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发表于 2008-9-18 14:41
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【原文鏈接】http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?p=496511#496511
【聲明】本文翻譯僅限Anti-CNN使用，謝絕轉載。
【回应原文】
M.A.Jones Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 3:03 am
Dear David Meanwell and Tibetan Photo Project,
Thanks yet again for your responses. Firstly, I'd like to raise the issue of sources here. The both of you have provided links to criticisms of Parenti's The Tibet Myth. That's fine, I realise that Parenti is more of a political scientist than a professional historian, but if you look at his argument he draws very heavily from Melvyn Goldstein and A.Tom Grunfeld. Warren Smith Jr. is also not a professional historian though is he? - he is more a political activisit, and if you look carefully at his book you will see that he relies exclusively on secondary sources, particularly on Goldstein.
Now that's interesting, because just about everybody relies heavily on the works of Goldstein and Beall: Warren Smith Jr. and Leigh Feigon both rely on Goldstein very heavily, and Feigon also draws heavily from Grunfeld.
Why? Because Goldstein and Beall are considered, within academia at least, to be the world's foremost experts on Tibetan history. They are the world's most recognised authorities on Tibetan history.
Yet Goldstein and Beall and Grunfeld all present views that don't sit comfortably with the pro-Tibet lobby. Goldstein is often accused by Tibetan lobbyists of being a "CCP lackey" which is amusing, as is Grunfeld.
David, a few comments back, when I responded to your interpretation of Tibetan history, I used Feigon to support my case, yet Feigon attempts to present a pro-Tibet lobby discourse. He doesn't do a very convincing job of it, though his book is useful and well worth reading nevertheless. The fact that I can use him to support my argument is because he draws his information from Goldstein and Grunfeld, and the facts simply work in my favour. Anchor's understanding of Tibetan history is the correct one, and I assume he is a Goldstein and Grunfeld reader.
I use the word "correct" with such confidence here (some may say arrogance!) because literally all of the available empirically verifiable evidence supports the interpretation that Anchor and I have presented here on this forum - somebody like Feigon details these same facts but doesn't dare to discuss the implications of these facts. Warren Smith Jr. does the same thing in his book - he draws heavily from the experts, but is very selective in what he chooses to borrow. Goldstein and Beall and Grunfeld are leagues ahead of the Warren Smith Jrs. and Leigh Feigons of this world.
I too have a history background by the way, but my thesis focused on the differential treatment of men and women by the 18th century English criminal law courts. Still, I have a good eye for sources, and I have read widely on the Tibetan issue - I'm familiar with all of the arguments. My position doesn't reflect any bias on my part. Why should I have a bias on this issue, after all?
The simple fact is this: the weight of historical research doesn't support the pro-Tibetan case. If it did, I'd be arguing in favour of the pro-Tibetan case, wouldn't I?
Look over all of my comments on this thread, and once again, you will see that I have drawn from many sources. It's not as if I rely on Parenti. I only draw on his essay a few times in total, in fact.
And Tibetan Photo Project, I rather strongly suspect that you are not very familar with the New Left Review, which I can assure you is a highly respected and valued academic journal, and a very scholarly one at that.
I agree that there is a need to include Tibetan sources when examining the Tibet situation - both past and present. That goes without saying. But as far as I am concerned, I have done just that: I have drawn upon media and traveller interviews with Tibetans when writing my comments here, and I have also drawn upon one Tibetan in Exile historian (there aren't many of them to draw from) and I have also relied heavily on professional researchers who have spent much time in Tibet and Dharmasala interviewing Tibetans - Pamela Logan, Melvyn Goldstein and Cynthia Beall, P. Klieger and Audrey Prost. I even drew a little from Mariana and Herbert Röttgen (both of who have lived in Dharmasala and were once close personal friends of the Dalai Lama - yet I don't think I could find a more damning attack on the Dalai Lama and on Tibetan Buddhism than their book In The Shadow of the Dalai Lama). I have also drawn from writers who are highly sympathetic to the government in exile cause - the Tibetan historian I mentioned, and Leigh Feigon. I also draw a little (in one of my comments) from one Chinese historian, pointing out where he and Tibetan historians are in agreement, and where they differ.
