What is the worst thing you could say or write about someone? Maybe alleging that they are a murderer. Perhaps it is labeling them a child molester. Both these accusations, when used without factual merit, constitute serious slander or libel. But what is the worst thing you could say about a group of people, a nation or ethnic group?
During the Middle Ages in Europe, Blood Libel was used to devastating effect towards harming and justifying the persecution of Jews.
But today, I’d say that a good candidate for the worst group label is Nazi or some cognate term. This is because the Nazis are widely regarded to have committed the worst crime any group can commit: the crime of genocide. Any group that commits a similar crime may be collectively deemed as analogues.
As a society, Nazis have come to represent the embodiment of evil for us because of their crimes against humanity. In popular culture we are indignant at their lack of humanity and see them being gratuitously maimed and killed and we laugh and applaud at their destruction.
One recent example of the use of gratuitous violence against them is illustrated by the film Inglourious Basterds , a stylized, fictional World War II action movie about a band of Jewish Nazi hunters sneaking behind enemy lines to spread fear and seek revenge by the taking of “Nazi scalps.” As the critic Daniel Mendolsohn has said of the movie, “Tarantino indulges this taste for vengeful violence by—well, by turning Jews into Nazis.”
But false attributions of Nazihood should be seen as morally if not legally analogous to slander or libel of an individual only the harm that is done is multiplied for all individuals of the group and perhaps to the group as a whole, as such.
Now I’d like to make the claim that the Chinese people have in the last 50-plus years been the collective victims of defamation of the worst kind. Moreover, this defamation is systematic and non-coincidentally part of the very institutions that have perpetrated the very crimes being alleged at the Chinese.
There are two main narratives that go along these lines. One is the defamation spread by the Tibet Government in Exile or TGIE and their western backed supporters and the other is regarding alleged Chinese activities in west Sudan. Both allegations of Nazi-like crimes, viz, genocide, are false and defamatory. The motives behind spreading them are often racist and insincere and they are used as propaganda to further the evil deeds of many currently in power. That’s not to say that all those spreading the defamation are insincere propagandists. Many are simply ignorant of reality but have their hearts in the right place. They have simply been used, unbeknownst to them, as a vector to spread that slanderous meme.
TIBET
The TGIE, the Dalai Lama and their affiliate groups and their western-trained lackeys have for more than half a century, claimed that “the Chinese,” in various forms or other, have committed genocide on their people. Even today, the Dalai Lama continues to spread this harmful rhetoric. On his website and on many of the TGIE’s supporters’ websites, they continue to use words such as “the final solution” and more explicitly, “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” to describe what they think “the Chinese” have done and are doing to Tibetans.
But what evidence do they have of this? For more than half a century, they have yet to provide a single shred of evidence for all those accusations. The first time they started alleging claims of genocide, they claimed that China had mass-sterilized Tibetans in acts of genocide in the 1950s. Tibetan emigres seeking asylum in India claimed massive forcible or coercive sterilization campaigns carried out by China against Tibetans. Western “human rights” organizations such as the International Committee of Jurists or ICJ began investigating these allegations and enlisted medical teams to see if there was anything to the emigres’ claims.
They found that there was no evidence that any of them had been artificially sterilized, never mind done so with the intentions of committing genocide. Undeterred by reality, the emigres have continued to spread the sterilization rumor but still have yet to produce a single person of Tibetan origin with any medical evidence of forcible sterilization.
Moreover, allegations of forced infanticide directed against Tibetans in China have surfaced from many Tibetan special interest groups. These rumors have not been substantiated. Based on the extensive on-the-ground case studies inside Tibet by the anthropologist and tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein and Cynthia Beall from the The Center for Research On Tibet at Case Western University, evidence supporting the allegations failed to turn up and these Tibetologists go on to speculate that these allegations, and the allegations of selective sterilization may be wholesale fabrications invented by the Tibetan emigres to garner worldwide sympathy.
The TGIE and the Dalai Lama has also claimed that Tibetans have been “slaughtered” to the tune of 1.2 million of them by the Chinese. But that figure has been exposed as a hoax by the ex director of the Free Tibet Campaign in London, Patrick French (see here, here, here, here, here and here for additional refutations of that figure and the associated genocide claim). This figure, however, is still being spread and is widely accepted by many in the public in the west and some in congress and other US government agencies and some also in the European parliament.
Undeterred by the failure to produce any evidence of physical genocide all this time as defined under international law and in accord with common usage of that term, the TGIE have latched onto the label “cultural genocide,” a rhetorical device invented by the ICJ (which was at that time a CIA front). We are to believe, according to them, that China is intentionally wiping out Tibet’s culture so that they will lose their identity as a group. The Dalai Lama continues to this day to spread this allegation along with his unquestioning admirers. This allegation is often simply labeled by the more incendiary term “genocide” by its disseminators.
However, even the less inflammatory “cultural genocide” claim is equally unsubstantiated. In fact, there is somewhat of a cultural resurgence in Tibet as witnessed by many Tibet experts. With Tibetan language widely spoken and taught within most Tibetan schools, Tibetan religion widely practiced and the arts funded and supported by the Chinese government, Tibetans in China engage in the cultural practice of their own culture often more so than their emigre counter-parts in Nepal and India. There are still a few religious prohibitions in Tibet (as there is in the rest of China) but there is no indication that the Chinese government is trying to wipe out Tibetan culture. The Tibetan language is not endangered or under threat of extinction unlike 60-80% of the languages in the world according to estimates by UNESCO.
The allegations of cultural genocide have been refuted by legal scholars, Tibetologists, historians of central Asia, UN human rights experts and political scientists. Even Tibet scholars otherwise sympathetic to Tibetan independence such as dalai-fanboys Robert Barnett and Elliot Sperling, and dalai-fangrrl, German Green Party politician Antje Vollmer (after visiting Tibet) have cast doubt or even outright denied this allegation. Barnett said in an interview with foreignpolicy.com:
I think we have to get over any suggestion that the Chinese are ill-intentioned or trying to wipe out Tibet.
DARFUR
The other fork of the genocide allegations against China and the Chinese people concern alleged Chinese actions in Darfur. Just prior to the 2008 Olympics many in the main stream media, among celebrities and other assorted folks have claimed that China is also guilty of genocide in that East African region. Many in the media, among regular people and those in politics started to call those Olympic games the “Genocide Games” and flagrantly made analogies to the 1936 Berlin Games when Hitler tried to use the games as a propaganda tool to further his goals of Aryan conquest (also see examples here, here and here).
The rhetoric was accepted unquestioningly. But what are the facts regarding these claims? Claims of genocide in the region aside, further evidence would have to be adduced that China is involved. But neither claim seem to be sustainable in light of the facts. We are still not sure about the nature of the conflict between 2003-2005 in the region. Scholars are not sure if it is a genocide. Many countries and the EU do not affirm it to be a genocide and only the US has called it as such. But there does seem to be good evidence that the conflict is a result of tribes making competing claims over depleted resources as a result of climate change. For example, UN head Ban Ki-Moon said that
Almost invariably, we discuss Darfur in a convenient military and political shorthand — an ethnic conflict pitting Arab militias against black rebels and farmers. Look to its roots, though, and you discover a more complex dynamic. Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.
It’s no wonder then that the US would try to cast this in terms of genocide rather than tribal conflicts resulting from resource depletion due to global warming seeing that the US has been for the last 100 years been the worst contributor to global warming in the world. The US wants to continue its per-capita consumption of fossil fuels into the foreseeable future, the world be damned, and one way to shift attention and blame to that avaricious consumption is to attribute the harms stemming from its consequences to other sources.
Additionally, it has also been widely alleged by the western press that China contributes weapons to the conflict and hence, deserves blame for it. But this allegation like the rest does not hold up under scrutiny. A study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an independent collective of research scholars studying global conflict resolution and other issues have concluded in a study that over 90% of the weapons found in that region are not Chinese but western in origin (actually mostly Russian).
The US, even by its own admission, is the world’s worst weapons proliferator. Bar none. No one else even close. This includes weapons sold, traded or given to developing regimes in Africa and other war-torn, conflict-ridden regions.
WHO, WHAT AND WHY
Finally what is the reason for perpetuating this narrative? Who are its victims and why should it stop? First, the people perpetuating them may have many motives. Some like the TGIE and other emigre groups obviously have political motives and many Tibetan exiles have motives to gain asylum (reminiscent of the Iraqi, “Curveball”).
Indeed, the modern Tibetan emigre identity may be intertwined with a kind of victim group-identity and narrative, namely that they are victims of certain kinds of crimes that would entitle them to the greatest sympathies. This aspect of their identity was created by the TGIE in conjunction with their western cronies as a propaganda tool to be used against the Chinese. That narrative, like all good Hollywood scripts, must also have a villain of the most evil caricaturization.
The west’s yellow-peril fears and other racially motivated anxieties about a rising China contributes to the hatred and fear often at the heart of spreading these groundless accusations. And there can be no doubt as to the inherent racism behind much of the Tibet Independence movement.
The philosopher and practicing Tibetan Buddhist Eve Mullen has written that the Tibet genocide accusation has been used to conveniently shift our conscience away from our own crimes and used to dehumanize the Chinese.
This play of opposites still operates in new age orientalism; the positions, however, are changed, creating anew the fantasy land of Shangri-La. Tibet becomes the perfect civilization, pristine, timeless, harmonious and holy as the home of true Buddhism and a true utopia. The Tibetan people become superhuman, perfect citizens under a perfect leader. The new opposition becomes China the invader, godless and demonic, despotic and polluted. Chinese soldiers become subhuman murderers following the orders of subhuman leaders….
It is fitting, then, that we as a nation and culture turn our attentions to the other side of the world, to the racism, oppression and genocide contained in Tibet.9 Whereas our racisms are entangled in layers upon layers of our pluralistic society, theirs is perfectly identifiable: Chinese against Tibetan. If we doubt that, we need only to go to the movie theater to see the Tibetan Shangri-La, a perfect civilization where everyone is, or was, equal, and where the Chinese now create inequality….
Constructed versions of Tibetan history and culture are by-products of the Western gaze on Tibet now. As we turn our eyes to the Tibetan situation, we project the fantasies, simplifications, and desires for our own perfectibility onto the people and history we find. And our master story-tellers sculpt truth to fit the roles we demand to see. Americans may subconsciously believe it is too late to solve our own problems, but we still hold our place as a country symbolizing equality and justice.
Crimes both past and present gets buried underneath a sea of slander. Many of the most virulent accusers, individual or institutional, are from countries that have histories of atrocities they, in turn, accuse China of committing. The US, for example, may be the country that has perpetrated the worst democide, if not genocide, in the history of humankind with the slaughter of millions of Native Americans and others. It has a history of racism, racialized slavery, and Jim Crow.
The US has engaged in the support of imperialism and totalitarianism in Africa, South America, Asia and elsewhere and was once a colonizing nation. Focusing on (or outright inventing) the narrative of genocide directed at others may function as collective amnesiac therapy to mask the sins of our ancestors from our own conscience and to avoid the guilt and shame that stains our collective soul.
The rhetoric is often spread by those who wish for us to think and say, “Sure we’ve committed some atrocities in the past, but surely we’ve improved, become more civilized and we’re certainly not as bad as those Nazis, the Chinese who are currently committing genocides around the globe!”
This very rhetoric conveniently shields us from accountability and the very blood on our own hands. Not many will know how many civilians have been killed in the Iraq War fought on behalf of western nations based on self-serving lies. Even when estimates of casualties are reported, they are almost always the least plausible, the lowest among all the estimates. People are shocked and usually turn incredulous at the well-supported estimate that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died in a mere 8 years of fighting. One can only compare this public incredulity directed at these more well-founded figures with the blind acceptance at demonstrably false figures by the TGIE.
We are also selectively blinded by that same rhetoric at the atrocities currently committed by our government’s support, militarily, financially and politically for a vicious apartheid regime in Palestine. Alan Dershowitz in an AIPAC opening ceremony speech highlighted the need for American Israel apologists to shift attention away from Israeli brutality in the Occupied Palestinian Territories towards Tibet.
With this collective defamation it’s no wonder that there is so much vitriol directed against China these days in the media and by individuals within most western societies. The genocide defamation is directed not just at China but the Chinese people and this is seen most clearly in pro-Tibet propaganda. This engenders hatred and dehumanization of a group of people as can notably be seen in the reactions of some people such as Sharon Stone in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. This quake killed 80 thousand people, many of them children. Stone claimed that quake was collective “karma” for what “they” are doing to Tibetans (her ferocious ignorance made all the more loathsome and ironic considering that the epicenter of the quake was in an area the Dalai Lama considers to be part of Tibet).
It may be even more difficult for the Chinese people to dissociate themselves from the slander than it was for Germans to dissociate themselves from the Nazi regime after WWII. This is because the Nazis are usually viewed as a political group, a defective proper subset of German society which has its heroes, its Good Germans, its Oskar Schindlers and its SS-dalai-pet-projects, the Heinrich Harrers. The blood-libelers in China’s case, on the other hand, tend to frame the narrative as one dominant ethnic group destroying a non-dominant ethnic group.
In this article, I made the case that the Chinese are the principle victims of the worst kind of collective defamation. But they are not the only victims. Though they are primary victims, there are secondary victims as well and tertiary victims still. Consider actual victims of genocide. The blood-libelers who spread genocide rumors without evidence do so by diluting the word of its force and worst of all parasite off the sympathies rightfully belonging to real victims all for selfish political gain.
Moreover, Tibetans inside Tibet must live with their Han fellow citizens in a state that is made rightfully suspicious of the blood-libelers including the Dalai Lama. The Chinese government obviously do not take too kindly to these lies and knows the damage they cause to the Chinese nation as a whole and its interests. They know the ethnic resentment these lies foment and how that destroys the trust necessary to build their goal of a harmonious society. Hans know about these lies and grow suspicious of their Tibetan fellow citizens and the distrust is multiplied and feeds off each other.
The Chinese government is less likely to negotiate on more reasonable terms with the Dalai Lama so long as there is little trust between them when he continues to spread this collective defamation. They know that the Dalai Lama is seen as a god or something like a god by his many followers inside Tibet (and in the west!) and that they take his word as Truth personified, without question. Constructive dialogue towards solving much of the problems inside Tibet becomes incredibly difficult when so much distrust and resentment on both sides have been created. The potential for more violence like the ’08 March riots is increased by the climate of suspicion and ethnic animosity it causes in society. Those that live inside Tibet, Tibetan, Han or Hui, must live with the consequences of those lies. This piece of untruth reverberates half way around the world leaving many in its wake seriously harmed.
YinYang says
Well argued and abundantly supported.
The smearing in the media is very real.
I also think the collective defamation in the West could have an impact on the citizens of Chinese decent who live in the West:
“Opinion: Citizens of Chinese heritage in the West to also bear the brunt of Western media bias“
colin says
Great article.
There is such a massive gap between the projected image of China in the West, and the reality of China that the reconciliation could be explosive. It’s amazing how ignorant most westerners are, as the Sharon Stone example shows.
Naqshbandiyya says
Beautifully written and well-researched post, and timely too. Once you are aware of the conflation of China with the Nazis, you begin to notice it everywhere. On newspaper reports about the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize debacle, a popular meme spread that the only other time that a NPP laureate was imprisoned was in 1935 by the Nazis (ignoring that Aung San Suu Kyi received this distinction as recently as 1991). The Confucius Peace Prize was compared to the Nazis’ art prize (ignoring the dozens of other organizations that had their own Nobel equivalents). Tibet, an undesirable place to live for its harsh climate, is suggestively called “Lebensraum” by what you inappropriately call “pro-Tibet” groups. It is truly sickening how normal this China-Nazi conflation has become: even you (probably unconsciously) helped it by using the word “totalitarian” in your post, which was originally created to slander communism by association with Nazism.
Aside from collective action, one thing that we as individuals can do to counteract this slander is not to tolerate it in our personal relationships. Chinese people should not indulge the doublespeak of Westerners that is “I hate Chinese [people/government/communists] in general, but I like you”. Make it clear that even when ostensibly liberal people chant slogans calling for “the Chinese” to “get out” of Tibet, Darfur, or wherever, they are personally attacking you and your human rights. A key reason why exiled Tibetans are much more influential than overseas Chinese despite their numbers is because of their cohesiveness. Ironically, what is hurting Chinese people around the globe are their freedoms: perhaps this freedom to denounce other Chinese and the Chinese nation wouldn’t be used so often if we were aware of the deadly consequences.
