: Ian Stewart
Organ: Ian McLagan Backing Vocals: Ron Wood, Keith Richards, Mick
Jagger
Links editor
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373
Tension in Tibet: Political dialogue only key to lasting solution
<http://www.links.org.au/node/321>
By *Kavita Krishnan*
In the wake of the anniversary of the 1959 Tibet movement (March 10)
and
ahead of the Beijing Olympics, Tibet has once again emerged as a hot
spot of ethnic tension. There are reports of violence against and
killing of protesting Tibetan monks by Chinese forces; and also of
ethnic targeting of Han Chinese and Hui Muslims by Tibetan protesters.
Chinese authorities have straightaway blamed the Dalai Lama for
provoking the violent protests. The [Chinese] Army has been deployed
after more than a week of escalating tension. While there is little
``independent'' information to judge the actual nature and scale of
the
turbulence within Tibet and attempts by the Chinese state to suppress
it, solidarity protests are being witnessed in many centres across the
world and Tibetan refugees based in India are particularly vocal
against
the recent turn of events in Tibet.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/321>
For the right to self-determination of the Tibetan people
<http://www.links.org.au/node/327>
By *Pierre Rousset *
March 24, 2008 -- The Chinese army has Tibet and its provinces under
tight control. The repression of the ``rioters'' who have descended
into
the streets these last two weeks has been severe. Solidarity and the
effective recognition of the right of the Tibetan people to
self-determination is urgent.
Some on the left (rare in France, but more numerous elsewhere) refuse
to
commit to solidarity for fear of playing the game of the United States
against China. Others, on the right, call for demonstrations against
59
years of Chinese occupation -- it was in 1950-1951 that the Peoples
Liberation Army entered the country -- and denounce a ``communist''
dictatorship. These two positions ``mirror'' one another, attaching
little importance to history: the ``Tibetan question'' arises in very
different contexts according to different periods.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/327>
Stop the bloodshed -- freedom for Tibet!
<http://www.links.org.au/node/326>
By *Tony Iltis*
March 28, 2008 -- A demonstration by Buddhist monks in the Tibetan
capital, Lhasa, on March 10 to commemorate the anniversary of China's
crushing of the Tibetan independence movement in 1959 triggered
protests
for self-determination that, by March 14, had escalated into
anti-Chinese riots in which 19 people were killed.
Over 100 Tibetans are reported to have been killed, and hundreds more
arrested, by Chinese occupation forces.
This eruption of mass anger -- that spread to cities throughout the
Tibetan Autonomous Region and the neighbouring provinces of Gansu,
Qinghai and Sichuan, historically part of Tibet and with large ethnic
Tibetan communities -- was a response not only to the 58-year-old
Chinese
military occupation of Tibet, but to the dispossession and
marginalisation of Tibetans by an influx of both global capital and
Han
Chinese transmigrants.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/326>
Nepal: The constituent assembly election and the revolutionary left
<http://www.links.org.au/node/324>
By *Mahesh Maskey* and *Mary Deschene*
As the elections to the constituent assembly draw near (April 10), the
question in Nepal seems not to be whether there will be a democratic
republic, but rather what kind of democratic republic it will be.
``Bourgeois democrats'' would want to preserve the country's
capitalistic character, while the ``revolutionary left'' will make
every
effort to give it a transitional character to bring socialism on to
the
nation's agenda. ``The reformist left'' will vacillate between the two
courses but predominantly forge alliances with the ``bourgeois
democrats''.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/324>
************
/Links/ seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in
the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually
existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml).
On Mar 31, 7:23 am, skepticl1 <skepti...@aol.com> wrote:
> Everyone is talking aboutTibetand the Dalai Lama.
skepticl1
I want to make the statement that today mainland China is Capitalist
and is repressive, with no room for dissent.
But in China's Maoist period, China was an exciting and emancipatory
society. The honest aims of the society was to have all classes and
class distinctions overcome, all systems and relations of exploitation
abolished: all the oppressive social institutions and relations of
social inequality, like racial discrimination and the domination of
women by men, put and end to; and all oppressive and backward ideas
and values cast off. Socialist revolution creates an economy based on
social ownership and meeting social need. But socialism also inherits
social and economic inequalities from capitalism. It still contains
classes. there is still class struggle over the direction of society.
