[size=5][center][b]西藏问题之我见 [/b][/center][/size][center]华宏勋[/center]
最近发生的西藏动乱从情理上分析，我认为非常可能是藏独分子蓄意制造的。理由是今年要开奥运会。中国当局绝不会自己挑动事端。而藏独分子在现在闹事却是大好时机。而且事端闹得越大对他们越有利。而在动乱中受伤害的可能都是汉族人。

西藏是中国的领土。西藏对中国的安全极其重要。如果没有西藏，中国的腹地四川就成为边疆。而且如果西藏独立一旦成为事实，接下来的就是西藏成为印度的一部分。因此从中国的国家利益来看，中国绝对不能允许西藏独立。

达赖等人一直在宣传要保卫西藏的文化。而且说他们要保卫西藏人民的人权。我们都知道在达赖统治西藏的时候，西藏人民过的是什么日子。那时的西藏是农奴社会。人民是奴隶。他们有人权吗？西藏的宗教是非常野蛮的。西藏人劳累了一年自己留下的很少，而把大部分的劳动所得送给了神庙、他们从家乡去拉萨走一步跪拜一次。这样的信仰使他们不能够把主要的精力从事生产，生活又如何能够迅速改善？这样的宗教，这样的文化说实在是要不得的。中国的其他地区为帮助西藏的发展做出了很多努力。西藏除了对中国的安全有贡献，而在其他方面藏族人民对中国的经济发展贡献几乎是零。在这方面中国的藏族人的地位与美国的印第安人有一点相似。可以想象美国是绝对不可能允许印第安人搞独立的。所以用这个道理中国完全有理由坚决反对西藏独立。中国有理由大规模向西藏移民，有理由改革西藏的宗教使政教分离。对落后的文化就是要推陈出新。这样做完全符合西藏人民的利益。世界人民也会理解和支持的。

[size=5][center][b]王力雄：“我赞同达赖喇嘛的中间路线”[/b][/center][/size][center]德国之声[/center]
连日来，德国的各类媒体到处可以看到西藏的画面。不过，情绪多于事实，西藏到底面临怎样的问题以及这些问题产生的根源并没有多少人知道。德国之声中文网电话访问了中国知名自由作家、“天葬”一书的作者王力雄。王力雄认为，中国多年治理西藏的政策不成功，路线不对头。中国必须对问题的根本进行反省。为了解决问题，光靠武力镇压不行，因为武力总有到进行不下去的时候。

德国之声：周二，达赖喇嘛在达兰萨拉说，如果暴力升级，局面失控，他将提出辞呈。作为宗教领袖，达赖喇嘛是不可以退下的。那么，他所指的应该是政治职务。达赖喇嘛担任的是什么政治官职呢？

王力雄：达赖喇嘛实际上不担任政治职务。但西藏议会和流亡政府曾经表示，在重要事情和决策上，要听取达赖喇嘛的意见，由达赖喇嘛来做主。所谓辞职或退下，可能就是不再做这个主了。

德国之声：有媒体认为，达赖喇嘛对局面失去控制了。

王力雄：这要看怎么理解"失去控制"。所有的藏人都对他十分尊重。可能有很多藏人不同意他的政治路线，但对他作为宗教领袖的个人，还是百分之百的服从，即便同他的政治路线观点不同。所以我认为，不存在达赖喇嘛影响力以及他控制不了局面的问题。但他一直主张非暴力和平斗争，而他领导的这个群体发生了暴力倾向或者卷入暴力冲突，他的停止暴力冲突的呼吁没有得到响应的话，那么他说他不再担当这个群体领袖的逻辑是没有问题的，是自然而然的。当年的甘地也常提出这样的说法。

德国之声：这回西藏发生骚乱的真正原因是什么？

王力雄：我想这是中国多年来治理西藏的政策和路线所积累下来的问题。总的来讲，治理西藏是不成功的，路线是不对头的。其中最主要的是它在西藏使用的是经济发展的方式，希望这种方式实现世俗化并消解西藏问题，割断境内藏人同达赖喇嘛的关系。但实际上因西藏传统文化所决定，藏人同达赖喇嘛之间的关系实际上是不可割断的。在这种情况下，你给他再多经济上的好处，却让他感到在精神领域受到压抑，在政治方面是不自由的，那他不会因为经济上得到的一点好处而感恩戴德。只要有一点可能，它就会连锁性地爆发。

德国之声：但西方媒体却报道说，西藏人民之所以不满，恰恰是因为他们没有从中国的经济发展中分享到好处。

王力雄：这要从两方面看。一方面从绝对值看，藏人的绝对生活水平的确得到提高，但另一方面在相对值上，同内地相比，跟身边的外族人相比，他们得到的很少，相对的差距越来越大。这样引起他们很大不满。另外，在世俗化的进程当中，人的欲望也越来越高，即便同以前相比有所改善，但同欲望相比，还是有很大差距。但我觉得最重要的是，外来人在西藏人原本领土上，把他们边缘化了，让他们在市场经济的竞争当中节节败退。参与闹事的可能都是失业的，生活上相对又困难的，得到优越待遇的人参与打砸抢的比较少。群众性的运动，一旦到了发泄的时候，往往会无理智的、用武力来表现。这不是西藏独有的现象。但它是一种结果，不是根源。

德国之声：出现骚乱，不动用武力镇压，又该怎么办呢？

王力雄：出现了违法，当然要镇压，镇压不住，只有开枪。不论在任何场合都会这么说。不过，你如果永远这么说，你就永远解决不了问题。总有一天，枪会用不下去的。所以，不要镇压完了就截止了，你要想到原因是什么，要改变治理西藏以及处理民族关系的方式，这才是解决问题的根本。问题是政府造成的，所以政府必须想法解决问题。必须改变原来的做法，反省自己的问题。我觉得，这才是正确的态度。

德国之声：西藏人在自己的土地上反倒被边缘化，这就是达赖喇嘛说的对藏人文化的"民族屠杀"？

王力雄：文化的主要载体是生产方式、生活方式，包括宗教。不加节制地将竞争经济引入藏地，大量移民，在这个过程当中缺乏对藏民族的保护，这就使得汉人在竞争中的优势远远强于当地人，这样，当地的文化自然受到破坏，因为它的生产方式自然被摧毁，生活方式随着生产方式改变，加上宗教在各方面受到很大限制，如果达赖喇嘛认为，这是一种对西藏文化的清洗和屠杀的话，我觉得也不为过。