Now I would understand if you wouldn’t want to give this issue any more media attention out of principle, but I am curious about what you and the other authors think of the recent self-immolations by Tibetan monks in Sichuan. Many in the English-language media are taking these monks’ melodramatics as proof ipso facto of some kind of unbearable repression in Tibet, but surely this religious fanaticism points to an urgent need of more control over the monasteries.
melektaus says
@Naqshbandiyya
I didn’t call China totalitarian. I did say that the US is supporting totalitarian regimes in Africa.
Naqshbandiyya says
@melektaus
Yes, but you could have been more precise in your critique of the U.S.’s African client states. Surely the worst thing about them isn’t that they don’t conform to the Western liberal democratic model (which is the standard and weapon of the word “totalitarian”, as it is wielded against China and many others)
melektaus says
It’s not a problem with “precision”. It’s just a different conception of totalitarianism. Yes, some African regimes are totalitarian. The reason they are totalitarian is not because they are not western liberal democratic. I never said that that lack was necessary for totalitarianism.
raventhorn says
I think most of the “blood libels” /smears are simply continuation of historical racist stereotypes.
The paranoid theories of conspiracies of devious immoral people of different cultures or races or nationalities, is a near constant in the history of Western civilization.
The words may change, to repackage old theories.
wwww1234 says
If you were to script a movie showing the evilness of the Chinese government, how would you have done it for TAM?
Obviously students should be the ones to die, as that evokes the memory of May fourth movement, and echoes the traditional respect concurred on intellectuals, who by right of being “learnt men”, are entitled to future fortune and ideal spouse/family. The revulsion is amplified by the students being weak and feeble after long hunger strike, penniless and living in tents, totally unarmed but with their devotion to their motherland.
And how should they die: being mulled down by machine guns, run over and crashed to death by tanks while still inside the tents in the middle of night.
Chai Ling said it all, “we hoped for blood to flow like a river”.
But now we know what happened in real life.
No one, no students or otherwise, died or get arrested in the square where the sit in was illegal but the participants remained peaceful.
Unarmed Troops had already been beaten back and prevented from entering the city, an unexpected event that did not occur even during the Cultural Revolution when the army, as by its revolutionary tradition, was accorded the highest honor in arbitrating and resolving conflicts.
Rioters (mostly non students) had set up mobile and stationary barricade with burning buses and cars to block entry into the city, and there were troop injuries and fatalities when their trucks were stopped by violence. Sodiers were burnt and hanged( can be seen in youtube).
Tanks were necessary to push pass the burning vehicles and unblock the traffic for the troop carrying trucks.
Here is where the Molotov cocktails came in as effective and fatal anti-tank and anti-carrier petrol fire bombs.
Those who died were mostly 1 to1.5 hours(on foot) away from the square, many throwing rocks and Molotov bombs, fighting to prevent troops entering. That was a riot, a battle or a mini-war, and the troop to civilian mortality ratio was close to 1:6. The total civilian death was estimated by most to be 300 to 700.
But what was eventually told was the pre-scripted version, by the media including “patriotic” newspapers in HK that were tricked by rumors, many originating from HK with local collusion from the catholic church and “democracy” advocates, plus Taiwan and the CIA.
There was never a “massacre” of unarmed peaceful civilians, in the square or elsewhere.
To me, this is the worst defamation.
raventhorn says
@wwww1234
Funny bit of the “imagination” creation of the Western media about TAM, is that it’s the US history of bloody crackdowns (and some in UK) that most resemble this imaginary creation of TAM.
Wounded Knee, Kent State, Bonus March, Race riots, etc. (and the Hussar charging of the Peterloo protesters in Great Britain, “the Peterloo Massacre”, where cavalry charged unarmed crowd and used sabre to slash at the people, mostly women and children were injured).
*I always said, when the West “imagines” the worst about China, they often borrow and reveal the worst of themselves.
Common Tater says
Thank God we have the Han to free us from our Western racism! You guys have been so accepting of other identities – as long as they kowtowed to you. Very open minded chaps you always were!
Common Tater says
Yes. And doubtless the Chinese do the same towards the West. Human nature, old chap.
YinYang says
@Naqshbandiyya
Excellent point.
melektaus says
Doubt it. The Chinese tend to have naive views about the west and many of them tend to be positive. I doubt there are few analogues between what the west have thought and continue to think of China and what Chinese think of the west.
melektaus says
@wwww1234
That’s what a wikileaks released showed: that the Tiananmen square “massacre” is a misnomer. Compare that with the Kent state massacre where unarmed students were shot and we have a case of fabrication of what China did and a disappearing act of part of our own US history.
raventhorn says
“Kowtow”? Another Chinese concept that some Westerners imagine that they know what it means.
Excellent point, Old Chap. If you actually knew what “Kowtow” meant. Oh if you only knew, you would have freed yourself of such old stereotypes. 🙂
But, not my problem, not my job, not my pet cause.
“Han” Chinese are not here to “free” you, or make you “kowtow”. You just have to wait for some other people to make your fantasies come true.
WWWW1234 says
@melektaus
essentially, there were two events and two outcomes to 1989,
one that was illegal but peaceful but resolved well under the circumstances;
the other was a riot and mini-war started by rioters and instigated with domestic and foreign forces.
The FIRST peaceful half has been portraited to represent the whole face of the movement,
and the SECOND violent part was presented as the sole outcome to the first.
It was scripted/crafted and propagated by the “free press”, especially the ideologues and “independent” press in Hong Kong, where it continues to this date.
Allen says
One question we need to ask is why we have such “collective” acts of defamation?
In a “free market” of ideas, preemptively the best ideas and the truth ultimately emerges. As Brandeis famously remarked in a 1913 Harper’s Weekly article, entitled “What Publicity Can Do”: “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”
Ultimately one has to conclude: either free market doesn’t work and that most people are just sheep following or monkeys mimicking what others say – or that a group of people have monopolized sources of information.
I tend to think it’s the former. (The latter usually involves some sort of “conspiracy” amongst the powerful, media, rich, etc. and is usually too “conspiratorial” for my personal taste).
In my view, a true marketplace of ideas exist for an exceedingly narrow range of topics. For most topics, people meekly follow a loud minority. Once a dynamics has been set up, people follow. The dynamics – as the OP has discussed – started long ago, with yellow-peril fears … continuing through the cold war … and into today.
This is why I – despite not having enough time – continue to (and plan to continue) participate in this forum. The smear against China is not really just against a government or a nation, it is against a people, a civilization …
It is worst then the worst of antisemitism in Europe. If left uncontrolled, it will lead to suffering many times what Nazis produced…
raventhorn says
@Allen
Good points as always.
Speaking of Nazis, one should realize, Hitler and his top henchmen would have been nothing, if the rational German people did not give into fear and paranoia.
Hitler might have been just another crazy person who rants of conspiracies and left homeless on the streets. (He was unemployed and terribly unsuccessful in several careers).
*That’s why I don’t put too much stock in “doomsday scenarios” from political hacks. In my opinion, too many of the Prophets of Doom are simply driven by “Inferiority complex” overcompensated by delusional “Messiah Complex”, (which is similar to what drove other crazy men like Hitler).
Charles Liu says
Agree, the political link isn’t pure fabrication. I mean our supposedly independent media is in fact connected with industry (sponsorship) and government (access to information). To deny the military-industrial-media-complex is about as laughable as the conspiracy theory.
While the truth is somewhere in between, there’s definitely a pattern – the convergence on China narrative, mode of reporting. One example would be this “China does XXXX” type stories:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15373885
One primary school (out of how many?) in China makes students with poor grade wear green scarf, suddenly it’s China doing it, or all Chinese parents are revolting (against one school.) Another example would be the “tobacco support schools in China”, “Chinese government encourage children to smoke” story. The truth is some schools that are part of a tobacco agriculture work unit in western China put up some banner that said tobacco revenue supports local education, that’s it.
Antioxidants says
A well written article. So how to counter this kind of collective defamation? Calling DL a wolf in a monks robe, a human face with the heart of a beast probably will only enhance his status.
YinYang says
@Antioxidants
I liked what Naqshbandiya said above.
Draw strength from this article in your arguments with people you personally know. Share it in whatever medium you have access to.
Common Tater says
@raventhorn
Sorry, could you say that in International Standard English? My Raving Nationalist Triumphalist Rhetoric is a bit weak.
Common Tater says
Sorry, could you say that in International Standard English? My Raving Nationalist Triumphalist Rhetoric is a bit weak.
Common Tater says
Oh yes, and Xinhua news and this site are full of naive love for the West!
Thank God you guys are of a higher nature! Hopefully, soon you’ll create something nice to share with the world.
BTW, the concept was how people project their own fears and weaknesses onto their rivals. It’s human nature, old pip. But maybe you can drown it out if you stand in a bath of money and listen to “the East is Red” at 100 decibels.
Common Tater says
Could you say that in International Standard English? My Raving Triumphalist Nationalist Rhetoric is a bit weak.
perspectivehere says
Melektaus, this is a well-researched post and your links are very informative.
Your post made me think of the “10 principles on War Propaganda” as distilled by historian Anne Morelli, which were based on writings by Lord Arthur Ponsonby, British politician and Member of Parliament, in the 1920’s.
Ponsonby is most often credited for the quote, “When war is declared, truth is the first casualty.”
See http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/01/12/683319/-10-principles-of-war-propaganda
“[Morelli] credits the work of Lord Ponsonby, an amazing and unfortunately somewhat forgotten character. He stood, largely alone, in the Commons opposing WWI before it started, predicting not just the massacre it was going to be, but more interestingly for our purpose, how it was going to be sold to the masses.
Morelli enumerates it as the following principles:
1. We don’t want war, we are only defending ourselves
2. The other guy is the sole responsible for this war
3. Our adversary’s leader is evil and looks evil
4. We are defending a noble purpose, not special interest
5. The enemy is purposefully causing atrocities; we only commit mistakes
6. The enemy is using unlawful weapons
7. We have very little losses, the enemy is losing big
8. Intellectuals and artists support our cause
9. Our cause is sacred
10. Those who doubt our propaganda are traitors.
There is no value judgment in those principles; we can verify that they apply regardless of the evilness of the belligerent we evaluate through them. They may also be true. They applied to revanchiste France in 1914 as well as Britain, they applied to Nazi Germany and to the United States in WW2. They applied to colonial powers and to Gulf War I allied. They undeniably apply to current Afghanistan and Iraq.”
**********************************************
I think the “Collective Defamation” you describe in your post can be predicted or explained by several of the Ponsonby/Morelli principles.
perspectivehere says
Ponsonby’s remarkable 1928 book can be read in its entirety here:
FALSEHOOD IN WAR-TIME: Propaganda Lies of the First World War
by Arthur Ponsonby MP
1928 by George Allen and Unwin
http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/archives/texts/t050824i/ponsonby.html
Ponsonby was the son of Sir Henry Ponsonby, private secretary to Queen Victoria, so presumably an “insider” in the British establishment and privy to the techniques that the British empire used to rule its colonies and to fight its rivals and enemies.
The Introduction is quite perceptive – it seems to be as true today as it was when referring to the British propaganda during World War I. Here are a few excerpts:
*************QUOTE******************
“INTRODUCTION
THE object of this volume is not to cast fresh blame on authorities and individuals, nor is it to expose one nation more than another to accusations of deceit. Falsehood is a recognized and extremely useful weapon in warfare, and every country uses it quite deliberately to deceive its own people, to attract neutrals, and to mislead the enemy. The ignorant and innocent masses in each country are unaware at the time that they are being misled, and when it is all over only here and there are the falsehoods discovered and exposed. As it is all past history and the desired effect has been produced by the stories and statements, no one troubles to investigate the facts and establish the truth.
….
A useful purpose can therefore be served in the interval of so-called peace by a warning which people can examine with dispassionate calm, that the authorities in each country do, and indeed must, resort to this practice in order, first, to justify themselves by depicting the enemy as an undiluted criminal; and secondly, to inflame popular passion sufficiently to secure recruits for the continuance of the struggle. They cannot afford to tell the truth. In some cases it must be admitted that at the moment they do not know what the truth is.
The psychological factor in war is just as important as the military factor. The morale of civilians, as well as of soldiers, must be kept up to the mark. The War Offices, Admiralties, and Air Ministries look after the military side. Departments have to be created to see to the psychological side. People must never be allowed to become despondent; so victories must be exaggerated and defeats, if not concealed, at any rate minimized, and the stimulus of indignation, horror, and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of “propaganda.”
The psychological factor in war is just as important as the military factor. The morale of civilians, as well as of soldiers, must be kept up to the mark. The War Offices, Admiralties, and Air Ministries look after the military side. Departments have to be created to see to the psychological side. People must never be allowed to become despondent; so victories must be exaggerated and defeats, if not concealed, at any rate minimized, and the stimulus of indignation, horror, and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of “propaganda.”
….
The use of the weapon of falsehood is more necessary in a country where military conscription is not the law of the land than in countries where the manhood of the nation is automatically drafted into the Army, Navy, or Air Service. The public can be worked up emotionally by sham ideals. A sort of collective hysteria spreads and rises until finally it gets the better of sober people and reputable newspapers.
With a warning before them, the common people may be more on their guard when the war cloud next appears on the horizon and less disposed to accept as truth the rumours, explanations, and pronouncements issued for their consumption. They should realize that a Government which has decided on embarking on the hazardous and terrible enterprise of war must at the outset present a one-sided case in justification of its action, and cannot afford to admit in any particular whatever the smallest degree of right or reason on the part of the people it has made up its mind to fight. Facts must be distorted, relevant circumstances concealed and a picture presented which by its crude colouring will persuade the ignorant people that their Government is blameless, their cause is righteous, and that the indisputable wickedness of the enemy has been proved beyond question. A moment’s reflection would tell any reasonable person that such obvious bias cannot possibly represent the truth. But the moment’s. reflection is not allowed; lies are circulated with great rapidity. The unthinking mass accept them and by their excitement sway the rest. The amount of rubbish and humbug that pass under the name of patriotism in war-time in all countries is sufficient to make decent people blush when they are subsequently disillusioned.”
****************END QUOTE********************
My favorite quotes:
“Falsehood is a recognized and extremely useful weapon in warfare, and every country uses it quite deliberately to deceive its own people….”
“The ignorant and innocent masses in each country are unaware at the time that they are being misled, and when it is all over only here and there are the falsehoods discovered and exposed.”
“… the authorities in each country do, and indeed must, resort to this practice in order, first, to justify themselves by depicting the enemy as an undiluted criminal;”
“…the stimulus of indignation, horror, and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of ‘propaganda.'”
“The public can be worked up emotionally by sham ideals. A sort of collective hysteria spreads and rises until finally it gets the better of sober people and reputable newspapers.”
“Facts must be distorted, relevant circumstances concealed and a picture presented which by its crude colouring will persuade the ignorant people that their Government is blameless, their cause is righteous, and that the indisputable wickedness of the enemy has been proved beyond question. A moment’s reflection would tell any reasonable person that such obvious bias cannot possibly represent the truth. But the moment’s reflection is not allowed; lies are circulated with great rapidity. The unthinking mass accept them and by their excitement sway the rest.”
**************************************************
A bio of Ponsonby is here:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUponsonby.htm
Allen says
Maybe this book may be of value here, too.
“War Is A Lie” by David Swanson:
http://www.amazon.com/War-Lie-David-Swanson/dp/0983083002/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319299945&sr=8-1
perspectivehere says
Has anyone heard of the Paris Massacre of 1961?
I had never heard of it until I read about it today, here:
Imperial Massacres
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/21/imperial-massacres/
“Since we’re on the topic of imperial executions, let us not forget October 17, 1961. Last week saw the fiftieth anniversary of the massacre in Paris of hundreds of Algerians by the French riot police. Called by the FLN, the Algerians had mustered from their neighborhoods and bidonvilles to central Paris in support of the Algerian war of liberation, then six years old. Algeria, remember, was, in formal terms, a French department.
Centering on the Charonne metro station, the French riot police attacked with lethal savagery, battering and shooting peaceful demonstrators to death and throwing their bodies into the Seine. Corpses were later dragged from the river as far downstream as Le Havre. These days the death count is reckoned as at least 300, some of the victims murdered in detention centers around Paris. The French Interior minister of the time in De Gaulle’s government was Maurice Papon. In 1981 , the French weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné published an article accusing Papon of having collaborated with the Germans during World War II. Papon was officially charged with crimes against humanity in 1983. His trial for overseeing the deportation of 1,690 Jews to a detention camp in the Paris suburb of Drancy did not take place until 1997. Papon’s role in the massacre of October 17, 1961, and indeed details of the massacre itself – long suppressed in French public memory — surfaced during his trial.”
