So, what’s going on in Tibet? I have heard that China is erasing Tibetan culture. What is a good response to that?
I can tell you from my Tibetan friend that absolutely nothing of the sort is going on.
There is however still a big separatist movement in Tibet due to the way the integration of the region was conducted. It’s not as big as it used to be even some 10 years ago, but it still exists in a sizeable
First of all, we have to understand exactly who are Tibetans so we can know what they came from and what they look forward to. I actually wrote a post some time ago here: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/23166.
Up until the PLA marched into Tibet and Tibetan nobles surrendered (they were, after all, heavily outmatched), Tibet was a feudal theocracy that still practised serfdom – in 1950. Here’s an article Michael Parenti wrote on Tibet’s feudalism: archive.is/3SyVs. There are pictures of Tibetan serves still floating around if you want to look up how they were treated. 97% of the population was under servitude, but the question remains however how most serves were treated. We can point at mostly individual accounts, but as far as I know there is no sweeping generalisations we can make. We can’t say, for example, that all serves were mutilated if they tried to flee their lord’s land, just that it happened in various (too many) cases. But the PRC has a museum in Tibet of this period of history and they paint a very clear picture. My friends however are not sure the museum is that truthful (regarding how widespread the abuses were) and I have to take this into account. Personally it seems to me that Tibetans seem to forget this part of their history and I don’t know why exactly, yet. It wasn’t that long ago either; my friend’s grandparents probably lived under serfdom (unfortunately, I was unable to know which class they belonged to. I know there were some monks in there but I don’t know if that was before or after the integration).
Tibet is a different case than say, neighbouring Xinjiang because their story with China is different. Whereas we can point to Xinjiang being an integral part of China since the 12th century, we can’t do that with Tibet because the ROC in 1912 gave it full independence. Therefore, with some help from propagandists, people can easily believe that the PRC invaded and annexed an independent country. Mao is seen differently in Tibet than in other regions because he was the one who gave the order for the army to move in. This, to my knowledge, did not happen in other parts of China after the proclamation of the PRC. I also think the PRC was perhaps too lenient in combating foreign interference in Tibet; the Dalai Lama for decades was paid millions by the CIA and today he is an allegory of Tibetan independence. That doesn’t happen by accident and it’s nothing new. I can guarantee you nobody in the western world knew who the Dalai Lama was or what he represented in 1960 (I can safely assume that because I doubt people in the 60s were overcome with a desire to learn about Tibet and Buddhism); that happened after the CIA got his hands on him.
Edit: there is also a slight difference in that Tibetans are closer to Mongolians than (Han) Chinese. Ethnically and linguistically. So that also complicates things with trying to integrate them into a Chinese nation. As a reminder, there is no Han supremacism. The PRC and CPC have always been very clear there is one Chinese nation, with various ethnicities comprising this nation on equal terms.
As for the cultural erasure, you can start to imagine here what the PRC is doing in Tibet. There is still poverty – a developing country will develop unevenly – and there are still many challenges to overcome to help integrate Tibetans. I say integrate because… where is the limit between neglecting your people and assimilating them?
Some (ignorant) people say that Tibetans should be left alone to become independent. I don’t believe being independent will do Tibet any good that the PRC cannot provide, except for some sense of national pride. So what then, do you leave them in the autonomous region to do as they wish and then get accused of neglecting them? Or do you teach them the national language so they can live and work anywhere in the country, and then get accused of assimilating them? I don’t know where the line lies, but I doubt the people that scream Free Tibet know either.
I know from my friend that the integration has led to many Han Chinese emigrating to Tibet, and perhaps this bothers Tibetans who, up until then, were mostly left alone by themselves. Remember Tibet is at an average height of 3000m above sea level and borders the Himalayas. For most of their history they were left alone, and were perhaps closer to neighbouring Nepal or India (that is how Buddhism entered Tibet after all). I can see how remote people living like this don’t take too kindly to foreigners, how quickly their ways of life can change after being left alone for so many years. With that said I wouldn’t say there’s racism in Tibet, at least not in 2020. Some Chinese people also speak better Tibetan than locals, because they take it as an elective in school and want to learn the language. Whereas young Tibetans today learn Mandarin because they’re not planning on staying in their village their whole lives, they aim for the big universities.
Where does erasing culture starts, basically. Was it erasing culture when the PRC abolished serfdom (and with it the highly abusive practices happening in Tibetan temples)? Is it erasing culture when Tibetans can go to prestigious universities in Beijing? Is it erasing culture when people from all over China are allowed to emigrate to Tibet? Things change and sometimes we don’t like how they change, but they are certainly not staying fixed – that’s the basis of dialectics. It’s ludicrous to think that Tibet could go back to 1950 and pretend that all these years under the PRC never happened. Tibet would have to industrialise (before 1950, most labour was done by hand, hence the serfdom) and open up to the world anyway. They are doing it under the PRC.
But Mongolian is in the Mongolic language group, while Tibetan is in thw Sino-Tibetan language group.
Yeah, you’re right. I was wrong on that one.
What was done in Tibetan temples?
