Tibet/Free Tibet

[Leftsolidarity]

Someone explain to me the whole deal with Tibet.

Do you think they should be independent of the PRC or not?

How do you feel about the whole Free Tibet thing?

[Potato]

Yes, they should be independent of the PRC, but the "Free Tibet" thing is a horrible bastard child of the worst Buddhist reactionaries and Western liberals that we should have nothing to do with. It's honestly pretty absurd how some people who actually claim to be revolutionary leftists can seriously spout some of that bullshit about "Tibet historically being part of China" etc etc. Chinese chauvinism has nothing to do with leftism, and while I'm all for internationalism and erasing borders between the Tibetan and Chinese people, too, Tibet as a part of Greater China is Chinese imperialism and nothing else. We just should actually encourage the Tibetan revolutionaries and stop connecting all attempts to free Tibet from Chinese occupation to the currently liberal formerly feodalist wanker Dalai Lama.

[rundontwalk]

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I'm convinced that the Free Tibet thing is just a plot cooked up to knock China down a few notches.

[Kamos]

Fuck national independence movements. When has any of them helped the communist cause?

[Zav]

Fuck national independence movements. When has any of them helped the communist cause?
And 'the Cause' is the only thing we should care about right now? I don't know if you've noticed, but the Left is pretty far in the hole. The Revolution isn't this weekend. While we try to fix our own problems, why don't we support people who are actually trying to escape their oppressors right now.

[Geiseric]

"the left," as we see through history grows through class struggle. However if we look at a bad example of a national split, we should look no further than kuwait. That country has historically been part of the same state as iraq, and it was split off to benefit the imperialists, providing a good port for oil exports owned by european banks. At the same time, iraq was unable to sell any oil due to lack of ports. Not saying that these situations are identical, only that a national liberation in this era always ends up in petit bourgeois intrests being served. The rules aren't the same as pre industrial revolution, where a national liberation war would have been progressive. These days, its only to consolidate power in the petit bourgeois of the country which always ends up serving international imperialists. Just look at Chiang Kai Shek, the nationalists trying to make an independent china were totally reactionary. Of course i'll still support the tibetan workers and poor peasents in a class struggle.

[Sasha]

http://t-shirtguru.com/product-images/free-tibet-t-shirt-bustedtees-2.jpg

[hatzel]

"the left," as we see through history grows through class struggle. However if we look at a bad example of a national split, we should look no further than kuwait. That country has historically been part of the same state as iraq, and it was split off to benefit the imperialists, providing a good port for oil exports owned by european banks. At the same time, iraq was unable to sell any oil due to lack of ports. Not saying that these situations are identical, only that a national liberation in this era always ends up in petit bourgeois intrests being served. The rules aren't the same as pre industrial revolution, where a national liberation war would have been progressive. These days, its only to consolidate power in the petit bourgeois of the country which always ends up serving international imperialists. Just look at Chiang Kai Shek, the nationalists trying to make an independent china were totally reactionary. Of course i'll still support the tibetan workers and poor peasents in a class struggle.

Really? The petit bourgeoisie's involved in the oil trade now? And holding power over countries? All those post-national liberation countries in which the petit bourgeoisie are the ruling class...

Perhaps what you meant was 'national bourgeoisie' or some other term implying 'the bourgeoisie of the nation liberated through the national liberation movement.' It may be in their benefit. It could(!!!) also be of interest to certain elements the petit bourgeoisie, if the movement means they may be able to expel the extant 'foreign' bourgeoisie and replace it, but power still wouldn't then be consolidated in the petit bourgeoisie. It would just change who exactly makes up the bourgeoisie, rather than a change in class relations. Of course.

[Ocean Seal]

Someone explain to me the whole deal with Tibet.

Do you think they should be independent of the PRC or not?

How do you feel about the whole Free Tibet thing?
The movement is reactionary as fuck. Its basically a backwards feudal dream that will never happen. Anyway, I don't support the free tibet movement, I don't support China, but none of that matters anyway because in its current state the free Tibet movement doesn't possess the ability to do anything other than become wank propaganda for Western liberals. That's pretty much it, I'm sure that there are many reasons for Tibet to want to be free of China, but the movement doesn't have any material backing. So the issue of support/non-support doesn't exist.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I've never seen any actual evidence that advocates for Tibet/the Dalai Lama want to impose a feudal theocracy on Tibet. As far as I can tell this is a lie cooked up by apologists for Imperialistic Han-nationalism. There are legitimate concerns about treatment of ethnic minorities by the Chinese state, and presenting a straw man of their opponents is the easiest way to dismiss those arguments. As far as "freeing" Tibet is concerned, Liberation for the Tibetan people won't come from a "national liberation" struggle or independence. Even the Dalai Lama stopped arguing for independence ages ago and says Lamas should not have any political power.


There are two absurd things about the focus on Tibet; first, that other ethnic groups in China are ignored, like Mongolians and Turks, and second, naive people idolize pre-Chinese Tibet if it was some kind of Shangri La when it was a feudal country with brutal poverty and a very low standard of living. Tibetans can't be blamed completely for this really ... their country was very remote and isolated, and the conditions a mile and a half above sea level are not really very hospitable, but it is important to realize that the idealized vision presented of the country is not accurate.

The most absurd thing about the CCP argument is that it is based on the fact that IMPERIALIST China conquered Tibet years ago. Imagine that, a supposedly "Communist" party basing a nationalist claim over a territory on the boundaries of an empire ... do the advocates of the Chinese state realize just how inconsistent of a position that is? The same goes for the argument that the advocates for Free Tibet are feudalists and therefore necessarily less progressive than the imperialist Chinese state ... was the Quit India movement feudal because India was feudal before the British came? Tibetans don't want to live in a feudal country and the material means of production there are beyond that state now, so if there was an independent Tibetan country it would not somehow revert to a pre-Capitalist mode of production. Meanwhile, we do know that the Chinese state, or at least a significant portion of it is committed to Capitalism, and there is substantial inequality between Han elites in Western cities and minorities like the Tibetan peasants.

So basically the extremes on both sides are naive about the virtues of their own side, misrepresent the other side grossly, or both.

[Geiseric]

Yes sorry, i meant national bourgeois but I was thinking in the context of some marx that I read saying that the state itself is composed of petit bourgeois that act in the favor of the actual bourgeois. I thought that the would be arab or national liberated state wouldn't really own anything itself, nor would the national bourgeoisie if the revolution is in an imperialised country, thus why I called them petit bourgeoisie. I know the difference between petit and national, however I thought national bourgeoisie were petit since they don't really own any of the oil fields, factories, or capital that is in their respective country.