A Few More Words on Tibet
(The following is translated from a post from Drunkpiano's Blog.)
(I would like to express my deep appreciation to those friends who kindly left remarks on my blog. Now I know why the layout of my blog has to be changed. I wish those in mainland China would be able to see my blog after the alteration of some key words. To quote Master Wang (王小山), my mood for discussion is flattened by those disfigured text. Anyhow, let's not talk about this anymore.)
This morning when I woke up, I found the layout of my blog turned funny. And some of the links were also missing. I have thus restored them. In addition to those follow-up discussions among bulloggers, I want to add a few more points:
(1) I second what MZX(莫之许) says. We should tolerate and protect the freedom of speech for those who seek Tibet-Independence. They have the right to express their opinions, to demonstrate and protest lawfully. It would only make matters worse if we try to put a stop to this kind freedom they are entitled to.
(2) But MZX also suggests that those independence-seekers would not be able to gain any ground if all of us can fully enjoy the benefit of freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, I am not quite following on that. In fact, counterexamples can be easily found in those former Soviet Union countries, in Yugoslavia, in the Republic of Burundi and in Taiwan. The process of democracy only helped fostering nationalism and brought it to its extremes. (And things get worse if religion is also involved.) Thus it is highly possible that violence would prevail if we show weak hands on Free-Tibet-Movement. Although I am a stanch supporter of freedom and democracy, I don't think freedom and democracy alone can offer a universal solution. As YL (羽良) has once quoted from the book by Juan Linz, "A united country is the premise of successful democracy, while the opposite is not true". (Not the verbatim quote, but the idea is kinda like this.) And there is another book I mentioned in my previous posts," From Voting to Violence, by Jack Snyder", which is into the discussion of how democratic process boosted nationalism.
(3) And whether Dalai Lama's proposal for autonomy (No military base in Tibet, no migration into Tibet, diplomatic visibility, area of Great Tibet, including part of Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu...) is a reasonable one or not, you be the judge.
--------------------
Yesterday I had a new post on Tibet, but I removed it later, because that post runs the risk of me being misidentified by those "patriotic young zealots" as their partner, which would sicken me to the stomach.
(1) Extreme nationalism has never been my favor. To be logically consistent, I don't think Tibet's extremism is any better than its Han Chinese counterpart.
(2) The reason I label those monks and young Tibet zealots as extremists is that the violence they had inflicted is indiscriminately toward innocent civilians. Confirmed death with well-spelled names of Han Chinese has been reported, many of them are just business men. (The official media has put the death toll up to ten, which may or may not be true given official media's low credit score.) I guess this is part of the reason why western media like The Economist would label them as mob, a word they rarely use on similar occasions in the past. By the way, The Economist claims that their reporters are the only foreign journalists that had permission to set foot on Tibet and I don't think they are compromised by Chinese government in this case. Thus their report should be taken as neutral, which can be found here. (This article backs their we-are-the-only-one-there claim. From what The Economist has stated later, it seems that their reporter happens to be in Tibet for other news leads. i.e, they didn't get any special treatment from Chinese government when the whole thing started.) Some pictures they've taken can also be found here.
(3) A footnote from The Christian Science Monitor is like this : " The European traveler said he was hiding out with a Tibet family but eventually got kicked out when he disagreed with their sentiment that all Chinese and Muslims should be removed from Tibet. A monk who was with the family asked him to leave, to avoid confrontation. ", which is another corroboration that extreme nationalism played a part in Tibet violence. In fact it would be extremely rare for hatred to go that far, even between Israel and Palestinian, or between Serbian and Bosnian. It is also extremely rare for this kind of barefaced hatred to be welcomed by wide tolerance and sympathy, or even acclamation from the global media.
(4) It is tempting to blame government for opening file. And it is now moot to argue who started it first. But given that the Olympic game is on its way, I guess the last thing Chinese government wants is disturbance. Maybe I was wrong. As for whether the government should take any harsh response, I feel the answer is no in most cases. After all, the government overpowers any violent resistance it might encounter. But under extreme circumstance this kind of harsh measure might be necessary, such as the case when gasoline was poured onto Han Chinese by Tibet to set up a fire, and there is no other immediate solution other than counter-violence to stop this urgent harm.