Most kids in Tibet prior to 1950 were actually forced to take up the clergy. You were a serf, you had no right against your lord, so if he said “your kid is going to the temple in Lhasa to become a monk” then you had no recourse.
In the temples, a ton of abuse went on: physical, mental and sexual. Tibetan Buddhism also used (prior to 1950 again) human body parts (skin, skull, organs) in their rituals and decorations – reflecting their Bon history. Now, it’s unsure whether these parts were collected from living or dead practitioners but we do know (and I think Parenti talks about it) that body mutilation was a punishment for law-breaking serves. There are pictures of this if you want to google them, just look up “Tibet serfs”.
Many in Tibet used to practice Tantric buddhism, historically. This form of buddhism uses sex (but not solely) as a means to enlightenment. They also performed rituals in secrecy between the yogi and his trainee – Buddhism is about seeing the true nature of all things, and when training under a yogi, there was an implicit agreement that he saw true, and you didn’t. That’s why you trained under him. There are old texts of “mad yogi”, mostly from India (but passed on to Tibet), who used these tantric rituals to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime. They’re probably myths, but they exist.
Combine the two and you can imagine how this environment was ripe for abuse of all sorts, especially considering many of those monks were serves taken away from their families to serve as free labour in the temples.
Interesting article from the Chinese gov about Tibet’s history: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/ceil/eng/sgxw/t425810.htm. It seems Buddhism entered Tibet from the Tang dynasty of China, not India as I previously thought. As Buddhism is an Indian invention however, the Tang probably got it from India.
Oh yeah, and the Dalai Lama is not the supreme authority figure of all Buddhism like so many believe, just the figure in Tibetan Buddhism. There are more than 1700 currents of Buddhism, all with their own head. He’s also a POS; what he wants is to bring back Tibetan feudalism… or at least used to. I think now that he’s old, he realises this is not gonna happen so he tries to go for silly stuff like saying he’s actually a Marxist.
People don’t know this, and that’s how you get journalists 'mirin him whenever they do an interview. They don’t know about the human skins hanging in his temple in Lhasa (prior to 1950 again), otherwise they would ask about it right away. Instead it’s “What’s your message of peace for the world?”. He was however weakly confronted about his comments that “if the next Dalai Lama is a woman, she needs to be attractive” recently. In the same interview, he also said Europe should take in African immigrants but in small numbers, and they should return back to their countries ASAP. Remember the Dalai Lama is not some holy figure that achieved a deeper understanding of the world around us than most laypeople; he is literally royalty. He did not rise up through the ranks, living an ascetic lifestyle, putting in the work all his life and studying mystical and long-forgotten scrolls. He was picked to be the ultimate, totalitarian figure of authority in the Tibetan state when he was a baby by other nobles, and then was set to live in a giant temple in Lhasa built by slave labour, attended to by other slaves.
People also seem to think that Tibetans are “in exile”? This ties in directly with your previous question of the Tibetan “cultural genocide”. I’m watching a guy on Youtube who does Tibetan cuisine (mostly oil, sugar and butter lol, cholesterol issues are widespread in Tibet) and some people in the comments always say “I hope you can go back one day!!”. But… he can go back whenever he wants. My friends went back to Tibet in 2018 before covid – they don’t always do, because when you do you’re expected to bring gifts for the whole family and their family. People leave for a variety of reasons, many of them having nothing to do with the PRC.
Just in regards to some of the Buddhist comments:
"This form of buddhism uses sex (but not solely) as a means to enlightenment. "
This is like saying Christians go to church to drink blood and eat flesh during their Sunday worship…
Yes, not totally wrong, but maliciously misrepresented. Tantra is referring to generally structured routines or exercises in Hinduism and Buddhism. They are “esoteric” in that they are thought to have hidden meanings to those who practice it and know the secrets.
Here is a description of Tibetan tantra. Sex is most certainly not the emphasis.
" the Dalai Lama is not the supreme authority figure of all Buddhism like so many believe, just the figure in Tibetan Buddhism"
I’m not from Asia. I would think though that this is pretty common knowledge. The multitude of schools you cite are active throughout the world, and Buddhism, though relatively small, is still a world religion. I feel it is a save bet to say that most people know this.
“Tibetan feudalism”
Like it or not, but feudalism is something that happened in Europe. To convert that concept to describe the historic situation in Tibet is problematic..
"Tibetan Buddhism also used (prior to 1950 again) human body parts (skin, skull, organs) in their rituals and decorations – reflecting their Bon history. Now, it’s unsure whether these parts were collected from living or dead practitioners but we do know (and I think Parenti talks about it) that body mutilation was a punishment for law-breaking serves. "
One of the origin stories of Buddhism is that it criticizes sacrifices of animals (AND HUMANS). It’s one of the worst things that you could do.
Buddhism also encourages you to reflect on your mortality in pretty graphic ways.
So putting both things together, we can say that is unlikely that Tibetan Buddhists sacrificed humans in Tibet, however that the remains of humans may have been used to reflect on mortality in general.
