Under The Monks, "Tibet's Great Days Belonged To The Past," so said Heinrich Harrer who had seen it firsthand. So, as long as China learns from her mistakes, she is no different from England or America! Re: The Silence Around Tibet's Ecological Crisis ...

[lo yeeOn]

In article <5434592.AG5o5d15Fo@Dharma>,
Peter Terpstra <peter.t...@gmail.com> wrote:
>The Silence Around Tibet's Ecological Crisis
>The Tibetan environment is deteriorating -- and Beijing doesn't want
>anyone to know.

That is bullshit! How can it be a case of Beijing not wanting anyone
to know if the following is true!

>"There is no question that the landslide was caused by reckless
>placement of mine waste by the gold mining operations," said Jack
>Spadaro, after carefully viewing the two satellite images taken in
>2010 and 2012 that were sent by Robbie Barnett, the Director of
>Modern Tibet Studies in Columbia University. Spadaro is a mining
>safety and health and environment specialist who has had a 38-year
>career as an expert witness in litigation related to the
>environmental, health and safety aspects of mining.
>
>"Based on the available information and those satellite images, it
>is obvious that the accident is related to mining activities, rather
>than a pure 'natural disaster' as claimed by so-called experts,"
>said Yang, a geologist specializing in the west China region.

If satellite images are available to anyone to see that China was
doing wrong, and on top of it, trying to hide its wrongdoings, then
China is just too stupid to be a country every country in the rest of
the world has been stepping over each other to have an official visit
with its new leadership.

On the other hand, China is a new kid on the block in terms of large
scale industrial development. It can make mistakes, just as other
countries who have gone through the same phase of development have
done.

So, there is no shame for China to learn from its mistakes and move
forward.

Besides, we don't know that the recent landslide was anything other
than a natural disaster.

Southern Weekly did not pursue the matter further, believing that
the evidence was "still not strong enough" for them to address such
a sensitive topic, although several Chinese and international
experts believed otherwise.

On the other hand, we might ask what Tibet would be like had the
central government of China been too weak to go into Tibet and take
out Da Lama and his decadent and backward-looking cohorts.

Tibet would have been either the little medieval kingdom run by monks
whose backward policies had struck the Austrian traveler Heinrich
Harrer in horror or it would have been run to the ground by foreign
contractors as we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya -
everywhere where the CIA has had a hand in propping up a regime that
the U.S. desires.

Chapter 9: Asylum Granted

Many people came to visit us. Tibetans journeyed from far and wide
to Lhasa to attend the New Year Festival, among them people whom we
had got to know on our journey. It was not hard for them to find
us, as we were still much talked of, and every child knew where we
lived. Some brought us presents of dried meat, which is much
appreciated in Lhasa. We learned, moreover, from these people that
the officials through whose districts we had passed had been
severely censured by the government. it depressed us to feel that
person who had received us in such a friendly manner had suffered
such unpleasantness on our account. But it seemed that they bore us
no grudge. We met a bonpo whom we had bamboozled with our old
travel permit and he only laughed and semed glad to see us again.

The New Year's celebrations did not pass off this year without a
mishap. An accident occurred on the Parkhor which attracted much
attention.

TIBETAN MONKS HAD FREE HUMAN LABOR; SO THEY OPPOSED TO MECHANIZATION
OF LABOR AS WELL AS ANY FORM OF PROGRESS

Every year they put up high flagstaffs made of heavy tree trunks
fitted into one another. These are brought from distant places and
it is quite a task to carry them to Lhasa. It is managed in a very
primitive way, and my indignation was aroused when I saw, for the
first time, a prcession coming in. It reminded me of the Volga
boatmen. About twenty men drag each trunk whci his attached to them
by a rope round their waists. They sing a monotonous air as they
trudge along, keeping step with one another. They sweat and pant,
but their foreman, who leads the singing, gives them no pause for
rest. This forced labor is in part a substitutte for taxation. The
carriers are picked up at villages on the road and dismissed when
they come to the next settlement. The monotonous airs to which they
drag their burden are said to distract their minds from the severity
of their task. I should have thought they would do better to save
their breath. The sort of fatalistic resignation with which they
lent themselve to this back-breaking toil always used to infuriate
me. As a product of our modern age, I could not understand why the
people of Tibet were so rigidly opposed to any form of progress.
There must obviously be some better means of transporting these
heavy burdens than by manhandling them. The Chinese invented and
used the wheel thousands of years ago. But the Tibetans will have
none of it, though its use would give an immense impulse to
transport and commerce and would raise the whole standard of living
throughout the country.

