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发表于 2008-7-15 15:41
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【英语译文】
Tibet, imperialism and the fight between progress and reaction
1. The United States, Dalai Lama and the Indonesian butchers
Only the intervention of the U.S. fleet in 1950, and Washington's use of the nuclear threat in the following years can prevent the People's Army led by the communists from completing the liberation and unification of the country, thereby forever closing one of the central chapters of the history of "persecuted China". In addition to that of Taiwan, imperialism also seeks to promote the withdrawal of Tibet. And even in this case, the Left reveals his subalternation and lack of historical memory. At one time they prefered to concentrate on sophisticated and challenging readings rather than the large quality or non-quality papers. Any supporter or activist of the cause of anti-imperialism knew well that the Chinese sovereignty over Tibet had a history of centuries behind and that it was the British colonial expansionism who firstly attemptd to put that into question [1]. Yes, just a browse through on a good history book would be sufficient to become aware of the fact that these attempts were and are an integral part of the policy aimed at "dismantling China" [2].
Mao Zedong was not the only one to consider Tibet an integral part of Chinese territory. Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the republic born of the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, bore the same thought in mind. To the English who invited him to participate actively in the slaughter of the First World War in order to recover the territories torn by Germany from China, Sun Yat-sen pointed out that Britain was still more greedy: "You even want to deprive us of Tibet[3]!" For a long time, the membership of this region to China has not been questioned by historians even further away from the Left. When there was the revolt in Tibet in 1959 (largely inspired and nurtured, as we shall see, by CIA), the author of history while being harshly critical of the Communist Party of China, however put this this affair in the chapter devoted to "internal development "of a major Asian country [4].
Now, however, the Left, and even the Manifest and Liberation seem committed to supporting separatism. It was also at this detail you can see the triumph of ideology, beyond the military triumph, won by the USA in the Cold War. Before this outbreak, Washington has no difficulty in recognizing the membership of Tibet to China, at that time controlled by the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-Shek. Even in 1949, publishing a book on US-China relations, the U.S. State Department included a map showing very clearly Tibet as an integral part of the large Asian country [5].
But it began to change its orientation as the advance of the People's Army led by Mao Zedong is looming. Already on January 13, 1947, George R. Merrel, U.S. chargé d'affaires in New Delhi, wrote to U.S. President Truman to call his attention to the "invaluable strategic importance" of the region - the roof of the world, "Tibet can therefore be regarded as a bastion against the expansion of communism in Asia or at least as an island of conservatism in a sea of political turmoil." Moreover - says the U.S. diplomat - don't forget that, "the Tibetan plateau [...] in time of missile war may be the most important territory throughout Asia."
I gather these details of an American author, an CIA official for decades, for he himself takes what he can do seriously. While reporting to them, he stresses the continuity from the view expressed in the letter to Truman that we have just cited, to the one at the time dear to Victorian England, engaged in the "great game" of colonial expansion in Asia [6]. In fact, the place of the British imperialism after World War II is taken by the American one: the Tibetan separatism is now called to serve "the geopolitical interests of the USA", forcing Mao to disperse its already limited forces and then laying the conditions for the "change of regime in Beijing" [7]. To achieve such a goal, "guerrillas" were trained in Colorado and then parachuted into Tibet: they were supplied by air with weapons, tools, appliances retransmission, and so on. And they collaborated - the author and the official of CIA did not hide - even with the "old-world Khampa bandits" [8].
Therefore the context of the revolt in 1959 becomes all clear. Again in this case, the author herein has come out appreciable, not only for the first-hand information provided by him, but also for his frankness. He noted that the revolt had immediately followed the failure of the U.S. secret service's attempt to provoke unrest in China starting from Philippines. Not being discouraged, then they had to focus on Tibet. Of course - said on that occasion by a senior officer of the CIA, and often quoted by the author-official of the same organization - the outbreak of the revolt had "little to do with the aid to Tibetans". It was instead to put the "Chinese communists" on the spot. It was the same logic that presides - as explained later on by the leader of the CIA - over the decision by the U.S. secret service at that time, to "help the rebel Indonesian colonels through their effort to overthrow Sukarno", who was guilty of being "too tolerant of the Communists in his country" [9].
Having failed at its first attempt, the coup d'état in Indonesia succeeded fully in 1965: hundreds of thousands of Communists and those who were considered too "tolerant" with the Communists were massacred. Would they be less ferocious in Tibet if the forces of reaction and imperialism had succeeded in their separatist activities?