德国之声：中国政府同达赖喇嘛的特使进行过数次对话，但不同达赖喇嘛举行直接对话。直接对话会损害什么呢？

王力雄：中国政府同达赖喇嘛代表的对话仅限于公关活动，是一种在国际上的表现，并非想通过对话解决问题。因为在中国政府看来，问题都已经解决了，西藏已在它的治理之下了，军队警察都由它控制。有什么要同达赖喇嘛协商解决的呢？达赖喇嘛造成的唯一麻烦便是国际社会施加的压力。中国政府要告诉国际社会，它在做这方面的沟通，这样，它觉得就够了。

德国之声：怎么理解达赖喇嘛提出的西藏"高度自治"？他提出的条件是过高了吗？

王力雄：我是赞同达赖喇嘛的中间道路的。我认为，这是解决西藏问题一个较好的办法。但高度自治必然引向民主政治，由人民选择他们的领导人。现在的西藏名义上也自治，但官员都是北京指派的，那么，怎么可能自治呢？

德国之声：达赖喇嘛对领土有要求吗？

王力雄：所谓领土要求也是在中国境内，如要把藏区合在一起，只是行政区划重新划分，并不存在领土问题。所以，这个问题并不重要。连当年陈毅都说过，可以考虑将藏区合并在一起。这个问题并不重要。最重要的是政治体制相互不相容的问题。

德国之声：也就是说，解决西藏问题，首先要解决中国政治制度问题。

王力雄：当然。解决西藏问题的前提就是解决中国问题。解决中国问题就是中国政治体制的转变。

（王力雄是中国著名自由作家，代表作品有"天葬：西藏的命运"（1998）、"我的西域，你的东土"（2007）、"与达赖喇嘛对话"（2002）、"递进民主——中国的第三条道路"（2004）、"黄祸"（1991）。）

[size=5][center][b]谁动了西藏农奴的人皮？[/b][/center][/size][center]唐丹鸿[/center]
最近见有同志在贴子里说到西藏人民被咱金珠玛米从剥人皮的奴隶社会解救了出来，有点哭笑不得。显然这些同志的信息太陈旧，跟我小时候参观“解放西藏XX年展览”时所知道的差不多——展览上，面带仇恨表情的木头模特穿着“染血”的破袍；一些巴郎鼓据说上面蒙着西藏农奴的皮；几盏酥油灯，据说被金珠玛米解救前，点的可是奴隶的人油；还有用人头骨做的碗，人骨做的号、几串沉重的脚镣手铐等，把小朋友我骇得面无人色手心出汗紧紧抓住老师的衣角，万分庆幸自己生在一点儿也不万恶的新社会；继而义愤填膺小脸通红一点点大就肾上腺素剧烈升高，觉得奴隶主也太罄竹难书了，居然把人头骨做成碗盛饭饭吃，好好的菜油灯不点要点人油灯，还吹人骨号打人皮鼓，简直比大地主刘文彩还恶魔！

说到刘文彩和收租院，那又是一个让小朋友们从涕泪滂沱旧社会、到庆幸感恩共产党、到誓死捍卫毛主席的地方。结果光阴似箭日月如梭，转眼没过几年，刘文彩同志就又被人揭发，说他当年根本就没干过那些坏事。这一点也被咱知错就改的政府证实了，平反了，实际上刘文彩对佃农还很好，还出资办学，他当年办的“文彩中学”好像还是免费的，就算不免费，也是对贫困生免费的。当今读不起书的娃娃有点生不逢时啊，要是早生几年、生在刘文彩地主庄园附近，可能就读成了博士，在多维上纵横驰骋了。该地主庄园里不仅没有水牢（那原是他家存放烟叶的地窖），冷月英大嫂也承认了，当年是为了阶级斗争的需要而创作了蹲水牢的故事；至于什么把雇工的口鼻堵住、用气筒从肛门往肚子里灌气、把肚皮打爆的事情更属革命同志们的天才灵感创作（想必有同志还记得那本著名连环画《收租院》，里面有一页画的就是这个，当年小朋友翻书，最喜欢看这一页哦）。现在人家雕塑名作“收租院”群像都成了中国当代艺术中最早的政治波普代表作，被围在厚厚的玻璃墙里面“立此存照”呢。前几年四川美院院长罗中立同志还拍案而起，要将在威尼斯双年展上复制“收租院”的某艺术家绳之以法，以坚决捍卫川美在“收租院”上的合法权益！在此顺便建议搞当代艺术的同志，也用“解放西藏XX年”为母本复制或加工，应该没有哪家美院与你版权纠纷。反正这几年美术界、特别是行为艺术界的同志们灵感奔溢，铁钩穿肉把自己倒吊起来、滴血到烧热的钢板上啦、剁死婴头啦、活剖家猪啦之类的不是没干过。哦，扯远了，链子都懒得给你们，古歌上自己找，多得很。还是回到剥人皮的话题吧，长话短说，那都是bullshit　。

十多年前我到西藏旅游没几天，就被当年在西藏大肆收藏藏族同胞古董文物的汉人援藏同志扫盲了，原来头骨碗，腿骨号、甚至人皮蒙面的小鼓倒的确有，然而却是神圣的宗教法器。佛教传入西藏的过程中，融合了一些西藏本土原始宗教苯教的观念，形成了浩博精深的藏传佛教思想体系，以及形式繁复含义深邃的宗教仪轨。在这些独特的宗教仪轨中，所使用的各种法器、这些法器所取用的材料皆具丰富的象征意义，代表一些佛教的基本观念和思想。

比如西藏密宗的手鼓，俗称嘎巴拉鼓，通常由两片天灵盖骨制成，窄腰，腰间系以彩带及两个小骨锤。双面，鼓面以人皮制成，鼓皮涂以绿色。手持鼓腰摇动，小锤即击鼓面发声。修法时摇鼓，代表赞颂诸佛菩萨的功德，配合金刚铃、金刚杵使用。

骨号则一般用过世的尼姑或僧人的胫骨制成，藏语称为“罡洞”，此法器所吹奏出的乐音，象征驱散一切邪魔。

而前面说的“人头碗”，为怒尊所持之法器，也是西藏密宗修法时，常见的法器之一。通常以喇嘛死后的头盖骨做成，表徵空性。平通用以盛甘露，供於坛城上，或代表一切福德智慧资粮。