Wikipedia had this to say:
“Despite the extent of the massacre and publicity surrounding the event – anecdotes tell of piles of bodies in the street, as well as bodies being found downriver for weeks afterwards – the paucity of objective press coverage at the time of the massacre was likely due to two factors: successful censorship of the media by several levels of the government, and biased reporting by major media outlets in countries that were supportive of the French government’s policy regarding Algeria. Some censorship was enforced by the Paris government because of concerns about responsibilities within the Paris police department for the massacre, while other censorship was enforced by the government because of concerns about its deteriorating position in the Algerian War. Furthermore, according to James J. Napoli, coverage of the massacre by major British and American media sources, such as The Times, TIME magazine and The New York Times, downplayed the severity of the massacre as well as the Paris government’s responsibility for the events.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961
Of course, the English press have no qualms about sticking it to the French, in gory detail:
“The modern massacre that shames the French: The police slaughter of Algerian immigrants (just 50 years ago) that’s been airbrushed from history”
By TONY RENNELL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052098/The-modern-massacre-shames-French-The-police-slaughter-Algerian-immigrants-just-50-years-ago-thats-airbrushed-history.html
“A solid phalanx of French riot police in blue and black uniforms held their ground at one end of the bridge over the River Seine that connects the western suburb of Neuilly to the centre of Paris.
They were a terrifying sight, fully kitted out for battle and raring to go. At the other end stood another line of police, also armed with batons and rifles.
In between them stood around 100 unarmed and very frightened Algerians. Carrying banners and placards, they had come onto the streets of the French capital with 30,000 others that day to protest at official curbs on their freedom to move about the city.
The date was October 17, 1961 – 50 years ago this month – and the bloodbath that was to unfold that autumn day was to be one of the most barbaric and shaming events in ‘civilised’ Europe’s post-war history.
….
Under the presidency of General Charles de Gaulle, France was the land of liberty, equality and fraternity, yet what lay just beneath the surface was about to be revealed — repression, racism and violence.
The police began to advance, slowly, from either side, but this was no ‘kettling’ exercise designed to contain and disperse the demonstrators. The intention was to beat, maim and kill.
The trapped Algerians — citizens of France, in fact, because Algeria was at that point still a French colony — had nowhere to run.
As the two police lines met, batons were swung, shots were fired, panicking men, women and even children were cut down. Some were hurled, dead or alive, into the waters of the Seine.
‘The police shot at people, who fell down wounded or dead,’ he says. ‘Everyone scattered, and I ran to the entrance to the Metro where I was kicked and crushed. I got home covered in blood and broken by my wounds.’
How many Algerians did not make it home is still a matter of conjecture and dispute. The official police figure that day was an impossible three dead — two Algerians shot and one, they said, who had died from a heart attack. Algerian sources went to the other extreme, claiming 300 deaths.
The exact number has never been pinned down. In so far as there is any consensus even now on the October 17 death toll, it is only that anywhere between 32 and 200 were killed.
What is certain is that for weeks after, bodies were washed up on the banks of the river. According to the Left-wing writer Simone de Beauvoir: ‘Corpses were found hanging in the Bois de Boulogne and others, disfigured and mutilated, in the Seine.’
Some of the police involved were so disgusted at their own actions that, many years later, they confessed to taking part in a hate crime.
‘For two hours we hunted and shot anything that moved,’ says one, named Raoul Letard. ‘We were waging a war and our adversary was the Algerians.’”
….
A cover-up began as soon as the mayhem on the streets subsided, with Papon maintaining his men had fired only after they themselves had been shot at. He claimed that any bodies in the street were the result of in-fighting among Algerians themselves. The Paris newspapers generally accepted this explanation and dug no deeper.
The Communist Party spoke out against what had happened, as did isolated groups and some individuals in the Paris council and the national government.
But since cameras had been confiscated from photographers who filmed incidents that did not fit the official story and newspaper accounts were censored, there was no hard evidence to go on.”
**********************************************
http://www.resistenciahonduras.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3811:french-rally-on-algerian-massacre-anniv&catid=101:news&Itemid=349
“Thousands of anti-war protesters across France have marched to commemorate the more than 300 Algerians who were brutally killed by the Paris police 50 years ago, Press TV reported.
The demonstrators renewed on Monday their call for the French government to recognize the deaths as a “state crime.” The government, however, has continually refused to apologize.
Thousands held a nighttime demonstration to mark the 50th anniversary of the brutal slaying of some 300 Algerians by Paris police in the city’s bloodiest massacre since the Paris Commune. On October 17th 1961, tens of thousands of Algerians peacefully protested a discriminatory curfew, but police responded by opening fire and arresting an estimated 12,000 men and women, many of whom later claimed to be brutally tortured.
….
Authorities still dispute the death toll, and the massacre receives only a brief mention in school textbooks, but perhaps most infuriating to many is the fact that the French government has never formally apologized.”
***********************************************
Why is it that a French massacre attracts little attention from the world community?
Ray says
@perspectivehere
Actually, no. I thought the atrocities in Algeria is pretty bad but never heard of this incident.
Anyway, anybody heard of the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir in WWII?
peace says
“Why is it that a French massacre attracts little attention from the world community?”
Chinese should be more interested about the world, only if to know how brutal weak people are still treated. Instant death to purveyors of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’. More exposure in Xinhua the better.
Common Tater says
Well, if you know what we mean, then we must know what you mean! Or do you assert a knowledge of the West that the West lacks of the East? How arrogant.
Kowtow, in popular English usage – something I do know about, old chap – means to submit by a self-deprecating formal gesture of fealty. When used in regards to China, it means the above but to the leaders of China, first the emperor or course and now the CCP.
With respect to ethnic policies, it means to accept Han dominance over non-Han lands (like Tibet) and to thank them for it.
Common Tater says
Wow! I didn’t know that Kim Jong Il was on this site! Cool!
raventhorn says
@Common Tater
“Well, if you know what we mean, then we must know what you mean! Or do you assert a knowledge of the West that the West lacks of the East? How arrogant.”
I do know what you mean, Old Chap, and you are wrong on your understanding of the word.
“Kowtow, in popular English usage”.
Yes, “popular English usage” of a Chinese word. NOT much for correct usage of the original word. I frankly don’t care how wrong you have been using the Chinese word for how many decades.
“With respect to ethnic policies, it means to accept Han dominance over non-Han lands (like Tibet) and to thank them for it.”
Nope, just learn the ACTUAL correct meaning of the original word, NOT how you “popularly used” it. Yours was always a “popular” propaganda for yourself, I grant you that. 🙂
raventhorn says
Apparently, you think you DO know Kim Jong Il well enough to spot him. 🙂
Common Tater says
Sorry dude, we’re talking English. Words have very flexible interpretations. You know, like “democracy” and “human rights” in the PRC?
raventhorn says
@Common Tater
“Sorry dude, we’re talking English. Words have very flexible interpretations. You know, like “democracy” and “human rights” in the PRC?”
Sorry dude, you are using a word borrowed from Chinese language.
And Well, we don’t use “democracy” and “human rights” in PRC. We have “Democracy” and “human rights” with Chinese characteristics . Hence, what we have been trying to tell you, they are NOT the same!! You have your “democracy”, we have ours.
You don’t see me pretending that Chinese “democracy” and Human rights are the SAME as Western “democracy” and human rights. (Thank heavens they are not the SAME)!! 🙂
Now, you can “kowtow” with Western Characteristics, then maybe we can understand you better. 🙂
raventhorn says
@Common Tater
Hence, the obvious extent of your “popular” brainwashing. You borrow a word from other cultures, and then you pretend they are the same meaning as how you chose to use the word. And when someone else borrow a concept, you STILL assume that they mean the same as you do.
(Well, let’s see, you didn’t even invent “democracy”, that was from the Greeks!!) 🙂
Come to think of it, lots of words in “popular English usage” are just made-up BS in old English history, Old Chap!!
I guess you can’t complain much now the Americans are writing “color” instead of “colour”, LOL!!
*OK, OK, I got a word for you, “Democrazzzy”, that’s what you have. Ie. you are boring me to death, in my “popular usage”. 🙂
zack says
the problem i see here is the language barrier; “socialism/democracy with Chinese characteristics’ is such a vague term, and as this German philosopher has noted, language conveys more than just meaning, but culture as well. hence minzhu which is incorrectly translated as ‘democracy’ in Chinese has multiple meanings
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/MJ18Ad02.html
Mick says
The author of this post seems to be ignorant of Godwin’s Law (“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”) The accusation of being nazi/fascist has been so overused as to be devalued. Not so much collective defamation and collective desperation.
melektaus says
@Mick
I am well aware of Godwin’s law. But that law is irrelevant. It’s not about making comparisons with Nazis on online discussions. It’s about making the connection in the trusted, mainstream media and in the minds of general public. So Godwin’s law doesn’t even apply. Besides that, who takes Godwin’s “law” seriously? It’s supposed to be a joke, not a serious law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Otto Kerner says
This is a well-written and interesting article. I agree with your critique of TGIE’s rhetoric. In trying to emphasize how bad the situation in Tibet is, they go way overboard and start using terms like “genocide” and throwing around highly implausible statistics. TGIE is not a reliable source of information, but they are just getting in on a general trend toward watering down what “genocide” means. Likewise, ideas about China and Tibet in the West are typically highly oversimplified. I’m reminded of a time when I was in college when I went to a meeting of “Students for a Free Tibet”. There was a college sophomore or junior, something like that, basically a kid, running the meeting and answering people’s questions about Tibet. After he had been going on at some length about the horrors of the occupation, someone asked him, “Why do the Chinese want to control Tibet?” and he just went blank … after thinking for a few seconds, he just said, “I don’t know” and went on to the next question. I thought, how do you expect to fight this if you don’t even know why it’s happening? How do you expect anyone to take you seriously? Hippies with bumper-stickers are not a reliable source of information, either, sad to say.
You also skewered Sharon Stone’s comment about the earthquake quite aptly. Her soundbite does end with her concluding that we should show forgiveness to people who have done wrong, but she never seems to have realized that a) she apparently thinks that the Chinese public collectively bears responsibility for the situation in Tibet; and b) the earthquake affected more Tibetans and other minorities than it did Han Chinese people anyway (I assume that Sharon Stone knows nothing about non-Tibetan minorities in China, so she presumably has no opinon on whether they are also responsible for the situation in Tibet). The best one can say for her is that she appears to be speaking off the top of her head, which can often lead to someone saying things that are dumb when you think about them; however, she doesn’t seem to have taken the opportunity of the uproar to think more deeply about it.
I don’t know what you have against Robert Barnett and Elliot Sperling. Just as you quoted him, Barnett agrees with you and me and Patrick French that there is no genocide per se in Tibet. I guess the problem is that he clearly believes that there is a serious political problem in Tibet, so, although their rhetoric is exaggerated, TGIE still gets closer to the truth than Xinhua does. I agree with him about that (so does Patrick French, by the way). I’m not sure what point you were making by bringing up Israel/Palestine. The comparison seems pretty straightforward: Israel isn’t guilty of genocide in Palestine, they aren’t trying to wipe out the Palestinians, and the Arabic language is not endangered in Palestine. The Israelis aren’t evil monsters. Their government does have policies in Palestine which are very destructive and are rightly criticized by many people throughout the world, although many governments tone down their criticism because of American political pressure. Likewise, China is not guilty of genocide in Tibet or wiping out the Tibetan language. The Chinese people aren’t evil monsters. The Chinese government does have very destructive policies in Tibet which are rightly criticized by many people throughout the world, although many governments tone down their criticism because of Chinese political pressure. The Americans aren’t evil monsters, either, naturally.
Charles Liu says
“The Chinese government does have very destructive policies in Tibet”
Disagree. What distructive policies specifically?
– Anything like the Israeli’s settlement policy? A simple comparison between the land Palestinians lost in 50 years and the size of Tibet SAR in 50 years shows what?
– Anything like the Native American policy we have in US? Should we set a good example and relinquish land we stolen, before we make demand of the Chinese?
I see you stop short of admitting we have more destructive policies than the Chinese:
“The Americans aren’t evil monsters, either, naturally.”
So it’s okay for the Chinese just do what we do, let broken treaties stuck in courts for 100 years while putting Tibetans in tiny parcels of desolate “reservations” and move even more Hans to 99% of of Tibet SAR?
melektaus says
@Otto Kerner
Thanks, Otto, I appreciate any criticism or comments that responds to substance and not devolve into invective. It’s rare to have that kind of dialogue with many pro-Tibet people.
My issues with Barnett and Sperling are really issues with focus, tone and potential solutions to the real problems in Tibetan regions. I think the west should work together with China in resolving these issues and part of that means abandoning an antagonistic attitude and the rhetoric of genocide and colonization. The west (the media and public) must accept the fact that Tibet is part of China and it will remain that way. If it is to respect the rule of law and democracy at the international level and expect others to respect its own territorial claims, it must do so with other nations’ legitimate claims. That is what lies at the heart of the rule of law and democracy, respect for the rules set down by the community’s consensus views.
The reason I brought in Israel/Palestine is the contrast the roles our government is playing with that of China in Tibet and claim that the rhetoric I talked about are useful fictions in deflecting attention to that area and other areas with more direct involvement of US and western crimes. Israel is not committing genocide but there is good reason to think that they have committed ethnic cleansing during the Naqba and is currently committing apartheid, intentional military targeting of civilians, illegal seizures of land and homes, occupation, and other crimes that constitute crimes against humanity in international law, crimes that China has never committed in Tibet.
I definitely disagree that the TGIE is closer to the truth than Xinhua. I think Xinhua is closer to the truth than the TGIE or even the so called “free” mainstream US media. That media and the general public does not normally criticize Israeli actions in Palestine. It downplays or hides Israeli crimes in Palestine and exaggerates or invents Chinese crimes Tibet. This is seen clearly when you look at public polls, more Americans are supportive or sympathetic of Israel than Palestine while most Americans want Tibet to be independent while only 5% think Tibet should be a part of China. That is a huge discrepancy with reality caused by the biased media using the rhetoric I described above and systematically hiding or downplays Israeli crimes.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/FinancialTimesHarrisPolls/tabid/449/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1512/ArticleId/201/Default.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/146408/americans-maintain-broad-support-israel.aspx
melektaus says
Sperling has come up with some pretty silly (actually down right stupid) ideas on China’s sovereignty over Tibet. His reasoning (if it can be called such) is basically that since the Yuan and Qing dynasty rulers were not ethnically Han, they were not Chinese dynasties and hence Tibet was never a part of China and so today it should not be a part of China. This line of “reasoning” is so incredibly daft that it warrants not a response but mere derision.
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
I would agree that no one are as “evil monsters” as often portrayed by media (but that would include the “criticisms” being broadcasted in the media, and by the TGIE, which says something about the “critics”).
Now for the rational critics of policies and politics, no offense, but no one take you seriously in any case. Americans don’t, Chinese don’t either.
(Because you are not above using irrational conclusions, like TGIE is closer to the truth than Xinhua. Please, when you say stuff like that, you pretty much corner yourself in with Sharon Stone and TGIE).
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
I think while I can’t condemn entire nations as “evil monsters”, I think the “Free Media” in the West is a Monster of a kind.
Consider what happened to the Native Americans, African Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, I consider then less results of Apathy, but more the product of ACTIVE demonization by the “Free Media”.
Yes, the “Free Media” had blood on its hands, because it was there to lead the mob and glorify “righteous violence”, countless times in Western history.
Now, some would choose to follow that Monster down the same road again, but that says something about the collective guilt of an apathetic and irresponsible people.
The rest of us have seen through the BS covered hide of the Monster that is “Free Media”, and we rightfully should ridicule it.
I do not demonize any “People”, I mock the Monster and those who follow it.
Otto Kerner says
@Charles Liu
The fundamental problem with China’s Tibet policy is that the Tibetans have a right to preserve the fabric of their society and their language the same way that a sovereign nation would. In other words, they have a right to self-determination. I don’t care whether this is achieved by actual independence, or by a form of autonomy that allows the same domestic policies to be enacted. Tibetans who insist on either version are met with severe repression from the government.
Tibetans don’t have freedom of speech. Writers, publishers, and artists who don’t follow the party line can have their works banned or they can be arrested.
Tibetans are not guaranteed due process of law if they are suspected of crimes. There have been persistent allegations of torture for Tibetans in prison or those who have been detained on suspicion of political crimes. Lawyers defending Tibetans charged with political crimes have been harrassed.