A detail gives food for thought. I infer this from the attendance of an American professor on an American magazine: it was a CIA agent who organized in 1959 to flee the Dalai Lama of Tibet. The agent later on lived in Laos "in a house decorated with a circle of ears torn from heads of the dead Communists".[10]
2. The CIA and Hollywood converted to Buddhism!
The Revolt of the reactionary Tibetan in 1959 did not score a success as expected. Already having been contacted and funded by the U.S. secret services for a long time, Dalai Lama fled to India. Once the campaign failed in the East (in Tibetan and Chinese territory), Washington began its campaign in the West. We saw the senior official of CIA consider Dalai Lama as a pawn of U.S. policy interchangeable like the colonels - Indonesian butchers. Now this same personage is raised to the glory of the altars: he became a leader of non-violence, a living model of moral nobility and holiness. The transfiguration also runs over Tibetan Buddhism as such, presenting it as an ensemble of spiritual exercises, doctrines and techniques of the sublime elevation over the miseries of this world. The American film industry worked at full capacity to spread this myth. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the competition between Great Britain and Russia to seize Tibet raged, a rumor spreaded that the czar himself became a Buddhist [11]. Today, on the contrary, no doubt on this point: Hollywood and the CIA have converted to Buddhism!
A conversion so extraordinary that it even produce miracles. For centuries, Western culture has looked with contempt to Tibetan Buddhism, considering it synonymous with oriental despotism, because of its centrality given to a so-called God-King, which was exercised on the contempt of authors as diverse as Rousseau, Herder, Hegel. From the 19th to the 20th centuries, lamas were considered "not the incarnation of dead lamas [as they claim], but the incarnation of all wickedness and corruptions" [12]. Then, when Britain was ready to conquer, it tried to justify in the name of the necessity to bring civilization to "the last fortress of obscurantism", for "those miserable little people" [13].
That goes without saying: the arrogance and the racist tendency of the imperialist are out of question, but not as far as it is necessary to repress the infamies of the Tibetan theocracy. A fact derived from the English historian we have just cited is enough to illuminate its true nature: reigning at the beginning of the 20th century, "Dalai Lama was one of the few to have reached adult age, since most of them were eliminated during the childhood to to suit the convenience of the Council of Regency" [14]. Now on the contrary, thanks to the miracle made by Hollywood (and CIA), Tibetan Buddhism has become synonymous with peace, tolerance and elevated spirituality. Everything is now clear: as has been rightly observed, on the basis of ideology and dominant stereotypes, "Tibetans are supermen and the Chinese are sub-human" [15].
Definitely amusing are some aspects of the ongoing process of the sanctification of Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Buddhism. An essential element of the latter is the caste structure, which persists even after death: while the body of members of the aristocracy is buried or cremated, the body of cowardly mass of people is given in meal to vultures. Some time ago, the International Herald Tribune reported on one of these plebeian funerals, where the priest tore the flesh out piece by piece from the bones of the death to facilitate the work of vultures, which already awaited at the top of the mountain. It must be said that the description was accurate and detailed, but it was followed by a declaration of a "scholar" who explained the whole thing from a ecological viewpoint [16]; he did not clarify, however, why only the body of plebeians were called upon to contribute to the environmental balance.
Against this discriminatory practice of caste, regarded as barbaric, the Cultural Revolution was launched; but its attempt to eradicate the violence of this very ancient tradition had come to stir the most reactionary sectors of Tibetan Buddhism, who had managed to organize a large protest in the name of defending traditions. More wisely, the current government of Tibet, even though advising against, does not prohibit those funeral rites.
3. Tibet and the fight between progress and reaction
Unfortunately, even good part of the Left seems to have converted to Buddhism if not itself, at least to the hagiographic image of Dalai Lama and the religion he professes. Again the historical memory is vanished. The horrible reality of pre-revolutionary Tibet, and the reality of theocracy which reduced to conditions of slavery or serfdom for the overwhelming majority of the population, are removed. There is no doubt that the reforms carried out since 1951 have "abolished feudalism and serfdom" [17]. They also abolished theocracy embodied by the God-King who claims or is claimed to be Dalai Lama, by implementing the separation of religious power and civil authority, which is one of the essential prerequisites of a modern country.
For the masses of common Tibetans, the reforms and the revolution have meant an access to human rights that was previously completely unknown, a very substantial increase in living standards and a significant extension of average lifespan. On the other hand, the critics addressed to the People's Republic of China are often not only instrumental but also contradictory. If a French author complains about the lack of industrial development of Tibetan Autonomous Republic, which would have remained substantially "a proto-industrial stage" [18], here, an American author writing on foreign affairs for a magazine nearby the State Department, would formulate the opposite criticisms and recommendations: the "policy of rapid modernization" and the "economic development" should proceed "at a slower pace", so as to protect the cultural identity of Tibet [19]. What a shame that U.S. does not feel the same concern when invading with their goods, their films, their songs and their "values", every corner of the world, including Tibet!
Of course, there is also a question of national rights. When the time is right to trigger an indiscriminate fight against all forms of obscurantism and backwardness, the Cultural Revolution had treated Tibet like a gigantic Vendée by suppressing or indoctrinating with a very abrupt pedagogy, implemented by intolerant and aggressive supporters of the "Enlightenment" from Beijing and other urban centres inhabited by Han. But today these errors due to extremism and aggressive universalism have been corrected. The recovery of monasteries and Tibetan cultural heritage is well underway. While making criticisms, the American magazine cited above recognizes that in the Tibetan Autonomous Region 60-70% of the officials are Tibetan ethnics, and that there is the practice of bilingualism, although it calls for the emphasis on the Tibetan language [20]. The U.S. journalists themselves mostly affected by virulent sinofobia overlook the fact that at least "the official policy of China" is kind of "affirmative action on a large scale", that is, it provides a series of positive discrimination in favour of Tibetans and other national minorities, regarding the admission to the university, the promotion to public office and the family planning (which for the Han is the most severe) [21].