再重申一遍，关于这些法器的小知识，最早是咱汉人援藏干部告诉我的。后来结识了一些西藏僧人朋友，也从他们那里得到了进一步的了解。前些年我在康区拍天葬师，亲见一位死者的头盖骨，因其形状和骨纹符合仪轨中的要求，而被保留下来用作法器。藏民族普遍虔信佛教，崇尚布施。他们认为，人的躯体是承载灵魂的皮囊，一旦生命泯息，躯壳应作为美好的礼品给其它形式的生命，若还能用于供养和礼佛，这对虔诚教徒来说是何等殊荣！若人皮、人骨被用作法器是一种折磨的话，藏传佛教何以深入藏民族人心，绵延千年，至今依然繁盛？且佛光西渐，连成天口口声声民主人权的西方人士也不哼一声呢？西藏各地大小寺庙“自古以来”都有这类法器，现在也如此，无论是我们的公安还是国安的同志都知道，派驻各寺庙的政府宗教办干部也清楚，否则早就该抓的抓，该关的关，该撤职查办的撤职查办了是不？所以，让我悄悄告诉那些还在大喊西藏人民被咱金珠玛米从活剥人皮的奴隶社会解救了出来的同志们小声点，最好是别说了，免得把其他许多有常识的同志们的牙巴笑掉。真的，这是常识，前些年国内西藏热，这几年还在热，从咱中国藏学出版社到西藏人民出版社、到其他省级民族出版社都有这类普及读物。古歌上一搜，出来一大堆。

达赖治下的旧西藏真是田园牧歌式的香格里拉吗？读读这位西方作者的文章。

.....Not all Tibetan exiles are enamoured of the old Shangri-La theocracy. Kim Lewis, who studied healing methods with a Buddhist monk in Berkeley, California, had occasion to talk at length with more than a dozen Tibetan women who lived in the monk’s building. When she asked how they felt about returning to their homeland, the sentiment was unanimously negative. At first, Lewis assumed that their reluctance had to do with the Chinese occupation, but they quickly informed her otherwise. They said they were extremely grateful [b]“not to have to marry 4 or 5 men, be pregnant almost all the time,” or deal with sexually transmitted diseases contacted from a straying husband[/b]. The younger women “were delighted to be getting an education, wanted absolutely nothing to do with any religion, and wondered why Americans were so naïve [about Tibet].”....

....few Tibetans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with him in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in surrendering the land they gained during China’s land reform to the clans. Tibet’s former slaves say they, too, don’t want their former masters to return to power. “I’ve already lived that life once before,” said Wangchuk, a 67-year-old former slave who was wearing his best clothes for his yearly pilgrimage to Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of Tibetan Buddhism. He said he worshipped the Dalai Lama, but added, “[b]I may not be free under Chinese communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave[/b].”....(Source: Washington Post)

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Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth
(updated and expanded version, January 2007)
by Michael Parenti

I. For Lords and Lamas

Along with the blood drenched landscape of religious conflict there is the experience of inner peace and solace that every religion promises, none more so than Buddhism. Standing in marked contrast to the intolerant savagery of other religions, Buddhism is neither fanatical nor dogmatic--so say its adherents. For many of them Buddhism is less a theology and more a meditative and investigative discipline intended to promote an inner harmony and enlightenment while directing us to a path of right living. Generally, the spiritual focus is not only on oneself but on the welfare of others. One tries to put aside egoistic pursuits and gain a deeper understanding of one’s connection to all people and things. “Socially engaged Buddhism” tries to blend individual liberation with responsible social action in order to build an enlightened society.

A glance at history, however, reveals that not all the many and widely varying forms of Buddhism have been free of doctrinal fanaticism, nor free of the violent and exploitative pursuits so characteristic of other religions. In Sri Lanka there is a legendary and almost sacred recorded history about the triumphant battles waged by Buddhist kings of yore. During the twentieth century, Buddhists clashed violently with each other and with non-Buddhists in Thailand, Burma, Korea, Japan, India, and elsewhere. In Sri Lanka, armed battles between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils have taken many lives on both sides. In 1998 the U.S. State Department listed thirty of the world’s most violent and dangerous extremist groups. Over half of them were religious, specifically Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist. 1

In South Korea, in 1998, thousands of monks of the Chogye Buddhist order fought each other with fists, rocks, fire-bombs, and clubs, in pitched battles that went on for weeks. They were vying for control of the order, the largest in South Korea, with its annual budget of $9.2 million, its millions of dollars worth of property, and the privilege of appointing 1,700 monks to various offices. The brawls damaged the main Buddhist sanctuaries and left dozens of monks injured, some seriously. The Korean public appeared to disdain both factions, feeling that no matter what side took control, “it would use worshippers’ donations for luxurious houses and expensive cars.” 2

As with any religion, squabbles between or within Buddhist sects are often fueled by the material corruption and personal deficiencies of the leadership. For example, in Nagano, Japan, at Zenkoji, the prestigious complex of temples that has hosted Buddhist sects for more than 1,400 years, “a nasty battle” arose between Komatsu the chief priest and the Tacchu, a group of temples nominally under the chief priest's sway. The Tacchu monks accused Komatsu of selling writings and drawings under the temple's name for his own gain. They also were appalled by the frequency with which he was seen in the company of women. Komatsu in turn sought to isolate and punish monks who were critical of his leadership. The conflict lasted some five years and made it into the courts. 3

But what of Tibetan Buddhism? Is it not an exception to this sort of strife? And what of the society it helped to create? Many Buddhists maintain that, before the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society. Western news media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La. The Dalai Lama himself stated that “the pervasive influence of Buddhism” in Tibet, “amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We enjoyed freedom and contentment.” 4

A reading of Tibet’s history suggests a somewhat different picture. “Religious conflict was commonplace in old Tibet,” writes one western Buddhist practitioner. “History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.” 5 In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet. Here is a historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army.

His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For these transgressions he was murdered by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high priests or other courtiers. 6

For hundreds of years competing Tibetan Buddhist sects engaged in bitterly violent clashes and summary executions. In 1660, the 5th Dalai Lama was faced with a rebellion in Tsang province, the stronghold of the rival Kagyu sect with its high lama known as the Karmapa. The 5th Dalai Lama called for harsh retribution against the rebels, directing the Mongol army to obliterate the male and female lines, and the offspring too “like eggs smashed against rocks…. In short, annihilate any traces of them, even their names.” 7

In 1792, many Kagyu monasteries were confiscated and their monks were forcibly converted to the Gelug sect (the Dalai Lama’s denomination). The Gelug school, known also as the “Yellow Hats,” showed little tolerance or willingness to mix their teachings with other Buddhist sects. In the words of one of their traditional prayers: “Praise to you, violent god of the Yellow Hat teachings/who reduces to particles of dust/ great beings, high officials and ordinary people/ who pollute and corrupt the Gelug doctrine.” 8 An eighteenth-century memoir of a Tibetan general depicts sectarian strife among Buddhists that is as brutal and bloody as any religious conflict might be. 9 This grim history remains largely unvisited by present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.

Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.” 10

Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” 11

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. 12 Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” 13 In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. 14 The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. 15 The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care, They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land--or the monastery’s land--without pay, to repair the lord's houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand.16 Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. 17

As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.”18 Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.19

The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery.20

The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation--including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation--were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.”21 Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. 22

In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.23

Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”24 As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.

II. Secularization vs. Spirituality

What happened to Tibet after the Chinese Communists moved into the country in 1951? The treaty of that year provided for ostensible self-governance under the Dalai Lama’s rule but gave China military control and exclusive right to conduct foreign relations. The Chinese were also granted a direct role in internal administration “to promote social reforms.” Among the earliest changes they wrought was to reduce usurious interest rates, and build a few hospitals and roads. At first, they moved slowly, relying mostly on persuasion in an attempt to effect reconstruction. No aristocratic or monastic property was confiscated, and feudal lords continued to reign over their hereditarily bound peasants. “Contrary to popular belief in the West,” claims one observer, the Chinese “took care to show respect for Tibetan culture and religion.”25

Over the centuries the Tibetan lords and lamas had seen Chinese come and go, and had enjoyed good relations with Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and his reactionary Kuomintang rule in China.26 The approval of the Kuomintang government was needed to validate the choice of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. When the current 14th Dalai Lama was first installed in Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chinese troops and an attending Chinese minister, in accordance with centuries-old tradition. What upset the Tibetan lords and lamas in the early 1950s was that these latest Chinese were Communists. It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian schemes upon Tibet.

The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.27 Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.28

Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never heard from again, according to a report from the CIA itself, meaning they were most likely captured and killed.29 “Many lamas and lay members of the elite and much of the Tibetan army joined the uprising, but in the main the populace did not, assuring its failure,” writes Hugh Deane.30 In their book on Tibet, Ginsburg and Mathos reach a similar conclusion: “As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed.”31 Eventually the resistance crumbled.

Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese after 1959, they did abolish slavery and the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary. They established secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.32

Heinrich Harrer (later revealed to have been a sergeant in Hitler’s SS) wrote a bestseller about his experiences in Tibet that was made into a popular Hollywood movie. He reported that the Tibetans who resisted the Chinese “were predominantly nobles, semi-nobles and lamas; they were punished by being made to perform the lowliest tasks, such as laboring on roads and bridges. They were further humiliated by being made to clean up the city before the tourists arrived.” They also had to live in a camp originally reserved for beggars and vagrants--all of which Harrer treats as sure evidence of the dreadful nature of the Chinese occupation.33

By 1961, Chinese occupation authorities expropriated the landed estates owned by lords and lamas. They distributed many thousands of acres to tenant farmers and landless peasants, reorganizing them into hundreds of communes.. Herds once owned by nobility were turned over to collectives of poor shepherds. Improvements were made in the breeding of livestock, and new varieties of vegetables and new strains of wheat and barley were introduced, along with irrigation improvements, all of which reportedly led to an increase in agrarian production.34

Many peasants remained as religious as ever, giving alms to the clergy. But monks who had been conscripted as children into the religious orders were now free to renounce the monastic life, and thousands did, especially the younger ones. The remaining clergy lived on modest government stipends and extra income earned by officiating at prayer services, weddings, and funerals.35

Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that “more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation.”36 The official 1953 census--six years before the Chinese crackdown--recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000.37 Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves--of which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up, hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else.

Chinese authorities claim to have put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. They themselves, however, have been charged with acts of brutality by exile Tibetans. The authorities do admit to “mistakes,” particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached a high tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls “and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades.”38

In 1980, the Chinese government initiated reforms reportedly designed to grant Tibet a greater degree of self-rule and self-administration. Tibetans would now be allowed to cultivate private plots, sell their harvest surpluses, decide for themselves what crops to grow, and keep yaks and sheep. Communication with the outside world was again permitted, and frontier controls were eased to permit some Tibetans to visit exiled relatives in India and Nepal.39 By the 1980s many of the principal lamas had begun to shuttle back and forth between China and the exile communities abroad, “restoring their monasteries in Tibet and helping to revitalize Buddhism there.”40

As of 2007 Tibetan Buddhism was still practiced widely and tolerated by officialdom. Religious pilgrimages and other standard forms of worship were allowed but within limits. All monks and nuns had to sign a loyalty pledge that they would not use their religious position to foment secession or dissent. And displaying photos of the Dalai Lama was declared illegal.41

In the 1990s, the Han, the ethnic group comprising over 95 percent of China’s immense population, began moving in substantial numbers into Tibet. On the streets of Lhasa and Shigatse, signs of Han colonization are readily visible. Chinese run the factories and many of the shops and vending stalls. Tall office buildings and large shopping centers have been built with funds that might have been better spent on water treatment plants and housing. Chinese cadres in Tibet too often view their Tibetan neighbors as backward and lazy, in need of economic development and “patriotic education.” During the 1990s Tibetan government employees suspected of harboring nationalist sympathies were purged from office, and campaigns were once again launched to discredit the Dalai Lama. Individual Tibetans reportedly were subjected to arrest, imprisonment, and forced labor for carrying out separatist activities and engaging in “political subversion.” Some were held in administrative detention without adequate food, water, and blankets, subjected to threats, beatings, and other mistreatment.42

Tibetan history, culture, and certainly religion are slighted in schools. Teaching materials, though translated into Tibetan, focus mainly on Chinese history and culture. Chinese family planning regulations allow a three-child limit for Tibetan families. (There is only a one-child limit for Han families throughout China, and a two-child limit for rural Han families whose first child is a girl.) If a Tibetan couple goes over the three-child limit, the excess children can be denied subsidized daycare, health care, housing, and education. These penalties have been enforced irregularly and vary by district.43 None of these child services, it should be noted, were available to Tibetans before the Chinese takeover.

