Indian Right Wingers Support Tibetan Monks

[Sword and Shield]

Western liberals aren't the only ones who support the reactionary monks. The RSS right-wingers in India support agree with liberals. Meanwhile, the rest of the world knows exactly who's interests the Tibetan monks represent.

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?article=India%27s+right-wing+leader+asks+China+to+end+religious+repression +in+Tibet&id=29408



Dharamsala, April 21: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS) leader Indresh Kumar Thursday called on China to immediately cease its repressive dealings against the monks of Ngaba Kirti Monastery in Tibet’s northeastern province of Amdo.

Speaking to media persons after visiting the venue for Tibetan Youth Congress’ ongoing relay huger strike outside Tsuglagkhang (Main Tibetan Temple) here, the RSS leader also called on China to hold dialogue with the Tibetan government in exile to resolve the issue of Tibet.

“China must at least immediately stop environmental destructions taking place in Tibet. Also it must end all religious repressions against the monks and monasteries in Tibet,” Mr Indresh said.

The Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) on Sunday launched an indefinite relay hunger strike to protest against what it called “a critical situation” in and around Kirti Monastery in Ngaba, Tibet. 15 volunteers have been staging 24-hour hunger strike on daily basis since then.

Mr Indresh said he visited the venue to show his solidarity to the hunger strikers. He was accompanied by RSS ideologue KN Govindacharya.

The delegation earlier met with representatives of major Tibetan NGOs and held discussions on wide range of pertinent issues facing Tibet.

TYC president Mr Tsewang Rigzin said his organization was pleased with Mr Indresh’s visit.

“It is very encouraging to have him here. He said that the suppression that is going on at Kirti Monastery should stop immediately. Also we discussed with them the issue of Tibet at larger scale,” Mr Rigzin said.

Describing the situation of monks at Kirti Monastery as an “ongoing crisis”, Mr Rigzin said the members of Tibetan organizations have urged the Indian delegation for their support to defuse the situation.

“We have asked them to raise the issue in the Indian parliament and - through the Indian government and through the Indian embassy in Beijing - to highlight the issue of what’s going on in Tibet,” Rigzin added.

[PhoenixAsh]

Reactionaries agitating against other reactionaries in support of other reactionaries.

why even bother?

Tibet should be independent and liberate itself instead of being forced into submission by a farce of supposed socialism but certainly repressive regime.

[lines]

Whose interest do you think the Tibetan monks represent?

[Delenda Carthago]

Anything against the rise of fascist China, is good at the point.

[PhoenixAsh]

Whose interest do you think the Tibetan monks represent?


who is this directed at?

[RadioRaheem84]

Anything against the rise of fascist China, is good at the point.

Even feudal minded religiously zealous Tibetan monks?

That's like saying supporting Iranian monarchists from the exiled Shah regime is better than the Iranian regime. This considering that the Iranian regime is also full of religious zealots!

Which goes to show that the religion prompting society is BS, and it all boils down to class interests.

The interests of the religious zealots in Tibet and exiled are in in with the reactionary politics of liberal democracies such as India and the US.

[lines]

who is this directed at?

Primarily the OP but other peoples points of view would be helpful too.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Anything against the rise of fascist China, is good at the point.

Not this fucking fascist shit. China is not fucking fascist.

[Queercommie Girl]

Well China today is quite bad in many ways and hyper-deformed, but it's certainly not fascist in the literal sense.

[Proukunin]

state-capitalist maybe but not fascist.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Well China today is quite bad in many ways and hyper-deformed, but it's certainly not fascist in the literal sense.
Never seen that one before "hyper-deformed". At what point do we say China is capitalist instead of a deformed or "hyper-deformed" worker state?

[agnixie]

Western liberals aren't the only ones who support the reactionary monks. The RSS right-wingers in India support agree with liberals. Meanwhile, the rest of the world knows exactly who's interests the Tibetan monks represent.

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?article=India%27s+right-wing+leader+asks+China+to+end+religious+repression +in+Tibet&id=29408

It's funny that you guys would say that after thread upon thread of glorifying Qaddafi and Gbagbo and everyone else pointing out that both sides in these conflicts were, in fact, bad. I guess everyone has limits when it comes to blind anti-imperialism. Funny thing is, it was basically a case of one powerful country bombing the shit out of a weaker one for colonization. Even if the people involved may not suit your politics.