And for some time, socialist societas are confronted by hostile
capitalist and reactionary states. In China between 1949 and 1976
revolutionaries made tremendous advances towards a liberated world.
The former have nots took hold of power and were transforming society.
The rule of profit and exploitation was ended. Basic social needs were
met. Life expectancy in Maoist China doubled from 32 years to 65
years. Unprecedented strides were made in uprooting the oppression of
women and minority nationalities.
After the first wave of Socialist revolution of the 20th Century, the
next wave of Socialist transformation wants to emphasize the role of
dissent within Socialist society. Mao said 'Make a thousand flowers
bloom." He meant with debate and criticizing. In the next round of
revolution people will make the world a place where they want to live.
Past mistakes should be criticized. Debate and dissent should be
welcomed. Truth should be sought in all realms.
The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement exists in 14 countries.
Nepal has an active Maoist people's war.
Red Cloud
I can't believe i'm still hearing Maoist propaganda!! Today Maoism is
nothing more than a Chink race's seeking a global domination through
spreading Maoist propaganda. Maoist ideology has never been served
because it's utter repressive system born out of old imperial chink
system. Folk behind Maoists are legion to Middle Kingdom imperial
state. They are spreading Maoist propaganda to SouthAsia and Nepal.
Indonesia became 99% Islamic state to protect from Chink social
political invasion. Maoist in Nepal are mostly supported by Chink
imperialists. They receive food and weapon from the Red Devil Beijing
commie chinks.
Be careful of sneaky Chink race trick! These chinks claiming opponent
of Maoists is using Maoist dirty sneaky trick to subvert
your gov't and your people...
w...@133sh.com
ideology. Why are you afraid Mao who is dead person?
skepticl1
> Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
> (http://links.org.au/rss.xml).
>
> On Mar 31, 7:23 am, skepticl1 <skepti...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Everyone is talking aboutTibetand the Dalai Lama.
>
> > Here is another link to read after reading 'Hell on Earth.' It is
> > called 'Storming Heaven' about what the Maoist did to change things.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Townsend, there is repression in China today. For one thing, their is
Han Chauvinism. Han's are the majority in China and there is prejudice
against minorities like the Tibetans. But during the time of Mao China
was a liberated and exhilerating emacipatory society. Check these
articles out:
The Protests in Tibet and the Discontent Below
by Li Onesto
Starting March 14, days of protests and rebellion broke out in Tibet
against the reactionary Chinese government. It is difficult to get
reliable news about these developments because most reports are from
the Chinese government or unverified individual accounts. But this
appears to be the biggest outbreak of anti-government protests in
Tibet in 20 years.
This conflict in Tibet is very complex, involving different class
forces and interests and different political forces, including
religious reactionary groups tied to U.S. imperialism.
On the one hand this struggle is about the national oppression of the
Tibetan people by a regime that calls itself "socialist" and
"communist"--which it is NOT. The Chinese government is reactionary and
capitalist. On the other hand, this struggle is taking place against a
bigger international backdrop. The United States is aggressively
setting out to extend and tighten the global dominance of U.S.
imperialism. And Tibet is in a geostrategically important region of
the world where there are big stakes for the U.S. in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and India. The U.S. has a long history of backing
reactionary forces in Tibet - the CIA has worked with and directly
supported the Dalai Lama. And today, sections of the U.S. ruling class
are championing the Dalai Lama and using his movement to try and
pressure, destabilize, and even tear China apart because they consider
it a long-term strategic, economic, political, and military rival to
U.S. global power. Attempts by U.S. imperialism to interfere in Tibet
must be opposed.
Several reports say things started when hundreds of Buddhist monks
began marching from the Drepung Loseling Monastery to the city center
in the capital city of Lhasa. They were stopped by the police, and 50
to 60 monks were arrested. Then a sit-down strike was joined by
additional monks from Drepung.