For the rich lamas and secular lords, the Communist intervention was an unmitigated calamity. Most of them fled abroad, as did the Dalai Lama himself, who was assisted in his flight by the CIA. Some discovered to their horror that they would have to work for a living. Many, however, escaped that fate. Throughout the 1960s, the Tibetan exile community was secretly pocketing $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama’s organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai Lama's annual payment from the CIA was $186,000. Indian intelligence also financed both him and other Tibetan exiles. He has refused to say whether he or his brothers worked for the CIA. The agency has also declined to comment.44

In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline “Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right.”45 In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

Into the twenty-first century, via the National Endowment for Democracy and other conduits that are more respectable sounding than the CIA, the U.S. Congress continued to allocate an annual $2 million to Tibetans in India, with additional millions for “democracy activities” within the Tibetan exile community. In addition to these funds, the Dalai Lama received money from financier George Soros.46

Whatever the Dalai Lama’s associations with the CIA and various reactionaries, he did speak often of peace, love, and nonviolence. He himself really cannot be blamed for the abuses of Tibet’s ancien régime, having been but 25 years old when he fled into exile. In a 1994 interview, he went on record as favoring the building of schools and roads in his country. He said the corvée (forced unpaid serf labor) and certain taxes imposed on the peasants were “extremely bad.” And he disliked the way people were saddled with old debts sometimes passed down from generation to generation.47During the half century of living in the western world, he had embraced concepts such as human rights and religious freedom, ideas largely unknown in old Tibet. He even proposed democracy for Tibet, featuring a written constitution and a representative assembly.48

In 1996, the Dalai Lama issued a statement that must have had an unsettling effect on the exile community. It read in part: “Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability.” Marxism fosters “the equitable utilization of the means of production” and cares about “the fate of the working classes” and “the victims of . . . exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and . . . I think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.49

But he also sent a reassuring message to “those who live in abundance”: “It is a good thing to be rich... Those are the fruits for deserving actions, the proof that they have been generous in the past.” And to the poor he offers this admonition: “There is no good reason to become bitter and rebel against those who have property and fortune... It is better to develop a positive attitude.”50

In 2005 the Dalai Lama signed a widely advertised statement along with ten other Nobel Laureates supporting the “inalienable and fundamental human right” of working people throughout the world to form labor unions to protect their interests, in accordance with the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In many countries “this fundamental right is poorly protected and in some it is explicitly banned or brutally suppressed,” the statement read. Burma, China, Colombia, Bosnia, and a few other countries were singled out as among the worst offenders. Even the United States “fails to adequately protect workers’ rights to form unions and bargain collectively. Millions of U.S. workers lack any legal protection to form unions….”51

The Dalai Lama also gave full support to removing the ingrained traditional obstacles that have kept Tibetan nuns from receiving an education. Upon arriving in exile, few nuns could read or write. In Tibet their activities had been devoted to daylong periods of prayer and chants. But in northern India they now began reading Buddhist philosophy and engaging in theological study and debate, activities that in old Tibet had been open only to monks.52

In November 2005 the Dalai Lama spoke at Stanford University on “The Heart of Nonviolence,” but stopped short of a blanket condemnation of all violence. Violent actions that are committed in order to reduce future suffering are not to be condemned, he said, citing World War II as an example of a worthy effort to protect democracy. What of the four years of carnage and mass destruction in Iraq, a war condemned by most of the world—even by a conservative pope--as a blatant violation of international law and a crime against humanity? The Dalai Lama was undecided: “The Iraq war—it’s too early to say, right or wrong.”53 Earlier he had voiced support for the U.S. military intervention against Yugoslavia and, later on, the U.S. military intervention into Afghanistan.54

III. Exit Feudal Theocracy

As the Shangri-La myth would have it, in old Tibet the people lived in contented and tranquil symbiosis with their monastic and secular lords. Rich lamas and poor monks, wealthy landlords and impoverished serfs were all bonded together, mutually sustained by the comforting balm of a deeply spiritual and pacific culture.

One is reminded of the idealized image of feudal Europe presented by latter-day conservative Catholics such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. For them, medieval Christendom was a world of contented peasants living in the secure embrace of their Church, under the more or less benign protection of their lords.55 Again we are invited to accept a particular culture in its idealized form divorced from its murky material history. This means accepting it as presented by its favored class, by those who profited most from it. The Shangri-La image of Tibet bears no more resemblance to historic actuality than does the pastoral image of medieval Europe.

Seen in all its grim realities, old Tibet confirms the view I expressed in an earlier book, namely that culture is anything but neutral. Culture can operate as a legitimating cover for a host of grave injustices, benefiting a privileged portion of society at great cost to the rest.56 In theocratic feudal Tibet, ruling interests manipulated the traditional culture to fortify their own wealth and power. The theocracy equated rebellious thought and action with satanic influence. It propagated the general presumption of landlord superiority and peasant unworthiness. The rich were represented as deserving their good life, and the lowly poor as deserving their mean existence, all codified in teachings about the karmic residue of virtue and vice accumulated from past lives, presented as part of God’s will.

Were the more affluent lamas just hypocrites who preached one thing and secretly believed another? More likely they were genuinely attached to those beliefs that brought such good results for them. That their theology so perfectly supported their material privileges only strengthened the sincerity with which it was embraced.

It might be said that we denizens of the modern secular world cannot grasp the equations of happiness and pain, contentment and custom, that characterize more traditionally spiritual societies. This is probably true, and it may explain why some of us idealize such societies. But still, a gouged eye is a gouged eye; a flogging is a flogging; and the grinding exploitation of serfs and slaves is a brutal class injustice whatever its cultural wrapping. There is a difference between a spiritual bond and human bondage, even when both exist side by side

Many ordinary Tibetans want the Dalai Lama back in their country, but it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he represented. A 1999 story in the Washington Post notes that the Dalai Lama continues to be revered in Tibet, but

. . . few Tibetans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with him in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in surrendering the land they gained during China’s land reform to the clans. Tibet’s former slaves say they, too, don’t want their former masters to return to power. “I’ve already lived that life once before,” said Wangchuk, a 67-year-old former slave who was wearing his best clothes for his yearly pilgrimage to Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of Tibetan Buddhism. He said he worshipped the Dalai Lama, but added, “I may not be free under Chinese communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave.”57

It should be noted that the Dalai Lama is not the only highly placed lama chosen in childhood as a reincarnation. One or another reincarnate lama or tulku--a spiritual teacher of special purity elected to be reborn again and again--can be found presiding over most major monasteries. The tulku system is unique to Tibetan Buddhism. Scores of Tibetan lamas claim to be reincarnate tulkus.

The very first tulku was a lama known as the Karmapa who appeared nearly three centuries before the first Dalai Lama. The Karmapa is leader of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition known as the Karma Kagyu. The rise of the Gelugpa sect headed by the Dalai Lama led to a politico-religious rivalry with the Kagyu that has lasted five hundred years and continues to play itself out within the Tibetan exile community today. That the Kagyu sect has grown famously, opening some six hundred new centers around the world in the last thirty-five years, has not helped the situation.