[t.shonku]

Western liberals aren't the only ones who support the reactionary monks. The RSS right-wingers in India support agree with liberals. Meanwhile, the rest of the world knows exactly who's interests the Tibetan monks represent.

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?article=India%27s+right-wing+leader+asks+China+to+end+religious+repression +in+Tibet&id=29408





Dalai Lama sent his brother to USA for taking training in insurgent warfare under CIAs guidance

[Queercommie Girl]

Never seen that one before "hyper-deformed". At what point do we say China is capitalist instead of a deformed or "hyper-deformed" worker state?

Personally I characterise China as a semi-state-capitalist semi-deformed worker's state, since the political superstructure still hasn't completely fallen yet. China today still has a Leninist socialist constitution, even if it's on paper only.

But I can work with those who consider China today to be completely state-capitalist or capitalist. However, I certainly reject the notion that China today is a "fascist" state. One should not just throw around terms like that.

Calling China today "fascist" means things couldn't get any worse so the Chinese regime should be overthrown at all costs, even if it means allying with US imperialists, theocrats and other reactionary undesirables. Obviously such a line is ridiculous. China today is bad, but the situation could be still worse than it's now, like for instance if China actually splits up along the lines of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia.

I'm not going to ally with US imperialism or right-wing theocrats against the current Chinese regime.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

China isn't fascist according to most common definitions, although it does do an interesting job of using traditional third positionist tropes, like the need to mix market and social forces and argue on behalf of a strong common ethnic and national identity.

Also, while liberals who think ancient tibet was a shangri la and the lamas were perfectly moral administrators are naive and deluded, it is true that the Chinese government has instituted some fairly ruthless policies against ethnic minorities. Any time minorities protest, the government clamps down hard and blames it all on interference from outsiders, as if there are no social contradictions whatsoever in Tibet or Uighur territory.

[Queercommie Girl]

China isn't fascist according to most common definitions, although it does do an interesting job of using traditional third positionist tropes, like the need to mix market and social forces and argue on behalf of a strong common ethnic and national identity.


This isn't just an abstract debate about the political character of the Chinese state.

The point is, as a socialist, my primary concern here is always the concrete welfare and rights of the Chinese working class in general, not some kind of abstract political statement. And we have all seen how workers of the former Soviet Union have been hit by the break-up of the Soviet Union. And this is certainly not a "Han-centric" view either, since non-Russian workers were hit even harder by the break-up of the USSR than ethnic Russian workers, and the same things will happen in the PRC.



Also, while liberals who think ancient tibet was a shangri la and the lamas were perfectly moral administrators are naive and deluded, it is true that the Chinese government has instituted some fairly ruthless policies against ethnic minorities. Any time minorities protest, the government clamps down hard and blames it all on interference from outsiders, as if there are no social contradictions whatsoever in Tibet or Uighur territory.


I would be much more sympathetic to a genuine grassroots movement in Tibet solidly based on the workers, peasants and herdsmen that is secular rather than religious in nature, or at least draw on some Buddhist ideas but not pro-Lamaist.

[Sword and Shield]

It's funny that you guys would say that after thread upon thread of glorifying Qaddafi and Gbagbo and everyone else pointing out that both sides in these conflicts were, in fact, bad. I guess everyone has limits when it comes to blind anti-imperialism. Funny thing is, it was basically a case of one powerful country bombing the shit out of a weaker one for colonization. Even if the people involved may not suit your politics.

I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Gaddafi and Gbagbo were attacked by the Western imperialists. The Western imperialists also want to control Tibet, and so they support the former rulers of Tibet. It's like Kosovo, Chechnya, etc. The West supports separatist movements to try to get more puppet states and weaken those states that take an independent foreign policy.

As for what China is, I agree with the other people here that it is state capitalist or a deformed workers' state. The best hope for China is that the communist party remains in power and the left movement within the party strengthens and gains control. The neo-liberal opposition movements would only make things worse for China.