Religion is allowed but is the subject of constant interference. Monasteries are run by government-appointed bodies which are not traditional and are often at odds with the general body of monks. Monks (and sometimes laypeople) are required to take part in aggressive propaganda campaigns which include being required to denounce Tibet’s most cherished religious leader. Photographs of important religious leaders are banned. Monasteries which were previously destroyed by the government cannot be rebuilt without permitting, which is difficult to come by; permission to create new religious establishments is limited. The government has declared its intention to interfere actively in the identification of future reincarnated religious leaders. They have already rejected the 11th Panchen Lama who was agreed to by the Dalai Lama, by the abbot of Tashilhünpo Monastery, and by most of the monks of that monastery. They abducted the 11th Panchen Lama even though he was a young boy and he has apparently been under house arrest since then if he is still alive. They used extreme force to quash dissent about this at Tashilhünpo, imprisoned the abbot, and threatened Geluk religious leaders who wouldn’t pretend to go along with it. They have made no secret of their intentions to handle the next Dalai Lama the same way while forcing the public to pretend to like it.
Religious restrictions are more stringent on government employees and party members, which is onerous because the public sector dominates the Tibetan economy (see below).
Tibetans are not allowed to travel abroad freely. Tibetans attempting to circumvent rules which prohibit them from leaving the country (they can apply for travel permits, but how often are permits granted? Civilised countries normally have laws regulating who comes in but anybody who wants out is allowed to leave) have been shot and killed by border guards.
Security forces have attacked and arrested peaceful protestors on numerous occasions (I have no objection to their handling of violent rioters).
Tibet remains one of the poorest areas of China, especially for rural people, which is what most Tibetans are. Various countries have seen rapid economic development in the 20th/early 21st centuries; Tibet has not been one of them. Tibet’s economy is propped up by huge government subsidies, which means that it hasn’t really had much economic development per se. The government’s economic policies could be worse (and they were much worse in the 50s and 60s) but overall they have not been successful, unless the goal was to create an economy dominated by non-Tibetans (which I don’t think was intentional).
Limitations are placed on the number of children that Tibetans are allowed to have. It’s true that these restrictions are less than those placed on Han Chinese people. However, since Tibet is sparsely populated, there’s no good reason why there should be population controls at all.
Some of these issues also affect Han people and others living in the PRC, not just Tibetans. Of course, at best that shows that the government also has destructive policies toward the entire country; it certainly does not undermine the point that they have destructive policies in Tibet.
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
“Security forces have attacked and arrested peaceful protestors on numerous occasions (I have no objection to their handling of violent rioters).”
Well, “peaceful” is rather relative, isn’t it? Civil disobedience still means arrests, even in US. Read up on the laws. There is no such law that says “peaceful” protesters can’t be arrested. A Jaywalker may be peaceful, but he can still be arrested!! 🙂
“Tibet remains one of the poorest areas of China, especially for rural people, which is what most Tibetans are. Various countries have seen rapid economic development in the 20th/early 21st centuries; Tibet has not been one of them. Tibet’s economy is propped up by huge government subsidies, which means that it hasn’t really had much economic development per se. The government’s economic policies could be worse (and they were much worse in the 50s and 60s) but overall they have not been successful, unless the goal was to create an economy dominated by non-Tibetans (which I don’t think was intentional).”
Well, you got a problem with “economic development” or “cultural genocide”? Seriously, I don’t know what you want. 1 minute, it’s not developed enough. Next minute, it’s too developed.
“Limitations are placed on the number of children that Tibetans are allowed to have. It’s true that these restrictions are less than those placed on Han Chinese people. However, since Tibet is sparsely populated, there’s no good reason why there should be population controls at all.”
1 good reason, “economic development” will be slowed down by overpopulation. It’s relative. Tibet would be “sparsely populated”, if it was flooded with money. But it’s too dense already, because its economic development cannot support the existing population.
“Some of these issues also affect Han people and others living in the PRC, not just Tibetans. Of course, at best that shows that the government also has destructive policies toward the entire country; it certainly does not undermine the point that they have destructive policies in Tibet.”
Again, you neglect the relative scale of things. the Policies have been relatively successful comparing to the HIGH mortality rate of Tibetans prior to “Chinese policies” (and the high mortality rate of Tibetans under TGIE policies).
If you are counting total death tolls, then Western “Democracies” have been destructive to entire countries as well. That would be your generalization, and it is ridiculous.
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
Let me just quickly dispel the continual MYTH of “peaceful protesters”.
(1) Peaceful doesn’t mean anything. That is not a term of law that defines the boundary of who can be arrested.
(2) By most nations’ legal definitions, any amount of protests that violates any ordinances/regulations are considered “disruptive” or “disorderly”, and can be subject to arrest.
(3) what is “attack”? any use of police arrest processes can be said to be use of “force”.
*So, one can generally and loosely criticize pretty much any government of “attacking and arresting peaceful protesters”.
Wahaha says
Otto,
Please stop pretending your british care for Tibetans and their right. Have a look of what you did to Iran in 1950s, maybe you should ask your government pays back what your country have exploited from Iranian people.
The other reason I am 100% sure you people dont give a damn about human right of other people is because you never made Kasmir a big issue while your country and west have far more influence over Indian government than over China.
BTW, dont ever utter “power to the Tibetan people”, we all know it is”Power to the lamas”, as it is obvious in Tgie. (Just like dont equate “power to the rich” to “power to the people”.)
Otto Kerner says
Charles, I will extend to you the same suggestion I made to Ray on another thread. I am willing to talk about Israel/Palestine or about U.S. policies toward indigenous peoples (or about the Basque country or the Falkland Islands or the Sorbs in Germany). Those are interesting topics. I am not willing to have you change the subject whenever it suits you, so I want those to be separate discussions. Do you want to talk about in this thread or move to the open thread?
Charles Liu says
Compare and contrast is a valid discussion concerning the claim “The Chinese government does have very destructive policies in Tibet” you made in this thread, which I disagree.
They are interesting, and is on-topic. Why you want to take focus away from them is obvious to me, that it chips away the moral high ground.
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
If you don’t want to change the “subject”, that is fine, but I think without the external references, we would NOT know what you mean by “destructive policies”.
Seriously, Life is “destructive” generally, since EVERY life eventually dies.
Human rights in a vacuum makes no sound to anyone. 🙂
Charles Liu says
@Otto Kerner
“Tibetans have a right to preserve the fabric of their society and their language”
Compare Tibet SAR’s large, contiguous, historical territory where Tibetans enjoy interconnection, kinship, preservation of their way of life, let say, with our Native American reservation system where historically decimated populations are relocated to and isolated from each other, in tiny pockets of desolate land called “reservations”, with the alternative of joining Whiteman’s society and kill off their identity, language, culture.
Do you hear news about Tibetan language going extinct? Native American language dies all the time:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/farewell-udach-kuqaxaach-the-last-native-speaker-of-eyak-773893.html
How about the Andamanese under the British:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/04/ancient-language-extinct-speaker-dies?bcsi-ac-9aa2ee6158f67bfb=1DBFC52E00000005zMZTBzZLILP5JYvoUSYXAB+oi/cCAAAABQAAAIhUAQCAcAAAAQAAABEnAAA=
Please cite something similar about Tibetan language/dialects. Rest of your bullock can be easily contradicted as well.
jxie says
Otto,
The per capita GDP of TAR in 2010 was about $2660, 20% higher than that of Mongolia, 100% higher than the Indian state where TGIE is located. The comparison with Mongolia is quite remarkable if you consider that in 1950, though precise stats aren’t easily available, it’s pretty much certain Mongolia then a Soviet client state enjoyed much higher living standard than Tibet. Both are land-locked and hard to get to, but Tibet in almost every aspect is worse than Mongolia in nurturing economic development.
Sure those Tibetans who can speak Mandarin Chinese have benefited from the thriving economy the most, but if you conduct any sort of survey, it’s likely in Dharamsala those Tibetans who can speak Hindi and/or English make more.
If the human development trend since the Industrial Revolution holds, in the future we will speak fewer languages regardless the formation of nation states. Look at Ireland, it gained independence from the UK. Yet 90 years later for not lack of trying — Irish Gaelic signs are everywhere and funds have been poured in to preserve the language — native Gaelic speakers are fewer and fewer, especially among young Irish.
Oh BTW, Mongolians today (in nation of Mongolia) can’t read or write the script Genghis Khan used.
Charles Liu says
@raventhorn
Raven, even Otto’s “very” is completely subjective, meaning compare and contrast will bring truth into light. When compared, who actually enjoy the “right” Otto mentioned more fully?
That’s what Otto really wants to avoid. Given the relative destructiveness under comparison, it weakens his “very” indictment against China, and at the same time expose the disproportional focus on Tibet, demonstrating such focus and narrative does not serve the purpose of aiding victims, but to demonize China.
Facts show the Native Americans are suffering worse than Tibetans, why not fix that and rescue these more dire people first? Oh wait that not the goal, the real goal is to piss on China, right?
This American say we should save the Native Americans first, perhaps we will, for once, set a good example for the Chinese to learn from. When we treat our own Tibet worse and at the same time point fingers, what lesson are the Chinese learning from us?
Otto Kerner says
Charles, compare and contrast is fine, if you have something interesting to say about it. Do you? I’m happy to answer your questions, I just don’t think they lead anywhere interesting.
See my response above.
A little bit like that, but not very similar.
It shows that neither is in a very good situation. Palestinians may be able to achieve an independent state at some point, which looks like it will be impossible for Tibetans.
No, not very much like that at all.
We should set a good example by having exemplary policies going forward and have the same expectations of everybody else.
No, it’s not okay.
Charles Liu says
@Otto Kerner
“See my response above.”
No, you did not cite any specifics. You made a bunch of allegation without any citation.
“A little bit like that, but not very similar.”
Again I disagree; it’s nothing like Palestine. Show me Tibet SAR territory shrinking, disintegrating like Palestinian terrtory:
http://www.bearcanada.com/fae/israel/genocideingazaintro.html
Show me anything remotely like this about Tibetan children:
http://www.bearcanada.com/fae/israel/murderchildrenforsport.html
“No, not very much like that at all.”
And which is worse when compared?
“No, it’s not okay.”
The fact you can’t bring yourself to let the Tibetans suffer a worse fate pretty much proves my point.
The Palestinians are being put into US style reservation system by the Israelis, but people are more than okay with that, while at the same time point finger at China over Tibet?
jxie says
A modern language is constantly changing and enriching, almost as if it’s a living thing. If you have a time machine going back 100 years in a Chinese or English speaking area, you will find most of the words and phrases you use are foreign to them.
To China’s credit, in places like Tibet and Xinjiang, schools are educated in 2 or multiple languages. However, the problem is often the higher the grade goes, the fewer teachers and sometimes even textbooks are available. For instance, you can easily translate a scientific journal piece from English to Chinese, though at times you may have to create a word or two, which if they have staying power, they will quickly become a part of the general vocabulary. However, the task will often be much tougher for translating to Tibetan.
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
I think you are using a BOT to spit out generic 1 liners? Or perhaps you are trying out your new Magic 8-ball?
Seriously, these generalized answers are lamer than American-invented Fortune Cookie lines.
🙂
Just look at your responses:
“See my response above.
A little bit like that, but not very similar.
It shows that neither is in a very good situation. Palestinians may be able to achieve an independent state at some point, which looks like it will be impossible for Tibetans.
No, not very much like that at all.
We should set a good example by having exemplary policies going forward and have the same expectations of everybody else.
No, it’s not okay.”
Otto Kerner says
That’s true. I’m not interested enough to look all the citations right now. Do you ask for citations when the other 99% of commenters on this site who are singing for your choir say things?
U.S. policies in the past have been worse than Chinese policies are currently. U.S. policies, given the low baseline that has been set, currently are much better than Chinese policies.
Why are you talking about “people”? Talk to me, not “people”.
melektaus says
It’s not just past policies, it’s current policies. The US has invaded how many countries in the last 10 years? How many people have died as a result? Answer: well over a million. The USA supports Israel, an apartheid regime. The US kills its own citizens and imprisons them for making youtube videos and systematically tortures people. It has a crime rate many folds higher than China and huge race problems. Many western nations have equally poor human rights records. Saying it is only past policies of the US is misleading.
melektaus says
This is vague and unsubstantiated. Tibetans can practice their religion and do so. They are literate in their language even more so than many Tibetan emigres in India and Nepal and Bhutan. It’s common for pro-tibeters to engage in these kinds of vague and vapid slogans using words such as “self-determination” and “freedom” to avoid substantive points because they at some level know they can’t back up any substantive claims. When they do they are proven wrong as my above post show with genocide claims.
Tibetans don’t have freedom of speech. Writers, publishers, and artists who don’t follow the party line can have their works banned or they can be arrested.
It’s misleading suggesting that this is a selective policy against Tibetans.
Tibetans are not guaranteed due process of law if they are suspected of crimes. There have been persistent allegations of torture for Tibetans in prison or those who have been detained on suspicion of political crimes. Lawyers defending Tibetans charged with political crimes have been harrassed.
It sounds like all these claims need to be substantiated with facts from independent sources. The problem is I have never seen them except from exile groups or their western lackeys. And this again, is misleading in suggesting that it is selectively against Tibetans even if true because they may have been applied to everyone in China. Many of the policies you described pale in comparison to the situation in Palestine. I’ve gotta wonder what the motives are of westerners who brush aside Palestine to focus on Tibet when the situation is so much worse in Palestine and when Israeli crimes are funded politically, financially and militarily by the US. I also gotta wonder about the motives because western nations invasions of foreign countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you really want to compare things like the “crime” of not being able to display a photo in public, harassment of lawyers, and state sponsored monasteries to apartheid and the use of white phosphorus to burn children alive, state sponsored terrorism in Palestine and the over one million that have died as a result of western nations’ invasion of Iraq? That is deeply troubling and indicative of serious moral character flaws.
I find many of your claims not based on evidence but from a biased perspective or from the word of mouth from the TGIE or exiles. Your claim that the TGIE is closer to the truth than xinhua is also seems to be based not on evidence but mere allegiance to some cause.
Charles Liu says
@Otto Kerner
“currently are much better than Chinese policies.”
Absolutely disagree. But we can talk specifics when you have gathered enough interest to look at the citations and compare each nation’s transgressions at face value.
You can start by citing Tibet SAR’s territory shrinking and breaking into tiny pieces, or dead Tibetan children with brain/guts scattered on the ground. (We’ve seen dead Han like that at the hands of peaceful Tibetan protesters, want to see the citation?)
melektaus says
Many of the claims of red herrings used against some of the Chinese posters or supporters of their side when using the US or Israel as an example are wholly without merit. Hypocrisy is a legitimate charge, not a red herring. The deceased Oxford political philosopher, Gerald Cohen wrote the best paper on the topic of criticism from hypocrites I’ve read called “Casting the First Stone: Who Can and Who Can’t Condemn the Terrorists”.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/TerroristsCohenJerry.html
raventhorn says
As I just wrote on another thread, worth repeating here, I find the characterization of “changing the subject” rather RACIST!!
EVERY criticism of China, by nature is a comparison to something else, such as Western Democracy, Western Human Rights, Western morality, etc.
If whenever a Chinese person want to do a legitimate REAL comparison becomes “changing the subject”, then I say the criticisms of China were RACIST to start with, ie. ONLY some get to do the compare on the account of their “ethnocentric” morality!!!
I say HELL with that!!
If Otto doesn’t want to change the subject, then he should stick to his OWN “subject”, ie. his own country.
His criticism of China is his diversion from the subject of his own problems in his own country!
At the end of the day, all the HR critics are just a bunch of people running around headless trying to “change the subject” to someone else’s problems. 🙂
Charles Liu says
And how about Darfur? Still remember Mia what’s-her-name and Steven Spielberg? People who converged on this issue around 2008 had no reason other than to Nazi-ize Beijing Olympics and demonize China.
All one heard back then was stuff like “Chinese machetes”. Did any of them mention our 20 million dollar CIA military and weapons support to the SPLA and John Garang 10 years ago:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Darfur+CIA+early+involvement
The original Darfur mess we started was later replaced with inter-tribal conflict and herdsmen fighting for territory and scarce resource, as the blogpost pointed out.
Beijing had little responsibility nor influence over that.
raventhorn says
From now on, my standard reply to China Critics:
Don’t Change the subject, Stick to your own problems!!
Don’t change the subject, China’s problems are NOT your problems!!
Don’t change the subject, Mind your own business!!
Don’t change the subject, you are not perfect!!
1/2 of above, Courtesy of Otto and Richard, for their Efforts in changing all subjects to China!! 🙂
Otto Kerner says
You’re so right, raventhorn. Why did I come to Hidden Harmonies China Blog and come to this thread about perceptions of Tibet, and then take it upon my self to change the subject to China and Tibet.
raventhorn says
Don’t Change the subject, Stick to your own problems!!
