Friday, March 28, 2008

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.
yuzp3z

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good posts today.

Anonymous said...

"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."

Thats an interesting remark. Certainly it would come as a large surprise to anyone whose actually followed China's recent economic development since the beginning of the so-called "Four Modernizations". In fact, rural peasants have overwhelmingly flooded urban centers, exacerbating already stagnant wages and raising high unemployment numbers.

"Tibet is best served by allowing them to remain as they will always be anyway-a window to the past. "

This too, is an interesting statement. Its also not unlike statements by pie-in-the-sky Christian conservatives of Europe, most notably G.K. Chesterson and Hilaire Belloc, who envisioned some sort of fuedal middle-age's paradise, where serf, lord, and bishop lived side by side in peace and harmony. This, of course, is bullshit, just like much of the ridiculous Western accounts of "the never changing Orient" and the so-called "passive masses of Chinamen".

The reality of Tibet's Buddhist rulers, whom were established by Altan Khan, one of the leaders of the then fractured Mongol tribes, is no Shangri-La. In fact, like the Pope's of the middle-ages as well, the Dalai Lama came to be both a pawn and a kingmaker in his own way, balancing various powers within and out of Tibet, and sometimes being merely pushed out the way. The idea that the Dalai Lama of today, is some sort of aberration from a line of guys with a funny yellow hat sitting in as austere monastery is ridiculous. Lama's have always, just like every other spiritual leader in this world, been intensely involved in politics and power; your attempt to paint Tibet as some sort of Buddhist retreat on steroids is ridiculous.

This isn't to suggest China's track record is right, but it is to dispel the notion that somehow modernity simply knocked on Tibet's door some 50 odd years ago and the beasts have been pouring in ever since. Tibet has never been isolated, either politically or otherwise, ever, in its history.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Sean-

You might have somewhat of a point, in that I might have underestimated somewhat the capacity for Chinese industrialization and movement to the cities. The main point, however, was that China will remain largely agrarian, due to it's population needs.

You even pointed out how the movement to the cities has already started a large scale problem, one that wasn't the experience in America, at least not to that extent, when we entered our own initial industrial phase.

True, advances in agriculture methods might enable a larger transfer from the farms than most might expect, and it is also true that China has a policy of negative population growth which if continued unabated will actually amount to a decreased population.

Still, it is probably going to remain a basically agricultural country. That's just my opinion, of course.

This is not to say they cannot also have impressive industrial growth, by the way, just that it will basically remain for the most part agricultural. You seem to take this as some kind of insult. Every country needs some degree of agriculture, unless we evolve to the point we can live off mold and moss. It's just that China has a hell of a lot of more mouths to feed.

As for Tibet, where did you get the idea I was saying Tibet was ever any kind of Shangri-La? I wasn't saying that, or that Tibet was ever any kind of paradise, religious or otherwise. I would be quite surprised to find they weren't superstitious and clannish to a degree, and quite backwards in a lot of ways. But, so what?

They have, nevertheless, retained the same basic cultural heritage, with little change or innovations that I am aware of, throughout the centuries, up until their annexation by China in the nineteen fifties.

I also never said anything about all the different classes in Tibet living together in some kind of mythical peace and harmony. I was just pointing out that whatever system they had is really none of ours, China's, or anybody else's business. I know nothing of them ever instituting any aggression against any neighboring peoples or cultures, aside from the influence of any individual Dalai Lama, which is probably generally minimal in the grand scheme of things. My point is quite simply that they should be left alone.

I stick to what I said. Of course, I understand what you are saying about the early European writers. That was actually in part what I referred to when I pointed out how many claimed the Tibetans never knew any other way, and were thus "ignorant" and need to be educated. The people who say that today are merely repeating the bogus claims of those earlier European observers, but at the same time criticize them for it. What is the difference? Who decides what is best for the people of Tibet? What if the Tibetans like and want to retain their own cultural heritage? What if they listen to what we all have to say and then tell us all to take a fucking hike.

I have this strange idea that all the people that want to change Tibet, if they had their opportunity to do so, would not improve the lives of the average Tibetan by one iota. By and large, they are better off without ours or China's input. Any attempt to portray outside interference or domination of Tibet as an attempt to better the lives of the average Tibetan is disingenuous bullshit at best.

Anonymous said...


They have, nevertheless, retained the same basic cultural heritage, with little change or innovations that I am aware of, throughout the centuries, up until their annexation by China in the nineteen fifties.


Again, wrong. Buddhist schools have changed and morphed with the ebb and tide of various Lama's and their respective political backers. So too has the culture of the country, influenced as it has been by being at the crossroads of China and India. I'm not even quite sure what "basic cultural heritage" you're referring to, other than maybe the fact that it has been overwhelmingly Buddhist for about 5 centuries.

But this is all besides the point. Your fundamental premise is wrong. Tibet has NEVER been untouched, and no matter how much you claim that "you don't know any different", the reality is, it IS different. Tibet, like any other area in the world, has had a dynamic and convoluted history. It once was a seat of a powerful empire, that broke apart and was absorbed into other, larger empires. It became, at some point, the spiritual home of what was left of the Mongolian Empire, and in time became an independent, uniform political entity. It was at times aligned with, and against, the various factions that raged across what is now modern China. The Dalai Lama has been installed by Mongolian Emperors and Nationalist Chinese, negotiated treaties with colonialists and communists. In essence, it has played and will continue to play an important role in the world around it.