The next day, on Saturday morning, in a busy market area, monks and
other ethnic Tibetans continued to protest, and violent clashes broke
out with Chinese security forces. According to eyewitness accounts and
video footage, angry Tibetans burned cars and military vehicles and
attacked government buildings and Han Chinese-owned shops. By
nightfall, the authorities had clamped down, imposing a curfew, and
military police officers were blocking city streets.
Protests continued for several days, with thousands of Tibetans
clashing with riot police. And there were reports of demonstrations by
Tibetans living in other parts of China and in India. While reports of
the number of casualties are mostly unreliable, it seems pretty clear
that there have been deaths among protesters, shopkeepers and security
forces. On March 24, 11 days after the first protest broke out, the
New York Times reported that Lhasa was occupied by thousands of
paramilitary police officers and army troops of the Chinese central
government.
Three Stages in Modern History of Tibet
The Tibetan people are an ethnic minority in China that is oppressed
by the capitalist system in China--and this oppression has greatly
intensified in recent years. To understand this, it is first of all
important to understand that the history of Tibet (officially
designated as the Tibetan Autonomous Region) is NOT, as most
mainstream news reports would have us believe, one unbroken history
where the Tibetan people have faced the same government since 1949.
There are basically three distinct stages in the modern history of
Tibet. Before 1949 Tibet was not, as is sometimes portrayed, a Shangri-
la of harmony and peace. It was a brutal theocracy where Buddhist
doctrine reinforced class order and social oppression. From 1951-1976,
with the victory of the Chinese communist revolution, Tibet became
part of the revolutionary process of building socialism with sweeping
and liberating economic and social changes. Then since 1976, with the
restoration of capitalism in China, the Tibetan people have been
subjected to exploitation, subjugation as a people, and suppression of
their culture and fast-paced capitalist development that threatens the
environment. (See accompanying article, "Tibet: From Brutal Theocracy
to Socialist Liberation to Capitalist Nightmare.")
What Is the Discontent About?
Many people think the struggle going on in Tibet is about "a communist
government oppressing religious forces." But this is a misperception
because again, the Chinese government is NOT socialist or communist.
Also, while the Chinese government is repressing Buddhist religious
forces (including reactionary theocratic supporters of the Dalai Lama
who are tied to U.S. imperialism), this is part of and in the context
of the larger, overall national oppression and suppression the Tibetan
people face.
A lot of what people in the United States know and think about Tibet
comes from what they have read in the news about the Dalai Lama. And a
lot of people see the Dalai Lama as a symbol of "peace and non-
violence." But in reality, the Dalai Lama and his family were feudal
owners and oppressors in Tibet. And since he fled Tibet in 1959 he has
been the religious leader of a pro-U.S., pro-imperialist movement
among exiled Tibetans. His vision for Tibet today is one that
straddles the fence between accommodation with the Chinese regime (and
its program of capitalist development); and more direct integration of
Tibet into the designs of western, particularly U.S., imperialism.
Again, the main character and contours of these protests are hard to
determine at this point because of the difficulty in getting reliable
reports. And an analysis of this is beyond the scope of this article.
But some things can be said at this point about the different class
forces that are a part of this upsurge.
Support for the Dalai Lama and the issue of religious freedom is only
one factor in the current upheaval in Tibet. There is real repression
of those who support the Dalai Lama and call for independence. For
example, Tibetan government employees are reportedly pressured (or
even required) to denounce the Dalai Lama, and it is illegal to fly
the Tibetan flag. As a part of the overall oppression of the Tibetan
people, there is certainly suppression of Tibetan Buddhist religion
and Tibetan culture. And the different religious and independence
forces, which includes those who support the Dalai Lama, have clearly
been a big part of those who have been protesting. But what is not
mainly covered in the mainstream press, and what is not so immediately
apparent, is that there are bigger and deeper economic and political
issues that are giving rise to the massive, widespread discontent in
Tibet, now erupting into violent confrontations with the Chinese
government forces.
