Tibet problem

I have to say I can't imagine believing in anything so strongly that I would set my self on fire, have you ever had a bad burn? The pain never ends.
China seriously has a no tolerance campaign in effect for anyone protesting.

It was a mercy that they put him out of his misery. Chinese soldiers truly are humane and thoughtful.

So, what was the problem again?

Well they are human but then again some of them opened fire on their own people.

On June 11, 1963 the Buddhist Monk pictured below set himself on fire in protest of the repressive policies of the Catholic Diem regime that controlled the South Vietnamese government.

Fascinating folkways those Tibettans.

Let's not forget that it's nutbars like the one that set himself afire that used to run Tibet before the Chinese. It was a religious dictatorship. The current incarnation of the Dalai might be a grinning Ghandi look-alike, but most of his predecessors ran Tibet like their own personal fiefdom for 400 years. To call Tibet under the Dalai Lamas from 1600 onwards a medieval shit-hole is being unkind to shit-holes. Most of this time, of course, they were quite happy to have their rule legitimized by China. It's only when the 13th Dalai (unlucky for some - mainly his followers) decided to get uppity did China have to point out a few obvious truths about where the balance of power in the region really lay.

At least now Tibet is no more oppressed than any other part of China. The only people having a particularly hard time are the religious zealots who insist on continuing to lay claim to their divine right to rule the rest of the poor saps in Tibet. Frankly, they deserve it. Those who simply want to get on with their lives have the chance to move forward with China into the modern world.

Discuss.

couldn't agree more... Tibet is a Hollywood movie-star inspired cause célèbre with little real validity to the argument if one scratches the surface a little.

Modern China may not be a bastion of freedom, but it certainly isn't a medieval religious feudal serfdom. I doubt very much whether most Tibetans (the ruling elite in exile not included) would thank anybody for returning them to their lives of feudal slavery.

What most Westerners fail to recognise, is the political views of the exiled Tibetans, do not necessarily reflect or represent those being suppressed inside Tibet.

Hmmm china isn't any better really, most of the workers have no protections at all, work in toxic environments, and some aren't "until the end of the job" (several months) and then only if the boss decides that they should get paid.
Protest and you are put in prison and tortured or shot, very few people are really above that level, the majority of them are little better than slaves.

All this according to frontline news.

I'm glad to see that we have finally got to the point that we agree that adequate health and safety, decent working conditions and the security against unfairness at work that can only come with collective bargaining and competent representation are the cornerstone of free and civilised societies.

That's right, I said trade unions.

Check this out, the price of economic success.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/p...ion-levels.aspx

I have no idea why those got added twice, anyways the "foggy" one is Bejing on a normal day, the clear one is where the banned millions of cars during the olympics...jesus it's so sad.

This post has been edited by f33dback: Jun 8 2009, 03:40 PM

Better than what? Better than 95% of the population being the property of the Lamas and their landed gentry stooges?

Like I said, China is no beacon of freedom or model of progressive government, but they have built schools, hospitals, universities, roads, railways and modern lines of communication to Tibet. Most of the people of Tibet are far better off under Chinese rule than they were under the Lamas, which says more about how bad their feudal serfdom was, than how Good Chinese governance has been since 1959.

Life expectancy under the Lamas was somewhere in the mid thirties. Under Chinese rule, it has reached nearly 70. Three quarters now have electricity... telephones and televisions are now commonplace and the economy is growing at double figure growth rates even during the current recession. All this in a country that as recently as 1959 had institutional slavery for 95% of the population, where all but the elite were born as slaves, toiled through their short lives as slaves, and died as slaves... Presided over by the Dalai Lama and his monks; the very same people who are now in exile claiming how wrong it was for the Chinese to march in and tell them all to get to f*ck.

Don't get me wrong, no reasonable person would even try to claim the official Chinese "happy faces, happy people" line is anything but a lie, but that does not mean Chinese rule has not vastly improved the lives of the average Tibetan.


Says the former slave owners in exile... The same ousted theocratic despot who (still to this day) claims that China murdered a million Tibetans after they threw him and his cronies out... Tibet had a population of 1 million in 1959, and has a current ethnic Tibetan population of 1.2 million, which would mean that the few thousand fragmented survivors of this genocide have had 1.2 million children/grandchildren.... errrrr, you do the maths.