[red cat]

Personally I characterise China as a semi-state-capitalist semi-deformed worker's state, since the political superstructure still hasn't completely fallen yet. China today still has a Leninist socialist constitution, even if it's on paper only.


How does this socialist constitution of China relate to ground material conditions, so that we can call it a worker's state of some sort ?

[Queercommie Girl]

How does this socialist constitution of China relate to ground material conditions, so that we can call it a worker's state of some sort ?

You can't really say the Marxist-Leninist constitution of China is of absolutely no relevance at all, even if it's almost completely on paper only.

Base determines superstructure. If there is still a bit of socialism in the superstructure, there must be a little bit of socialism in the base still. Otherwise how could such a superstructure exist at all? If China today is completely capitalist at the base, you wouldn't expect any socialism to remain in the superstructure at all.

Certainly there are still some relatively progressive genuine reformists among the grassroots layers of the CCP, such as the reformist Maoist lawyer Zhao Dongmin, who courageous fought for worker's rights in China and actually ended up in prison for his activism. (He is "reformist" in the sense that he doesn't call for the fundamental overthrow of the current Chinese party-state) Even some Trotskyists in the West have praised his good work, despite the differences between Maoism and Trotskyism.

If China completely abandons the socialist constitution now, obviously it would only make things even easier for the pro-market elements, because all the privatisation etc. that have occurred in China would then have complete constitutional validity, which it doesn't now. If China's Red Constitution is gone, then there will be nothing to stop the utter completion of the capitalist counter-revolution, absolutely nothing. The pro-capitalist elements in China today, which are largely in a dominant political position, at least still have to be cautious in many circumstances and coat themselves with a "socialist surface", lest the public anger and opposition gets out of control. Consequently there is still a state sector in China, and China still has better public welfare than many countries of a similar level of economic development. The last vestige of socialism will be gone from China if the Red Constitution is gone.

One of the key slogans of genuine reformist Maoists (i.e. those people who claim to uphold Maoism but does not call for the overthrow of the current Chinese party-state, but struggle for radical reform instead, there are lots of such people in China) in China today is to "defend the Red Constitution". Personally I think this line by itself is largely useless, but it doesn't mean this kind of political position is without any genuine value at all.

(Of course, the way to judge whether a "revolutionary" movement in China today is progressive or reactionary is to precisely use this Red Constitution. Real socialists and Marxists would uphold the basic framework of this constitution, including genuine Trotskyists since they claim to uphold the basics of Leninism. Neo-liberal and reactionary "revolutionaries" on the other hand, would seek to overthrow the current Chinese regime but also replace China's socialist constitution with a capitalist one)

So essentially what I'm really defending in China today isn't the current regime, but the Marxist-Leninist Constitution. I will only support a revolution in China today if it genuinely upholds the basic framework of China's Marxist-Leninist Red Constitution. If it's a "revolution" rooted in neo-liberalism, capitalism, imperialism or theocracy then fuck off.

[agnixie]

I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Gaddafi and Gbagbo were attacked by the Western imperialists. The Western imperialists also want to control Tibet, and so they support the former rulers of Tibet. It's like Kosovo, Chechnya, etc. The West supports separatist movements to try to get more puppet states and weaken those states that take an independent foreign policy.

As for what China is, I agree with the other people here that it is state capitalist or a deformed workers' state. The best hope for China is that the communist party remains in power and the left movement within the party strengthens and gains control. The neo-liberal opposition movements would only make things worse for China.

So you're a) in favor of imperialism when it's a side you vaguely identify with and b) a reformist. China is an imperialist country. As it made very obvious with its dealings with Vietnam already in the 70s.

[Queercommie Girl]

So you're a) in favor of imperialism when it's a side you vaguely identify with and b) a reformist. China is an imperialist country. As it made very obvious with its dealings with Vietnam already in the 70s.

China today technically isn't an "imperialist" country on the Western level, but rather a "petit-imperialist/sub-imperialist" country like the other BRIC countries.

