open Democracy News Analysis - How to think about Tibet, Donald S Lopez Jr - Comments

newwebid@yahoo.com on "How to think about Tibet"

newwebid@yahoo.com — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:52:54 +0100

Lopez may think of himself as the true guardian of the Tibetan culture in its most pristine form. However, a culture--and the knowledge of the culture--is the product of socio-economic development of the time, not some abstract conception in an expert's head.

The problem with Lopez's argument is that he somehow imagines that Tibetan culture is so inherently enduring and immutable that it can outlast the evolution of the Chinese nation through revolutions, industrialization and globalization.

There are many questions with regard to what the Tibetans are destined in the age of, first nation-state then globalization, vis-a-vis what the Han Chinese (as who I am) have done to alter that destination. There are even more questions as to whether Han Chinese are capable of, or entitled to, governing a people that don't share their East Asian heritage (hence the Tibetan culture is labeled a "world heritage").

The different answers to those questions form different narratives of what is going on in China, and the West's image of its past and present in light of what is going on in China. There is always the desire to consolidate different narratives and to create a brand of knowledge, or better yet, the truth (about Tibet). The domination project is not completed until discipline is so instill that even the Han Chinese feel uneasy of having "occupied" Tibet. To me, the debate about Tibet is not as much about Tibet as about China, because Tibet may never challenge the Western but China does.

Edward Said says in his Orientalism that every Orientalist is, consciously or not, a racist. So I think of Lopez.

For a more detailed critique of the West's attitude toward Tibet, please visit my recent blog entry.

xinliang_hu on "How to think about Tibet"

xinliang_hu — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:13:00 +0100

I have to say that how foolish the writer is. What he is not clear is that China is not Soviet Union, and Tibet is not Latvia. The complicated connection can not be represented in just this passage. The writer completely ignores the history of China and Tibet. And he also completely ignores the important status of Buddhism in this history.
The problem of Tibet has reached the deadline of China. As Chinese and a Buddhism, I unhesitatingly fight against any kinds of actions which will lead to Tibetan independence.
What the writer should remember is that Tibet is also not Kosovo, and China is also not Iraq. Although it meets the tribulation of several problems such as democratic reform and so on, China and it people will not allow their country be divided just like Soviet Union.

solomon fitzherbert on "How to think about Tibet"

solomon fitzherbert — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:26:42 +0100

Mr Secor,
Mongols did not cease to exist after the fall of the Yuan Dynasty! Indeed various Mongol groups continued have considerable political power in central Asia and Tibet.

Gushri Khan (1582-1655) was a Qoshot Mongol chief from Dzungaria (modern Xinjiang Province). Pressed by Kalmyks in the west, he settled with his armies in the Kokonor Region of Amdo/Qinghai. He then became, as Professor Lopez says, the patron of the Fifth Dalai Lama and together they extended Gelugpa control over much of the Tibetan-speaking world.
It was not until the 1720's that the Qing were able to wrest influence over Tibet from the Dzungars and took over as patrons of the Dalai Lama lineage.

Perhaps its time you returned to the Old World and learnt a bit about historical nuance.

Peteris Cedrins on "How to think about Tibet"

Peteris Cedrins — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:23:21 +0100

There are some similarities and considerable differences.

Not to quibble, but the author's dates are off -- Latvia came under Russian control in the 18th C, not the 19th. Even so, it was dominated by the Baltic Germans, even within the Russian Empire -- the Treaty of Nystad confirmed "the Capitulations" so-called, enshrining the privileges of the Baltic German nobility.

Latvian nationalism dates to the 1850s and wasn't explicitly political at first. The earliest nationalists actually looked to Russia against the German landowners -- Andrejs Pumpurs, who wrote what's considered the national epic, wrote a poem called "East and West," for example -- I give a crude translation here: "Fire and Night II". "The East freed nations to attain the land of the sun. They were granted the right to self-rule. The West awaited them bearing chains in its hands, locking them into slavery and introducing serfdom..."

The First Awakening (the initial national movement) petered out with social change -- the growth of an indigenous bourgeoisie, a huge underclass of the landless, the advent of Marxism, and coercive Russification -- by the 1890s. The modern nation was nonetheless born. 1905 brought a bloody revolution, including the burning of hundreds of German manors. Demands for autonomy were actually few -- and they were explicitly restricted to autonomy, not sovereignty, until 1918. The Riflemen fought for "a free Latvia in a free Russia" in World War One. Many became Bolsheviks. Others formed the core of the national army. The War of Independence ended in 1920 (not 1921).