Don’t change the subject, Tibet’s problems are NOT your problems!!
Don’t change the subject, Mind your own business!!
Don’t change the subject, you are not perfect!!
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
Hey, you are the one who doesn’t want to change subject, So don’t. Those who want to do comparisons and critiques, stick around.
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
Hey, I think that’s your admission that you are changing the subject. 🙂
So, I guess if you want to change the subject, so can we.
Ray says
Well, it is like when we see a child who is drowning (the US native American) and a child who is having some learning difficulties (the Tibetan Chinese); some holier than thou person come around, jump up and down and say save the kid with learning abilities while totally ignoring the drowning kid.
Maybe he is blind or just ignorant but when others pointed it out to him, he still insist on saving the non-drowning kid.
Funny eh?
Otto Kerner says
This forum attracts people whose reactions to the conversation are extremely emotional.
Otto Kerner says
It’s not that I don’t think it’s a legitimate charge. I have discussed it various times before on this forum and I’m not interested in having the same conversation again. It also serves as an easy way for some people to change the subject whenever convenient and avoid talking about other legitimate topics.
Otto Kerner says
I said “given the low baseline that has been set, currently much better”. Is U.S. policy currently shrinking indigenous territory and breaking it into tiny pieces? Is U.S. policy currently killing indigenous children and scattering their brain/guts on the ground, or is that something that happened a hundred years ago?
Otto Kerner says
Look, changing the subject is one thing, but can we at least be clear on what we are talking about at any given time? My response that you quoted above was a reply to a very specific question that Charles Liu asked. How does that question and my response relate to your response to me? Feel free to change the subject if you’d like, but please do so other than by charging right in with a non sequitur.
Otto Kerner says
I agree. I’m obviously not going to be able to lay out a thorough, documented elaboration of all of the problems with Chinese policies in Tibet in the kind of forum post I have time to write in between the other things I do in my life. What I wrote above is along the lines of an opening statement in a legal case. It’s an argument that the case should not be dismissed prima facie. I’m happy to discuss specific topics in more detail as time permits.
I really don’t see the point of comparing the situation of Tibetans living as citizens in their own country to refugees living in foreign countries. I should hope Tibetans in Tibet don’t have it as bad as refugees do.
I don’t think I’m avoiding substantive points. I don’t think “self-determination” and “freedom” are merely slogans, either, although I don’t want to get into disagreements over how to define them. My substantive point is that what I think Tibetans want is to be able to have a securely Tibetan society, meaning that they would have control over and would limit migration of other people into their region and they would promote the use of the Tibetan language over other languages. I don’t think it’s wrong for Tibetans to want these things; it sounds good to me. These are the policies that are considered normal in almost every independent country, although I don’t really care whether they enacted in Tibet through independence or some other arrangement.
I think they also want economic development and opportunity, but that’s less of a clear case because everybody wants it and some countries have achieved it but others haven’t; there’s no consensus on what determines their success or failure.
I said specifically below that many of these policies are also used against other people in the PRC. That obviously doesn’t make them any less destructive in Tibet. In fact, I strongly suspect that Tibetans are considered to be less politically reliable, so Tibetans in general are more likely to be subjected to scrutiny and censorship.
Who other than exiles and people you would describe as “lackeys” would be willing to report on this? But the fact is that I don’t think very many Chinese people in China would be surprised to learn that PRC citizens are not guaranteed due process of law and that they stand a chance of being tortured if they are detained for the wrong kind of crime.
I did not compare them. I like talking about politics because it’s entertaining. I don’t accept the premise that I have to talk about the most important possible political issue all the time or else I’m trying to hide something. If I were talking about the Republican presidential primary debates in the U.S. or proposed constitutional reforms in Germany, you might say, “Look! None of that is important! Children are dying right now in Congo thanks to rebel armies!” and you would be right. Does that mean that no one should talk about the Republican primaries or constitutional reforms in Germany?
It’s like if you are someone who is worried about global warming and there are two candidates running for president, one of whom is a Democrat who has staked out a position in favor of fighting global warming and the other who is a Republican who doesn’t want to do anything. You have no illusions about the character of either of these men; you think they are politicians who will say whatever they need to say to get elected. You don’t believe in global warming because the Democratic candidate says so; you’ve done your own research. However, because he believes in global warming, you know that he is more likely to say things that are true about it, because he has happened to take a position that you think is true.
Lime says
I think this idea of “blood libel” is not particularly well supported here. In the media there is a common, sloppy habit of using the common name of a country when describing the actions of the government as in “China ‘is fuelling war in Darfur’ “, but I think that most reasonably well educated readers understand that this does not mean that “China” is literally reasonable for fuelling war. “China” is after all, a very nebulous concept that includes at least two modern states, hundreds of no longer extant ones, and billions of people living and dead. It’s pretty obvious to most, I hope, that the article means the government of the PRC is the allegedly responsible party, and not every single living Chinese person. Admittedly there are people like Sharon Stone who apparently read headlines like this literally, but if you’re setting out to unmask the fallacies in Sharon Stone’s worldview, I think you could probably do something more constructive with your time.
Even leaving aside the really silly and racist opinions of people like Sharon Stone, concentrating on attacking the positions of people who claim the Chinese government is committing genocide is basically focusing on the shrillest voices or most politically involved ones, not in fact the most well accepted. As the article itself points out, even people actively involved in anti-Chinese government movements have publicly contradicted these claims. You would be hard pressed to find any serious student of China or Tibet in this day age who would claim that Chinese government is actively murdering hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, for example.
So beyond pointing out that if you look hard enough you will find racists, poorly informed people willing to say really stupid things, and that independence movements like the Central Tibetan Administration are not above fabrication to advance their cause, I’m not sure what this article proves. There are many better informed people that have criticised the Chinese government for its Tibetan policies and other actions without resorting to claims of genocide, as Otto Kerner did in his comments here. There is after all a lot of room between “they’re genocidal Nazis” and “everything they do is absolutely hunky dory.”
Otto Kerner says
Well said, Lime.
raventhorn says
Don’t change the subject, Otto. You’ll give yourself a heartattack.
Who’s this “people” you are talking about? Talk to us, Otto. 🙂 Don’t change the subject.
Otto Kerner says
Hold on, there’s one more thing I want to reply to:
Look, I said above that I don’t believe “cultural genocide”. That said, there is a serious threat to Tibetan culture (I just don’t see the point of calling it “genocide”). I totally reject the premise that Tibet can either develop its economy or preserve its culture. Mostly every developed country in the world maintains and strengthens its own language and its own sense of nationhood while developing. Is South Korea any less Korean than it was in 1950? They sure as hell didn’t have to learn to speak Chinese in order to have a developed economy. Nor does this apply only to fully independent sovereign states. The Åland Islands, an autonomous Swedish area under the sovereignty of Finland (which would make a good model for Tibet), is one of the richer parts of Finland, and the people there didn’t have to stop being Swedish to make it happen.
In fact, as it stands, Tibet is neither preserving its culture very well nor developing its economy very well (although I will grant that neither the culture nor the economy are being actively destroyed the way they were under earlier PRC policies). It’s not either/or.
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
“In fact, as it stands, Tibet is neither preserving its culture very well nor developing its economy very well (although I will grant that neither the culture nor the economy are being actively destroyed the way they were under earlier PRC policies). It’s not either/or.”
Actually, it is, but you don’t want either, apparently. FACT is, TGIE is doing FAR less in preserving Tibetan Culture, NOR developing its economy in Exile. So, I don’t know what standard you are using to make your rather moralistic generalized judgments.
But since you “grant that neither the culture nor the economy are being actively destroyed the way they were under earlier PRC policies”, I don’t know what you mean by “destructive policies”.
you seem to be contradicting yourself.
raventhorn says
As I stated in the other thread, the whole concept of “Cultural Genocide” by China is just another version of the old Yellow-Peril Racist propaganda.
Back in the old days, it was the paranoia that the “Yellow-Horde” would take over US.
Today, the theme is that the Chinese horde is taking over Tibet by “culture” and economic policies.
As usual, the RACISTS present themselves as “preserving” some one’s culture, in the face of the invading “horde”, who might bring immoral, uncreative cultures that pollute the purity of some idealistic “culture”/Shangrila.
Full circled, again.
Charles Liu says
For US we have “mission accomplished” on the Native American. But it’s happening to the Palestinians right now. Where’s your zeal in complaining? Shouldn’t we save the poor Palestinians first, since their situation is more dire than the Tibetans? Or the poor Native Americans first, since they’ve suffered the brutality for 100+ years, far longer than the Tibetans (as others have pointed out, such policies continues TODAY.)
If you have enough interest in specifics now, check out the links cited in comment #55, which your reply was “no interest”.
jxie says
@Otto,
Counter arguments: Gaeilge in Ireland (pop. 4.5 million), Romansh in Switzerland (pop. 7.7 million). Both countries have tried pretty hard to preserve their native languages, and yet they are obviously in trouble.
There are roughly 5 million Tibetan-speaking people worldwide. The dissimilarity between local dialects can be nearly mutually incomprehensible, compared less favorably to Gaeilge and Romansh, far less favorably to Korean.
In life or universe in general, everything is possible — a glass of water may be randomly boiling in room temperature, but in probability you will have to wait the whole lifetime of the known universe for that to happen. Even if 1951/1959 had never happened and Tibet eventually had become a de jure independent nation, in my opinion, odds would have been stacked against them in both economic development and preserving their culture/language.
There are some significant differences compared to Korea. First, Korea has the number — there are 80 million Korean-speaking people worldwide. Second, education matters. In 1950, the adult literacy rate was roughly: Japan >> Taiwan > Korea > PRC > Tibet. If anything in 1950 Koreans should learn English and/or Japanese, which was taught in their colonial era that just ended, not Chinese (another story in 2011 though).
Third, geography matters. It’s far easier to build a factory in Busan and sell to your global customers than in Lhasa. Last but certainly not least, leadership competency matters. Rhee was a far far more competent leader in nation building than DL.
raventhorn says
It is a FACT that China has “preserved” Tibetan Culture far more than the DL’s did.
It is a FACT that the 5th DL tried to commit “genocide” against the Jonang Sect. The Jonang only survived by hiding out in areas far more east, where they managed to HOLD onto their tradition to today.
the Current DL is trying to “genocide” the Shugden.
If Otto wants to talk about true “genocide”, and destroying cultures, he needs to look no further than DL and the TGIE.
Ray says
Anyway, the only place on earth anybody mentioned of Great Han is the Korean. The follwoing is a pic of the “Great Han Gate” in Seoul. No coincidence that the river next to the capital is called Han River.
http://bbs.tiexue.net/post2_3904896_1.html
No Korean can study Korean history without knowing some Chinese character.
melektaus says
I never said that the media used “China” for China but that the blame was on *the Chinese people*. What you said doesn’t even make any sense. That’s the problem. They blame the Chinese people for things like “diluting” tibetan culture and even people and committing genocide, not just CCP policies. So I think you misunderstood one of the main points of my post right off the bat. This is seen also in reactions such as Sharon’s Stone’s during the quake.
Omm…No. It is not a “nebulous” concept. It is defined within international law and have precise borders with most of its neighbors and so forth.
Obvious to who? Where is your evidence? Was it obvious to Sharon Stone? Was it obvious to Samdong Rampoche when he said that the Chinese people (again, not the CCP) are destroying the “pure Tibetan race”? Was it “obvious” to the person that made this sign?
http://kbryanphoto.com/images/nag14.jpg
This is just incredibly stupid. many in the public in the west accept that figure and the genocide claims including the dalai lama who is still playing the genocide card. Many in the US government and the governmental agencies accept it. Many in the media including the New York Times have uncritically reported the figure and the genocide claims. So you are clearly wrong. The problem as I have detailed in my article is with the wide acceptance of those claims and the figures and so on, not among “serious students” whatever that means. Of course experts on Tibet don’t believe them. But that just supports my point. Experts don’t support the claims made by those spreading the libel and those in the public who accept it and that is the main point that you have completely missed.
Exactly. And that is the problem. It’s not the article, it’s your lack of understanding…
melektaus says
I’d like to see if any of these less serious claims are supported with any kind of solid evidence. I’d seriously doubt the Tibetans are that much more discriminated against than most peoples of this world. If you look at most of the posters and signs during the 08′ riots, they were not complaining Chinese policies in Tibet, so called ‘occupation” or any kind of discrimination but they were religious reasons: They wanted the Dalai Lama to return. I don’t think this is a good reason to riot or even to protest. The CCP may be obligated to do many things including make a fairer society but they are not obligated to return the Dalai Lama. If they do agree with him and all parties involved agree that he should return after future negotiations, then that is all and good but the CCP is not obligated to have him return.
The point is is that many claims of loss of Tibetan culture are incorrect. If Tibetans are doing better culturally than places where they is no cultural genocide then those who claim cultural genocide need to give a serious explanation as to how Chinese Tibetans are able to develop their culture more than those other places.
The problem is that it doesn’t go beyond that for almost all pro-tibet crowd. I have never heard them say anything further than the slogan “free tibet” This crowd is the norm, not the exception in my experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tijTFf0Esg
So when they do want to start talking specifics, many of those on the other side are willing to talk including even the Chinese government but the problem is that they are not willing to go beyond mere slogans.
This needs support because it is based on the assumption that Tibetans are not already doing that. As the evidence shows, they are and they are doing so often more than Tibetans in Nepal and India. First of all, where is your evidence that Tibetans are facing a mass “immigration” problem from presumably other Chinese? According to census statistics, Tibetans are still 92% of the TAR’s population and many of those other people in Tibet are there as temporary guest workers with family in other provinces. So yiou need to show solid evidence for
1. That there is a large immigration into Tibet from other people
2. That this has grave human rights issues and violations
3. That there are solutions to the “problem” by limiting immigration.
4. That this kind of limitation is even just.
For your claim to have any substance. I have doubts about all 4 assumptions.
There may be many things Tibetans want that the Chinese government is not obligated to give them. I think much of the immigration scares is based on insecure exile Tibetan fears of “race mixing” and “diluting” of their “pure Tibetan race.” That is a silly and racist belief that the CCP is not obligated to meet it.
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.06f0b401397a029733492d9253a0a0a0?vgnextoid=65468c033d151110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&s=Archive
Besides, it is inaccurate to speak of “immigration” within one’s own country.
Actually, no country in the world is obligated to protect the culture and language of some minority culture. China has done so merely out of its own goodwill and out of other motives. The US certainly hasn’t protected Native American or Native Hawaiian culture. Most of their languages are extinct or going extinct. Australia hasn’t done so for their Aboriginal population. New Zealand hasn’t done so and so forth. Why should China be singled out for going the extra mile to protect the Tibetan language when 80% of the languages in the world are going extinct and no one is doing a damn thing or very little about it? Tibetan isn’t even an endangered language unlike 80% of the languages in the world. Tibetan isn’t any more special than the other languages that need protection.
I said specifically below that many of these policies are also used against other people in the PRC. That obviously doesn’t make them any less destructive in Tibet. In fact, I strongly suspect that Tibetans are considered to be less politically reliable, so Tibetans in general are more likely to be subjected to scrutiny and censorship.
Again, I really don’t think this kind of speculation gets anywhere. I have yet to see any evidence that the Tibetans are being considered “less politically reliable” than any one else. In fact, the evidence says the opposite. Tibetans make up .5% of the PRC’s population and yet 6 out of 357 of the top communist officials in the country are Tibetan.
https://hiddenharmonies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Sautman-2006-Colonialism-Genocide-Tibet.pdf
I see lots of your claims as either based on assumptions that are not supported or claims are not supported or they are too vague to make any specific sense of.
How about historians, tibetologists, political scientists, UN human rights experts, well established human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch? Or is that out of reach?
I’m not saying you are. I’m saying that there is a comparison to be made and that that comparison makes the Tibet situation far less pressing in comparison and exposes it as a useful fiction to mask these other more pressing issues.
This analogy doesn’t make any sense. What you should and shouldn’t believe should be based on the best evidence available. that much is obvious. If people that are saying that there are human rights abuses in Tibet comparable to what goes on in say, Israel, or say, in Nazi Germany, based on no evidence but all the experts disagree with them because they have evidence against it then the best evidence is from the experts, not from those with a motive and history of telling lies like those supporting the allegations. I choose to follow the evidence, not mere speculation or heresay of the accusers. If there is evidence that is stronger, will will change my view. But I have yet to ever encounter that evidence. It’s all about reality. Where is your evidence for all the things you have claimed or does that not matter to you to have well supported views?