[Tim Finnegan]

Base determines superstructure. If there is still a bit of socialism in the superstructure, there must be a little bit of socialism in the base still. Otherwise how could such a superstructure exist at all? If China today is completely capitalist at the base, you wouldn't expect any socialism to remain in the superstructure at all.
Either that, or you're misreading the signals given by the superstructure, specifically, by confusing instruments of ideological legitimisation with organic expressions of the material basis of a society. That seems more likely than the existence of some sort of "mixed base", however you plan to go about reconciling that with the actual Marxist concept of the mode of production.

Do remember, Britain still has an essentially feudal constitution, but nobody would argue that this constitutes some sort of mixed base. Ideological legitimisation is a task undertaken in response to immediate circumstances, not by following some predetermined path towards Western liberalism.

[Queercommie Girl]

Either that, or you're misreading the signals given by the superstructure. That seems more likely than the existence of some sort of "mixed base", however you plan to go about reconciling that with the actual Marxist concept of the mode of production.

And I never said I would oppose a genuine socialist revolution in China today.

In China today I can work with both genuine reformists like Zhao Dongmin (who went to prison for his courageous trade unionism work) and genuine Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, including genuine Trotskyists, since Trotskyism is a branch of Marxism-Leninism also.

The key, as I said, is to use the Red Constitution as a standard. Any genuinely progressive revolution would obviously uphold the basics of Marxism-Leninism, even if some of the details might be different. On the other hand, if a "revolution" that seeks to overthrow the current regime wants to formally replace China's Marxist-Leninist constitution with a capitalist one, then obviously such a "revolution" is in reality a counter-revolution.

[Queercommie Girl]

Do remember, Britain still has an essentially feudal constitution, but nobody would argue that this constitutes some sort of mixed base. Ideological legitimisation is a task undertaken in response to immediate circumstances, not by following some predetermined path towards Western liberalism.

No, Britain's constitution has a few feudal elements, but it's largely capitalist in content. (Besides, Britain has no formal constitution like China or the US do)

Have you ever read China's actual constitution? It's still largely socialist in character, even though the country itself obviously isn't.

The first article of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China explicitly and formally declares that the working class and the alliance of the workers and the peasantry is the leading class of the entire nation.

[Thirsty Crow]

...including genuine Trotskyists, since Trotskyism is a branch of Marxism-Leninism also.

I'm sorry for nitpicking, but that is false.
"Marxism-Leninism" as a body of theory has been canonized by Stalin in opposition to Trotsky's theoretical contributions (technically, everyone adhering to Marxism-Leninism should uphold "socialism in one country" in opposition to the theory of permanent revolution).

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm sorry for nitpicking, but that is false.
"Marxism-Leninism" as a body of theory has been canonized by Stalin in opposition to Trotsky's theoretical contributions (technically, everyone adhering to Marxism-Leninism should uphold "socialism in one country" in opposition to the theory of permanent revolution).

That's not what I mean by "Leninism" though. (To avoid confusion, I would use the term "Leninism" rather than "Marxism-Leninism")

Orthodox Trotskyists (i.e. genuine Trotskyists) firmly uphold the legacy of the Leninist October Revolution.

If you look at the Chinese constitution, there is nothing specifically "Stalinist" about it. There is no explicit mention of the "rule of the bureaucracy" or "socialism in one country" at all. The constitution is basically Leninist in its character, not Stalinist, even if it's completely in name only.

According to the constitution, the working class is the leading political class of the entire nation, public ownership must be kept as the main economic mode, and every PRC citizen has full basic democratic rights such as freedom of speech, assembly and electoral rights.

Of course, even the constitution has been somewhat distorted and modified in China in recent years, but the basic Leninist framework is still very much evident.

Frankly, the majority of the contemporary policies in China are basically and literally anti-constitutional.

[Thirsty Crow]

That's not what I mean by "Leninism" though. (To avoid confusion, I would use the term "Leninism" rather than "Marxism-Leninism")

Well, that's it, if you'd use the term "Leninism", instead of "Marxism-Leninism" then my argument is not relevant.

[red cat]

You can't really say the Marxist-Leninist constitution of China is of absolutely no relevance at all, even if it's almost completely on paper only.

