Some Things Never Change-SOme Things Never Should

Here's a good one. According to some Buddhist monks who decided to crash a press conference in Lhasa, Tibet, all is not as well as the occupying Chinese would want the world to believe. In fact, if you read or saw a recent interview with a Buddhist monk claiming that all was well and good in Tibet between the Tibetans and the Chinese, chances are what you were reading/watching/listening to was, in actuality, a Chinese fake, an agent just pretending to be a Buddhist monk.

China needs to get the fuck out of Tibet and, for that matter, so does everybody else. Tibet is best served by allowing them to remain as they will always be anyway-a window to the past. They are not cut out for either Chinese style communism or for Western style Democracy or capitalism. They do not have the resources that would make them a vital part of any world economy, and are better off as insulated as possible. The Chinese interests in Tibet is mainly strategic, couple with a sense of national pride at the prospect of being the major Asian military and, potentially, economic power. They want hegemony over all of Asia, including little neighboring Tibet.

To this end, they have arranged for the Olympic torch to be carried through Tibet, presumably through the streets of Lhasa. In the meantime, they accuse the Dalai lama of inciting violence in the course of the recent protests.

The Dalai lama denies this. Ironically enough, he claims that most of the beleaguered monks of Tibet are probably communists themselves. He expresses no desire for the Chinese to leave the region. He wants simple autonomy. The idea that he is a threat to the Chinese is as laughable as the idea among westerners that he is some beacon of hope. He is neither.

The major villains here are quite simply the western powers, those nations who have kowtowed to China for the last thirty years, beginning with the shameful removal from the UN General Assembly of the delegation from Taiwan, at China's insistence. Rarely since that time have the Chinese been faced with more than token criticism or opposition.

The UN Olympic Committee should never have awarded the Chinese the honor of hosting the Olympics. Nevertheless, this is far from a surprise. The UN Olympic Committee are hardly bastions of freedom and human rights. Neither are the Western nations, when you get right down to it.

China will never be anything other than what it ever was, a country ruled by a brutal and totalitarian regime, by whatever stripe it portrays itself. One billion, three hundred million people is a lot of mouths to feed, and requires strict control over the means of production, especially agrarian production. China will always be an agrarian based culture and economy. They have no other option with such a large population. Any technological advances will be limited, as will increases in affluence. There will indeed be a growing but limited middle class. However, you will never see a large movement away from the farm to the cities and factory jobs in China like you saw here sixty to eighty years ago. The controls needed to feed and sustain them preclude such mass migrations, and precludes as well the likelihood of any large scale social or political advancements.

Therefore, any ideas that China will advance politically is a big pipe dream. They are what they are, and that's the way they will stay, whether their economy is capitalist or communist or some vague fusion of the two. We should understand this, but not reward it, particularly when they cross the line as they have done in Tibet.

As for Tibet, again, they should be left alone. I have an idea that if you gave your average Tibetan the means and opportunity to change things for the better, the most he would do is migrate to another country. Over some extended period of time, he would either return, or he would stay and (a) stay mired in his Tibetan culture, or (b) adopt the culture of his new adopted homeland. If he stayed here, he would in time conceivably marry and then have children, who would take a good long look at him and follow the completely opposite route. If his father was Americanized, he would eventually develop a deep longing for the ancient culture of his heritage. If his father stayed true to that culture, however, he wouldn't be able to get away from it or him quickly enough.

In any event, whatever changes our speculative Tibetan immigrant family went through, one thing would never change in a million years-Tibet. I've heard people explain they need to merely be educated. Well, the Chinese are trying that, it seems, in fact they do this through what is called "reeducation camps". The Western version is no different in overall intent, it just has more of a smiley face, touchy-feely vibe.

Why does anyone care enough to try to change them? Who are they hurting? What if they don't want input, from us or anybody else? What if they listened politely, and told us they aren't interested? Would that be good enough? Somehow I doubt it.

I am consistent in my views regarding Tibet. I am just as opposed to the prospect of Capitalists running roughshod over the country trying to coerce the people into Western style Democracy as I am opposed to the Communists doing what amounts in the long run to pretty much the exact same damn thing.

For any country or politician to insist that it matters what political system a geopolitically insignificant country like Tibet has is nothing but grandstanding at best. It matters to no one but them, so they should be left alone. For that matter, so should everybody else.
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