(5) The Tibet Independence Movement claims that 100 or so people were killed in the violence. Aside from the validity of this alleged number, it is hard to determine how many of these died are of the cause of government crackdown, or how many of them are the victims killed by Tibet. Under this circumstance, the number crunching is largely pointless. Some international media singled out the death toll and suggested that they are all Tibet killed by police, which is unfair and blowing the truth out of proportion.
(6) The government's flat footed response to ban reporter into Tibet is another proof that government officials are still living in the Stone Age. It is always government's conditioned response to keep any disharmony from public, but this kind attitude toward independent media only serves to taint its own image.
(7) Da Lai's accused Chinese government of conducting culture genocide toward Tibet, citing migrations of Han Chinese into Tibet as evidence. My judgment is that the migration should be taken as ill-conceived if it is goaded by promise on better pay and higher position from the government. (Even on that note, I have some reservations since a lot of the migrants are engineers to build infrastructure, which is good for local economy. And similar migration can also be found in other provinces, such as Yunnan, Sichuan, Jiangxi. I failed to see how culture genocide works under this circumstance.) And for any civilians that moved into Tibet to seek for business opportunities, the genocide card simply does not apply. In fact, the globalization has blurred the boundary between cultures. Culture identity has to be kept through the prevalence of each culture's unique idea, instead of closed borders. Tibet by itself is not preordained to any special treatment culture-wise as opposed to the rest 55 ethnic groups in China. In fact, it is hard to find any precedent in other multi-culture nations around the world that a certain ethnic group would have the privilege to keep a massive land exclusively to itself.
(8) It is also true that Panchen Lama underwent persecution during culture revolution. There is no doubt that Tibet was deeply traumatized during land reform and culture revolution. But I want to point out that the culture revolution is a tragedy happened at every corner of China. It is a tragedy of tyranny, not a one of ethnic disparity.
(9) I guess the contributing factor that traumatized Tibet includes: (A) Communist tyranny during revolution. (B) Da Lai's displeasure of losing his power in Tibet as well as the sense of Paradise Lost. (C) The wedge driven by British colonialist during early 1900, and Tibet's foolhardiness egged on by prejudiced western report in 1980s. (A) is regretful and undeniable, but it would also unfair to turn a blind eye on (B) and (C).
(10) Economic aid to Tibet. Over the years Chinese government has provided tremendous amount of fund to boost Tibet's economy, which is in the eyes of the beholders, including Da Lai himself. Some report puts the financial aid per capita as twice the average income of a Chinese peasant. (The number may have some deviation, but you get the idea. And I guess some of the money was not in cash handed out to individual, but in other forms like the construction of infrastructure and temples. ). To be honest, this kind of affirmation action borders on Reverse Discrimination. I am not here to accuse Tibet of being ungrateful since all these investments are the windfall from Chinese government, not out of the demand of Tibet. But it would be insincere to point fingers to Chinese government with one hand while taking doles with the other.
(11) Admittedly Da Lai is a charismatic leader, who knows his way in diplomatic world. His black art to bewitch the western media is something even President Hu would envy. But I only give him credit on political skills, not on moral integrity. In other words, he is no different than any other cunning politicians. His mater piece includes a proposal to offer autonomy for independence. But if you look into the fine print, its stern demands include what I mentioned early in this article, which is extremely hard for the Communist government to swallow. The way the demand is presented at the negotiation table is tantamount to a girl implicitly saying no to her suitors by demanding astronomical amount of wedding gifts. This is a way of political shrewdness.
(12) It is also tempting to say that Tibet want freedom from an authoritarian government. But please be advised that the legacy of Tibet society is theocracy, a far cry from democracy. Some may argue that no one can speak for Tibet people except Tibet themselves, maybe theocracy is just what they want. Maybe they would rather to be enslaved by Lama instead of Chinese ruling... . My judgment is that it is ok to discuss these topics as long as the discussion is peaceful and fair-minded. And I oppose any form of crackdown on the peaceful demonstration. Tibet independence is not a problem for me. What bothers me is seeking independence by pouring gasoline onto Han Chinese, by banishing all non-Tibet migrants, by misleading the international society with miserable stories made from government financial aid, and by special interest groups' self-serving agenda under independence cover.