Base determines superstructure. If there is still a bit of socialism in the superstructure, there must be a little bit of socialism in the base still. Otherwise how could such a superstructure exist at all? If China today is completely capitalist at the base, you wouldn't expect any socialism to remain in the superstructure at all.

Certainly there are still some relatively progressive genuine reformists among the grassroots layers of the CCP, such as the reformist Maoist lawyer Zhao Dongmin, who courageous fought for worker's rights in China and actually ended up in prison for his activism. (He is "reformist" in the sense that he doesn't call for the fundamental overthrow of the current Chinese party-state) Even some Trotskyists in the West have praised his good work, despite the differences between Maoism and Trotskyism.

If China completely abandons the socialist constitution now, obviously it would only make things even easier for the pro-market elements, because all the privatisation etc. that have occurred in China would then have complete constitutional validity, which it doesn't now. If China's Red Constitution is gone, then there will be nothing to stop the utter completion of the capitalist counter-revolution, absolutely nothing. The pro-capitalist elements in China today, which are largely in a dominant political position, at least still have to be cautious in many circumstances and coat themselves with a "socialist surface", lest the public anger and opposition gets out of control. Consequently there is still a state sector in China, and China still has better public welfare than many countries of a similar level of economic development. The last vestige of socialism will be gone from China if the Red Constitution is gone.

One of the key slogans of genuine reformist Maoists (i.e. those people who claim to uphold Maoism but does not call for the overthrow of the current Chinese party-state, but struggle for radical reform instead, there are lots of such people in China) in China today is to "defend the Red Constitution". Personally I think this line by itself is largely useless, but it doesn't mean this kind of political position is without any genuine value at all.

(Of course, the way to judge whether a "revolutionary" movement in China today is progressive or reactionary is to precisely use this Red Constitution. Real socialists and Marxists would uphold the basic framework of this constitution, including genuine Trotskyists since they claim to uphold the basics of Leninism. Neo-liberal and reactionary "revolutionaries" on the other hand, would seek to overthrow the current Chinese regime but also replace China's socialist constitution with a capitalist one)

So essentially what I'm really defending in China today isn't the current regime, but the Marxist-Leninist Constitution. I will only support a revolution in China today if it genuinely upholds the basic framework of China's Marxist-Leninist Red Constitution. If it's a "revolution" rooted in neo-liberalism, capitalism, imperialism or theocracy then fuck off.

A very nice post, but I have the following points to make :

1) Having lived all my life in a country that officially calls itself socialist, and a part of it in a province ruled by self-proclaimed communists, I know that rules and principles on paper might not have any effect on real life, though I take it from your words that the situation is probably a different in China.

2) The Marxist-Leninist aspects of the Chinese constitution cannot be implemented without a Marxist-Leninist government in power, which is possible only after a revolution. Those people in the higher layers of the CPC who seem to be struggling for reforms are most certainly agents of the top revisionists themselves.

3) China will almost certainly shed its socialist veil in future, but this can happen in two ways. It can either bring more misery for the masses, or it can be beneficial to them, depending on the subjective conditions. If there is no well developed communist party when this happens, workers will be attacked even more under the new openly capitalist constitution. But if there is a big revolutionary CP then the bourgeoisie will try to equate them with the old super-corrupt regime and divert the people's wrath towards them. In this case the new regime will implement some positive reforms and will initially be quite better than the revisionists. We have seen the former situation during the dissolution of the USSR, and something resembling the latter is going on presently in the province of West Bengal, India.

[Queercommie Girl]

Those people in the higher layers of the CPC who seem to be struggling for reforms are most certainly agents of the top revisionists themselves.


I was referring to grassroots CCP members like Zhao Dongmin, who is really poor actually, and went to prison in China for his courageous trade union work, (and his whole family was destroyed by this) not those in the higher layers of the CCP.

His political line of course can still be objectively wrong, but no-one can state that he is not genuine in the subjective sense. No-one would have his whole family destroyed as a result of his political activism and live a generally poor life if he were merely an "agent".

I don't really trust anyone in the ruling bloc of the CCP today either. Poor grassroots CCP members are a completely different matter though.