When later, I was engaged in irrigation works, I made various finds
which strengthened my belief that the Tibetans had known and used
the wheel many centuries ago. We uncovered hundreds of great blocks
of stones as big as wardrobes. These could not have been carried
save by mechanical means from the remote quarries where they had
been hewn. When my workmen wanted to carry such a block from one
place to another they had first to hew it into eight pieces.

UNDER THE MONKS, TIBET'S GREAT DAYS BELONGED TO THE PAST

I became more and more convinced that Tibet's great days belonged to
the past. There is a stone obelisk dating from A.D. 763 which bears
witness to my theory. It records the facat that in that year the
Tibetan armies marched to the gates of the Chinese capital and there
dictated to the Chinese terms of peace, which include an annual
tribute of fifty thousand bales of silk.

POTALA PALACE COULD NOT HAVE RISEN IN ANY OTHER WAY EXCEPT ON THE
BODIES OF MANY TIBETANS

And then there is the Potala Palace, which must date from Tibet's
days of greatness. No one today would think of erecting such a
building. I once asked a stonemason who was working for me why
such buildings were no longer put up. He answered indignantly that
the Potala was the bandiwork of the gods. Men could never have
achieved anything like it. Good spirits and supernatural beings had
worked by night on this wonderful building. I found in this view
another instance of the indifference to prgoress and ambition which
characterized the attitude of the men who dragged the tree trunks.

IGNORANCE BREEDS FEAR WHICH IN TURN BREEDS SUPERSTITUTION

To return to my story. When the tree trunks are brought into Lhasa
they are bound together with strips of yak's hide to form a thick
mast nearly seventy feet high. Then a huge flag bearing printed
prayers and extending from the top to the bottom of the pole is
nailed onto it. On this occasion the trunks were probably too heavy
for the yak-skin scrape, for the whole mast broke into its component
parts, which crushed three watchers to death and injured several
others. The whole of Tibet took this for an evil omen and people
prophesied a black future for the country. Catastrophes such as
earthquakes and floods were foretold. Men spoke of war and looked
meaningly toward China. Everyone, even those who had had an English
education, was a prey to superstition.

THE MONKS TOLERATED IN SILENCE THE FOREIGN DOCTORS

Nevertheless they did not carry the men wounded in this accident to
their lamas, but to the British Legation, where there was a hospital
with a number of beds for Tibetans. THe English doctor had plenty
of work. Every morning there was a queue of clients waiting before
his door, and in the afternoon he visited his patients in the town.
The monks tolerated in silence this intrusion into their territory.
They could hardly do otherwise, because it was impossible to ignore
the doctor's success.

THE MONKS' POLICY TOWARD MEDICINE IS A DARK CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF
MODERN TIBET.

The policy of the government toward medicine is a dark chapter in
the history of modern Tibet. The doctors of the British legations
were the only qualified medical men in a population of three and a
half million. Doctors would find a rich field of activity in Tibet,
but the government would never consent to allow foreigners to
practice. The whole power was in the hands of the monks, who
criticiZed even government officials when they called in the English
doctor.

The black propaganda against China is just too petty and nauseating.