==================
Photocopy of Drunkpiano's original text:
(I would like to express my deep appreciation to those friends who kindly left remarks on my blog. Now I know why the layout of my blog has to be changed. I wish those in mainland China would be able to see my blog after the alteration of some key words. To quote Master Wang (王小山), my mood for discussion is flattened by those disfigured text. Anyhow, let's not talk about this anymore.)
This morning when I woke up, I found the layout of my blog turned funny. And some of the links were also missing. I have thus restored them. In addition to those follow-up discussions among bulloggers, I want to add a few more points:
(1) I second what MZX(莫之许) says. We should tolerate and protect the freedom of speech for those who seek Tibet-Independence. They have the right to express their opinions, to demonstrate and protest lawfully. It would only make matters worse if we try to put a stop to this kind freedom they are entitled to.
(2) But MZX also suggests that those independence-seekers would not be able to gain any ground if all of us can fully enjoy the benefit of freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, I am not quite following on that. In fact, counterexamples can be easily found in those former Soviet Union countries, in Yugoslavia, in the Republic of Burundi and in Taiwan. The process of democracy only helped fostering nationalism and brought it to its extremes. (And things get worse if religion is also involved.) Thus it is highly possible that violence would prevail if we show weak hands on Free-Tibet-Movement. Although I am a stanch supporter of freedom and democracy, I don't think freedom and democracy alone can offer a universal solution. As YL (羽良) has once quoted from the book by Juan Linz, "A united country is the premise of successful democracy, while the opposite is not true". (Not the verbatim quote, but the idea is kinda like this.) And there is another book I mentioned in my previous posts," From Voting to Violence, by Jack Snyder", which is into the discussion of how democratic process boosted nationalism.
(3) And whether Dalai Lama's proposal for autonomy (No military base in Tibet, no migration into Tibet, diplomatic visibility, area of Great Tibet, including part of Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu...) is a reasonable one or not, you be the judge.
--------------------
Yesterday I had a new post on Tibet, but I removed it later, because that post runs the risk of me being misidentified by those "patriotic young zealots" as their partner, which would sicken me to the stomach.
(1) Extreme nationalism has never been my favor. To be logically consistent, I don't think Tibet's extremism is any better than its Han Chinese counterpart.
(2) The reason I label those monks and young Tibet zealots as extremists is that the violence they had inflicted is indiscriminately toward innocent civilians. Confirmed death with well-spelled names of Han Chinese has been reported, many of them are just business men. (The official media has put the death toll up to ten, which may or may not be true given official media's low credit score.) I guess this is part of the reason why western media like The Economist would label them as mob, a word they rarely use on similar occasions in the past. By the way, The Economist claims that their reporters are the only foreign journalists that had permission to set foot on Tibet and I don't think they are compromised by Chinese government in this case. Thus their report should be taken as neutral, which can be found here. (This article backs their we-are-the-only-one-there claim. From what The Economist has stated later, it seems that their reporter happens to be in Tibet for other news leads. i.e, they didn't get any special treatment from Chinese government when the whole thing started.) Some pictures they've taken can also be found here.
(3) A footnote from The Christian Science Monitor is like this : " The European traveler said he was hiding out with a Tibet family but eventually got kicked out when he disagreed with their sentiment that all Chinese and Muslims should be removed from Tibet. A monk who was with the family asked him to leave, to avoid confrontation. ", which is another corroboration that extreme nationalism played a part in Tibet violence. In fact it would be extremely rare for hatred to go that far, even between Israel and Palestinian, or between Serbian and Bosnian. It is also extremely rare for this kind of barefaced hatred to be welcomed by wide tolerance and sympathy, or even acclamation from the global media.
(4) It is tempting to blame government for opening file. And it is now moot to argue who started it first. But given that the Olympic game is on its way, I guess the last thing Chinese government wants is disturbance. Maybe I was wrong. As for whether the government should take any harsh response, I feel the answer is no in most cases. After all, the government overpowers any violent resistance it might encounter. But under extreme circumstance this kind of harsh measure might be necessary, such as the case when gasoline was poured onto Han Chinese by Tibet to set up a fire, and there is no other immediate solution other than counter-violence to stop this urgent harm.