My sources, I think, are far more varied than the more limited range that you two have so far drawn from. Tibet Photo Project, your assertion that writers like Parenti are out "to diminish Tibet" is silly slander. And as I just finished pointing out, most of the sources that I have drawn upon base their findings on actual research carried out either in Tibet or in Dharmasala, or in both. Your suggestion then, that my sources "come up notably short on viewing any Tibetan history from any Tibetan perspective" is utter nonsense.
The works of Pamela Logan and Barry Sautman and Grunfeld and Goldstein and Beall all lend support to my own personal observations too, I might add. I was last in Tibet in September 2002. In fact, I spent two weeks in Kham on route to the TAR, where Tenzin Delek was arrested.
The first thing I will say about the Kham region, is that Tibetan culture is thriving there, including religious culture. I witnessed, for example, an exorcism ceremony in Xiangcheng (Chatreng in Tibetan). This was not a commodified event for tourists. There were no tourists, and the temple itself wasn't in the least bit commodified. No entry fees, no charges whatsover. I had problems interviewing the monks, because none of them could speak either English or Mandarin. I am not fluent in Mandarin, but my spouse is, and she normally interprets for me - so I really, for much of the time, had to rely on visual observations, I admit - though in Litang I was able to interview the Tibetan family whose home we stayed in, and they were quite clearly thriving, and expressed great satisfaction with the present status quo.
Xiancheng (which is more isolated and remote than Litang) is located in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Region - a region that is home to roughly 800,000 ethnic Tibetans, who make up 93% of the total population. Xiangcheng lies within the borders of Sichuan province, not the TAR, and yet even here Tibetan towns and villages remain largely Tibetan - both in terms of character, and in terms of ethnic composition.
If you do a google search and read the plethora of travelogues written by Western travellers who have passed through Kham over the past five to ten years, you will find that the bulk of them leave with favourable impressions. Tony Williams for example, an Australian traveller, wrote the following about his time spent in Baiyu, in the Kham region of Sichuan: the Buddhist monk he talked too at the local monastery there "says he is happy with the administration. Novices are supposed not to be less than eighteen, but younger ones attend the monastery school and do not wear the novice habit. There is a limit on numbers, but it is not regarded as onerous. He says that the Panchen Lama controversy does not impinge on them because they belong to the Nyingma school, the Panchen Lama belonging to the Gelug school. The visitation of monasteries by 'political correctness' teams that has occurred in central Tibet has not happened here. Children who do not attend the monastery school attend regular school where instruction is in Chinese, but they have the option of learning Tibetan. Naturally I can hardly expect such a person to be entirely frank with a stranger, but it is clear that this monastery is prospering."
Tony Willams then has the following to say about Litang: "We inspect some of the temples and smaller shrines, in one of which we find a large picture of the Dalai Lama, and a monk asks us into his cell. This seems to be a contented place." (http://home.alphalink.com.au/~dawa/china99.htm)
Indeed, I myself came across numerous portraits of the Dalai Lama displayed openly in the monasteries of both Sichuan and Yunnan while I was there back in 2002. Monks within the TAR also told Pamela Logan that they were able to practice their religion freely, remember, so long as they didn't politicise their practices, in which case they run the risk of being arrested.
Likewise, Bill Weir, who cycled through Kham, wrote the following in his travelogue when visiting Litang: "Tibetans from the old town, the local monastery, and far away flocked to Litang for shopping and socializing. Women wore their fine jewelry of silver, amber, coral and turquoise. Men often sported fashionable hats and their own jewelry. Both men and women commonly wore bands of red yarn in their hair. Besides enjoying people watching, I strolled up the hill to the large monastery complex and wandered through the old section of town. Litang seemed more 'Tibetan' than any town I had visited in Tibet proper!....Tibetans seem to be doing well in western Sichuan. I saw many monasteries and houses being renovated or built anew." (http://www.bikechina.com/ct-bw-yn-sc-05-6.php)
Dr Pamela Logan (of Stanford University) has spent an enormous amount of time living in Kham, and has written a book about Xiangcheng, and her impressions generally mirror those of my own, of those whose impressions I just quoted above. During her frequent visits to the Kham region, incidentally, she involves herself with the restoring and maintainence of traditional Tibetan architecture in the region, particulalry monasteries.