Charles Liu says
@Lime
“most reasonably well educated readers understand that this does not mean that “China” is literally”
Well, average consumers of mass media in US fall well outside of this category. Like Melektaus, I find it hard to believe these reporters and editors are so naive as to believe their readers won’t jump to occlusions when sensationalist trigger words are thrown together.
And many of us have seen a pattern of behavior and a convergence by our supposedly objective, independent media.
melektaus says
Yep, under the dalai theocracy, only about 5% of the population could read. Now most Tibetans could in their own language and there seems to be a renaissance in Tibetan literature these days inside Tibet.
zack says
wait for the self affirmation on the part of TYC who will claim that ‘the Chinese gov. only did that to promote tourism to make money off tibetan culture, they are soulless, communists, etc etc etc’
Lime says
@Charles Liu
Well, I think the article is dealing with two separate issues. One is the claims made that genocide has occurred in Tibet and Darfur, and the other is the claim that the Chinese people, in general rather than just the Chinese government, are responsible. Other than Sharon Stone’s oft cited statements, I have not seen much evidence in the citations in this article or elsewhere that the Chinese people in general are to blame for whatever problems may occur in Tibet, Darfur, or anywhere else. You may be right to say that the majority of mass media consumers in the US are not well educated, but I still have to point out that this using a country’s name in place of it’s government is very, very well established. Look at any newspaper’s “World News” section, and you’ll see examples; “Poland reopens Auschwitz probes”, “Egypt frees ‘spy’ in swap with Israel” (both front the BBC’s front page today). So a headline that reads “China Commits Genocide in Tibet” is pretty clearly defamation aimed at the Chinese government and not at every single Chinese person. It might be misinterpreted by some readers, like Sharon Stone, but that’s not the journalist’s fault.
@Jxie
You make a good point with Irish Gaelic and Romansch. I would like to point out however that in the case of Irish Gaelic, one of the reasons (probably the main reason) it has almost died out was the hundreds of years of brutal British occupation in Ireland.
Naqshbandiyya says
It bears repeating that what Lime dismisses as “the shrillest voices or most politically involved ones” actually dominate the mainstream dialogue on Tibet in “the West”. The prestige that the Dalai Lama bestows on the TGIE gives legitimacy to the claims of genocide, etc. When Elliot Sperling or Robert Barnett are interviewed for television news, they’re not voices to moderation, whether because of the medium, because their personal political views, or something else. They, like the prolific extremist groups like Students for a Free Tibet in the United States, are to blame for marginalizing rational discussion on Tibet as “everything is hunky dory”.
Otto Kerner is not a representative of the dominant discourse in the West on Tibet today, and neither are most of the dissident commentators on this website. In an environment of an informed pro-Chinese majority, they experience what Chinese in the West have to do every day, which is to use rational arguments, appeal to justice, and avoid offending the majority.
An obvious barrier to this “dialogue” about Tibet is how Chinese arguments are centered on China, and how Western arguments are centered on Tibet. Hence, the Western response to the Chinese protestations that Chinese policy in Tibet is no worse and often better than in other parts in China is essentially, “I don’t care about the welfare of the people in the rest of China [or at least not as much as about the Tibetans].” For everyone who holds that attitude, I would ask you to examine why you feel this way. Is it racism?
melektaus says
Anyone who thinks that seems to deny the reality that is before their very eyes, a common thing among those who are blinded by propaganda. I gave evidence from pro-Tibet western orgs that shows the inherent racism directed at *Chinese people.* The evidence is overwhelming that it is directed at Chinese people. Just look at this most popular pro-Tibetan independent site when you type “chink” in the search function:
http://forums2.phayul.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=search&do=search&fromMainBar=1
It’s clear that they see the enemy as the Chinese people and have serious racist views on them. Anyone that denies this seems to be seriously fooling themselves. I gave more than enough citation in the article to prove that it is directed at Chinese people and not just simply at the state. Read the articles in the links. Only a someone that don’t want to see it will ignore it.
Naqshbandiyya says
@Lime
I can understand that a headline like “China Commits Genocide in Tibet” is just an unfortunate use of journalistic shorthand for the government of China. However, the truly defamatory, racist trope against the Chinese people is in the alleged means of the genocide, as portrayed by journalists and activists. Few now say that there is any mass killing going on in Tibet; no, the destruction of the Tibetan people is caused by the “influx”, “migration”, or “importation” of Han people into Tibet. (The same is said of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and any other place the West feel that Chinese people don’t belong.) Thus, the presence of sufficient numbers of ethnic Chinese people in a place alone causes the destruction of national culture, dilution of distinct ethnicity, and the domination of wealth by a minority. Sound familiar? Yes, these were the Nazi allegations against the Jews, but they are also the British far-right’s propaganda against Muslims, and are timeless appeals to nationalists of all stripes.
Still, why do we condemn this line of thinking as “racist” or “fascist” in the case of our own [Western] societies, but accept it against the Chinese and their society? It has nothing to do with “anti-communism”, “human rights”, or other liberal fads. It is to do with a primordial fear of the Chinese and of Chinese fertility and power in particular, having analogues with the ancient Greek fear of the powerful “Oriental despots” in Persia. This problem of the defamation of the Chinese will not end with Tibetan independence, as it has not ended with the wresting away of Mongolia; nothing short of the complete destruction or subjugation of the Chinese nation will suffice for those whose shameful bloodlust has been cloaked in legitimacy by Tibetan independence clichés. So again, appeasing U.S. calls for Chinese talks with the Dalai Lama that neither the U.S. nor the Dalai Lama wants will not solve China’s malaise. Attack the evil at its root—anti-Chinese racism—and all issues of Tibetan politics will vanish from polite society, guaranteed.
melektaus says
From just two of the links I have given in the article:
“It is estimated that since 1959, 1.5 million Tibetans have died as a direct result of *Chinese incursion* into the country.”
“In 1960, after reviewing accounts of *Chinese atrocities* in Tibet, including the widespread use of summary execution, torture and general abuse that included the forced sterilization of women….”
“According to the Commission the *Chinese were guilty* of “the most pernicious crime that any individual or nation can be accused of, viz. a wilful attempt to annihilate an entire people.”
“*The Chinese* are going about this pogrom with calculated and alarming persistence, precision and planning while the so-called free world that cherishes its own freedom, pays scant attention to the festering Tibetan problem. ”
“The Chinese invaders were turning bolder and more demanding.”
” A historic meeting of Tibetan women was held in Lhasa where they resolved to demand the Chinese to quit Tibet; to let the Chinese know that Tibet belongs to the Tibetans; and, that they (the Chinese) had no right and authority, whatsoever, to interfere in the affairs of Tibet.”
That’s just some examples from the first two sources from pro-Tibet side I have included in the article. There are millions of examples anyone can give. Anyone that doesn’t see this as directed at the Chinese people and not the government or state or communist party is simply deluding themselves. It doesn’t say “the Chinese government” or “The CCP” or “Chinese policies” or “China” or “PRC” but “the Chinese” or “the Chinese people” are to blame. So any one that denies it is directed at the Chinese people needs to have their senses checked. There is something morally suspect about anyone that can deny such blatant evidence. As the Eve Mullen article shows, this is systematic dehumanization.
melektaus says
The “logic” of lime is easily shown to be fallacious when one realizes that if “The Chinese” is to refer to “the Chinese state” or “The Chinese government” as lime claims then it doesn’t even make sense as a response because even Tibetans are part of the Chinese government and state. It’s clear that what is meant by “the Chinese” is ethnic Hans (i.e., a people), not the state or the government. Only a fool, can’t see that.
Otto Kerner says
Personally, I think the Chinese government is reasonably popular among Han Chinese people. It’s like H. L. Mencken wrote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Since Chinese people sort of already have the government they want, I don’t make it my business to complain about it for them. One can hardly say the same of Tibetans.
Otto Kerner says
@melektaus
Earlier you wrote, “I appreciate any criticism or comments that responds to substance and not devolve into invective. It’s rare to have that kind of dialogue with many pro-Tibet people.”
That being the case, why is that you respond to lime with lines like, “This is just incredibly stupid” and “Only a fool, can’t see that”? Why not practice what you preach?
Otto Kerner says
I don’t think either of those is a good example. Irish is dying out in Ireland because it was already on its deathbed when Ireland became an independent country. They made efforts to resuscitate the patient, but people were already more used to not speaking Irish than to speaking it. That’s a legacy of the long period of English rule, of course.
As for Rumantsch, I never meant to say that it’s easy or common for a minority language to be preserved in a state where it is not the main language. What I was saying is that: a) language and national identity are almost always preserved in a sovereign state; b) language and national identity can be preserved in a subnational region (although they often are not).
Otto Kerner says
But, if the experts we’re talking about are people like Robert Barnett, Elliot Sperling, or Patrick French, then it’s not that the experts flatly “disagree” with TGIE. Those experts say that TGIE exaggerates and is sloppy with facts, but that TGIE is fundamentally talking about very real and very serious problems that are going on in Tibet. I think that’s what you don’t like about them.
Evidence does matter to me, but participating in this forum doesn’t matter very much. I just don’t have time to look up the sources for everything. I don’t expect you to take my word for it unless you already know it to be true.
Lime says
@Naqshbandiyya
But the situation you describe- one large cultural group moving into the traditional homeland of a different cultural group and causing “the destruction of national culture, dilution of distinct ethnicity, and the domination of wealth by a minority”- has in fact happened in human history numerous times. Some of the best examples are the destruction of native cultures in Canada, the United States, and Australia, which people on this blog often like to bring up. One extreme case is the complete destruction of the Tasmanian aborigine cultures; there is not one person left alive today who speaks a Tasmanian aborigine language. The historical evidence is pretty clear as to why this is; the British empire took control of Tasmania, British settlers came in relatively large numbers, took control of the land and gradually killed off most of the Tasmanians directly or indirectly, or forced them to assimilate. Who was responsible for this? Well, I would argue, the British government and the colonial administration of Tasmania. Does suggesting this make me racist against British people? I hope not.
Now, I’m not suggesting that in Tibet anything comparable is happening. However, the legacy of European colonialism has proven that wiping out cultures is entirely possible. So suggesting the Chinese government could, theoretically, implement policies that would effectively destroy Tibetan culture is neither wrong nor anymore racist than blaming the British government for instances in its history when it did in fact destroy a culture. Erroneously believing that the Chinese government is implementing policies to wipe out Tibet because you uncritically read an article written by a journalist who uncritically took the word of a group like the Central Tibetan Administration who had a political motive to exaggerate or fabricate may be lamentable, deplorable, but not inherently racist against Chinese people.
There are of course people who seem to be genuinely racist towards Chinese people. Melektaus provided three examples unless I missed any (the Spiked-Online “Slitty Eyes” article, Sharon Stone’s comments, and the picture with the sign that read “Chink go home”). However, I really don’t see these three things constituting a mainstream opinion. I’m prepared to concede that the Chinese government has incredibly bad press in the English speaking world, and is often judged and maligned without any recourse to evidence. I’m also willing to admit that the Dalai Lama and pro-Tibet independence groups often get a free ride in the press and are often taken at their word. I also agree with you that discussion on Tibet would be a lot more constructive without the racists weighing in, and also if both sides were more honest when making their arguments. I do however think that there would be still be a lot to discuss, even in polite society, about the Chinese government’s involvement in Tibet.
Ray says
@Lime
Sorry Lime. Your argument that bad things happened to natives in Canada, US, Australia, NZ etc and somehow insinuate that the same thing could or could not happened to the minority in China is already prejudiced or racist to a certain extend. The genocide is still happening daily in those countries, why is that you or Otto pay no attention to it? China is a poor country of $4,000/capita but can provide native language and religious courses to its over 50 minorities but those countries with $40,000/capita cannot?
You must remember one thing, why single out the Tibetan? The Hakka Chinese has a higher chance of losing their spoken language. However, if any country, any organization or anybody use this as a pretext to incite insurrection, riots, or as melektaus has repeatedly said (but seemed to be ignored by you guys) to use it as a pretext to attack all Chinese people, it will not fly with us.
We are here discussing this issues because TGIE is a foreign funded separatist organization and being paid to cause separatist issue much like the Manchuko by the Japanese. If this organization is to take similar action against the Canada, US, Australia, NZ, or Israel, they would have been declared a terrorist organization. What will happen to them I will leave it up to your imagination.
Otto’s excuse on the Irish language is pathetic beyond belief. Hebrew is an extinct language but it can still be brought to life. If there is a will there is a way. Otto is a classic closet racist. For example, if I were to make blanket statement like “Hey, you white anglo-saxon people might have the government you like, but what about the native people, black people, they should have their own government too because they think differently than you.” And you have forgotten about history, it is the Tibetan Chinese that moved east, not the other way round. The majority of the Tibetan Chinese live in other part of China not in Tibet. You simply cannot cut out a certain part of China and demand that you want something done your way while other countries do not play by the same rule.
However, I will say this the minority culture in China will continue to flourish, if you have time check out the Tibetan language TV, radio etc. As long as the minority group do not spread out, it will be protected the government. Your fear of the Tibetan culture being wiped out is fear mongering by the western press, you keep using term like Chinese people moving into Tibetan territory (which is mainstream western opinion) do you know how offensive this sound to us? Tibet is a special administrative region in China. The PRC could have made it a province and move millions of people there if they wanted to, especially during the early state building stage of the 1950s and 1960s, but they did not. If I were to suggest that English moving to occupy Wales, Anglo moving to occupy Nebraska, Scot moving to occupy Western Australia is a colonist activity, would that fly with you?
This is the reason this site existed. Somehow a Chinese citizen moving into part of his or her country is an offensive action according to the western press!
I will say this again. Basically, unless all those countries can introduce an even better minorities policy than China then there is no point in our discussion. I repeat, unless you guys can get those countries to introduce improvement of treatment of native culture, language and people, you are in no position to dictate or preach to us.
Allen says
@Otto Kerner #104
I usually don’t mind if people say they only have time to give only so much for this forum since most people – including me – have other priorities and can’t devote as much time to this forum as they would like.
However, if your attitude is what you stated, then that may explain a lot – blurb here and there to satisfy your taste without real communication.
If that is your goal, then I’ll define you to be a troll and ask you to leave until you have more time. It makes no sense to hold out as if you are participating in something and then when others try to engage with you to say this whole conversation simply “doesn’t matter very much” – that’s disrespectful to them and being disrespectful of this forum.
Thank you,
Allen
Allen says
@Lime #105
@Ray #106
I am traveling and can’t delve too deep in the discussion here. But my problem generally with the way Lime (and most people in the world) seem to be framing the issues of the political issues of self determination in term of preserving cultures without defining what cultures and at what level granularity and presuming a particular politics by what culture preservation needs to be carried out.
Looking at the case of “Tibetan” culture. First of all there are many subcultures of Tibetan cultures, and there are many areas of China where people practice amalgamation of cultures (including “Tibetan” cultures). Many people in Tibet also practice a culture that goes back before the spread of Buddhism or the establishment of the current Lama structure. Even within the Lama structure, each sect can argue to be its own culture. What of these (within and without the Lama structure – note many Tibetans also do consider the Lama structure to be truly oppressive) should be preserved? Even if the Dalai Lama were head of Tibet, the same difficult questions of what of these to preserve, what of these ditch as society carries forward exists. Why should the Dalai Lama (or any religiously appointed leader) be in charge of handling these sensitive issues?
Some says the answer in self determination and elections. But then we go back to the level of granularity issues I’ve discussed many times in this forum. Self determination of which group of people? Every time you have a group of people deciding on something, there will be groups that are in favor and groups that are not. In the U.S., many hate Obama (or Bush when he was president) – yet they still pay taxes to support the policies of those despots. Even if a majority (or a large minority if no majority exists) decides on something, that could still result in a large group of people feeling oppressed. Consider in the exile community the case of Dorje Shugden practitioners in the exile community…
The ultimate question for Tibet is not preservation of cultures or sub cultures – it’s sovereignty. Is there a polity in Tibet independent of the overall Chinese polity.
The Europeans should not have been in America or in India, or Asia bossing people around. That’s a political statement pure and simple. Yes the pillaging, raping and killing made it easy to point a finger at them – but that’s not the essence of the political statement. Let’s not make these other crimes (and convenient criticisms of European colonialism and imperialism) the sole lens through which we view the world …
The issue of Tibet is political not cultural or religious. Making it so is only a farce and part of the political agenda the exiles are trying to set to gain global attention…
Otto Kerner says
Allen, this forum has an extremely low quality of communication. As thanks for my participation, I am subjected to continual insults and hostility (to say nothing of evasiveness and faulty logic) from the other commenters. Talk to me about respect when any of this site’s other commenters or its moderators have earned any.
