…it doesn’t make it lies.
For years I have just accepted the general Western line that the Dalai Lama and Tibet were pretty hard done by. To be honest, I had never given it much thought.
Recently, though, I read an article about the improvements in Tibetan health and socio-economic status since Chinese rule. Although it read as propaganda it got me thinking…but only a bit.
My first thought when I read the ‘Rudd snubs Dalai Lama’ headline this morning, was “that was a mistake”. After all, the DL is above reproach. Interest piqued, I had to look up Wiki, upon which I found ….criticism of the DL.
I may have been asleep, but this was all new to me.
The criticism wasn’t very detailed, so away I went with a small grain of salt…only to go to Blogocracy and discover a similar discussion.
A few googles later and I’ve discovered it’s not as rosy as I thought.
I’ve never actually thought Buddhism was all that, anyway, given my natural opposition to organised religion. As a kid, I remember reading about Oda Nobunaga’s massacre of the Buddhist monks on Mount Hiei in Japan after they did some uncool things – I figured it couldn’t be all made up.
Anyway, I’m not going to go into too much detail – go here and here for the opposing viewpoints.
I personally don’t have the information to know what is the truth, but I guess it lies somewhere in the middle.
I think that the Chinese have probably done some pretty nasty things during their time there, and perhaps continue to do so. Their record on human rights generally doesn’t exactly instil confidence.
However, the picture of Old Tibet as a less than idyllic country with a great deal of social and economic inequality certainly has the ring of truth about it.
Neither side is correct, I’ll warrant. The Russians may not have had that great a time under communism, and the current picture isn’t great either, but you can just bet they don’t want to go back to the oppressive aristocratic regime of the czars.
It all just reinforces the fact that everything needs to be questioned, even if it seems right.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
can understand you seeking to find a middle ground, however with tyranny and the illegal occupation of a nation, there is no 'golden mean' of understanding or truth. china's invasion of tibet and subsequent destruction of tibetan culture is not at all justified by arguments which seem somewhat imperialistic, with those nice invading chappies improving the lot of the brute and backward 'natives'. the same 'reasoning' would no doubt be used in defense of the treatment dished out to aboriginal peoples in australia?
Yeah, I think it quite likely that many misinformed and ignorant souls would use similar arguments about aboriginal Australia. I, on the other hand, see what was done in this country's history as just about the worst case of imperialism that has ever occurred. Other peoples have been conquered, massacred but Europeans didn't even give Aboriginal people here that much - they were treated like animals...I won't go on.
Anyway, I guess the point of my post was that one needs to always avoid unquestioning acceptance of any particular narrative. In Tibet's case I certainly agree that there is no justification for the destruction of a nation and its culture, and that what happened was abhorrent.
At the same time I recognise that the pre-invasion picture was not necessarily a Buddhist paradise.
It is always possible, and in my view preferable, to see the good and bad on all sides of the argument.
The paradise referred to was interestingly a projection of western popular imagination,Tibet has exerted a curious and magical hold over the West. No culture or nation is beyond imperfection, that said when assessing the misery, death,oppression and injustice generated by communist Chinese ideology with the Buddhist culture of Tibet, it is difficult not to warm towards the Tibetan people. That does not claim any perfect society but one that cannot, unlike communist China be held responsible for the deaths of untold millions.
Post a Comment