lo yeeOn

>
>by Hongxiang Huang
>
>May 7 2013, 11:28 AM ET
>
>"Tibet is still a very sensitive topic, even if your story is about the
>environment and not politics," said an editor, who prefers to
>remain unnamed, of the environmental section ofSouthern Weekly, a paper
>the New York Times has called the most influential
>liberal newspaper in China.
>
>In early April, several satellite images were sent to Southern Weekly;
>the pictures suggested that the fatal landslide in a Tibetan
>mining site on March 29 -- labeled a "natural disaster" -- might be
>related to inappropriate and illegal operations. However,
>Southern Weekly did not pursue the matter further, believing that the
>evidence was "still not strong enough" for them to
>address such a sensitive topic, although several Chinese and
>international experts believed otherwise.
>
>
>"There is no question that the landslide was caused by reckless
>placement of mine waste by the gold mining operations," said
>Jack Spadaro, after carefully viewing the two satellite images taken in
>2010 and 2012 that were sent by Robbie Barnett, the
>Director of Modern Tibet Studies in Columbia University. Spadaro is a
>mining safety and health and environment specialist who
>has had a 38-year career as an expert witness in litigation related to
>the environmental, health and safety aspects of mining.
>
>"Based on the available information and those satellite images, it is
>obvious that the accident is related to mining activities,
>rather than a pure 'natural disaster' as claimed by so-called experts,"
>said Yang, a geologist specializing in the west China
>region.
>
>"Tibet's traditional culture is more threatened by global
>commercialization than it is by the Han Chinese."
>
>China faces serious environmental challenges nationwide, and Tibet is
>no exception. As announced in the country's 12th five year
>plan, Tibet was slated to become a mining center and a hydropower
>engine. While the environmental impacts of mining are
>well-known, those of hydropower are less so.
>
>"By 2020, the focus of hydropower development would be gradually
>shifted to Tibet's rivers," said Zhiyong Yan, the General
>Manager of the China Hydroelectricity Engineering Consulting Group in a
>2011 interview for Newenergy.org. "Most of Tibet's
>hydropower is to be sent out for the whole country's energy needs," he
>added, noting that 20 percent of hydropower produced
>in China could eventually come from Tibet.
>
>Hydropower is being developed in part to meet China's goal of ensuring
>that non-fossil fuel accounts for 15 percent of the
>energy supply by 2020. However, this not only poses geological risks,
>especially in southwest China, but also involves
>environmental degradation around project sites, population migration
>issues, and other less obvious environmental challenges.
>
>"Hydropower is sometimes accompanied by and becomes a cheap energy
>supply for heavily polluting industries such as the
>mining industry," said Jun Ma, the director of the Institute of Public
>& Environmental Affairs in Beijing, in his 2009 article,
>"Hydropower's Over-expansion Will Not Help Reduce Carbon Emissions."
>Indeed, the environment has been greatly impacted in
>both the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and the greater Tibetan region.
>
>"We joked that the mountains in Tibet are becoming the bald heads of
>lamas, and cows are getting skinnier and skinnier," said
>Nyima*, a Tibetan who used to work in the TAR for an international NGO
>but now lives in New York. He recalled logs floating in
>the Ganzi River; massive logging operations in Tibet eventually brought
>about the flooding of the Yangtze River in 1998.
>
>Tenzin visited his hometown in east TAR about one year ago and was
>shocked by the numerous hydropower projects on the river
>and the desertification near the projects. "I am not an expert on
>hydropower, but I do not need to become an expert to know
>it is wrong when you see hydropower stations just several or ten
>kilometers away from each other," he remarked.
>
>When the Miga Tso hydropower project was delayed because Phuntsok
>Wangyal, the founder of the Tibet Communist Party,
>wrote to then-Premier Zhu Rongji, the head of local government blamed
>him for obstructing the development of his hometown.
>Indeed, the environmental problem in Tibet is often framed as a choice
>between environmental protection and economic
>development.
>
>"The problem is not development, but over-development!" said Tenzin. He
>believes the over-building of hydropower stations is a
>result of unregulated competition between different state hydropower
>groups fighting over profits.
>
>"People from the China Hydropower Group Fourth Bureau and the China
>Railway Group Seventh Bureau once fought against each
>other physically while competing for hydro projects; one official from
>the former one was injured and the project was delayed,"
>said Ms. Zhao, who has an acquaintance in the China Railway Group
>Seventh Bureau and says she learned this from an inside
>source.
>
>The implementation of projects, even after vicious fights, has been
>problematic as well, due to a lack of regulation.
>
>"My hometown's new highway became unusable after just one year. Along
>the modern highway, because of digging construction
>materials, the two parties were destroyed without preserving," said
>Kalsang, a Tibetan living in the Tibetan part of western
>Qinghai Province.
>
>Without real regulation and public monitoring, even licensing has