There is indeed a long history and an ancient culture -- but it is a history in which Latvians were mostly oppressed peasants, not principal actors. In a sense, it begins with the German conquest in the 1200s. The romanticization of the the tribal prehistory was part of the national revival -- not an unusual mythology. By contrast, Tibet has a lengthy written history and literary tradition.

Essentially, the trouble with Professor Lopez's contention that "Latvia came under Russian control during the 19th century," besides the dating, is that there was no Latvia as such. There were Latvians, but there was no Latvian consciousness. Even the word "Latvia" ("Latvija") first appeared in the 19th C. In this context it is interesting to read Professor Fitzherbert's piece on the evolution of Tibetan nationalism.

Though Edward Lucas has also drawn parallels between the Baltics and Tibet of late, the parallels to the occupation and the restoration of independence in 1991 would actually be rather weak; Tibet's independence was never internationally recognized, and Latvia's was. Latvia was a member of the League of Nations, and most Western countries never recognized our country's forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union. Tibet was never a member of the international system in a modern sense.

The primary affinity, though, definitely exists -- sympathy for small nations with unique cultures and languages struggling against humongous Red or post-Red empires. The Dalai Lama himself noted parallels (and remarked upon the large number of Russians in Latvia, comparing them to the Han in Tibet). Juris Sinka, the founder of the Tibet support group in the Saeima, Latvia's Parliament, died in Lhasa.

I brought up Tibet vis-à-vis Latvia in this context at my blog not long ago. At Latvians Online, there's a debate about parallels and/or the lack of them. It's very interesting to read what openDemocracy has been publishing on this subject, and I'm delighted that Professor Lopez brought up the connection.

James Secor on "How to think about Tibet"

James Secor — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:12:22 +0100

1642 is near the end of the Ming Dynasty. The Mongols ruled during the Yuan Dynasty, 1271-1368 (though the Southern Song did not end until 1279). Marco Polo was long since dead by 1642, as were the great Khans. 1642 is around the time Shi Ke Fa died fighting the invading Manchurians, who became the Qing Dynasty emperors, and around the time my ancestors left Toulouse, France for the New World and religious freedom. These kinds of historical facts are important to discussions of this kind and getting the dates wrong creates credibility problems, maybe.

Kanishk Tharoor on "How to think about Tibet"

Kanishk Tharoor — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:09:01 +0000

but surely the USSR's proliferation of often ethnically and linguistically distinct republics does not correspond to China's two major "autonomous" regions - Tibet and Xinjiang? Surely, the latter are much more trapped in Beijing's orbit and entrenched in China's sense of its geography (and cartography)?

How to think about Tibet, Donald S Lopez Jr

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:02:32 +0100

Think about Tibet as Latvia, with very tall mountains. Latvia was once the westernmost Soviet republic, although it had little in common with Russia. The language, the religion, the literature, the food, the society were all quite different. Latvia had been oriented to the west and to Europe over much of its long history. Yet Latvia came under Russian control during the 19th century. After the Russian revolution of 1917, it gained independence in 1921, only to fall to Stalin in 1940. After fifty years of Soviet domination, the Soviet Union collapsed and Latvia regained its independence in 1991.

Donald S Lopez Jr is professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. Among his books are Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West (University of Chicago Press, 1998), (as editor) Buddhist Scriptures (Penguin, 2004), and The Madman's Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chopel (University of Chicago Press, 2005)

Most Tibetans have never heard of Latvia. But the parallels are striking. Today, the "Tibet Autonomous Region" (TAR) is the southwestern province of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC); the Chinese word for Tibet is Xizang, "western treasury." Although linguists today speak of "Sino-Tibetan" linguistics, the relation of Chinese to Tibetan is tenuous. Tibet received its Buddhism from India long after the establishment of Buddhism in China; indeed, beginning in the 8th century, Tibet looked to India rather than China for its literary and religious culture, even modelling its alphabet on an Indian script. Tibetans eat roasted barley moistened with the infamous "yak butter tea", something the Chinese palette finds unappetising. Yet, during the 18th century, much of Tibet's foreign affairs were overseen by the Chinese court. With the fall of the Qing, Tibet became an independent state, a status it maintained from 1913-51. Since 1951, Tibet has been part of the Peoples Republic of China. What is today called the "Tibet Autonomous Region" (TAR) represents only a portion of the Tibetan cultural domain. The remaining areas were incorporated into Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces of the PRC.