(5) The Tibet Independence Movement claims that 100 or so people were killed in the violence. Aside from the validity of this alleged number, it is hard to determine how many of these died are of the cause of government crackdown, or how many of them are the victims killed by Tibet. Under this circumstance, the number crunching is largely pointless. Some international media singled out the death toll and suggested that they are all Tibet killed by police, which is unfair and blowing the truth out of proportion.
(6) The government's flat footed response to ban reporter into Tibet is another proof that government officials are still living in the Stone Age. It is always government's conditioned response to keep any disharmony from public, but this kind attitude toward independent media only serves to taint its own image.
(7) Da Lai's accused Chinese government of conducting culture genocide toward Tibet, citing migrations of Han Chinese into Tibet as evidence. My judgment is that the migration should be taken as ill-conceived if it is goaded by promise on better pay and higher position from the government. (Even on that note, I have some reservations since a lot of the migrants are engineers to build infrastructure, which is good for local economy. And similar migration can also be found in other provinces, such as Yunnan, Sichuan, Jiangxi. I failed to see how culture genocide works under this circumstance.) And for any civilians that moved into Tibet to seek for business opportunities, the genocide card simply does not apply. In fact, the globalization has blurred the boundary between cultures. Culture identity has to be kept through the prevalence of each culture's unique idea, instead of closed borders. Tibet by itself is not preordained to any special treatment culture-wise as opposed to the rest 55 ethnic groups in China. In fact, it is hard to find any precedent in other multi-culture nations around the world that a certain ethnic group would have the privilege to keep a massive land exclusively to itself.
(8) It is also true that Panchen Lama underwent persecution during culture revolution. There is no doubt that Tibet was deeply traumatized during land reform and culture revolution. But I want to point out that the culture revolution is a tragedy happened at every corner of China. It is a tragedy of tyranny, not a one of ethnic disparity.
(9) I guess the contributing factor that traumatized Tibet includes: (A) Communist tyranny during revolution. (B) Da Lai's displeasure of losing his power in Tibet as well as the sense of Paradise Lost. (C) The wedge driven by British colonialist during early 1900, and Tibet's foolhardiness egged on by prejudiced western report in 1980s. (A) is regretful and undeniable, but it would also unfair to turn a blind eye on (B) and (C).
(10) Economic aid to Tibet. Over the years Chinese government has provided tremendous amount of fund to boost Tibet's economy, which is in the eyes of the beholders, including Da Lai himself. Some report puts the financial aid per capita as twice the average income of a Chinese peasant. (The number may have some deviation, but you get the idea. And I guess some of the money was not in cash handed out to individual, but in other forms like the construction of infrastructure and temples. ). To be honest, this kind of affirmation action borders on Reverse Discrimination. I am not here to accuse Tibet of being ungrateful since all these investments are the windfall from Chinese government, not out of the demand of Tibet. But it would be insincere to point fingers to Chinese government with one hand while taking doles with the other.
(11) Admittedly Da Lai is a charismatic leader, who knows his way in diplomatic world. His black art to bewitch the western media is something even President Hu would envy. But I only give him credit on political skills, not on moral integrity. In other words, he is no different than any other cunning politicians. His mater piece includes a proposal to offer autonomy for independence. But if you look into the fine print, its stern demands include what I mentioned early in this article, which is extremely hard for the Communist government to swallow. The way the demand is presented at the negotiation table is tantamount to a girl implicitly saying no to her suitors by demanding astronomical amount of wedding gifts. This is a way of political shrewdness.
(12) It is also tempting to say that Tibet want freedom from an authoritarian government. But please be advised that the legacy of Tibet society is theocracy, a far cry from democracy. Some may argue that no one can speak for Tibet people except Tibet themselves, maybe theocracy is just what they want. Maybe they would rather to be enslaved by Lama instead of Chinese ruling... . My judgment is that it is ok to discuss these topics as long as the discussion is peaceful and fair-minded. And I oppose any form of crackdown on the peaceful demonstration. Tibet independence is not a problem for me. What bothers me is seeking independence by pouring gasoline onto Han Chinese, by banishing all non-Tibet migrants, by misleading the international society with miserable stories made from government financial aid, and by special interest groups' self-serving agenda under independence cover.
==================
Photocopy of Drunkpiano's original text:
posted by Nimrod | 12:17 AM
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