cullinane
1st December 2001, 00:02
In old Tibet, the Dalai Lama was the unelected figurehead monarch of an oppressive feudal society. When the Chinese revolution reached Tibet after 1950, the region's lamas and aristocrats fought against changing the feudal status of Tibet's serfs. During the 1950s, while the Dalai Lama was still in power, his family developed ties with the CIA--which was arming and financing armed revolts both within Tibet and in the nearby Kham region. When the Dalai Lama traveled into exile in 1959, the cook and radio operator in his entourage were CIA agents. These CIA ties blossomed even more in exile, when his family helped organize an armed contra-style secret CIA war in the Himalayas, designed to destabilize the Maoist revolution in China.
The Dalai Lama is hardly a "freedom-fighter" or just a "simple monk" (as he likes to say)--he is a representative of an oppressive social order and a long-time project of the CIA.
Meanwhile, the program of the Dalai Lama has nothing to do with liberating the people of Tibet. The Dalai Lama calls for an accommodation between China's current government and the old exiled Tibetan ruling class. The Dalai Lama has long proposed a new arrangement in which his lamaist religious hierarchy would be allowed to exercise some of their old privileges and influence in Tibet, while their non-violent philosophy would help the Chinese government pacify the people there. The Chinese government has not shown any interest in these proposals, but this has not stopped the Dalai Lama from pushing for them in a series of international speaking tours.
Dalai Lama Tibet like any religious order was based on a rigid and brutal class system.
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."
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. The aristocratic lamas also never worked. They spent their days chanting and memorizing religious dogma.
Dalai Lama 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.
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.
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 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 Dalai Lama is hardly a "freedom-fighter" or just a "simple monk" (as he likes to say)--he is a representative of an oppressive social order and a long-time project of the CIA.
Meanwhile, the program of the Dalai Lama has nothing to do with liberating the people of Tibet. The Dalai Lama calls for an accommodation between China's current government and the old exiled Tibetan ruling class. The Dalai Lama has long proposed a new arrangement in which his lamaist religious hierarchy would be allowed to exercise some of their old privileges and influence in Tibet, while their non-violent philosophy would help the Chinese government pacify the people there. The Chinese government has not shown any interest in these proposals, but this has not stopped the Dalai Lama from pushing for them in a series of international speaking tours.
Dalai Lama Tibet like any religious order was based on a rigid and brutal class system.
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."
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. The aristocratic lamas also never worked. They spent their days chanting and memorizing religious dogma.
Dalai Lama 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.
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.
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 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.