The crowds of angry Tibetans, which included unemployed youth,
attacked and burned symbols of capitalist development, like a branch
of the Bank of China. They targeted hotels and other facilities that
cater to tourists. And they also targeted Han and Hui Chinese
shopkeepers, which can seem like the most visible and immediate
reflection of the discrimination Tibetans face. The Han Chinese are
the majority people in China, and the Hui are Muslim Chinese who also
play a prominent role in Tibetan commercial life. And over the last
two decades, and especially in the last few years, Han and Hui Chinese
have been coming into Tibet as a key part of building up a capitalist
economic infrastructure and social structure in which the Tibetan
people are highly discriminated against. And the more than a million
tourists a year who come to Tibet are mainly Han Chinese.
In Tibet and the neighboring provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan,
the Tibetan people intersect with and live near the thousands of Han
people who have been moving in, enticed by a wave of state-driven
investment and state subsidies for capitalist ventures. But there are
two separate and unequal worlds--where many Han have blatant disdain
and distrust for Tibetans, who they consider inferior. And among the
Tibetan people there are deep feelings of resentment and anger against
the oppression and subjugation they face. Privilege and power in Tibet
is overwhelmingly the preserve of the Han, and a lot of businesses are
owned by Han and Hui Chinese. Meanwhile the masses of Tibetans are
subjected to discrimination, treated as inferior, and largely confined
to poor districts in the cities and impoverished villages in the rural
areas.
The Nightmare of Capitalist "Modernization" in Tibet
Capitalist China, even as it is dependent upon and subordinate to
imperialism, has regional and larger world ambitions. And the program
of the Chinese government for Tibet is in line with the economic and
social program being implemented throughout the whole country--a
program of fast-paced capitalist "modernization."
For the masses of Tibetan people, as with the masses of people
throughout China, this means increased exploitation and misery. And it
means a widening gap between rich and poor, haves and have-nots. The
restoration of capitalism has been and continues to be a nightmare for
the masses of people living in China, including and especially for
oppressed nationalities like the Tibetan people. And it will take
nothing less than another revolution and the establishment of a
genuine socialist society to liberate all the people living in China.
There are many dimensions to how capitalist exploitation and
oppression, along with national oppression, is taking place in Tibet.
But one thing that illustrates this very sharply is the much-
celebrated railroad that now links Tibet to the rest of China. This
railway, completed in 2006 at a cost of $4.1 billion, was touted as
vital to developing the Tibetan economy. There were hopes among the
Tibetan people that this would bring jobs, lower prices for consumer
goods, and a higher standard of living. But in fact, unemployment
among Tibetans remains very high -- as is generally the case, most new
jobs (or at least the good ones) went to Han Chinese. There has been
little improvement for the majority of the Tibetan people who mainly
live in the rural areas. Reckless economic development in the area is
also intensifying threats to the environment. And as a number of
analysts have pointed out, along with all this has come the usual and
unbridled corruption among government officials and businessmen.
A big part of the reason for building the railway is that the central
government, with an eye towards developing cheap sources of raw
materials for a profit-driven development, wants to create a more
efficient transport system to be able to extract and transport the
rich deposits of copper, iron, lead and other minerals in the large
unspoiled Tibetan highlands.
In the past, mining in Tibet was largely carried out on a small scale
by world standards. But Chinese metal and processing industries are
now operating according to competitive world scale standards and are
looking to world markets and importing vast quantities of minerals.
Gabriel Laffitte is a development consultant who works with
reactionary Tibetan exiles around the Dalai Lama who support
capitalist development. But an article he wrote about the mining
industry in Tibet is revealing. He says: "Chinese steel mills and
copper smelters, in deciding whether to locate a mine and perhaps a
smelter as well, in Tibet, will make their choice by comparing costs
of extraction from Tibet with the costs of a similar plant in Brazil
or Canada or Australia or Orissa... Tibetan mineral deposits that
until now seemed too distant, expensive and complicated for China's
largely coastal metal manufacturers, may now be profitable, due to the
worldwide price rises and shortages of energy and minerals." ("China's
100 billion spending spree in Tibet," Tibetan Bulletin, January-April
2007, available at tibet.net)
The development of mining is only one snapshot of the kinds of
interests and demands that globalized capitalism are imposing and that
are setting the terms for investment in Tibet - and driving and
shaping economic development. In addition, the central government is
pushing tourism as a major component of profit-based development in
Tibet. And here too, the results are harmful to the Tibetan people,
with industry that caters to non-Tibetans and a lot of development
focused in the city. All of this contributes to greater inequalities,
like between city and countryside and between those working in the
cities and peasants in the poor countryside.