The search for a tulku, Erik Curren reminds us, has not always been conducted in that purely spiritual mode portrayed in certain Hollywood films. “Sometimes monastic officials wanted a child from a powerful local noble family to give the cloister more political clout. Other times they wanted a child from a lower-class family who would have little leverage to influence the child’s upbringing.” On other occasions “a local warlord, the Chinese emperor or even the Dalai Lama’s government in Lhasa might [have tried] to impose its choice of tulku on a monastery for political reasons.”58

Such may have been the case in the selection of the 17th Karmapa, whose monastery-in-exile is situated in Rumtek, in the Indian state of Sikkim. In 1993 the monks of the Karma Kagyu tradition had a candidate of their own choice. The Dalai Lama, along with several dissenting Karma Kagyu leaders (and with the support of the Chinese government!) backed a different boy. The Kagyu monks charged that the Dalai Lama had overstepped his authority in attempting to select a leader for their sect. “Neither his political role nor his position as a lama in his own Gelugpa tradition entitled him to choose the Karmapa, who is a leader of a different tradition…”59 As one of the Kagyu leaders insisted, “Dharma is about thinking for yourself. It is not about automatically following a teacher in all things, no matter how respected that teacher may be. More than anyone else, Buddhists should respect other people’s rights—their human rights and their religious freedom.”60

What followed was a dozen years of conflict in the Tibetan exile community, punctuated by intermittent riots, intimidation, physical attacks, blacklisting, police harassment, litigation, official corruption, and the looting and undermining of the Karmapa’s monastery in Rumtek by supporters of the Gelugpa faction. All this has caused at least one western devotee to wonder if the years of exile were not hastening the moral corrosion of Tibetan Buddhism.61

What is clear is that not all Tibetan Buddhists accept the Dalai Lama as their theological and spiritual mentor. Though he is referred to as the “spiritual leader of Tibet,” many see this title as little more than a formality. It does not give him authority over the four religious schools of Tibet other than his own, “just as calling the U.S. president the ‘leader of the free world’ gives him no role in governing France or Germany.”62

Not all Tibetan exiles are enamoured of the old Shangri-La theocracy. Kim Lewis, who studied healing methods with a Buddhist monk in Berkeley, California, had occasion to talk at length with more than a dozen Tibetan women who lived in the monk’s building. When she asked how they felt about returning to their homeland, the sentiment was unanimously negative. At first, Lewis assumed that their reluctance had to do with the Chinese occupation, but they quickly informed her otherwise. They said they were extremely grateful “not to have to marry 4 or 5 men, be pregnant almost all the time,” or deal with sexually transmitted diseases contacted from a straying husband. The younger women “were delighted to be getting an education, wanted absolutely nothing to do with any religion, and wondered why Americans were so naïve [about Tibet].”63

The women interviewed by Lewis recounted stories of their grandmothers’ ordeals with monks who used them as “wisdom consorts.” By sleeping with the monks, the grandmothers were told, they gained “the means to enlightenment” -- after all, the Buddha himself had to be with a woman to reach enlightenment.

The women also mentioned the “rampant” sex that the supposedly spiritual and abstemious monks practiced with each other in the Gelugpa sect. The women who were mothers spoke bitterly about the monastery’s confiscation of their young boys in Tibet. They claimed that when a boy cried for his mother, he would be told “Why do you cry for her, she gave you up--she's just a woman.”

The monks who were granted political asylum in California applied for public assistance. Lewis, herself a devotee for a time, assisted with the paperwork. She observes that they continue to receive government checks amounting to $550 to $700 per month along with Medicare. In addition, the monks reside rent free in nicely furnished apartments. “They pay no utilities, have free access to the Internet on computers provided for them, along with fax machines, free cell and home phones and cable TV.”

They also receive a monthly payment from their order, along with contributions and dues from their American followers. Some devotees eagerly carry out chores for the monks, including grocery shopping and cleaning their apartments and toilets. These same holy men, Lewis remarks, “have no problem criticizing Americans for their ‘obsession with material things.’”64

To welcome the end of the old feudal theocracy in Tibet is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in that country. This point is seldom understood by today’s Shangri-La believers in the West. The converse is also true: To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. Tibetans deserve to be perceived as actual people, not perfected spiritualists or innocent political symbols. “To idealize them,” notes Ma Jian, a dissident Chinese traveler to Tibet (now living in Britain), “is to deny them their humanity.”65

One common complaint among Buddhist followers in the West is that Tibet’s religious culture is being undermined by the Chinese occupation. To some extent this seems to be the case. Many of the monasteries are closed, and much of the theocracy seems to have passed into history. Whether Chinese rule has brought betterment or disaster is not the central issue here. The question is what kind of country was old Tibet. What I am disputing is the supposedly pristine spiritual nature of that pre-invasion culture. We can advocate religious freedom and independence for a new Tibet without having to embrace the mythology about old Tibet. Tibetan feudalism was cloaked in Buddhism, but the two are not to be equated. In reality, old Tibet was not a Paradise Lost. It was a retrograde repressive theocracy of extreme privilege and poverty, a long way from Shangri-La.

Finally, let it be said that if Tibet’s future is to be positioned somewhere within China’s emerging free-market paradise, then this does not bode well for the Tibetans. China boasts a dazzling 8 percent economic growth rate and is emerging as one of the world’s greatest industrial powers. But with economic growth has come an ever deepening gulf between rich and poor. Most Chinese live close to the poverty level or well under it, while a small group of newly brooded capitalists profit hugely in collusion with shady officials. Regional bureaucrats milk the country dry, extorting graft from the populace and looting local treasuries. Land grabbing in cities and countryside by avaricious developers and corrupt officials at the expense of the populace are almost everyday occurrences. Tens of thousands of grassroot protests and disturbances have erupted across the country, usually to be met with unforgiving police force. Corruption is so prevalent, reaching into so many places, that even the normally complacent national leadership was forced to take notice and began moving against it in late 2006.

