"free tibet"?

[VermontLeft]

i just saw another free tibet line on another site i go to and i started wondering, what is the general leftist thinking on this question?

i mean I agree that the china has no right to be killing people and settling their own citizens there (kind of like Israel actuallyt ) but i mean ive done my research on the old Lama regime and it looks like it was practically mideval!

so is the thinking that we should support the tibeters in getting out of china but not support them putting the dalai back in power or is it that we should suport china being in their but change there poicies or neither...

im a little confused and i dont know anymore. i used to be a big free tibeter but conce i started reading more (and realized that that brad pitt movie is kind of propaganda ...although he is still a hottie :blush im much less certain.

help!

[Horatii]

but i mean ive done my research on the old Lama regime and it looks like it was practically mideval!

I've come to the same conclusion. Tibet doesn't need "freeing" so that they can oppress their citizens with fundementalist buddhism.

[Scars]

Free Tibet? Definately not. I can't say I support the Chinese, and in the past Han Chauvanism did make many Tibetans lives difficult (I'd like to note here that Mao deeply opposed Han Chauvanism), but compared to the old Theocracy any bad things happening are irrelivant.

The question you ask any 'free tibet' activist is "Do you support the Taliban, accepting that the Taliban regime was largely reflective of Afghanistan's history and culture?". If they say "No" Then they are hypocrites, as the Tibetan Theocracracy was just as bad, if not worse than the Taliban regime- 80% of the population of Afghanistan weren't in some form of bondage (either Serfdom, which was about 60% of the population or Slavery which was about 20% of the population).

In addition, many of these people are also part of various anti-war groups and other various liberal activist groups (that achive nothing and ignore the CAUSES of problems, but that's a whole different issue). Point out to them that the Dalai Lama is on the CIA payroll and has been since the '50s and that he has come out in support of every US led war, that is is even more conservative than the Pope (a favourite scapegoat for people criticising religious conservatism) when it comes to issues like homosexuality, abortion, womens rights and so on.

[RedKnight]

http://www.greaterthings.com/Lexicon...ma_Marxist.htm

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by RedKnight@Apr 17 2006, 05:10 AM
http://www.greaterthings.com/Lexicon...ma_Marxist.htm

Yeah, there is other quotes by him were he says he is something like "half Buddhist, half Marxist."

However, he was driving a car around his mansion in circles well there was still no roads in Tibet, and the only "destruction" he feared was that of the society that kept him in his privleged position.

http://individual.utoronto.ca/mrodden/study/tibet.htm

edit: Note: change the lakar.co.uk to lakar.org to find the correct link for those articles.

[Gottwald]

Tibet has been Chinese territory for the past 600 or so years. The Chinese Communists were far from the first to correctly consider Tibet as part of Chinese territory. This mock-liberation movement in the West amongst bourgeois Hollywood is a farce and an insult to all those that have strived for liberation. What is not mentioned in the western propaganda press is that the Dalai Lama of Tibet owned several hundred slaves. If you are for Tibetan separation, you are also for slavery, feudalism, and exploitation.

[redstar2000]

An amusing footnote...

Originally posted by BBC
Giant Mao statue erected in Tibet

The Chinese authorities say they are putting up a huge statue of Chairman Mao Zedong in Tibet.

The 35-ton memorial is being built to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the former leader's death.

It is being erected in Gonggar County, near the Tibetan capital Lhasa, China's state-run news agency Xinhua said.

The statue will rise 7m from a 5m pedestal strengthened to withstand earthquakes. Mao Zedong ordered the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950.

The statue will be the central landmark of Gonggar County's Shangcha square, which covers about 40,000 sq metres, and is scheduled for completion in July.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/4915122.stm

Burning question of the day: do they have pigeons in Lhasa?

[Gottwald]

Mao Zedong ordered the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950.

Tibet has been Chinese territory for hundreds of years. Chairman Mao did not "take over" Tibet. For 700 years, there was not and never will be an separate Tibetan state. Tibet is not entitled to anything above autonomous status within the People's Republic of China.

[bcbm]

Tibet is not entitled to anything above autonomous status within the People's Republic of China.

Even if the Tibetans themselves want it?

[321zero]

Marxism and the National Question - Stalin

A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.

Check on all counts. If China is capitalist, then the Chinese presence in Tibet should be opposed.

Personally I say fuck the CIA\Tibet counter-revolutionaries

[321zero]

Tibet has been Chinese territory for the past 600 or so years.

On these grounds you could make an argument to legitimise the British in Ireland.

[Janus]

i mean I agree that the china has no right to be killing people and settling their own citizens there (kind of like Israel actuallyt

Not exactly. The state of Israel was artificially created while Tibet has actually been part of China since the Yuan dynasty. Furthermore, the government isn't settling people there, Han Chinese are moving there for economic benefits and such.