For the Tibetan people, all this has meant a deepening of super
exploitation, inequality, and discrimination. And this is giving rise
to profound discontent and anger which has erupted in the streets.
Send us your comments.
Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/125/tibet-background-en.html
Revolution #125, April 6, 2008
Tibet: From Brutal Theocracy to Socialist Liberation to Capitalist
Nightmare
The communist revolution led by Mao Tsetung liberated China in 1949.
Before this, Tibet (located in the remote, far western part of China)
was ruled by a feudal Buddhist theocracy--headed by the Dalai Lama--that
brutally exploited and suppressed the people. Most land suitable for
farming was owned by high-ranking lamas (Buddhist clerics) and non-
Lamaist aristocracy. Fewer than 700 of these top monks and other
secular feudal lords controlled 93 percent of the land and wealth.
Most of the people in Tibet's rural areas were serfs who were bonded
for life to the top monks and secular aristocracy. The feudal owners
dictated what crops the serfs could grow, and then took most of the
harvested grain while driving the peasants ever deeper into debt. They
demanded unpaid forced labor from the serfs and subjected them to
onerous taxes, like taxes on newborn children. Girls were often taken
from serf families to serve as servants for the aristocrats, and many
boys were forced into monasteries to be trained as monks. (Accounts of
pre-1949 Tibet can be found, among other works, in A. Tom Grunfeld,
The Making of Modern Tibet, M.E. Sharpe, 1996; Anna Louise Strong,
Tibetan Interviews, Peking New World Press, 1929; Michael Parenti,
"Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth," July 7, 2003, swans.com)
About five percent of Tibetans were outright slaves (mainly domestic
servants) who had no right to grow anything for themselves and who
were often worked or beaten to death. The lower-level monks (about a
tenth of the population) were also basically slaves, bound to the
monasteries and forced to serve the high-ranking lamas.
The feudal lords enforced the social order with their small
professional army and armed gangs. Any non-compliance, let alone open
resistance, was met with sadistic punishment that included torture and
mutilation, such as gouging out of eyes.
The reactionary ideology of Lamaism, the form of Buddhism in Tibet,
was key in this whole setup. Central to Lamaism is the belief that
humans have a soul that is born and reborn many times (reincarnation),
and that a person's position in the world has been predetermined by
what he/she did in a previous life (karma). Being born a woman, for
example, was considered punishment for sinful behavior in the past
life. Such religious untrue myths and superstitions were used by the
rulers to justify extreme oppression and to keep the masses of people
resigned to their situation.
Pre-liberation Tibet as a whole was a very isolated, backward place.
There were no roads that wheeled vehicles could travel on. Most
children died before their first birthday. Over 70% of the people were
infected with venereal disease and 20% with smallpox.
Feudal Tibet was no "Shangri-la" where benevolent monk-rulers lived in
peaceful harmony with contented masses. It was a nightmarish horror
for the great majority of people, and the feudal relations and ideas
kept the whole society in an extremely backward state.
Revolution Comes to Tibet
The victory of the revolution led by Mao in 1949 brought a new day to
China. The U.S. and other imperialists quickly moved to try to crush
this revolution. By 1950, for example, U.S. invasion forces had landed
in Korea and were moving toward the Chinese border.
The Maoists aimed to bring Tibet (and other remote regions of China)
into the revolutionary process--to transform the oppressive relations
there, and to prevent imperialist intrigue and intervention on China's
borders. In 1951, China's revolutionary state signed a treaty with
Tibet's rulers, and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) marched
peacefully into Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. Under the agreement, there
was self-government for Tibet under the Dalai Lama, while the central
government controlled military and foreign affairs (like in other
national minority autonomous areas) and could promote social reforms.