Dr Logan also points out that such religious freedom also exists within the TAR. In her essay titled “Tulkas in Tibet”, published in the Winter 2004 edition of Harvard Asia Quarterly, she wrote: "In modern Tibet, Buddhist practice is monitored by the Religious Affairs Bureau, a branch of the Chinese government; therefore, tulkus must tread a careful path through a maze of conflicting demands. If they serve as abbots, they are supposed to participate in periodic 'patriotic re-education' campaigns, and to uphold various rules concerning things like the number of monks at their monastery. Because of their influence, they may be asked to speak out in favour of government campaigns. However, most tulkus I know do not seem much impeded by government-imposed duties. They spend much more time on their traditional responsibilities. Every monastery has a calendar of religious activities in which the local tulkus are expected to take part, and a senior tulku will probably lead. Monks gather in their monastery's main assembly hall, where they sit for hours chanting in unison from printed scriptures, usually to the accompaniment of ritual instruments such as drums, horns, and bells. At times, the chanting is punctuated by other rites such as the giving of an offering, the destruction of an effigy, or the distribution of sanctified gifts such as water, protection yarn, or medicine. A great deal of detailed knowledge is required to understand these rituals and to keep to the complicated script.”
Barry Sautman's research within the TAR led him to the same opinions, though admittedly, the situation is somewhat more relaxed in Kham where many monasteries can fly the Tibetan Snow Lion flag, and openly display photos of the Dalai Lama. One recent young American traveller to Kham even described on his blog how his Tibetan friend Dorje got around the small town of Yuke on a red motorcycle that "had a colored Tibetan snow lion etched below the seat on the back panel." That was in October 2006. Dorje's family, who often invite Chinese tourists into their home, keep numerous photos of the Dalai Lama on display. "To the side of the foyer is a group of photos of the Great Spiritual and Political Leader," writes Daniel Smith, "I was a bit surprised to see his amiable, paternal face peering from behind his bespectacled old eyes. In America, there are many misconceptions about the stringency in which certain Chinese policies are enforced." (http://khamabiding.blogspot.com/ ... biding_archive.html)
So what I am trying to demonstrate here? That one needs to look at the bigger picture. Generally speaking, Tibetans are doing well in China, both inside and outside of the TAR. Living standards have never been better. One only has to drive through the Zhongdian area of Yunnan to see how well off Tibetan farmers in Kham are doing these days to appreciate this. The Kham region has never been more peaceful or prosperous. Never!
Tenzin Delek's story then, needs to be viewed in the broader context. I have no doubt that he was the victim of a misjustice, and I think that human rights organisations like Amnesty International and those of the pro-Tibet lobby are right to rally on his behalf, and given that the pressure placed on Beijing by the EU, the US Congress and the UN forced Beijing to intervene in the case to have his capital sentence commuted to life imprisonment is something that needs to be commended. It's clear proof that human rights organisations have an important role to play in helping to monitor and to improve the international human rights situation.
But look David, I have never argued otherwise, have I? In fact, I have, from my very first comment on this forum, maintained the argument that serious human rights abuses do occur in Tibet, and that such abuses need to be challenged - but with the qualification that lobby groups ought not to exaggerate the extent of such human rights abuses.
My charge against the Tibet Government in Exile and the pro-Tibet lobby in the West, is that they very often do exaggerate the extent of human rights abuses in Tibet, both past and present abuses. I have offered up proof of this - the claim that "cultural genocide" is taking place in particular, is an ENORMOUS exaggeration. And instances of torture are not as widespread or as common as these organisations make them out to be either. This is the core issue that is at the heart of this debate David. You can alert us all to individual cases, like the one you just outlined in your last comment, but in order to assess the overall situation in Tibet, one needs to view such cases in the broader context. What percentage of the population of ethnic Tibetans have suffered such abuses? And what kinds of behaviour or activities do they need to engage in before they are likely to be arrersted and abused? What is life like for ther majority of ethnic Tibetans living in China, both inside and outside the TAR?
Take up the cases of those individuals who do suffer human rights abuses at the hands of government authorities, by all means. It's important to do so - wherever and whenever they occur in the world. But don't exaggerate the extent of such abuses, because to do so compromises the legitimacy of the human rights cause, and as I keep saying, in the case of Tibet, to do so merely encourages the separatist cause (which is a hopeless, long lost cause that even the Dalai Lama himself has given up on) which in turn raises the anxieties of those government officials (of both Han and ethnic Tibetan heritage) who are charged with maintaing public security within the TAR, thereby perpetuating an environment in which hardliners are able to come to the fore and to exert an influence.
Warmest regards,
M.A.Jones
Shenzhen
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