Now, the Chinese reclamation of Tibet was in no means truly right but you also have to analyze how "great" Tibet was doing by itself. Basically, the "benevolent" Dalai Lama and the lamas and aristocrats were the rulers of Tibet and lived off of the toil of the peasants. When land reform was later implemented, there was a revolt which spread to Lhasa by 1959.

Self-determination? Sure, but I think that with the Dalai Lama around, Tibet would just return back to pre-1950 times.

An amusing footnote...

I think that more concern should be placed over the hosting of the World Buddhist Forum by China.

Anyways, I found one quote somewhat strange from that article:

"Many Tibetan people suggested we should have a statue of Chairman Mao to show our gratitude," a local Communist Party official.

I wonder whether they're true Tibetans or Han people.

Anyways, that article like most BBC articles is wrong. It listed the wrong hometown of Mao.

[Gottwald]

Originally posted by 321zero@Apr 17 2006, 10:40 PM

On these grounds you could make an argument to legitimise the British in Ireland.

Well, Ireland would not be out of place in the UK given that the Celtic Scottish and Welsh are part of the UK.

But then again, at the moment you cannot legitimise such a claim because Ireland has been an internationally-recognised independent country for some 80 years.

[LSD]

I think he was talking about the six counties of Northern Ireland, not the presently constituted Republic of Ireland.

And it does indeed pose a fascinating questions for those on the "old left" who find themselves supporting imperialism in the name of "culture" or "history".

After all, Ulster has been a province of Great Britain for nearly as long as Tibet has been a province of China, and has actually been far more culturally and politically integrated than Tibet ever was.

Yes, Tibet has been a subject of the Chinese Empire for most of the past thousand years, but you need to understand that the same is true for most of East Asia. The Chinese Empire, after all, was absolutely dominant for over two millenia.

A history of expansionism, however, is not the same thing as legitimacy. And despite the PRC's insistance that it has some "right" to former Chinese territory, the standard for judging an occupation is more rigurous that merely checking old maps.

Tibet is culturally, ethnically, linguistically, politically, historically, and socially distinct from China and as such has a more than reasonable claim of a national identity.

The former theocracy of the Dalai Llama and his ministers was a feudalistic disgrace and I certainly have no sympathy for his "plight" or that of any other "displaced" aristocrat; but denying the existance of a Tibetan nation on the basis of the primitivity of its former government is like pretending that Italy doesn't exist because you don't like Mussilini.

Now, Tibet has become something of a cause celebre due to both its "romantic" character and the political maneuverings of the US and her allies. And while obviously the fantastical stories of Chinese "genocide" are exagerated and the apologism for the Llama regime is despicable, none of the "press" surrounding this issue is actually relevent to the central question.

And that is, do the Tibetan people have a right to self-determination?

I honestly fail to see how anyone could answer no to that question.

[TC]

do the Tibetan people have a right to self-determination?

Sure...but i very much doubt that if a referendum on Tibet's indepedence where held today, there is no way that Tibet's population (of all ethnic groups, and not counting the Tibetian junta exiles in India) would support seperation from the rest of China, and certaintly not the return of the Lama's theocratic slave-state despotism.


The democratic, elected government of Tibetan peasents, the Tibet Autonomous Region, which benefits from money being poured in from coastal china in the China Western Development project for education, health care, and infrastructure development that Tibet never had before the revolution, has never asked for seperation from the rest of China, and would not do so as it is not in their best interests.

The only people calling for an "independent tibet" are the unelected Tibetan theocratic royality exiles who exploited the Tibetan people in a military ruled feudel state among the most repressive in the world. They don't speak for Tibetan people only for themselves, just as every group of privileged exiles has turned to the United States to help them return to power.


Before the revolution more than half of Tibet's population were personally owned slaves of Lamas, the rest were under the autocratic rule of the Tibetan aristocracy. The Tibetan exiles are a self interested group that are trying to rob the Tibetan people of their right to self determination; they already exercised that right in deciding they didn't want to be slaves anymore, thats why the peasents sided with the Communists and the Tibetan Red Guard kicked out the monks.

[LSD]

Sure...but i very much doubt that if a referendum on Tibet's indepedence where held today, there is no way that Tibet's population (of all ethnic groups, and not counting the Tibetian junta exiles in India) would support seperation from the rest of China

Well, the latest census data states that 70% of the Tibet population is ethnic Tibetan so, while your probably right in your implication that most Han Chinese would oppose independence, I don't think that would be a serious obstacle in a fair plebiscite.

Not to mention that a good number of non-native Tibetans are concentrated in areas that are not really historically Tibetan and so especially if a more reasonable border was chosen than that demanded by the Dalai Llama and the government in exile, it is unlikely that ethnicity would be an "issue".

and certaintly not the return of the Lama's theocratic slave-state despotism.

Well, of course not.

Again, there is a difference between supporting the right of the people of Tibet to formulate an independent nation and supporting the Dalai Llama in his quest to reclaim his kingdom.