The monastic properties remained intact and the feudal lords continued
to dominate the peasants. But usury was abolished, roads and hospitals
were built, and a secular school system began to take root. (Felix
Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance, Doubleday, 1961; Pradyumna P. Karan,
The Changing Face of Tibet: The Impact of Chinese Communist Ideology
on the Landscape, Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1976)
In 1956-57, feudal landowners--backed by the CIA--organized armed
revolts. This was part of the intensifying imperialist encirclement of
and pressures on the People's Republic of China. In 1959 armed monks
and Tibetan soldiers launched a full-scale counter-revolutionary
uprising, which had little support among the people and crumbled
fairly quickly. The Dalai Lama escaped to India in a CIA covert
operation, taking with him enormous wealth that represented the blood
of oppressed people. Large sections of the top clergy and feudal
aristocracy followed him into exile. (Kenneth Conboy and James
Morrison, The CIA's Secret War in Tibet, U of Kansas Press, 2002;
Richard M. Bennett, "Tibet, the 'great game' and the CIA," Asia Times,
March 25, 2008)
A new phase of radical and sweeping changes followed. There were mass
meetings and mobilizations of peasants, with women taking an active
role. Slavery and unpaid serf labor were abolished. Large tracts of
land controlled by the feudal owners were distributed to former serfs
and landless peasants. Roads, schools, the medical system, and other
infrastructure were further built up. There was new freedom to not
believe in mind-enslaving religious dogma. (Felix Greene, A Curtain of
Ignorance, Doubleday, 1961; Grunfeld, The Makng of Modern Tibet)
Beginning in the mid-1960s, momentous upheavals rocked all of China--
the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Revisionist (phony
"communist") forces right within the Communist Party had seized key
positions of power and were threatening to bring capitalism back to
China. Mao's answer was a revolution within the revolution--he called
on the masses in the hundreds of millions to seize power back from the
capitalist-roaders and in the process further revolutionize society.
The Cultural Revolution brought profound changes to Tibet.
Agricultural communes were organized, irrigation projects were
undertaken, and food production was expanded. "Barefoot doctors"--
medical workers trained from among the masses--brought regular health
care to many rural areas for the first time. Half the barefoot doctors
were women, previously forbidden under Buddhist doctrine to practice
medicine. Literacy and basic scientific knowledge were spread among
the people, and ideological struggle was waged against feudal customs
and values.
There is much distortion spread by various forces about "cultural
genocide" in Tibet during the Cultural Revolution. One charge leveled
against the Cultural Revolution is that Mao ordered the large-scale
desecration and destruction by Han Chinese Red Guards. But the truth
of the matter is different. While there was destruction of monasteries
and shrines, this was largely carried out by native Tibetan activists
and Red Guard youth, not (as often alleged) by "invading" non-Tibetan
Red Guards. (Mobo Gao, The Battle for China's Past, Pluto, 2008) While
there were excesses, it is important to understand this in the context
of the larger struggle against the past and continuing influence of
the reactionary Lamaist superstitions and their symbols, as well as
the remaining wealth of the feudal masters in the form of monastic
holdings. And there were attempts to rein in some of these kind of
excesses by the Maoist forces.
The revolutionary forces were confronted with a complex contradiction.
On the one hand there was the right of minority nationalities, like
the Tibetans, to their national culture. But in Tibet, this culture
was very closely intertwined with the Lamaist religion which was a
heavy chain on the people. There is much more to be learned about how
the Maoists handled this contradiction, and there is need to further
synthesize what was done right and what mistakes were made in order to
do better with contradictions like this in future socialist societies.
What can be said is that the Maoist forces waged struggle against Han
(the majority nationality in China) chauvinism and for equality among
the various nationalities and cultures. At the same time, they led the
struggle against the "four olds"--the old ideas, customs, culture, and
habits of the reactionary feudal society. There was a blossoming of
Tibetan culture during the Cultural Revolution: a single Tibetan
dialect was promoted; Tibetan typewriters were developed; traditional
Tibetan medicine was studied; there was research into Tibetan history.
By 1975, half the top leaders in Tibet were native Tibetans.