How then to explain the persistent campaign against the People's Republic of China? If at the international level aimed at dismembering or at least seriously weakening this large Asian country, the internal revolt of 1959 intended to block the process of the emancipation of the masses and the modernisation of the region. It is no coincidence: even today, among the Tibetans in exile, a significant presence of the group "fundamentalists on a spiritual plane and conservatives in the social sphere"[22] still can be seen, namely the group who have not resigned themselves to the end of the theocracy and the advent of the separation of Church and State, and who lament on feudalism and serfdom.
But is the position of Dalai Lama fundamentally different? He "requires the creation of a Greater Tibet, which include not only the territory that constituted the political Tibet in contemporary age, but also Tibetan areas in western China, a large part lost from Tibet as early as the 18th century" [23]. However, Tibetan ethnic minorities also lives in Bhutan, Nepal, India, and etc.. Where would the remodelling of political geography stop and what costs would it entail? It is therefore clear that among those who oppose the forces led by the Dalai Lama there is also Nepal, who "fears that the latter do northern Nepal in secession" [24]. That's more than enough to realize how much hagiography built by the CIA and Hollywood is misleading. Celebrated as a champion of non-violence, Dalai Lama was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize for peace. Yet when India proceeded to nuclear rearmament, the most authoritative supporter of this policy is ... the Nobel Prize for peace!
***More recently, when some English universities have called for a cultural boycott of Israel, in protest against the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people, one of the first to take a stand against those English universities was Dalai Lama (cf. International Herald Tribune, August 4-5 2007). We've never seen such reaction when it is a matter to support the cause of oppressed people or to condemn the aggression wars released by the American imperialism and its allies and accomplices. ***
But at least he represents the Tibetan people? And even the Black Book of Communism itself acknowledges that an elementary historical analysis "destroys the unanimist myth maintained by the supporters of Dalai Lama" [25]. In fact, since the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet in 1951, the overthrow of the regime in this region and its socio-political transformation have encountered fierce resistance among the most reactionary group and the privileged class, but also have been able to count on substantial support within the Tibetan society. Even the authors mostly involved in the anti-China and anticommunist campaign have to admit it. They are therefore accuse "the seventh Panchen Lama", guilty of having "been connected with the communist regime". Even harsher is the judgement that the defenders of the anticommunist and anti-China crusade express on the "monks", who "do not hesitate to hope that 'Tibet will be liberated soon'" and who turn in this direction to the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army.
Such authors fail to make out the fact that Dalai Lama himself so transfigured by them from the beginning collided not only with broad popular sectors, but also with religious circles who want to "overthrow". The defenders of anti-China and anticommunist crusade should resign themselves to it. Even in 1992 during his London trip, Dalai Lama is the subject of hostile demonstrations by the largest Buddhist organization in Britain, who accused him of being a "ruthless dictator" and an "oppressor of religious freedom" [26].
Even with regard to the Cultural Revolution, undoubtedly a tragic period in the history of the region, we must bear in mind that there were "also the Tibetans" among the Red Guards: clashes took place between Maoist groups; "so, in total, perhaps more Chinese than Tibetans were killed" [27]. It is the Black Book of Communism that draws attention to this fact. However, in homage to its professional anti-communism, it does not hesitate to revive the accusation ... of Chinese genocide against the Tibetan people!
The logic of imperialism and the dominant ideology is clear. But how to explain the sympathies enjoyed by Dalai Lama also in some circles of the Left and even in circles who at the time hailed the Cultural Revolution and who still speak with some nostalgia? There is no doubt that the current situation in Tibet has improved significantly with regard to economic development, religious freedom, cultural and national rights of the inhabitants of the region. But this does not interest a Left, who is far from appreciating the effort of the Third World to go out of backwardness and misery, and project the nostalgia and the idolatry on a premodern society, whose citizens are "poor but beautiful": a society that, with some monasteries now included in tourist itineraries, should permanently serve as an inalienable or, better still, tight held place of holiday and spiritual periodic regeneration away from the gravity of opulence. In the '60s, "poor but beautiful", compared to the West, were the Chinese; but today, after the sweeping development occurred in this large Asian country, "poor but beautiful", in the eyes of the so-called Left, are Tibetan followers of Dalai Lama. What matters if it is really rich and ugly? Yes, it is rich as an exponent of caste exploiters and super-powered dollars already from the '50s; ugly, because he would have liked to continue to condemn a horrible condition degradation serfs of the aristocracy and the Tibetan theocracy. None of this counts: for some Left, Hollywood films are always more important than history books and critical analysis of reality. |
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