This is not a mountain tribe in the hinterlands of the Amazon, spurning civilization and hiding from the world. It always has, and will continue to, wrestle with the changing winds of the world. But this idea you promote, of this Tibet that just wants to run and hide, is not only ahistorical, its a caricature of a culture that has always been at a crossroads.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Sean-

I wasn't aware of its status as, as you say, "spiritual home of what was left of the Mongolian Empire", or-

"The Dalai Lama has been installed by Mongolian Emperors and Nationalist Chinese, negotiated treaties with colonialists and communists".

That's all very interesting.

In my defense, I never claimed they wanted to "run and hide", though I can see where you might have come to that conclusion.

Even the Dalai Lama, as I pointed out, has stated he is merely for autonomy. In other words, he is not pressing for full independence, if I understand correctly.

He has also stated the majority of Buddhist monks are probably communist in their political ideology (which also came as a great surprise to me, to tell you the truth).

My main point is they should be a completely free and sovereign nation, free of outside coercion or interference-not that they should completely withdraw from the world (unless of course that's what they want).

It's not so much that I want them to stay some kind of feudal backwater with no progress. They should simply have the prerogative to run their own country as they see fit. If they did, I doubt they would change much. I don't see that as necessarily such a bad thing.

By basic cultural heritage, yes, I was referring in part to their centuries as a Buddhist nation-which it also surprised me to learn this just goes back no more than five centuries (are you sure about this?)-but also their overall customs I perhaps wrongly assumed are far more ancient than perhaps they really are.

I doubt this, however. There are certainly cultural aspects to the Chinese, Japanese, Indians, etc., that go back thousands of years.

It would be highly unusual, to say the least, if Tibet didn't have their own customs that were of at least as long duration as what is to be observed within these other cultures.

After all, even nations, or states, that have a history of consistent interaction with other nations and cultures, tend to have their own unique customs that go back some time.

At any rate, it really makes not that much difference how long or how far back their culture extends. However it came about, or however it progressed, they should be free to retain it or do whatever else they want, with no interference from China (or from anybody else).

The Chinese certainly shouldn't have the prerogative to run roughshod over the country, transporting it's own citizens there to fill government posts and other high paying positions while the average Tibetan citizen gets a meager at best sustenance level income. If anything would hold back their development, that will.

Of course, from what I have been made to understand, the average Chinese believes the average Tibetan bathes only on his wedding night, so it would appear they have a lot more to learn even than I do.

Anonymous said...

Buddhist nation-which it also surprised me to learn this just goes back no more than five centuries (are you sure about this?

It's reach goes further than that (back to the 700's and 800's) but the fusion we see today, and the form of political and social norms, are mostly evolved from the installation of the third Dalai Lama (whom was really the first, but they included two others before him, retrospectively), who was acknowledged in in the late 1500's by Altan Khan, then ruler of what was left of the Mongolian empire ruled by Kublai Khan. It would be Khan, alongside the the Dalai Lama, who would then propogate Buddhism in Monogolia, and fusing, politically, with what was left of the dying empire. He would actually appoint the fourth Dalai Lama, which would cause all sorts of fractures etc etc.

The point of me harping on the history is to make the argument that, for the most part, its hard to ascertain where the borders lie, and what, exactly is the Tibetan state. Some of the lands that were once part of the Tibet kingdom were lost in wars and antagonisms, mostly between themselves and other Buddhist kingdoms (notably Bhutan, and one time Buddhist kingdoms that are now absorbed into India). Not unlike Africa, where national lines bear little to no relation to reality, its hard to say how much influence is wielded in all parts of what some argue is Tibet.

And so this is the problem when people talk about Tibet as a nation state; and in fact, when anyone talks about secessionist movements. Who, exactly, is being represented? And who has claim to being an "Authentic Tibetan?" I guess we could exclude the Han Chinese. But what of Buddhist traditions not affiliated with the Lama? What of the Bon, the animist religion that existed before the rise of Buddhism? What about Western-oriented people? These are the kinds of questions that tend to get missed in the often hell-bent determination for answering the "national question". And its something I'm sure most people will have to deal with in any possibly brokered autonomy or independence.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Sean-

Thank you for your input. I guess I always assumed, wrongly so, that Tibet has always been a relatively isolated country, aside from the influence of the Dalai Lama through the centuries. I always tended to see him pretty much as the ancient Greeks saw the Delphic Oracle, to an extent. They knew of his existence, and sought his counsel, but otherwise he lived in his own little world, which was pretty much left alone.

Yeah, I know that sounds naive as hell. At the same time, however, I will at least allow myself one minor pat on the back. I never believed for one minute it was a Shangri-La paradise type of place I fear a good many others see it as having been before the Chinese incursion.

I also use to believe the Dalai went back at least a thousand years further than what you say. I think I derived this false assumption honestly, however-something to do with some allegedly ancient fingertip fossils at a Tibetan monastery led me to believe this. I took all this for granted, and never delved into the subject until this recent controversy reared it's head.

Thanks for the information. It's going to be interesting seeing how all this plays out.