The standard claim spread from "Free Tibet" organizations is that 1.2
million Tibetans have been killed since 1950, and especially during
the Cultural Revolution. Writing in a New York Times Op-ed, Patrick
French, former head of the pro-Dalai Lama group Free Tibet Campaign,
said that after extensive research, he "found that there was no
evidence to support that figure." And contrary to claims about forced
sterilization in Tibet during the Mao years, the actual policy was
that there was education about family planning and that birth control
was made available on a voluntary basis. There was recognition of the
particular situation of minority nationality areas which had suffered
much greater infant mortality rates and epidemic diseases than Han
areas. Tibet's population--which had been markedly declining before
liberation--seems to have increased during the Mao years. (Han Suyin,
Lhasa, the Open City--A Journey to Tibet, Putnam, 1977; China
Reconstructs, "Tibet--From Serfdom to Socialism," March 1976; Peking
Review, "Tibet's Big Leap--No Return to the Old System," July 4, 1975)
****
The death of Mao in 1976 brought another big change in China--this
time, a giant reactionary leap backward. The revisionists seized power
through a coup and restored capitalism to China--even as they continued
to call themselves "communist" and claimed that China was still
"socialist." In Tibet, as throughout China, the capitalist rulers have
dismantled collective farming and other socialist relations and
institutions. Polarization has intensified throughout society--between
rich and poor, between urban and rural areas, between men and women,
and so on. Semi-feudal agriculture has re-emerged along with
capitalism linked to international capital. Development of mining and
timber industries has led to devastating ecological consequences. And
there has been an uncorking of Han chauvinism, as the capitalist
rulers and their government have moved to step up domination of Tibet
and other minority areas.
O'Brien
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
w...@133sh.com
civilian and destroy personel property . I hope Western country can
bring them to your country because these mob are acclaimed hero by
you. if you do it, i will thank for God.
skepticl1
The war the USA waged in Tibet is just like the Contra war the USA
waged in Nicaragua. US paratroopers, military trainers.
Tom
title of Dalai and his right is endowed by chinese emperor several
hundreds ago. but present Dalai broke his ancestor promise for his
personal benefit. why do we trust him and he is nothing. he will be
punished by his God for his bloodiness,discredit and lie.
chatnoir
> On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:23:37 -0700 (PDT), skepticl1 <skepti...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Everyone is talking aboutTibetand the Dalai Lama.
>
> Yes, those pesky Tibetans that keep getting shot,
> killed, arrested, or re-educated by their
> enlightened masters... err... liberators who are only
> armed to protect the Tibetans from themselves.
>
> Stink
The Bush administration is clueless here!:
http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2008/04/16/nepal-tibet-whatever/
Nepal… Tibet… whatever…
Just when you thought the US was simply a bit confused about the
Middle East (Sunni-Shia, Iraq-Iran and all that) Stephen Hadley,
national security advisor to President Bush, flubs it regarding Tibet.
Interviewed on this ABC News This Week, he says “Nepal” instead of
“Tibet” more than a “half-dozen times“. But don’t take my word for it,
see the video and transcript here. (ABC News had to put “sic” in
multiple times to explain the oddity).
“The way to deal with the issue of Nepal (sic) is not by some — a
statement that you’re not going to the opening ceremonies and say,
therefore, I checked the Nepal (sic)box.”
Instead, Hadley said the President is opting to pursue a broader
diplomatic approach. “What he’s doing on Nepal (sic) is what we think
the international community ought to be doing, which is approaching
the Chinese privately through diplomatic channels and sending a very
firm message of concern for human rights, a concern for what’s
happening in Nepal (sic), urging the Chinese government to understand
that it is in their interest to reach out to representatives of the
Dalai Lama, and to show, while the whole world is watching China, that
they are determined to treat their citizens with dignity and respect.
There is an opportunity here.”
If you remember, it was Stephen Hadley who as deputy national security
advisor admitted responsibility for the “16 words” about yellowcake
uranium that slipped into Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address. Of
course we all know now it turned out to be false. Afterwards, he
submitted his resignation to the president, but Bush did not accept it
and instead, he’s now top national security advisor.
skepticl1
The incident where the Capitalists wanted attack again based on lies
about nuclear weapons was not a mistake based on bad information. It
was a deliberate plan to decieve. Hadley was getting awarded for work
well done. The slimey goons only got caught.