Allen says
@Otto Kerner
Then please leave. Life is too precious for any of us to have to engage in “extremely low quality” activities.
It’s probably one reason I rarely visit your site (only once by accident once when I clicked on your link…)
Thanks,
Allen
Ray says
@Allen
Basically, although trying to act objectively, Otto only has one agenda. He is not here for discussion, but rather imposing his point of view. On top of that he is selective and practice double standard.
He will come here for one issue only.
Allen says
@Ray #111 ,
It was clear, but painfully clear now…
As far as I am concerned, that’s the definition of a troll on this blog – not someone who comes to say that I don’t like – or someone who beats me in a debate – but someone spouts things to get attention, and then when challenged, simply back off saying that this forum doesn’t matter (i.e. essentially we guys are all stupid and don’t matter).
That’s what Otto Kerner stands for.
Yet he is important in a way – he stands for another data point in the “Collective Defamation” this thread is about.
Wahaha says
Allen, this forum has an extremely low quality of communication.
***********************************
Otto,
Give us a forum that has high “quality” by your standard.
I have experience of posting on so-called “free” forum, basically no different opinions, just blame everything on government as they were brainwashed or convinced by their “free” media.
The most important character of free speech is that you can question the system, that is, pinning the problems to the system, because this will hurt those who benefit most from system.
Why do westerners feel they have the freedom of speech ? because they never cross the line, even OWS.
(on OWS : they believe that government has no right to prevent them from protesting in downtown. Well, if government doesnt the power over those protestors, how can you expect government having power over the rich and syndicate ?
Therefore they are destined to fail or being ignored or accomplishing nothing.)
Charles Liu says
@Lime
“that’s not the journalist’s fault”
I’m sorry, Lime, you seem to be rationalizing and giving our media an easy pass. Many of us here choose to be more critical, and we believe for good reason. There are others, beyond the two you noted here, that unfairly indicts China on many levels – as a nation, a government, a people.
Here are few more examples:
– How about NYT reporting chinese journalist detained, when the journalist was not?
(BTW, what I said about journalist/editor can’t possibly be naive was paraphrasing Adam Minter’s comment in above.)
– How about NYT quoting blogger that make unreliable claim about “China Code” in computer virus? Refuse to correct their story even after being discredited?
– How about Washington Times echo chamber US government sponsored propaganda outlet, China Digital Times, where native Chinese speakers obviously mistranslated thing on purpose?
I would encourage you to look at the cases, as well as others HH have highlighted:
https://hiddenharmonies.org/tag/media-bias/
Ray says
Anyway, saw this in the news about a new dam project in China. I didn’t know the PAP has their own hydroelectic unit, learned something new today.
http://www.m4.cn/news/china/1131223.shtml
melektaus says
Let’s not conflate what was said already. I said that I agree with Barnett and French (whom I don’t consider to be an expert on Tibet) in regards to the genocide accusations. I don’t necessarily agree with how they choose to frame the problem and their proposed solutions.
Of course there are real problems in Tibet. But everyone already knows that. the problem is what those problems are, who is responsible for them and how to solve them. That’s where the disagreement lies. I agree with Goldstein, Sautman and other actual experts in saying that much of the responsibility lies in the Dalai Lama’s court in refusing to stop the defamation against China and the Chinese people and in his trying to delegitimize China’s sovereignty in Tibet by saying things like China is illegally “occupying” or “colonizing” Tibet and in his refusal to negotiate with Beijing on more reasonable terms without slogans. The Dalai wants all of “Greater Tibet” to be autonomous but that is wholly unreasonable. Half of Greater Tibet is and always was multi-ethnic and continuously controlled by the central government. He needs to quite that BS claim and move on.
This is a convenient excuse to justify one’s biases and the propaganda that one spreads. Why would I automatically “take” anyone’s word without evidence? I hope no one does that. That is a slavish mentality that is dangerous. It gets entire nations into wars. I really think this kind of mentality is common among many westerners and sadly, that is why their society is often so violent and willing to accept aggressive wars. It’s certainly common among pro-tibeters.
melektaus says
It’s more than just laziness. That kind of attitude from free-tibeters is downright dishonest. They will scour the internet for any signs of support for their views but when asked for real evidence they say “I don’t have time to support my views with actual evidence!”. It’s a serious sign of brainwashing and a cult mentality. The faulty logic and speaking without evidence are deeply troubling from not only a perspective of trying to get at the truth but from a moral perspective about their character.
Otto Kerner says
For crying out loud, Melektaus. You complain above that it’s hard to have a conversation with Free Tibet people “that responds to substance and not devolve into invective.” But, in addition to insulting lime, you are quick to bring my moral character into the discussion, rather than just discussing the facts. This is disappointing to say the least. I’m also not interested in hearing any more of your derision toward “free-tibeters” as an anonymous stereotypical person.
To be blunt, if you were to for some reason go back and read all my posts on this forum over the last couple years, I’ll bet you’d find that I have cited more valid sources for facts than all my interlocutors put together, not counting yourself. I’m happy to continue citing references for specific subjects, but I have limits to how much time I’m willing to spend on this forum, and I don’t apologize for that.
melektaus says
I never devolved into invective. That kind of character displayed is legitimately of real concern. It is a serious moral flaw. If I were to call you a ‘moron’ for no reason other than the fact that you disagree then that would be devolving into invective. If I did that you would be right to point out that as a moral flaw on my part. OTOH, if you refuse to give evidence but at the same time make serious accusations and then say “I just don’t have time to look up the sources for everything” that is suggestive of a serious moral flaw that people should know about. They have every right to point that out too. You haven’t just not cited serious evidence for all your claims in this thread and other threads I’ve seen you participate in but *for any* accusation you made in these threads. That is downright intellectually dishonest. I never insulted you, merely brought up something that others and especially you should take notice and correct.
Otto Kerner says
Allen,
You know, it seems ironic at this point, but I’d like to do a partial takeback of my earlier comment about this forum. I put you in a different category than mostly everybody else on this forum, because you are capable of having a rational discussion. It’s just that we don’t have much to say to each other because we disagree on so much of political first principles, so we would need to waste all of our time talking about that before getting to talk about Tibet. I thought your reminiscences about spending time in Tibet were interesting and I believe they were honest, even though you drew different conclusions from them than I did.
I don’t think any of you are stupid. I think you are extremely emotional about this issue and this can debilitate the faculties of critical thinking for some people.
Otto Kerner says
@melektaus
Well, all I can say is that I strongly disagree. You barely know me. I’d be surprised if you’ve read any significant part of what I’ve written on this forum or elsewhere on this subject. You are in no position to start judging my moral character. To boot, you’ve made unsourced claims in this thread yourself.
And then I am occasionally accused by other commenters of being “holier-than-thou”!
melektaus says
@Otto Kerner
The difference is that I respect people enough to provide evidence for them when asked to. I have that integrity. My views are supported. If they are shown not to be well supported, I update them. Again, that is integrity. I don’t dismiss other people and disrespect them by saying “I don’t have any time” for you in posting sources. If I make a public claim, especially one of serious accusations, I am obligated to others to support them with well supported sources.
Otto Kerner says
melektaus :
I was responding to your logic, “If people that are saying [allegations about Tibet] based on no evidence but all the experts disagree with them because they have evidence against it then the best evidence is from the experts”. Personally, I do see Barnett, Sperling, and French as experts on Tibet, which means I don’t accep tthe premise that all the experts disagree with the allegations about Tibet. They regard them as being exaggerated. The way those writers choose to frame the problem of Tibet is a major influence on how I view it.
By the way, I think you are mischaracterizing Goldstein by putting him in Sautman’s camp. He is more pro-Chinese than Barnett and Sperling are, but his views are quite balanced.
That is incorrect. The vast majority of the eastern Tibetan regions outside of the TAR are not particularly multi-ethnic (there are some genuinely multi-ethnic areas on the borders, like where the Dalai Lama was born). My source is the government census data on all the Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures and Counties in Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu, and Yunnan, as well as the book Authenticating Tibet.
This is vague. All of the eastern Tibetan areas outside of Lhasa’s control had governments of their own under Tibetan kings and chiefs, which were all destroyed in the 20th century (my source is Samuel’s Civilized Shamans and just about anything ever written about pre-modern Kham and Amdo). They were also included in Chinese provinces, which meant that they were subject to overlapping systems of authority. Unlike in the Ganden Phodrang’s territory, non-Tibetan control over these areas increased during the warlord period.
I’m not sure what you’re implying other than a general negative opinion of Westerners. I suggested that you should not take my word for it.
Allen says
@Otto Kerner #120
OK – I’ll take that.
Even our disagreements are truly deep, I also do appreciate you taking the time to articulate your perspective on this board. I truly do.
Please don’t feel you need to answer every question with “facts.” We understand you (and everyone one) can only spend limited time here. But please at the same time don’t categorically disparate this forum – even if you don’t think highly of some of the participants here.
It’s hard enough for reasonable people to have a discussion on the topic of Tibet. It’s darn well impossible without semblance of basic respect.
Otto Kerner says
I don’t know what else to say about this. I refuse to do what you want and I have explained why I don’t want to do it. If you wish to ignore the claims that I don’t want to research right now, feel free to do so. I resent you bringing questions of integrity into it.
Otto Kerner says
To be honest, this forum is a bad habit for me — true regardless of whose fault the personality conflict is. I have had a pattern of leaving for a few months and then coming back. I really enjoy talking about Tibet.
melektaus says
You have misquoted me. I never said that all Barnett and Sperling’s allegations of what is happening in Tibet I agreed with. I said I agreed with *the allegations of genocide and the TGIE figure of 1.5 million dead Tibetans.* So now you are resorting to misquotation.
I explicitly said I disagree with them on other issues and I have other experts to support those views. Since you haven’t even supported one of your views with Barnett or Sperling or any Tibet expert’s specific citation, how do you expect anyone to take you seriously?
His views are very balanced but you haven’t shown where he disagreed with what I said about him. I said that he places much of the blame for the continuing Tibet problem on the Dalai Lama. Do you actually have any quotes of his that refute this? No. Meanwhile, I suggest you read his
http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Lion-Dragon-China-Tibet/dp/0520219511/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319845570&sr=8-1
He explicitly says there and elsewhere that the Dalai Lama and his TGIE are primarily the problem in not resolving the Tibet issues with China, not with China. He says that China has actually been surprisingly reasonable.
Again, no sources cited. You are wrong. much of ethnographic Tibet has always been multiethnic. Again, see Goldstein:
http://books.google.com/books?id=LI-tIwxk4RAC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=%22greater+tibet%22+goldstein&source=bl&ots=iroj2Tyqf9&sig=LbFgfHvcX2nyCUMy94ANOazkrn8&hl=en&ei=dD-rTqq5CsWjtgeckKXXDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22greater%20tibet%22%20goldstein&f=false
Also see
http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/tibetanSociety/documents/What_is_Tibet_NEW.doc
And even the Dalai Lama admits this:
http://www.dalailama.com/news/post/568-his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-tweets-with-the-chinese-people
“A considerable number of Chinese, however, have been living in Kham and Amdo regions, particularly in the area of my birth [Xining], since early times. ”
You are plain shown to be wrong here. Goldstein and even the Dalai Lama admits that Kham and Amdo have always had “considerable numbers” of Han Chinese living in kham and Amdo (these two regions together with U-Tsang which is the TAR constitute “Greater Tibet”). See, you have no actual sources to back up these claims and I suspect all of your claims. You are just bluffing and you use “I have no time…” as a convenient excuse to mask that.
Good. Because no person with intellectual integrity will simply take your word for it and you shouldn’t expect them to.
Otto Kerner says
melektaus, I’d like to read more about this. Can you refer me to the article or book where he develops this idea?
Allen says
@melektaus #127
My understanding of Tibet (or anywhere else in Asia) is that most places are multi-ethnic. This has to be. There have been movements of people here and there since the dawn of history. It’s only in a few rare places that populations are truly homogeneous.
Tibet of today is often associated with Buddhism or even the Lama system. But people have lived in Tibet even before that time. Even the “Tibetans” of today are recent “immigrants” to the area of Tibet. Both linguistic and genetics study point to Tibetan branch forming off the Sino/Han branch just a few thousand years ago, but even then, there are evidence there are previously existing people and cultures that helped to define part of what is Tibetan today.
In any case, I really think we should leave the issue of ethnicity to the archeologists or biologists – not politicians.
If we continue politicize culture and ethnicity for the sake of politics – we are just leading ourselves to further divisions and struggles.
melektaus says
“Otto Kerner” apparently doesn’t have any time to post his sources to support all his allegations but he does have all the time in the world to post his allegations multiple times in this thread within an hour….
melektaus says
@Allen
That has been my experience. The assumption of clear lines is a modern western idea of the nation state. There has always been large ethnic overlap in Asia. I certainly don’t think I am politicizing it because ethnicity is by its very nature already politicized. the notion of Tibetan ethnic identity is itself a modern notion that was created politically.
Otto Kerner says
I think you have misunderstood. I didn’t mean to say that you agree with Barnett and Sperling. I was saying that I think they are experts, so I don’t accept the premise that all experts disagree with TGIE’s views on Tibet.
Again, no sources cited.
I don’t understand what you mean by “no sources cited” when I stated what my sources were in the immediately prior sentence. Census data is available on Wikipedia. I don’t have the book in front of me right now to find the page for the reference. I’ll get it on Sunday.
melektaus says
@Otto Kerner
See his blog posts on rangzen.net
Otto Kerner says
That’s true. I am guilty of poor time management today.
melektaus says
@Otto Kerner
What do you have to say about the Dalai Lama’s quote:
“A considerable number of Chinese, however, have been living in Kham and Amdo regions, particularly in the area of my birth [Xining], since early times. “?
What about the Goldstein links?
They support everything I said and disprove what you have said. You are wrong about the Chinese census. They show that the Dalai Lama and Goldstein are correct and that there are large non Tibetan populations in “Kham” and “Amdo”.
Allen says
@melektaus #131
Agreed, as is the case of Chinese though, too.
That’s why at the bottom of all these discussions on China especially as they pertain to Tibet (or Taiwan) is the simple political notion of do you accept one political entity in what is China today – or multiple…
It’s an issue of sovereignty.
Otto Kerner says
What you’re saying is actually compatible with what I’m saying. I said that “The vast majority of the eastern Tibetan regions outside of the TAR are not particularly multi-ethnic” although “there are some genuinely multi-ethnic areas on the borders, like where the Dalai Lama was born”. There are indeed “large” and “considerable” non-Tibetan populations living there (particularly if you include Xining proper, which I don’t think makes sense, but people do sometimes), some of which were present before 1949 and some before 1900. My point was that most of the region is not multi-ethnic.
Lime says
@Allen
I appreciate what your saying in regards to levels of granularity, but I don’t see why this means there would be no social or cultural issues related to Tibet that could be discussed. Even if we all accept that China should be Tibet (whereas Europe should not have been in Australia, Asia, etc), there is still a lot to talk about in regards to the Chinese government’s Tibetan policies. We could talk about how Britain’s policies affected people living in Northern Ireland, or the United States’ policies affecting people’s lives in Puerto Rico, or in Yorkshire and Colorado for that matter. So why not talk about how politics affects culture and religion in Tibet?
My original point was not about culture or self-determination however. If you read my comments, I’m merely trying to argue that misinformation does not equal racism. Believing that China should not be in Tibet (as Europe should not have been in Asia, Australia, etc), and believing, erroneously or not, that Chinese government policies are negatively affecting the lives of Tibetans does not in and of itself make you racist against Chinese people. Even knowingly lying and claiming the Chinese government is committing genocide in Tibet is not racist. Deplorable yes, but it’s still an attack on the Chinese government and not Chinese people in general. Thus the original article’s central premise is unsupportable.
Naqshbandiyya says
Xining and the other urban fringe areas are much more populous than the rural “most of the region”; The Han or at least non-Tibetans would dominate if all the lands that the TGIE sought were united. Of course, the same demographic dilemma applied to Kazakhstan on its independence from the Soviet Union; though the Russians had lived on the Kazakh steppes for centuries and formed a majority in the new state, the new government’s basis on Kazakh culture, language, and domination resulted in an auto-ethnic cleansing of the Russians, a pattern which has repeated itself in many states created by a minority’s secession from a multicultural country.
So while the exile Tibetans may be pitiable now, what they want for the future – an exclusionary, homogeneous ethnic-state – is ultimately against the liberal ideals of their supporters. Whether by an independent state, or by an “autonomous” administration, the goal is to use the coercive powers of a nepotistic government to impose an ordained subset of Tibetan culture on all inhabitants inside a Greater Tibet. The ideals of the multicultural Chinese state- which is to allow the Han in Tibet to practice their culture, the Tibetan sub-groups in Tibet to practice their culture, and the others in Tibet to practice their own cultures, is not enough for them.