The Buddhist Lamas would have people believe that pre 1959 Tibet was some kind of Shangri La. Even the current Dalai Lama was quoted as saying: "The pervasive influence of Buddhism, amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We enjoyed freedom and contentment."

Well, I suppose if you lived it up in the 1000 room Potala Palace as the God-King of a million indentured servants, that must of been how it looked... The few Pre 1959 European visitors didn't exactly see it in precisely the same way though... Dr. A. L. Waddell described Tibet as being under the "intolerable tyranny of monks" in 1895, describing it as theocratic despotism. In 1904 Perceval Landon (another English traveller) described the Dalai Lama’s rule as "an engine of oppression." As did Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, who described Tibet thus, "The great landowners and the priests, exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal. The people are oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft." In 1937, 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."

Most of the current dissent in Tibet is not about the Tibetans wanting that disgraceful, medieval slave system back, it is about the de-ethnicisation of Tibet by Han Chinese immigrants and the (not unfounded) perception of favouritism to Han immigrants and culture.

Claiming your average Tibetan wants the Dalai Lama's old regime back, is like claiming the average East European Jew wanted the Nazis back when the Stalinist Red Army kicked them out and replaced them with their own brand of despotism.

Having said that, of course, the Dalai Lama has successfully managed to extricate his image from his disgraceful former regime, and maneuver himself into the minds of many as Tibet's national figurehead, and symbol of Tibetan resistance to sino-isation of Tibet.

Schools used to be free, now they charge and most can not afford it, they send a child to work in the factories to send money back for the others.
I guess the one child rule isn't enforced every where.


So you feel that most people in tibet are actually happier or at leats better off under chinese rule?



Interesting this is the first I have heard of this, not that I pay much attention to Tibet to be frank.

This from wikipedia shows there is some dispute to what you're stating YMG, granted some of the complaining is the Lama =)


This post has been edited by f33dback: Jun 8 2009, 06:23 PM

It comes as no surprise that the self styled champion of old Tibet disagrees with my point, so there you have it.

Well it does state that 3000 flee tibet every year, that their are independent complaints along the same lines, it isn't only the llama.

While they may have more "goodies" Chinese rule is brutal, and frankly I don't think we know the half of it based on how while china seals info up there.

yah, always surprises me that people support a theocracy in Tibet. Thats just what the world needs another religious country.

Buddhism is a Godless religion, there is no "God" in Buddhism, although they do not state there is no God at all, just that it isn't worth debate in this life because it's a pointless conversation.

Gotta love that, some Buddhist sects do treat Buddha as a god though...just shows you what happens over time.

It's frankly irrelevant whether Budhism has an actual god-head or not. If it looks like a duck...

You know, this reminds me of a certain movie. What have the Chinese ever done for us eh? Apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health...?

<irony>
Whether you believe in God depends on which schism of Buddhism you belong to. Bit like Christianity really.
</irony>

You're right China has an amazing history of contributions and i wouldn't dispute that, my point is their current political system seems harsh from my perspective, and when it comes to religion it is relevant that Buddhism in its original sense has no God, it is a philosophy and IMO a damn good one.

A side note, once (not at band camp) when I was a child in Taiwan we went to a museum, they had these art works that were gifts to their king, one was a ball of ivory that was ornately carved, pain staking attention to detail, and inside it another ball, and inside that another and so on, there was no way to open the ball the person that carved it did it from a solid block and carved the inner balls as well, and they could be rotated.
The guide stated it took most of the persons life to carve it
http://culture.teldap.tw/culture/index.php...&Itemid=148
One of the most amazing things I have ever seen and i was only 9 at the time.

I think all christians believe in Jesus don't they? Since he was the son of God I think it follows they believe in a God.

Well of course it seems harsh! The Chinese government are attempting to suppress an attempted coup. One might argue about methods (and there's lot to argue about), but it's never going to be possible to make it look all smiley and nice. Northern Ireland looked ugly from the outside too.

The godliness of budhism is irrelevant in this context. The campaign waged by the Dalai Lama and his followers is about power, not religion. Anyway, when you have a leader who is to all intents and purposes immortal, you don't need a God anymore.

well, yes, but the current US political system is just as harsh. Whats the point exactly. How would the US respond to a state that wanted independence?

That sphere is very cool.