Workers in China who try to organize labor unions in the corporate dominated “business zones” risk losing their jobs or getting beaten and imprisoned. Millions of business zone workers toil twelve-hour days at subsistence wages. With the health care system now being privatized, free or affordable medical treatment is no longer available for millions. Men have tramped into the cities in search of work, leaving an increasingly impoverished countryside populated by women, children, and the elderly. The suicide rate has increased dramatically, especially among women.66

China’s natural environment is sadly polluted. Most of its fabled rivers and many lakes are dead, producing massive fish die-offs from the billions of tons of industrial emissions and untreated human waste dumped into them. Toxic effluents, including pesticides and herbicides, seep into ground water or directly into irrigation canals. Cancer rates in villages situated along waterways have skyrocketed a thousand-fold. Hundreds of millions of urban residents breathe air rated as dangerously unhealthy, contaminated by industrial growth and the recent addition of millions of automobiles. An estimated 400,000 die prematurely every year from air pollution. Government environmental agencies have no enforcement power to stop polluters, and generally the government ignores or denies such problems, concentrating instead on industrial growth.67

China’s own scientific establishment reports that unless greenhouse gases are curbed, the nation will face massive crop failures along with catastrophic food and water shortages in the years ahead. In 2006-2007 severe drought was already afflicting southwest China.68

If China is the great success story of speedy free market development, and is to be the model and inspiration for Tibet’s future, then old feudal Tibet indeed may start looking a lot better than it actually was.

Notes:

Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, (University of California Press, 2000), 6, 112-113, 157.

Kyong-Hwa Seok, "Korean Monk Gangs Battle for Temple Turf," San Francisco Examiner, 3 December 1998.

Los Angeles Times, February 25, 2006.

Dalai Lama quoted in Donald Lopez Jr., Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1998), 205.

Erik D. Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling: Uncovering Corruption at the Heart of Tibetan Buddhism Today (Alaya Press 2005), 41.

Stuart Gelder and Roma Gelder, The Timely Rain: Travels in New Tibet (Monthly Review Press, 1964), 119, 123; and Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (University of California Press, 1995), 6-16.

Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 50.

Stephen Bachelor, "Letting Daylight into Magic: The Life and Times of Dorje Shugden," Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, 7, Spring 1998. Bachelor discusses the sectarian fanaticism and doctrinal clashes that ill fit the Western portrait of Buddhism as a non-dogmatic and tolerant tradition.

Dhoring Tenzin Paljor, Autobiography, cited in Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 8.

Pradyumna P. Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet: The Impact of Chinese Communist Ideology on the Landscape (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1976), 64.

See Gary Wilson's report in Worker's World, 6 February 1997.

Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 62 and 174.

As skeptically noted by Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, 9.

Melvyn Goldstein, William Siebenschuh, and Tashì-Tsering, The Struggle for Modern Tibet: The Autobiography of Tashì-Tsering (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1997).

Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 110.

Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet 1913-1951 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 5 and passim.

Anna Louise Strong, Tibetan Interviews (Peking: New World Press, 1959), 15, 19-21, 24.

Quoted in Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 25.

Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 31.

Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 175-176; and Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 25-26.

Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 113.

A. Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet rev. ed. (Armonk, N.Y. and London: 1996), 9 and 7-33 for a general discussion of feudal Tibet; see also Felix Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), 241-249; Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 3-5; and Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, passim.

Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 91-96.

Waddell, Landon, O'Connor, and Chapman are quoted in Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 123-125.

Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 52.

Heinrich Harrer, Return to Tibet (New York: Schocken, 1985), 29.

See Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA's Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2002); and William Leary, "Secret Mission to Tibet," Air & Space, December 1997/January 1998.

On the CIA's links to the Dalai Lama and his family and entourage, see Loren Coleman, Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti (London: Faber and Faber, 1989).

Leary, "Secret Mission to Tibet."

Hugh Deane, "The Cold War in Tibet," CovertAction Quarterly (Winter 1987).

George Ginsburg and Michael Mathos Communist China and Tibet (1964), quoted in Deane, "The Cold War in Tibet." Deane notes that author Bina Roy reached a similar conclusion.

See Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance, 248 and passim; and Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet, passim.

Harrer, Return to Tibet, 54.

Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet, 36-38, 41, 57-58; London Times, 4 July 1966.

Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 29 and 47-48.

Tendzin Choegyal, "The Truth about Tibet," Imprimis (publication of Hillsdale College, Michigan), April 1999.

Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet, 52-53.

Elaine Kurtenbach, Associate Press report, 12 February 1998.

Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 47-48.

Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 8.

San Francisco Chonicle, 9 January 2007.

Report by the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet, A Generation in Peril (Berkeley Calif.: 2001), passim.

International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet, A Generation in Peril, 66-68, 98.

im Mann, "CIA Gave Aid to Tibetan Exiles in '60s, Files Show," Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1998; and New York Times, 1 October, 1998.

News & Observer, 6 September 1995, cited in Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, 3.

Heather Cottin, "George Soros, Imperial Wizard," CovertAction Quarterly no. 74 (Fall 2002).

Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 51.

Tendzin Choegyal, "The Truth about Tibet."

The Dalai Lama in Marianne Dresser (ed.), Beyond Dogma: Dialogues and Discourses (Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 1996)

These comments are from a book of the Dalai Lama's writings quoted in Nikolai Thyssen, "Oceaner af onkel Tom," Dagbladet Information, 29 December 2003, (translated for me by Julius Wilm). Thyssen's review (in Danish) can be found at [url] http://www.information.dk/Indgang/VisArkiv.dna?pArtNo=20031229154141.txt. [/url]

"A Global Call for Human Rights in the Workplace," New York Times, 6 December 2005.

San Francisco Chronicle, 14 January 2007.

San Francisco Chronicle, 5 November 2005.

Times of India 13 October 2000; Samantha Conti's report, Reuter, 17 June 1994; Amitabh Pal, "The Dalai Lama Interview," Progressive, January 2006.

The Gelders draw this comparison, The Timely Rain, 64.

Michael Parenti, The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories, 2006).

John Pomfret, "Tibet Caught in China's Web," Washington Post, 23 July 1999.

Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 3.

Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 13 and 138.

Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 21.

Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, passim. For books that are favorable toward the Karmapa appointed by the Dalai Lama's faction, see Lea Terhune, Karmapa of Tibet: The Politics of Reincarnation (Wisdom Publications, 2004); Gaby Naher, Wrestling the Dragon (Rider 2004); Mick Brown, The Dance of 17 Lives (Bloomsbury 2004).

Erik Curren, "Not So Easy to Say Who is Karmapa," correspondence, 22 August 2005, [url]www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=22.1577[/url],0,0,1,0.

Kim Lewis, correspondence to me, 15 July 2004.

Kim Lewis, correspondence to me, 16 July 2004.

Ma Jian, Stick Out Your Tongue (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006).

See the PBS documentary, China from the Inside, January 2007, KQED.PBS.org/kqed/chinanside.