Regarding body mutilation as a punishment, that is common. Both, the USA and China are on the forefront in this regard. China apparently killed 12,000 people in 2002 but dropped it to 2,400 in 2013. The USA killed a few less apparently at least recently. But lets of course remember that the rate of imprisonment in the US is excessively high.
In summary
You are basically doing with Tibet what mainstream US media is doing with minorities. And this doesn’t help the cause.
You are basically doing with Tibet what mainstream US media is doing with minorities. And this doesn’t help the cause.
Where have I attacked the Tibetan workers themselves? Where have I invoked colonialist arguments towards Tibet? Where have I projected my values on the pre-liberation Tibetan working class (or serf class)? I have merely described what was happening there and how common it would have been.
Nevertheless, the liberation of Tibet by the PRC was an objectively good thing, and now the Tibetan people are actually free. Reinstalling the Dalai Lama as head of an independent Tibet would be a step back in terms of progress. This is the marxist analysis.
Also, come on, Wikipedia is not a source. It’s a white cis male scholar fantasy. I also want to raise the point about bodily mutilation again, because there is a difference between capital punishment and the cutting of a limb or body part as reparation for any perceived crime. I really need to find this article again, but there is a story in a Tibetan museum funded by the PRC – I think it’s Museum of History in Lhasa – of a serf being blinded (they had tools to cut out eyes for what it’s worth) because his lord bought sheep from him and never paid him, so he went and took them back from the lord. Is this, in your opinion, a correct resolution to this incident?
Nobody is preventing you from liking Buddhism or Tibet. But be sure that you are not mixing the Tibetan serf class with the Tibetan nobility.
First of all, please help me how to quote properly. Anyway, besides this… (I’ll keep using bold)
“Where have I attacked the Tibetan workers themselves? Where have I invoked colonialist arguments towards Tibet? Where have I projected my values on the pre-liberation Tibetan working class (or serf class)? I have merely described what was happening there and how common it would have been.”
You said that they focused on sex for liberation and alluded that they may have undertaken human sacrifice. This is about as extreme as it gets, comrade. It’s also pretty close to the propaganda spawned by the US against their minorities.
You are free to criticize the sources I cite. However, can you be more specific, rather than criticizing the hosting entity?
Most surely you will be able to find horrid crimes in a society that is thousands of years old. No one will disagree with you. But painting a minority in this light as a whole when the ruling class is happy to cull people in the thousands is not honest.
You can quote with a > symbol on a new line followed by a space.
You said that they focused on sex for liberation
No, I said that sex was a part of Tibetan Buddhism. I never said it was focused on sex – explicitly so – or that it was a bad thing, just that the possibility of sexual abuse in the temples existed.
and alluded that they may have undertaken human sacrifice
Because it’s not a clear answer either way. I made sure not to authoritatively state that these body parts were taken from sacrifices, but that the question was open. Their Bon ancestry does reflect the worship of human body parts (that’s about as neutrally as I can put it as I am not intimately familiar with Bon practices), and this is seen in Tibetan Buddhist temples. We’re talking about a nobility that gouged eyes out and amputated limbs as legal (not clerical) punishment. Is it that far-fetched to think they also saved some of those for their temples?
You are free to criticize the sources I cite. However, can you be more specific, rather than criticizing the hosting entity?
I’m sure you’ll understand that I don’t feel like going through 3-4 lengthy Wikipedia articles and look through their whole list of sources.
Most surely you will be able to find horrid crimes in a society that is thousands of years old. No one will disagree with you
We are talking about a liberation that took place in 1952. My grandparents, who are still alive, were born way before 1950. This is not something that happened in the distant past; all those practices that were abolished under the PRC (and the serfs freed from their bonds) happened merely three generations ago.
You can quote with a > symbol on a new line followed by a space.
Thanks!
No, I said that sex was a part of Tibetan Buddhism. I never said it was focused on sex – explicitly so – or that it was a bad thing, just that the possibility of sexual abuse in the temples existed.
Sorry, but this still follows the same logic. The possibility of abuse exists in real life. So you alluding to it as a practice of a minority is sort of racist.
Because it’s not a clear answer either way. I made sure not to authoritatively state that these body parts were taken from sacrifices, but that the question was open.
It’s not really “open” from a Buddhist point of view. Sacrifices aren’t ok from a Buddhist POV.
We’re talking about a nobility that gouged eyes out and amputated limbs as legal (not clerical) punishment.
Or are we talking about a society that commits about 50% of “legal” murder through corporal punishment?
I’m sure you’ll understand that I don’t feel like going through 3-4 lengthy Wikipedia articles and look through their whole list of sources.
Not today. Take your time. Don’t bash groups in the meantime.
all those practices that were abolished under the PRC
I do still point to the exceptionally large amount of people killed by the PRC as part of the legal process. How are those justified?
You’re using some weasel words there, comrade
Which ones for example?
“My Tibetan friend”
he’s literally half-Tibetan x). His mom left somewhere in the 70s (IIRC) for India because she didn’t like it in Tibet anymore. Despite that they had a Free Tibet sticker on their mailbox for the longest time and took it out somewhere around 2012 I think?
This might help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Tibetan_program