[Queercommie Girl]

1) Having lived all my life in a country that officially calls itself socialist, and a part of it in a province ruled by self-proclaimed communists, I know that rules and principles on paper might not have any effect on real life, though I take it from your words that the situation is probably a different in China.


To be frank, I don't really think the socialist constitution is really reflected in any concrete sense in reality in China either.

But the Red Constitution can still be used as a "rallying banner" in the strategic sense for the genuine left to group around.

[Tim Finnegan]

And I never said I would oppose a genuine socialist revolution in China today.

In China today I can work with both genuine reformists like Zhao Dongmin (who went to prison for his courageous trade unionism work) and genuine Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, including genuine Trotskyists, since Trotskyism is a branch of Marxism-Leninism also.

The key, as I said, is to use the Red Constitution as a standard. Any genuinely progressive revolution would obviously uphold the basics of Marxism-Leninism, even if some of the details might be different. On the other hand, if a "revolution" that seeks to overthrow the current regime wants to formally replace China's Marxist-Leninist constitution with a capitalist one, then obviously such a "revolution" is in reality a counter-revolution.
That isn't really a response to what I said. :confused:


No, Britain's constitution has a few feudal elements, but it's largely capitalist in content. (Besides, Britain has no formal constitution like China or the US do)

Have you ever read China's actual constitution? It's still largely socialist in character, even though the country itself obviously isn't.

The first article of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China explicitly and formally declares that the working class and the alliance of the workers and the peasantry is the leading class of the entire nation.
That's just my point: that formal declarations of sovereignty are meaningless unless they manifest as genuine political power. The Chinese constitution may declare the workers and peasants to be the ruling classes, but that means no more than British declarations of monarchical sovereignty as long the country is firmly under the control of non-worker classes. The British constitution is essentially feudal, in that it maintains the formal legal supremacy of a feudal monarch, but is quite inarguably a bourgeois state; how can these facts be reconciled while we go about insisting that tools of legitimisation found within the ideological superstructure are necessarily honest reflections of the economic base?


But the Red Constitution can still be used as a "rallying banner" in the strategic sense for the genuine left to group around.
Like the old Magna Carta-fetishism adopted by the old English democrats? Feasible, I suppose, but it seems to me too open to romantic ideological distortions. Radical struggle should be based in class identity, not in allegiance to some document or other.

[Queercommie Girl]

Like the old Magna Carter-fetishism adopted by the old English democrats? Feasible, I suppose, but it seems to me too open to romantic ideological distortions. Radical struggle should be based in class identity, not in allegiance to some document or other.


Well there is certainly a practical element to it, in that I do not write-off the poor grassroots layers of the CCP, and obviously for these people the Chinese constitution is still very important. It was the CCP that created the PRC, after all.

But you are right to some extent in that due to the influences of Confucianism for more than 2000 years, (the central doctrine of Confucianism is the "rectification of 'names'") the Chinese and the British share one kind of trait: a tendency to "keep up appearances" even when appearances no longer fit with reality, thus the fact that in China today, so many socialists and leftists care a lot about the Red Constitution even though for the pro-capitalist elements it's really no more than "toilet paper". :D (95% of actual Chinese policies today are directly anti-constitutional, the revisionist pro-capitalist ruling bloc obviously don't give a shit about this apparently special piece of paper)

But then cultural traits do matter - in a strategically sense, the very fact that Chinese people have a statist and nominalist tendency means such symbols are important to some extent in the Chinese political context.

And I don't know if you are Leninist or not, but most Leninists (including Maoists and Trotskyists alike) do tend to "romanticise" the Great October Revolution. Maoists also romanticise China's Great 1949 Revolution.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

This isn't just an abstract debate about the political character of the Chinese state.

The point is, as a socialist, my primary concern here is always the concrete welfare and rights of the Chinese working class in general, not some kind of abstract political statement. And we have all seen how workers of the former Soviet Union have been hit by the break-up of the Soviet Union. And this is certainly not a "Han-centric" view either, since non-Russian workers were hit even harder by the break-up of the USSR than ethnic Russian workers, and the same things will happen in the PRC.


This is a fair question, and I think the Chinese course was better than the Gorbachev/Yeltsin route. But I do see troubling ideological postures in the Chinese state. Perhaps it's just pandering to local sentiment, who knows.