On 10 March 1959, a rumour circulated in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa that the Chinese troops occupying the city intended to do harm to the Dalai Lama. A large mob gathered and surrounded his summer palace in order to prevent the Chinese from coming in or the Dalai Lama from going out. On 17 March, the Chinese shelled the palace; the Dalai Lama escaped that night, disguised as a Tibetan soldier, and made his way to exile in India. He has not returned.

A potent anniversary

10 March is celebrated as "Tibetan national uprising day" by the Tibetan exile community and supporters of the Tibetan cause around the world. It is not publicly observed in Tibet. However, on 10 March 2008, about one hundred monks from Drepung monastery (prior to the Chinese invasion the largest monastery in the world, with over 10,000 monks) began walking the five miles into Lhasa to protest the detention of monks after the Dalai Lama received the Congressional gold medal in the United States in October 2007. They were stopped by Chinese security forces, and some of the monks were beaten. Monks have always been accorded respect in Tibetan society; since the Chinese takeover of Tibet, to be a monk is to be a patriot, the red robes and shaved head marking a certain defiance of the avowedly atheist Chinese state. Tibetan lay people are protective of Tibetan monks; it was when Chinese cadres tried to collective the lands of Buddhist monasteries in eastern Tibet in 1950 that the first bloodshed occurred between Chinese communists and Tibetans. The People's Liberation Army followed soon thereafter.

Also in openDemocracy on Tibet:

Ugen, "Tibet's postal protest" (4 November 2005)

Jamyang Norbu, "Tibetan tales: old myths, new realities" (13 June 2005)

openDemocracy / Tenzin Tzundue, "Tibet vs China: a human-rights showdown" (15 August 2006)

Gabriel Lafitte, "Tibet: revolt with memories" (18 March 2008)

Jeffrey N Wasserstrom, "The perils of forced modernity: China-Tibet, America-Iraq" (27 March 2008)

10 March 2009 will be the fiftieth anniversary of the uprising. But the monks of Drepung knew that 10 March 2008 would be the last 10 March before the Beijing Olympics. They dared to use the occasion to draw attention to the plight of Tibet, where since 2006 a high-altitude railroad has brought thousands of Chinese workers and Chinese tourists into Lhasa, where in 2007 the Chinese government declared that henceforth it would approve the recognition of all incarnate lamas (which would include the Dalai Lama). The monks knew what was at stake. Monks and nuns had been on the frontlines of riots in 1987 and 1989, which resulted in arrest, torture, and long prison sentences for hundreds. Among the Chinese security forces deployed in response were cameramen, capturing the faces of all those who marched in protest for future use (see Gabriel Lafitte, "Tibet: revolt with memories" [18 March 2008]).

A wheel turns

And so Tibet has erupted in violence. News reports have announced, "Tibetan protests spread to Chinese provinces". But to Tibetans, the regions of Sichuan and Gansu and Qinghai where protests, and violence, have occurred are not Chinese provinces; they are Tibetan. Chinese policies in those areas have generally been more liberal than in the Tibet Autonomous Region, making the rapid spread of the protests beyond the TAR all the more significant, indicating the level of frustration that has seethed for ethnic Tibetans across a vast region that was once called "Tibet".

Tibet has a violent history. Tibetan soldiers defeated the armies of the Chinese emperor and captured his capital in 763. The fifth Dalai Lama took the throne of Tibet in 1642 with the assistance of Mongol troops. When the current Dalai Lama instructed the Tibetan guerrillas who had long hounded the Chinese to give up the fight, some committed suicide. This Dalai Lama has urged Tibetans not to resort to violence against the Chinese, explaining that a deer cannot fight a tiger. He knows the suffering that has resulted from resistance in the past (see Tubten Khétsun, Memories of Life in Lhasa Under Chinese Rule [Columbia University Press, 2008]).

Is there anything to do but wait? Latvia regained its independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It would seem that Tibet could only regain its independence with the collapse of the Peoples Republic of China. In Buddhism, time is measured not in centuries, but in cycles of creation, abiding, destruction, and vacuity, then creation again.

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