Post by Flash on Apr 25, 2008 18:42:16 GMT -5
There were three classes of people in Tibet: the feudal landlords who owned all the land, monks who spent their time reading scriptures and begging, and serfs who worked the land for the feudal lords. The Dalai Lama presided over the whole life of Tibetans as god-king.
The landlords treated the serfs with the same ruthlessness as the landlords of the Dark Ages in Western Europe. There were no roads, no hospitals and no modern schools in Tibet, no human rights, and no democracy. Outsiders were banned during the Dalai Lama's time. The refugees did not speak of a genocide of Tibetans by the Chinese. The refugees who came to India were mainly the feudal landlords with their wealth in gold, their servants and some monks, together with the Dalai Lama.
The Chinese takeover changed the face of Tibet. They built roads, schools and hospitals and other infrastructure necessary for an acceptable modern life. They instituted land reforms and gave dignity in life to the serfs. That the monks still comprise a sizeable population in Tibet is significant, and makes me wonder how much the spiritual life of Tibetans has been affected by the Chinese.
Lindsey Hilsum, China correspondent for Britain's Channel 4 News has given an interesting perspective on the unrest in Tibet. In the New Statesman (March 19) she wrote that the unrest in Tibet is caused by the economic disparity between the Tibetans and the Han Chinese and Hui Muslims who own the majority of shops and businesses.
These Chinese minorities, with their better business acumen, have benefited most from the upturn in the Tibetan economy. This has fuelled the resentment of Tibetans against its Chinese minorities. Freedom or religion has very little to do with what is happening in Tibet now.
Bill Mathew Parkville (Vic)
Asianplumb
Melbourne
Fri 25 Apr 08 (02:20pm)
You cannot support The Lamas of Tibet’s history and have Robin Hood as your childhood TV hero. The Lamas past and present carried out all the same torturous, murders,incarcerations and taxing routines as the evil Prince John and The wicked Sherriff of Nottingham did to their poor enslaved population of Serfs too.
HuaDe Huo
East Killara
Fri 25 Apr 08 (02:58pm)
The Han Chinese has lived in Tibet for more than a thousand years. The Dali Lama has religiously cleansed Tibetan religions he does not believe in. The Nobel Peace laureate is the one who wants to ethnically cleanse the Han Chinese—the condition he laid down before any “peace” talk with the Chinese central authority can take place. The setting up of his pan-Tibet sovereignty would break away ¼ of China. With separation of Taiwan, Uyghur, Mongolia, Manchuria hot on the heal, China would quickly be turn into a Yugoslavia. Can you visualise a world with billion of displaced Chinese?
Defending one’s country and better the world—this what the ANZACs and the Chinese protestors have in common.
HuaDe Huo
East Killara
Fri 25 Apr 08 (03:44pm)
There are three simple reasons that most non-Chinese citizens in the Australia support the idea that Tibet should be an independent country/territory/region.
1. People do not like the Chinese government. China is one of the few remaining Communist countries in the world. Any policies that appear to be contrary to the ideas of the central government in Beijing are welcomed in the Australia. However, this does not justify the separation of a state from a country.
2. People do not understand Chinese history. Tibet was a “state” as part of a group of various ethnic regions encompassing what Chinese speakers called “Zhong Guo” or the “Middle Kingdom” formally since the time of the Mongols, around the time in history between the Mongol rulers Genghis and Khublai Khan in the mid 1200s AD. The Mongolians ruled all of what most Chinese speakers now worldwide call “China”, incorporating all the 50+ ethnic language regions at the time into one large area/country. There were still in many regions local governments or authorities that ruled such territories, however all were a formal part of the Mongol ruler. Throughout Tibetan history the local administrators were required to travel to Beijing and “report” to the Chinese emperors/government. A Chinese military presence was maintained in Tibet. Over time as the Mongols eventually were replaced by ethnic “Han” Chinese dynasty kings, Tibet as a territory of “China” always remained and was acknowledged by other world powers during times of war. Tibet has a long history of warfare and claims by various countries, including several times by Britain, India, and Nepal.
Interestingly, there were many times in the past 500 years that local, ethnic Tibetan groups rose up against the current government in the region (usually led by a Dalai Lama) and the central Chinese ruler sent in any army, won some battles, and restored peace by re-installing the Dalai Lama in charge of the territory again. There were also cases in Chinese history when a local Dalai Lama would assert “independence” and the Chinese government from Beijing would send an army to restore order. The Dalai Lama in these cases would flee Tibet.
3. People believe the dispute is over religious freedom. It is particularly sensitive for Americans because some of the original concepts in the USA bill of rights from the Constitution is the idea that citizens of a country should be allowed freedom to assemble, and to follow religion. The Dalai Lama and the Buddhist priests who live outside of Tibet, like to hold interviews with the news press in the USA and Europe explaining that the communist government has an illegitimate claim to Tibet and only took over the country/state in 1949 under the communists in order to suppress the religious rights of the Lama priesthood.
China is by far an atheist country with no tradition of Christian or Jewish religious thought. There are a large number of Buddhists in China, but most people who follow Buddhist ideas do not practice religion the same way that people in the USA, Australia and Europe do. It is not a public show of faith, it is often directed more toward respecting ancestors (particularly dead ones) and maintaining a decent life on earth as an honest and reverent person and family.
It is trendy in Hollywood and among politicians to take pictures with the Dalai Lama (as he travels around North America) and criticize the current communist government in China for not allowing the local people of Tibet to be ruled by their spiritual leaders, the Buddhist priests. The simple fact is, for over 700 years there has been direct Chinese rule or sovereignty over Tibet in one form or another, at times justified by a physical army presence, and that in our current lifetime, it happens to be controlled by a communist government since 1949. At times during these 700 years the central Chinese government in Beijing peacefully co-existed with the Lama hierarchy, at times it did not. We are living in a period when there is conflict caused by ihe cia falun gong and the dali lama in exile.
If Chiang Kai-Shek and his Nationalist army would have won the Chinese civil war against Mao Tse-Tung between 1945 and 1949, his government might be the one now “repressing” the Tibetans instead of the communists.
But, as General Chiang lost, he was forced to retreat to Taiwan island, forcing the Japanese to officially abdicate their rule over the island, and he then set up martial law there which lasted 40 years until 1989.