those who know me know that i have a personal relationship with Tibetan teachings and ideas and much love and respect for the amazing bodies of knowledge to be found in spiritual traditions in Tibet. I have seen the Dalai Lama in person, and heard him speak. he is a great spirit, a great man and a great leader, who has given the world much wonderful things, and have done much good for his people and people of the world. but there is another side. a seriously disturbing and deeply problematic one. a side that is rarely talked about.
following are 2 episodes from a radio program called For The Record which deals with fascism in all its manifestations (and in the past has focused on fascist elements within Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Zionism, etc )-- google the author -- i have no doubt that this information is reliable. (there are many other fascinating episodes if you wish to explore further)
there are surely many ways to view this material, but one thing which is for sure is i believe it is very important to consider this information, especially in these times. it is also important to point out here that it does NOT follow that i support the Chinese government or the Communist Party (actually quite the opposite).
the main questions i have after absorbing some of this is: what would it mean for Tibetans to "Free Tibet"? what would complete Tibet independence mean for the lives of its citizens? would it mean a plunge back into the dark-ages? abject poverty with no hope of anything better? a back-wards and brutal theocracy which enslaves the citizens? a country with almost zero infrastructure, very poor sanitation and health care? how to weigh the benefits and efforts to modernize and build infrastructure in Tibet by the Chinese against their oppressive rule and human rights violations? for there are certainly 2 sides to the coin, unlike mainstream western media would like us to believe.
also, what about the Lama and his regime? what position to take in light of his shady (to say the least) dealings? should i simply take what is good for myself and ignore the rest? or... or what?
do not misunderstand me:
THE MESSAGE OF THIS POST IS NOT PRO-CHINA. I DO NOT THINK CHINESE OCCUPATION SHOULD NECESSARILY CONTINUE - BUT JUST WANT TO, AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, CONSIDER ALL SIDES OF THE ISSUE.
would be very much interested to hear if anyone knows more and how you look at it.
Hell-o Dalai
This program begins a lengthy examination of the Dalai Lama’s association with a covert-action milieu, much of it fascist and associated with the Underground Reich. In addition to the Dalai Lama’s collaboration with Islamist and secular Pan-Turkist separatist elements in Xinjiang province of China, the Nobel Peace Prize winner has maintained close connections over a period of decades with SS officers, some of them war criminals.
Introducing the subject of the Nazi SS’s fascination with Tibet and its exploration of that country, the program presents an account of the 1938 SS expedition to Lhasa.
full program with real streaming
Tibet or not Tibet
at the beginning of this one dude rambles a bit, sorry about that. but it's over in like 15 minutes or maybe 20, and then he gets to the nitty gritty - a picture of Tibet far from the idealistic Shangri-La of popular imagination:
Tibet was anything but the earthly paradise the Dalai Lama and his associates claim that it was. In point of fact, Tibet was a brutal, theocratic feudal society, presided over by the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist prelates. Much of the population were serfs—actually little more than slaves. They had no rights to speak of, and were bound to the land owned by the religious leaders. Even the smallest of offenses was punished with extreme brutality—grisly torture was routine.
Addressing a cognitive consideration central to grasping the enormous gap between the public perception of the Dalai Lama and the unsavory reality of his political connections and religious practices
full program with real streaming
4 comments:
hey! was wondering what you're up to these days, so i dropped by your blog, and now find myself mildly disturbed and a little outraged. i wonder if the counterargument isn't simply that people have a right to self-determination and the path to that end and that the chinese occupation brutally silences the tibetan people. must read more; other than the random 'free tibet' type articles i've read here and there, i don't know that much about the country and its issues, but now i'm quite curious. saw a bit of the torch ceremony in sf and wondered how many of those free tibet protesters really knew what they were protesting. hope you're well! and i'll try to make a more informed comment later.
Thanks Zhao,
This is a terrible contentious area... but yr right: there seems to be an assumption in some quarters that a "free Tibet" would necessarily mean a return to an anachronistic theocracy...
Easy to smile & make a profound statement when some other poor shleps are doing all the chores!
but the dalai lama has stated many times that tibet was a backwards country. even when he was young he was interested and was making moves to change things.
its unfair I think to accuse them of glossing over things when he has been quite honest and clear about the history.
I think the tibet hippy dippy western culture is pretty awful, and I think the vajrayana should have stayed more underground ("you don't leave tea leaves out in the open or they lose their flavor")
I think if HH ('his holiness') could set up tibet again I have no doubt he would establish a democracy and would act as spiritual leader. he has even said that he is considering NOT being re-incarnated as DL but rather letting it be a democratic vote !
he has often said that the beneficial part of the destruction of tibetan homeland was that they were brought in contact with the modern world which is a two way exchange.
I also know from first hand conversations of a bunch of other intra-tibetan scandals (assassinations, sex abuse, intra-school warfare, torture, demon worship, anti-chinese terrorists).
I do know that the Chinese had a protection deal with the Tibettans. H.H. (when he was in berlin) recalled the story of meeting chairman mao and mao saying that he didn't it was a bad thing that the tibettans had their own flag, but the agreement then was that tibet was part of china.
but the Chinese treat the Tibetans like shit in their own region, they stick electric shocks into the vaginas of nuns, they really did massacre hundreds of thousands, brutal killings, they lie constantly and poorly, they fucked up the crops in tibet so millions died, they try to wipe out the vajrayana, they try to wipe out the language, they close the monasteries, they move a majority Han population into the area, they devastated the environment there with logging (its where many major rivers in asia start !)
I have one friend who said he didn't know when growing up that Tibet was ever not part of china !!!! that's what they are taught in school: TIBET NEVER EXISTED.
His mother has no understanding or clue of what the real situation is. she is still back there in the countryside.
most pro-tibettans these days say "save tibet" not "free tibet". very few people think china could even leave at this point. its way too late for that. they are just trying to stop the deliberate and systematic destruction of the culture and people and language.
wow. thanks dfx for that informative and straight forward post. maybe i should post it on the blog proper? what do you think?
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