>become unreliable.
>
>"The experts did their environmental assessment of mining projects in
>Lhasa without visiting the actual sites," said an
>anonymous source in TAR, who has a relationship with some officials
>from mining companies.
>
>Shakya, who lives in Lhasa, believes that although economic development
>is necessary, there are better alternatives to current
>practices in Tibet. For example, eco-tourism and eco-products like
>Lhasa beer could generate development, given that Tibet's
>unique competitive advantage is its pristine environment.
>
>"The mindset is also a significant problem," Shakya stated, "When New
>York was developing in the 1930s, the area of Central
>Park was preserved; but as my hometown of Lhasa has been developed,
>many small lakes and small parks have been destroyed
>for real estate development."
>
>"Believing nature is sacred, Tibetans lived in peace with nature, until
>the shock came from the outside," said Dolker, a young
>Tibetan from Yunnan. Many Tibetans believe that changes to Tibetan
>society have been effected by Han Chinese, who arrived in
>the TAR in large numbers as part of plans by China's central government
>to develop the area.
>
>According to Wu, an environmental journalist inside China who wished to
>remain anonymous, the environmental problems faced
>by Tibet are similar to problems in other parts of China, and more
>universal than political. "The Han Chinese did not destroy
>Tibet's environment for political reasons," remarked Wu. "They are
>already diligently destroying their own environment."
>
>As stated in a book entitled Tianzhu (Tibetan Gem), which documents the
>experiences of a Chinese person in the TAR, "Tibet's
>traditional culture is more threatened by global commercialization than
>it is by the Han Chinese."
>
>While foreign media and NGOs are virtually banned from entering Tibet,
>domestic media and NGOs are also aware that they
>should stay out, or at least keep quiet even on environmental
>challenges in Tibet.
>
>"Different parties, including both the Chinese government and overseas
>'human rights' activists, always politicize problems in
>Tibet, making real environmental challenges untouchable," said Gao, an
>environmental NGO worker in western China. He was
>extremely reluctant to disclose his information, worrying that any news
>stories coming out would pose further challenges to his
>NGO's efforts to enhance environmental protection.
>
>"Many Han Chinese in Tibet think that they understand Tibetans," he
>remarked, "But the truth is that Tibetans have learned
>what to say to Han Chinese."
>
>"In Tibet, environmental problems are politicized and treated as
>stability problems," said Droje, a Tibetan scholar in TAR,
>although he agrees that it is necessary to consider environmental
>challenges in a broader context.
>
>On Tibet.cn, an official website about Tibet, an article was posted
>entitled, "Hard to Understand: The Theory of Environmental
>Destruction in Tibet". In the article, people who claim that Tibet now
>faces great environmental challenges are labeled political
>enemies under the leadership of the Dalai Lama.
>
>"When people hold protests overseas and call for a 'Free Tibet,' it may
>inadvertently help government officials politicize
>everything and demonize the Dalai Lama," said Howard French, the former
>Shanghai Bureau Chief of the New York Times. He
>believes that Tibetans best advance their cause by advocating for
>things that are good for all Chinese people, since they share
>many of the same needs: clean air, clean water, and basic rights.
>
>However, gaps in understanding and trust between Tibetans and Han
>Chinese have been huge issues. According to an anonymous
>source, Li Chuncheng, the former vice party secretary of Sichuan
>province, used to visit the Gulden Temple where self-
>immolations frequently occurred. When he arrived, he asked for people
>to share their true thoughts and affirmed that he was
>there to solve problems. However, monks insisted on telling him that
>everything was fine. After Li disappointedly returned
>without any new information, others would self-immolate.
>
>"We international journalists want to hear more rational opinions from
>normal people, but almost exclusively hear politically
>extreme opinions," said Mei Yang, a journalist withRadio France International.
>
>The communications gap exists not only between Tibetans and government
>officials, but between Tibetans and most normal
>Han Chinese. For Han Chinese, the absence of knowledge about modern
>Tibetan history and lack of tolerance towards different
>belief systems make it harder for them to understand the Tibetans.
>
>"When I was listening to my Han classmates talking in a mean way about
>the Dalai Lama, I was very sad and frustrated," said
>Dolker. Losing hope in bridging cultural gaps, some Tibetans have given
>up on truly connecting with Han Chinese.
>
>Wu, the environmental journalist who wished to remain unnamed, recalled
>challenges he faced in convincing Tibetans to share
>their true thoughts when he was there to help them when doing
>journalism works in China. "Many Han Chinese in Tibet think
>that they understand Tibetans," he remarked, "But the truth is that
>Tibetans have learned what to say to Han Chinese."
>
>* Tibetans interviewed for this article may be quoted under pseudonyms
>to protect their identities.
>
>http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/05/the-silence-around-tibets-ecological-crisis/275617/