San Francisco Chronicle, 9 January 2007.

"China: Global Warming to Cause Food Shortages," People's Weekly World, 13 January 2007

第一、西藏的达赖统治再怎么不“香格里拉”，也比毛泽东空前绝后的暴政强。

第二、除非你还想解放全人类，西藏的政治制度再坏，你汉人也没有权力干涉，更不要说你汉人自己的政治制度，还处于黑暗的中世纪。

“达赖治下的旧西藏真是田园牧歌式的香格里拉吗？读读这位西方作者的文章。”

[color=Blue]民族问题，是一个人思想是否真的自由、解放、人道的试金石。[/color]

这很难说。再说现在，毕竟不是毛泽东的时代。

把现在的中国比为“中世纪”，是不是太过份了点？

说件轶事。据许家屯回忆录记载：达赖1959年出走，是毛泽东故意“放虎归山”的结果。毛泽东3月12日亲自致电西藏工委：“如果达赖及其一群逃走，我军一概不要阻拦，无论去山南、去印度，让他们去。”这也有点“天要下雨，娘要嫁人”的意思。据许家屯解释，毛泽东的逻辑是：达赖是西藏人民心目中的神，拿住了反而不好办，所以不如让他走。在这之前，1956年底在印度举行释迦牟尼涅盘2500周年纪念活动，中共高层有人反对达赖去参加，怕他不叛逃回来，但是毛泽东力主让他去。达赖对这些似乎心中有数，所以尽管他经常抨击中共，但从未批评过毛泽东。我看过History Channel一个达赖的传记片，里面达赖讲述他和毛的交往，他说毛如何easy-going，说话声音如何soft，又如何有chrisma，完全是崇拜的口吻。我看了心想：这达赖是不是也有个人感恩的心理吧？:P 后来看到一些报道，谈到达赖思想上也是倾向“左派”，不太欣赏自由资本主义，反而欣赏社会主义的一套东西。他对毛的态度，可能跟这有关。

我无意为任何人评功摆好，只是想说明：这个世界是复杂的，人也是复杂的，非黑即白的思维无助于理解世事。

Originally posted by [i]thesunlover[/i] at 2008-3-20 09:57 PM:
第一、西藏的达赖统治再怎么不“香格里拉”，也比毛泽东空前绝后的暴政强。

第二、除非你还想解放全人类，西藏的政治制度再坏，你汉人也没有权力干涉，更不要说你汉人自己的政治制度，还处于黑暗的中世纪。

..

探讨是需要及有益的。

达赖在五十年代崇拜毛是很有可能的，但别忘了他当时才十几、二十出头。悟空看过电影“Kundun”吗？里面有两人交往的若干场面，挺有意思的。

趁这线还没有被封，俺也说几句。
我和爱阳是一样的观点。
星期6到为力的同学家里，为此事还和她争了几句。
我认为从西藏和汉族在生活习惯上及宗教上的不同，也应该准重他们独立的要求。
其实国家也和家庭一样，现在都什么时代了，难道你家孩子想过独立生活不应该准重他们吗。
那位朋友说，国家这些年为西藏花了很多钱。我觉得这也不是就应该掌管人家主权的理由。
那位朋友还说，那样的话，很多地方都会要独立，国家不就会四分5列了吗。
中国总爱以自己领土辽阔人口总多而自豪，我觉得这种大国主义思想也不见得适合人类进步。
对自己是大国的自豪，其实，就是对小国的一种轻视，而显示自己的威力。
再说了，欧洲那么多小国，都那么发达，那么文明，大国又有什么可自豪的。

谢谢蒲公英！

我们应该学会反向思维，问一句：“如何中国四分五裂了，又如何？”四分五裂就
等同于天下大乱吗？

中国历史上文化最灿烂辉煌的时代当属春秋，那时中原加上部分南方共有几十个小
国家并立。才学之士的作法是：此处不留爷，自有留爷处。不愁怀才不遇。各国国
王的权力相对都有限，无法无天的暴君不多，因为没有权力高度集中以至可以为所
欲为的客观条件。

虽然那时各国之间小规模战争不断，但也都是点到为止，相对比较文明。总体而言
各国老百姓可以安居乐业，没有民不聊生，所谓奴隶起义、农民起义也绝少发生。

秦朝统一全国后，虽然少了战争，但几十年内老百姓死于修长城、修阿房宫、修秦
始皇陵墓的人数比“分裂”时代死于战争的还多。最后暴戾的秦朝亡于陈胜吴广起
义。

再以下两千年直到今天，中国就是一部合久必分、分久必合的循环史。

蒲公英谈到欧洲，说得很好。欧洲面积和中国差不多大，几十个国家，今天和平共
处和谐发展，人民生活哪样不比大一统的中国强。就是为中国人所垢病的苏联分裂、
南斯拉夫分裂，现在看来也是大好事情，摆脱了历史包袱，那些分裂出来的国家正
在往更好的方向走。

中国喜欢拿南斯拉夫说事，我们应该反问一句：变成了南斯拉夫又如何？现在南斯
拉夫不是很好吗？

真是对不起了！一方面赞同“莫谈国事”，一方面又忍不住谈了这么多。

时代发展到今天了，我们还是“莫谈国事”，古人还懂得“匹夫有责”呢，各位有
没有感到一丝一毫的悲哀？:(

加拿大的法裔魁北克人一直闹着要分裂，加拿大政府不是高喊着“魁北克自古以来
属于加拿大”予以镇压，而是让魁北克全体公民投票，以决定魁北克的命运，是继
续留在加拿大，还是独立建国。

这就叫现代文明政治！

浦公英这贴，有我的强烈共鸣。
但考虑到现实情况(比如悟空胡拉等人的意愿:))，我认为西藏完全独立不可能，现实的道路是让她高度自治(除国防和外交，其它完全由当地住民自己决定)。但不要说真正的高度自治，就是名义上的自治，在目前中国政治制度下，都是不可能的(西藏的铁腕第一人，总是党派去的。看看他最近杀气腾腾的讲话，就知道了)。

爱阳兄莫谈国事的想法很善良:)，不过爱阳兄所谈国事(无论中国事还是美国事)的每句话，基本上都有我的共鸣。:)

Originally posted by [i]pugongying[/i] at 2008-3-24 01:16 AM:
趁这线还没有被封，俺也说几句。
我和爱阳是一样的观点。
星期6到为力的同学家里，为此事还和她争了几句。
我认为从西藏和汉族在生活习惯上及宗教上的不同，也应该准重他们独立的要求。
其实国家也和家庭一样..