Although I have seen a striking disregard for other countries regarding pollution, hydroelectric dam construction (which, obviously, impacts countries downriver from China, like Vietnam or Cambodia, as well as their own people), and other issues. There's this weird mix of Stalinist "one-statism" and Dengist "market-socialism" that tends to worry me about the Chinese model (though I'm not enough of an expert to say it's the cause of the internal disputes and problems of the Chinese state).


I would be much more sympathetic to a genuine grassroots movement in Tibet solidly based on the workers, peasants and herdsmen that is secular rather than religious in nature, or at least draw on some Buddhist ideas but not pro-Lamaist.

I would agree with this. Theocracy, be it Christian, Islamic, or Buddhist, is a thing of the past (or as I tend to think, but this is a discussion for another time, "rethought"). I don't think I can speak to whether or not current protests in Tibet are genuinely Theocratic in orientation, however. All I can discern is that they are dissatisfied with Chinese policies regarding minorities and the "autonomous regions"

[Zanthorus]

Base determines superstructure.

I'm not really clued in with all the academic debates surrounding Marx's base/superstructure metaphor but I'm pretty sure this is a misinterpretation. In fact, Marx's famous introduction to ACttCoPE actually says the opposite of what you say, that history cannot be understood in terms of the ideological superstructure at all:


Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production.

When looking at Marx's historiographical approach I think it's generally useful to see how these concepts are actually used in his historical writings like 'The Class Struggles in France 1848-50' or 'The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte' rather than attempting strained readings of the ACttCoPE preface. In the 18th Brumaire at least, Marx often refers to a seperation between what the historical actors thought about their situation and the situation itself. The actual use to which Marx puts the concept is in order to make actual practical relationships and events the basis of historical writing rather than the various discourses which events and struggles are cloaked in. To take one example, Marx discusses the conflict between the 'Montagne' and the 'Party of Order', noting that the former saw everything as a fight between 'reaction' and the eternal rights of the people, whereas in actual fact this was merely the ideological cloak for the struggle between the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie proper.

So I think that Marx would approach the problem in the exact opposite manner to the way you're approaching it, starting from the actual relationships between classes existing in contemporary chinese society, and deducing the role of the constitution from that, preceding, as he put it with Engels in The German Ideology, from earth to heaven, as opposed to attempting to understand the class struggles and class composition in China on the basis of the constitution.

[Sir Comradical]

Well this fits in with Hindu right-wing's vision of a 'Greater India Hindu Rashtra' which reaches as far as Thailand, Tibet and Afghanistan. Regardless of what we think of China's record as a capitalist power, the only reason this Tibet issue remains prominent in the west is because it's an issue that can be used to weaken China. Calling for the division of China into smaller right-wing republics will only hurt the aspirations of the Chinese working class whether they're Tibetan, Han, Uyghur or whatever. They're all oppressed by capital. As socialists we shouldn't fall for this rubbish that regards every secessionist movement as being some kind of step in the right direction.

[Queercommie Girl]

Well this fits in with Hindu right-wing's vision of a 'Greater India Hindu Rashtra' which reaches as far as Thailand, Tibet and Afghanistan. Regardless of what we think of China's record as a capitalist power, the only reason this Tibet issue remains prominent in the west is because it's an issue that can be used to weaken China. Calling for the division of China into smaller right-wing republics will only hurt the aspirations of the Chinese working class whether they're Tibetan, Han, Uyghur or whatever. They're all oppressed by capital. As socialists we shouldn't fall for this rubbish that regards every secessionist movement being some kind of step in the right direction.


Just out of interest, how do the Hindu nationalists interpret the fact that Afghans and other Central Asians have conquered Hindu India many times in the last 1000 years, and reconcile that with Hindu nationalism?

(China and India had a similar history in this sense in the last 1000 years, only that India was independent for even less time than China was)

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Just out of interest, how do the Hindu nationalists interpret the fact that Afghans and other Central Asians have conquered Hindu India many times in the last 1000 years, and reconcile that with Hindu nationalism?