The democratic, elected government of Tibetan peasents, the Tibet Autonomous Region

The PRC is many things, but "democratic" is not one of them. Lately, it's not even socialist.

Tibet should be organized as an independent and sovereign state under the control of its own local peoples. If, afterwords, it choses to enter into a relationship with the China, that will be the will of its people.

But to imagine that a Chinese "autonumous district" is actually "autonomous" is simply naive.

[The government of Chinese Tibet] has never asked for seperation

Neither has the government of Northern Ireland.

[VermontLeft]

yeah, i guess i agree with LSD (again ). Tibet should be able to get out of china, but the Lamas shouldnt be allowed to take over again.

its kind of like Napolean, you know? all those countries that he invaded got rid of their local aristocrats cause he killed them and replaced them with fake republics. but once he got kicked out a lot of them kept the republic part and got rid of the fake part.

I think that tibet can do the same thing.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by LSD@Apr 18 2006, 02:25 AM
I think he was talking about the six counties of Northern Ireland, not the presently constituted Republic of Ireland.

And it does indeed pose a fascinating questions for those on the "old left" who find themselves supporting imperialism in the name of "culture" or "history".

After all, Ulster has been a province of Great Britain for nearly as long as Tibet has been a province of China, and has actually been far more culturally and politically integrated than Tibet ever was.

Ulster is not part of the UK state.

[TC]

Well, the latest census data states that 70% of the Tibet population is ethnic Tibetan so, while your probably right in your implication that most Han Chinese would oppose independence, I don't think that would be a serious obstacle in a fair plebiscite.

You would need more than 2/3rds of the ethnic Tibetan population to vote for seperation though, and theres absolutely no way that would happen. I mean, first of all, of the entire ethnic Tibtan population both within and outside of the TAR, .7 million were slaves and only .5 million were non-slave subjects (with no rights) of the Lamas, just a few decades ago. Do you really think the former slaves and children of slaves would really vote for a seperate Tibet?

The Tibetan peasents had one of the most radicalized, hard-leftwing Communist movements of all of China's people percisely because they suffered more under the former government than most Chinese, the Tibetan Communists were the ones who aggressively attacked Tibetan-Theocratic institutions, not the Han Communists who were comparatively tolerant of the Lamas.

Not to mention that a good number of non-native Tibetans are concentrated in areas that are not really historically Tibetan and so especially if a more reasonable border was chosen than that demanded by the Dalai Llama and the government in exile, it is unlikely that ethnicity would be an "issue".

So you're advocating gerrymandering along ethnic lines like the Kadima Party in Israel then?

Again, there is a difference between supporting the right of the people of Tibet to formulate an independent nation and supporting the Dalai Llama in his quest to reclaim his kingdom.

The vast majority of the Tibetan people in Tibet do not want to formulate an indepedent nation, they want to remain part of China as they've been for centuries. Simply because the Tibetan exiles have declared Tibet to be a seperate nation does not mean that this has any currency on the ground with the people of Tibet.

The PRC is many things, but "democratic" is not one of them. Lately, it's not even socialist.

The PRC is socialist in Tibet. Its not socialist everywhere but its socialist in Tibet, the Tibetan Communist Party is to the left of the national government.

And any electoral government of free citizens, even one under a capitalist system, is far more democratic than the Tibetan slave-state.

But to imagine that a Chinese "autonumous district" is actually "autonomous" is simply naive.

No, actually they really are highly autonomous, your ignorance of the chinese legal and political system shouldn't lead you to make such an assumption. The autonomous regions make their own laws, regulate their own economies, set their own taxes and determine the content of their own educational system, their own artistic and cultural funding, maintain an indepedent police force controlled locally, and additionally the Tibetan Autonomous Region stipulates that only Tibetans can hold the top political offices (which is racist), and despite this they recieve huge amounts of funding and subsidize from the central government (even though the central government doesn't get to choose how its spent).

Really they have a very good deal.

Neither has the government of Northern Ireland

You think the Tibetans deserve the right to self-determination and whether or not they want to be part of China but the Ulster-Scots don't deserve self determination and the right to decide whether or not they want to be part of the Republic of Ireland????

My feeling is that they both need to have self determination and it happens that in both cases the majority want to preserve the status quo.

[Severian]

Originally posted by TragicClown@Apr 17 2006, 10:49 PM

Well, the latest census data states that 70% of the Tibet population is ethnic Tibetan so, while your probably right in your implication that most Han Chinese would oppose independence, I don't think that would be a serious obstacle in a fair plebiscite.

You would need more than 2/3rds of the ethnic Tibetan population to vote for seperation though, and theres absolutely no way that would happen.

As a general rule: plebescites on self-determination should be only for the oppressed nationality. The state of the dominant nationality shouldn't be allowed to pack them by encouraging settlement. That applies a lot of places besides Tibet, from Western Sahara to New Caledonia.

More generally on Tibet:
Free Tibet?

This board's biggest thread on Tibet so far