The struggle to be free is commendable and deserves our sympathy. At a time when the state is committing brutal acts of violence against the people, solidarity and action are necessary and, indeed, throughout the world well-wishers have expressed their outrage at the situation in Tibet. Protest movements have called for ending the "cultural imperialism" to "freedom" more broadly to "crush the oppressor" and are united in such slogans and demands. Yet what if Tibet were to gain independence from China.
The struggle to be free is commendable and deserves our sympathy. At a time when the state is committing brutal violence against the people, solidarity and action are needed and in fact, throughout the world well-wishers have expressed their outrage at the situation in Tibet. Protest movements have called for ending the "cultural imperialism" to "freedom" more broadly to "crush the oppressor" and are united in such slogans and demands. Yet what if Tibet were to gain independence from China *****
The question of national liberation is a complex issue. Discrimination, destruction of culture and community are forms of repression that are assumed to be the struggle of a nation against another, instead of placing them in the context of the struggle the ruling classes against their subjects. Thus national liberation movements of all kinds tend to create the illusion of a mass common interest against an oppressor which is always external. "Self-determination" is often a slogan which really means, rather than establishing the right of the elites of a nation determined to exercise its power and influence, both economic and political, over those who would become the subjects of the new state -Nation. *****
is no coincidence, then, that the "liberation struggles" are supported on a selective basis. Individuals or segments of society give priority to a fight over another for various reasons, and in Europe and North America one can observe the existence of "causes celebres" which are supported by celebrities, powerful and disproportionate media attention in compared to other similar struggles. The causes celebres are able to attract and mobilize people, gather ardent supporters for the cause. But not all social struggles or human tragedies qualify as causes celebres.
celebrity causes are easily mobilized around those national liberation movements, and this is by no coincidence, are related to the establishment of independence from the super-state created by so-called "Communist Bloc." The brutal totalitarian nature of such states are joyously exposed with indignation by countries that have committed the same atrocities. Members of the American political elite are quick to condemn the humanitarian conditions in China, and some go so far as to propose a boycott of the Olympic Games similar to 1980 (when the games were in Moscow, translator's note), while the U.S. still killing civilians in war oil, support right-wing paramilitary murderers, execute their prisoners and support, financially, semi-slavery conditions in factories throughout the world producing products for the U.S. market. Only a few citizens of the world aware "were whipped into such a frenzy to demand a boycott of the Olympics in the U.S..
This is not to say that the situation in Tibet is undue. Quite the contrary. But nevertheless, I put some questions for consideration.
The Tibetan situation is treated by many, as usual, with a great sense of urgency. In my city, at least three pickets have been held last week with great care, and the rest of the country, people mobilized instantly. We passionately implored to boycott the company producing Olympic uniforms, to go to the Chinese embassy, \u200b\u200bto boycott Chinese products and anyone who does not show much enthusiasm on this subject, he branded as complicit in genocide. In comparison, many events have been largely ignored by these same people, such as the recent Turkish military actions against Kurds or, even more tragically, the ongoing and outrageous situation in Congo. How is it possible that with the killing of more than 5 million people in the Congo in the last decade, the masses of local activists have remained passive, but completely ignorant of the situation?
The answers are complex and unfortunately, not very convenient. Tibetans can easily be described as the ultimate victims. As I argued some internet, Tibetans are more deserving of our support, compared with the Kurds, because they have not been violent. I was asked how many people had been killed by Tibetans as compared with the Kurds.
historian I do not think anyone is in a position to answer this question. During the Tibetan resistance, which supported the CIA, there is evidence that tens of thousands of Chinese were killed, but supporters of the Tibetan cause argue that this was merely self-defense. Currently, Tibetans have also taken some sporadic acts of ethnic violence, in fact, could be classified as pogroms, which tend to be justified by supporters of their cause as an appropriate reaction to Chinese settlement in Tibet. These kinds of episodes, if they put on the table, are easily juxtaposed to the dominant images of Buddhist monks, led by the Dalai Lama, as men of peace, in opposition to the Chinese noble, violent and barbaric.
Creating such an image of Tibetans as peaceful and happy, is probably the result of a long public relations campaign, fueled by naive believers and well-wishers as well as government propaganda. Few people care to know the realities of the feudal system that existed in Tibet up until the second half of the twentieth century, or want to know that "his holiness" the Dalai Lama is a human deity who lived in a huge palace, maintained and served by serf and as a person whose main objective was to maintain social servility and Tibetan elites. The social composition of Tibetan society did not come into play when the CIA supported the Tibetan resistance, his support was absent when it needed China as an ally and came when its political priority became the "fight against expansion Communist. "
The campaign to free Tibet which sprung up in the '80s, was launched largely with the help of the CIA and the NED (National Endowment for Democracy). With such backing, had a good start then, with the establishment of grassroots movements and student groups, received the legitimacy of the activists. Tibetans are ideal subjects to present themselves as victims: peace-loving, religious, wise, living in Shangri-La and viciously oppressed by the worst human rights violators in the world. Celebrity Buddhists and people segue New Age helped make this issue into the masses. Thus, having legitimated by the mass media and having become a cause celebre, thousands of people interested in peace and social justice in the world have taken up the cause. Some foresee the development of some form of bourgeois civil society after the liberation of Tibet, while others cling to an idealized vision of spiritual Tibet and demonstrations in orange suits and carrying portraits of the Dalai Lama. And while this cause is taken up by thousands, hundreds of equally urgent struggles remain unknown or are dismissed as the actors in these struggles fail to present themselves as the perfect victims. Have been defined and presented to the world through the eyes of the capitalist press or otherwise did not inspire enough empathy to mobilize support. *****
The struggle for the liberation of Tibet may begin with the struggle against the Chinese police state, but certainly does not end there. Self-determination is often a code word for national determination, but the true self begins with the self.
Can the movement in Tibet, becoming a national liberation movement fighting for a social revolution? We have no evidence of such revolutionary tendencies although the information receive is filtered through the ideological vision of the liberal elite. Recent experience has tended to show that people can throw off the yoke of a totalitarian communist state, "but without experience in grassroots self-organization, and in a vacuum, these countries can become market economies more or less democratic, governed by economic elites, or may become autocratic and undemocratic regimes such as those of Central Asia.
The struggle for the liberation of Tibet, therefore, is not only a struggle against the Chinese state, but also a struggle against all the powers which would enslave the average Tibetan upon gaining nominal independence. The feudal order represented by the monks, the Dalai Lama and the children of the merchant class in exile can not be allowed to take root again in that country.
One should hasten to say that feudalism could not be restored in Tibet, but this does not mean that similar conditions can not arise under different socio-economic development. Many workers are still bonded in Western Europe, in the U.S. and the Gulf States, where such an economic system does not technically exist. In factories across Asia, people are treated as slaves, although that their countries enjoy national independence. The chains of a ruling class were simply replaced by another, and the forms of slavery merely modified.
Free Tibet can not be reduced to religious freedom, freedom of association, the respect for civic organizations or other freedoms that are won by the democratic independence movements. Certainly can not justify repression of such freedoms, even a critic of clericalism can condemn repression based on religious beliefs and understand the impulse to fight against this situation. However, these freedoms do not amount to a company with a genuine popular control, where workers and communities cooperate in the creation of social equality and where the political and business elites are divested of their power, their mechanisms of exploitation and social control. The vision of a liberated Tibet is inspiring but, unfortunately, still lacks the popular imagination.
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