(China and India had a similar history in this sense in the last 1000 years, only that India was independent for even less time than China was)

I don't know myself, Hindu nationalism is a strange beast. But it should be noted that outsiders never controlled all of the "Hindu Rashtra"; both the Mughals and British relied on local Hindu lords, and places such as Nepal always maintained some level of sovereignty.

Swami Vivekananda argued that there was no longer any fighting spirit in India, and that in fact one of the things that needed to be reformed about the culture and philosophy of the country (among other things like the caste system). I don't want to call him a Hindu rightwinger of the modern fold anymore than I'd call Hegel a fascist, but, like Hegel's relationship with later German ideologies, from what I understand his views did shape later Hindu nationalism.

The real issue IMO is that "Hindu nationalism" is as absurd of a concept as the notion of a single "Hindu" religion. They basically are trying to synthesize the world's most linguistically and spiritually diverse people into a single cohesive ideology, and then use that ideology to justify cultural imperialism to those who don't fit with their program. The real reason so much of India kept getting conquered is because it was, in reality, an amalgam of competing feudal states with at best a very loose sense of common identity. Tamils and Marathis speak very different languages and have very different cultures, for instance. While I'm no expert on Chinese history, from what I understand, China had a long tradition of a single state which may have been less technologically advanced than Europeans in the 1800s or militarily adept than nomadic tribespeople and samurai invaders earlier on in their history, but seems to have nonetheless been successful at creating a solid set of institutions able to prevent or impede foreign conquest (such as a common written language, common religious institutions, etc).



Calling for the division of China into smaller right-wing republics will only hurt the aspirations of the Chinese working class whether they're Tibetan, Han, Uyghur or whatever. They're all oppressed by capital. As socialists we shouldn't fall for this rubbish that regards every secessionist movement being some kind of step in the right direction. This is certainly true, but it's unclear whether the protesters are protesting for more political, social and economic freedoms, or as you indicate for the recreation of some reactionary independent theocracy. Just because a monk is protesting, it doesn't mean he's protesting for theocracy or secession. I'm not speaking about those in Daramsala either ... the protests in Urumqi and Lhasa recently seem to have been about more than independence from China.

[Sir Comradical]

Just out of interest, how do the Hindu nationalists interpret the fact that Afghans and other Central Asians have conquered Hindu India many times in the last 1000 years, and reconcile that with Hindu nationalism?

(China and India had a similar history in this sense in the last 1000 years, only that India was independent for even less time than China was)

They refer back to a time before Islam when Hinduism/Buddhism and Zoroastrianism where the primary religions in Afghanistan. This is of course a reference to the Mauryan empire and the subsequent empires that followed which were heavily influenced by religious philosophies native to India (and also by Greek culture but don't tell them that!). They can take it even further by referring to their religious texts that mention many areas in Afghanistan as being part of an Indian sphere of influence. In more recent times, the mindless destruction of the ancient 'Buddhas of Bamiyan' statues by the Taliban absolutely incensed much of the Hindu-right. Even referring to their religion as 'Hinduism' is offensive to some Hindu-nationalists who consider the origins of the word 'hindu'/'hind' to be semitic and not truly 'Indian', instead they prefer to call their religion 'sanatana-dharma' and India 'Bharat'.

[Queercommie Girl]

They refer back to a time before Islam when Hinduism/Buddhism and Zoroastrianism where the primary religions in Afghanistan.


Yeah, like how Han Chinese nationalists like to talk about how the Han Chinese Tang Dynasty once ruled over all of Mongolia and Central Asia, as far north as Siberia, and the Tujue Turks bowed down to the greatness of Han Chinese Khans. :cool:

Which objectively is actually true, (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Khagan) except that the Sui and Tang Dynasties were culturally speaking not solely "Han", but a combination of Han and nomadic customs.

Though compared with Indian nationalism, Chinese nationalism has always been much more directly geo-political and militaristic, and less cultural and religious. We don't care what religions the people follow as long as the Han bureaucracy controls the people politically - and some "national bolsheviks" in China consider Maoist China to be a continuation of the old bureaucratic Chinese empires. :D (Just kidding - of course the national bolsheviks are wrong about Maoism)