Tuesday 9 August 2011

Shangri-la Politics

Hand over his political role to an elected figure, indeed! And elected by whom? Why, by nothing more than the preposterous and pernicious “Tibetan Parliament in Exile”.

The present Dalai Lama was born hundreds of miles outside Tibet. The Tibetans themselves migrated to what is now Tibet from further east in China, but huge numbers of them never did and never have done. The Dalai Lama comes from one such family.

Before 1959, Tibet was not an independent state ruled benignly by the Dalai Lama and given over almost entirely to the pursuit of spirituality. Tibet was certainly ruled by the Dalai Lama, by the lamas generally, and by the feudal landlord class from which the lamas were drawn. “Dalai” is a family name; only a member of the House of Dalai can become the Dalai Lama.

Well over ninety per cent of the population was made up of serfs, the background from which the present rulers of Tibet are drawn. That system was unique in China, and existed only because successive Emperors of China had granted the Tibetan ruling clique exactly the “autonomy” for which it still campaigns from “exile”. Life expectancy in Tibet was half what it is today.

There has never been an independent state of Tibet. Likewise, the presence of large numbers of Han (ethnic Chinese in the ordinary sense) and other Chinese ethnic groups in Tibet is nothing remotely new. The one-child policy does not apply in Tibet, so the Han majority there is the ethnic Tibetans’ own fault, if they even see it as a problem. It is totally false to describe the Dalai Lama as “their spiritual leader”. Relatively few would view him as such. In particular, Google “Dorje Shugden” for, to put at its mildest, some balance to the media portrayal of the present Dalai Lama, who, moreover, has never condemned either the invasion of Afghanistan or the invasion of Iraq.

Just as pre-Communist Russia always remained the country’s true character, so very pre-Communist China remains the country’s true character. That character reveres tradition and ritual, upholds government by moral rather than physical force, affirms the Golden Rule, is Agrarian and Distributist, is now thoroughly Classical and Patristic in taking Africa seriously, and has barely started an external war since China became China five thousand years ago. It is especially open to completion by, in, through and as classical, historic, mainstream Christianity.

China has already moved from Maoism to the equal repressiveness of unbridled capitalism. While economic, or any other, dependence on a foreign power remains totally unacceptable, a further shift, the reassertion of her own culture, is to be encouraged by every means of “soft” power. Which, in reality, is truly hard power.

1 comment:

  1. Hi David,

    First, I should say that I greatly enjoy reading your blog! You certainly bring an interesting and well-needed perspective to the blogosphere.

    I am inclined to agree with your perspective on the Dalai Lama and on Tibetan sovereignty. Though the situation in Tibet prior to 1959 was quite brutal, they did indeed consider themselves to be a client state first of the Qing and then of the Republic of China.

    China has done some incredible things toward improving the lot of Tibetan people, I don't think that's disputable. That said, having studied the ways in which the Han Chinese policymakers interact with the Tibetan people (even ones living in nearby Qinghai and Sichuan), there is still this rather damnable element of Han chauvinism to the effect that 'if the Tibetans want to develop, they have to be educated out of their laziness, backwardness and primitive superstitions, and become more like us'.

    No excuse for separatism, naturally, and there are a number of influential voices gaining prominence in Chinese policy-making which take upon themselves a bit more humility and ethnic egalitarianism (albeit still in the name of a One China / Harmonious Society ethic) - I've read with great interest the work of Dr Wang Hui and Dr Cui Zhiyuan. I actually think there would be a lot in their work of interest to you in particular - when Dr Cui was first starting out, he was condemned by the 1980's 'reformers' under Deng Xiaoping as being a 'conservative', even though his economic policies were broadly social-democratic.

    Best, and keep up the good writing!
    Matt

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