An earlier commentator already pointed out that the concerns of the people in Tibet – as manifested in the protests, which albeit may tend towards the extremes – are about what could perhaps be called human rights issues, rather than issues of sovereignty. These can and are being solved within the framework of the multicultural Chinese collaborative state, and not a coercive nationalist Tibetan administration. Supporting universal human rights over ethnic secession is very mainstream, and a non-racist viewpoint would acknowledge its application to China. If independence were genuinely taken off the table, China’s whole reason for its reluctantly harsh policy in Tibet would vanish. But independence is the goal for the privileged exiles of another time, for reasons of power and ethnic politics rather than equal rights and freedoms; as a result, both the Tibetans and the other Chinese are unnecessarily suffering.
Ray says
@Lime
Here’s the problem with your reasoning. Do you think it is ok for me or Allen to come up to you and demand to discuss which school your children should go to? What food they should eat? Who your sister should marry and above all how to fix your house? This is actually what you are requiring us to do?
You yourself agree that the situation in US, Canada, AU, NZ is more dire. But when is the last time you hear the mainstream English press lament on the rights of the aborigin there? And if you want to know how censorship work, try to get the news of the native to be reported. You won’t, because things don’t work this way. It is not in the interest of the power to be to report it.
melektaus says
@Otto Kerner
No, you objected (said it was “incorrect”) to my claim that much of greater Tibet is and has always been multi ethnic. Greater Tibet is defined as U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo. I showed that using Goldstein and the Dalai Lama as sources that Kham and Amdo has always been multi-ethnic (“considerably” Han Chinese in the Dalai’s own words). The Dalai Lama didn’t say that it was only considerable numbers of Han in his home town of Xining. He said it was all of Kham and Amdo (but that it was “particularly” considerable in his home town). He also claims elsewhere that Kham and Amdo as part of Tibet but says there that they were Han since “early times.” Please don’t distort what he said with misquotes like you have a habit of doing with me and others.
So you were wrong to object and I was right in my original claim. Of course, I don’t expect you to admit this seeing as what has transpired so far and the status of your intellectual dishonesty. The Chinese census data supports Goldstein and the Dalai Lama’s claims and refutes your claim.
Also you have yet to respond to my claim that Goldstein puts much of the blame on the Dalai Lama and his TGIE in the impasse between them and the CCP. What do you say to this quote from Goldstein?
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53606/melvyn-c-goldstein/the-dalai-lamas-dilemma
“Summary: The Dalai Lama’s international campaign against China has pushed Beijing to modernize Tibet, resulting in an influx of non-Tibetans seeking economic opportunity. If the Dalai Lama wants to preserve Tibet as a homeland, he must either acquiesce in violence by militants or compromise. He will resist either course…”
You’d probably just turn this around and pretend it doesn’t support what I said.
The bottom line is that I have supported EVERYTHING I said with well-established evidence while you haven’t done so with ANY of your allegations.
I am not saying you were lying. I’m just saying that you are probably so blinded by your own biases that you can’t even see the facts before your very own eyes. You think that Goldstein supported what you claimed over what I said despite me showing exactly what he said which supported everything I said. The power of propaganda is powerful and it can make people see things that are clearly not there as you are a testament to that power.
melektaus says
Rundown:
I said:”The Dalai wants all of “Greater Tibet” to be autonomous but that is wholly unreasonable. Half of Greater Tibet is and always was multi-ethnic”
You said in response: “That is incorrect.”
Who is right? Well, you haven’t cited any sources to support your side while I cited Goldstein and the Dalai Lama himself.
Again from the DL’s own words:
“A considerable number of Chinese, however, have been living in Kham and Amdo regions, ….since early times. “
And I gave two Goldstein links showing what I said to be 100% true and ergo, your objection false.
As for my claim that Goldstein has claimed that much of the blame lay at the foot of the Dalai Lama instead of the CCP for the impasse, I gave the cite from Goldstein’s The Snow Lion and the Dragon and his foreignpolicy.com direct quote. As you admitted yourself, Goldstein has a very balanced view.
Yes he does. That is the only thing you managed to say that is true so far.
melektaus says
@Otto Kerner
If you mean by “poor time management,” as in “consistent misquotation, claims without supporting evidence, blind denial of actual evidence,” then yes, you are so guilty.
silentvoice says
@Lime #80
The problem is the shrillest voices generally receives the greatest media attention and these have real world consequences ranging from increasing hate crime committed against Chinese Americans (and Japanese and Korean Americans) to helping cultivate mistrust and biases between the two countries which could lead to war in a crisis situation, such as Taiwan.
Lime says
@Silentvoice
That may be true. Shrill voices making unfounded claims definitely doesn’t help the quality of the discourse, but this still doesn’t necessarily make their message “collective defamation”. Are hate crimes against Chinese Americans increasing? I would be interested to see a source on this.
Lime says
@Ray
I don’t understand your analogy. Who are you and Allen in this case? PRC citizens? Chinese government policy makers? American Chinese Communist Party sympathisers? And who do you think I am? And the Tibetans are your children? I strongly disagree there is any parallel between discussing a family’s private affairs and discussing government policy.
As to your Native American rights comparison, I did not say the plight of native peoples in North America, Australia, and New Zealand was worse than that of the Tibetans. I didn’t claim anybody was in “plight”. As for the last time I saw a news article on Native issues, it was yesterday, about a native community in Alberta on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2011/10/29/edmonton-paul-band-financial-woes.html). I guarantee you there has been many times more literature published in English on issues relating to Native North Americans than there has relating to Tibetans. It’s only a matter of looking for it.
raventhorn says
@Lime
“And the Tibetans are your children? I strongly disagree there is any parallel between discussing a family’s private affairs and discussing government policy.”
I don’t believe Ray was alluding to discussing Tibetans as “children”, as obviously, he was using other family members such as “sisters” as analogy in family’s private affairs.
I think it is a valid point, to discuss “motives”, as Westerners are discussing “motives” all the time in politics.
We wish people in general would be more objective than that, but that’s the unfortunate side effect of “Democratization”.
People, unfortunately, cannot simply disagree, some have to be “Activists” who do far beyond mere “discussing”.
For what we do here, we at least limit ourselves to “discussing”.
Lime says
@Raventhorn
You’re against activism in general?
wwww1234 says
@Lime
“I didn’t claim anybody was in “plight”. As for the last time I saw a news article on Native issues, it was yesterday, about a native community in Alberta on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website ”
what is your point? there are numerous articles discussing tibetan issues in chinese newspaper. I worked with Canadian natives for a long time. go visit their “reservations”. There are some of them who still travel by canoes, and can only do so in the summer when the ice melts, and be picked up at highway bridges by their distant relatives. The moment they leave their reserves, their benefits are forfeited. And many of their reserves are located in no man land. Commercial fishing is not allowed, most cannot speak their language, nor receive any, many were taken away from their families to be civilized in “boarding schools”, the list goes on and on.
raventhorn says
1st, I think we need to define “Activism”.
I think in general, people consider “Activism” to be more than mere “discussion”. I question why there needs to be more, and what more is there, and for what purpose.
“Activism” in the traditional liberal Western view, is somewhat confrontational to start with, and it pushes the boundary of legality even in Western views.
*I can’t say I’m “against activism in general”, since people disagree on the precise definition of “activism”.
I am against the Activism that crosses the line of legality.
*That said, I find the line of legality in the West, sometimes ridiculously self-serving and hypocritical. For example, apparently, in NYC, “jay-walking” in the OWS protests is arrestable offense, (as I have pointed out before).
On the other hand, I think some OWS protesters do knowingly break the law restricting “freedom of assembly”, just to make a political statement, which is rather irrelevant to the underlying issue, and turns more into PR.
I am against “sensationalizing” political issues into political “talking points”. It dumbs down the populous. As “Activisms” inherently carry a PR nature, I am against that part of “Activism” at the very least.
Otto Kerner says
I understand that you disagree with the ideas I’ve described here, and I had hoped that we could have an interesting conversation about them because, unlike almost everyone else on this site, you are willing to cite sources. I do not understand why you have become fixated on the idea that I never cite sources, which is not true. There was one post for which I declined to cite all claims because of time constraints, and there have been other posts on this thread where I cited sources which you ignored. I also don’t understand why you think it’s okay to take such a harsh and insulting tone with me. Since, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, participating in this forum has become a bad habit for me, I’m not going to continue this conversation with you.
melektaus says
@Otto Kerner
I’m not saying that you never cite sources; I’m saying that I have never seen any quality sources that support what you have said from either you or anyone else. I’ve read some of your posts here and in other threads and no where have they supported your main contentions in the Sino-Tibet issues. The only time you “cited” a source was your census cite which actually doesn’t support what you claimed (i.e., that I was wrong in claiming much of Kham and Amdo are and always were multi-ethnic).
You also claimed that I “mischaracterized” Goldstein when I said that he put much of the blame on the Dalai Lama in his impasse with the CCP. You have’t backed up your claim while I have.
My views are based on evidence, solid evidence. If I see stronger evidence suggesting I’m wrong, I change my views in accordance with the available facts. That is the major difference between many of those who are supportive of China’s side in the Sino-Tibet issues and the pro-Tibet side.
I’ve taken the time and effort to support my views. Your time isn’t more valuable than others’. The reason I’ve done that is because I have some respect for others and their rational capacities; I think I am obligated to them to provide my reasons when I publicly deny what they say. That respect is something that I don’t believe you have towards others. I think you are only feigning offense when you are really at a loss because now you realize you are put in a spot to provide evidence when you know you can’t.
melektaus says
@Otto Kerner
Wrong again. I quote from your first post in this thread (post #42).
You also claimed that you would have time to come back and cite sources for all your allegations on Sunday. You did not (no surprise as there are no good sources to support what you have claimed) You only managed a post ending with this tail-tucking, white-flag-waving, one-off ending sentence.
It’s pretty clear to me that you’re not here to engage people in open-minded debate but merely to spread TGIE propaganda.
Ray says
That’s exactly my point. If you are not a citizien of China, you have NO RIGHTS to discuss an internal matter of China especially when done on such selective ground. Conversely, China has no right to do the same. Unless, you are special and allow your own family matter to be discuss but that is your choice.
You are also wrong on the reporting of plight of First Nations people of Canada. I am not talking about Canadian discussing their own internal affair. Can you show how often report on this issue from UK, US, Australia, NZ or any other countries? And can you explain to me why First Nation people in Canada has the lowest life expectancy and three times the rate of incaeration in prison compare to the general population.
I hate to say this, despite all those reporting of the First Nation in the news in Canada. It is nothing but lips service because almost no effective step have been taken.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/military-intelligence-unit-keeps-watch-on-native-groups/article2199496/
Scabies says
But most of you guys are not citizens of the PRC anymore either……yet you often talk about China’s ‘internal matters’ Why the double- standard?
Ray says
@Scabies
Talk about in a constructive way is totally different from trying to impose a certain view or agenda. Nobody on this site like selective fault finding.
Imagine a Muslim cleric going into a church and try to admonish the whole congregation there on how they are not doing things right the Muslim way.
In case you don’t know, too many of the mainstream articles when attacking China, include a blanket attack on the Chinese people and most of us identified as of Chinese descents. So in a way it has real concern to us.
Scabies says
You said ‘ NO RIGHTS to discuss’
What part of that do you not understand the meaning of?
Either that or you’re back-peddling…..
raventhorn says
“The comparison seems pretty straightforward: Israel isn’t guilty of genocide in Palestine, they aren’t trying to wipe out the Palestinians, and the Arabic language is not endangered in Palestine.”
Hmm… The statistics seem to suggest otherwise. # of Palestinian refugees worldwide is around 7 Million, that’s way more than the ~100,000 Tibetan refugees. (about 70 times).
Seriously, if that kind of mass exodus by the Palestinians is not “genocide”, I don’t know how Otto can justify his other assertions.
Scabies says
‘In case you don’t know, too many of the mainstream articles when attacking China, include a blanket attack on the Chinese people and most of us identified as of Chinese descents. So in a way it has real concern to us.’
So some of you can comment on China’s ‘internal affairs’ because of your DNA, but us white and black folks have ‘NO RIGHTS to discuss’ these things even if we live in China or have family here?
Who came up with this rule, and why doesn’t it apply to you guys re American ‘internal affairs’?
raventhorn says
@Otto Kerner
“My point was that most of the region is not multi-ethnic.”
I think you are making a generalized distinction without saying anything concrete. What is this “most of the region”? 90%, 51%? by area or by population numbers?
Ray says
@Scabies
LOL, what I am saying is those articles are not just attacking China or the CCP but also us, so we have a right to defend ourselves. I am just telling people who try to attack me to bugger off and explain to me that why a certain standard applied on China (or me) but not on Australia, US or Israel.
Every country, every website has their own rules. As long as those folks identify themselves as stakeholders they have a right but only as permissable by the law/rule of those countries/sites. China included. In China you can drink beer when 18 (not in US), you can wear a Nazi swastika (not in France, Germany or Israel).
For example, you will find yourself perfectly at home at the KKK forum spewing whatever venom you have but it is not ok to do so here.
If I am to set a rule for this website it would be constructive critism only, much like in an institute of higher learning. For example when you attack something come up with a better solution. Don’t like how certain things are done, suggest a better way. I just don’t like time wasted here.
Scabies says
Let me remind you of what you said:
‘If you are not a citizien of China, you have NO RIGHTS to discuss an internal matter of China’
That is ‘what you are saying’ Ray. No point trying to weasel out of it now.
‘For example, you will find yourself perfectly at home at the KKK forum spewing whatever venom you have but it is not ok to do so here.’
Idiotic comment Ray, especially given I am black. Boy this site and its posters/ hosts really operate at a very base level.
Tell me, are you currently a citizen of the PRC Ray??? LOL Ray
Ray says
@Scabies
Now, get it weasel. We don’t need to justify who we are to you. So tell us more of who you are and why you are here.
Ray says
@Scabies
Since you identify yourself as black. Are you concern that despite only making up a tenth of the population in the US, people of African descent made up more than half of the prison population?
Do you think there is anything wrong with US society?
melektaus says
More flagrant hypocrisy. You demand others cite their sources and yet in this or other threads in which you make many significant allegations I have yet see you cite a single source that supported what you have said. What more could be said about the obviousness of your motives…
Charles Liu says
Here’s an example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/the-china-conundrum.html?pagewanted=4
“We’re well aware that the Chinese are raised on propaganda, and the U.S. is not portrayed very positively.”
How true is this statement that makes claim on the Chinese people as a whole? My limited personal experience (relatives, friends, business associates) seem to contradict this generalization.
melektaus says
@Charles Liu
The NYT is a joke. They don’t even try to hide the fact that they are the government propaganda mouthpiece.
YinYang says
Many Chinese have begun to recognize how hostile the NYT, CNN, and other Western media are towards China and the Chinese – all through independent outlets like anti-CNN through the Internet. It might be counter-intuitive. These media outlets want upheaval in China towards the government, yet their hostility towards the Chinese and China in fact does the opposite.
melektaus says
Additional to the NYT, just about all major media outlets in the west is deficient. Look at this bilge by the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303661904576453672924851518.html
it makes several factual errors. the writer seems like an airheaded ditz and very bigoted and hateful individual. Just a couple of examples:
It quotes some goon named “Daniel Twinning” which it calls a “scholar” as saying:
The Sino-Indian war is one of the most perfect examples of territorial aggression by a state out of nothing more than nationalist and irredentist motives of the twentieth century. The problem is that Twinning got it exactly backwards. It was India that invaded and occupied the “disputed territory” wholly without provocation Not only that but India went beyond the disputed territory and occupied territory both India and China recognized as China’s (past the McMahon line).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War
The writer also says:
It’s sad how brainwashed Americans and westerners are. They are so brainwashed they cannot literally see the facts before their very eyes. I think psychologists should really study them and their brainwash induced selective vision.
YinYang says
That same WSJ paper had two ignorant Indian nationals debating about China. Can you imagine that? One paints an extremely awful picture and another an awful picture. The WSJ is a cesspool of nastiness. This was about two years ago, and I blogged about it here.
NPR had a segment about “India’s China Envy” which I also blogged (here). We can see NPR spinning – desperate in holding unto the ‘democracy’ narratives of the West.
melektaus says
@YinYang
I find the democracy card Indian apologists play hilarious. It’s used as a convenient excuse by Indian nationalists and westerners for all of India’s deficiencies. There was a video made not long ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAIzJoHditM
Look at these so called experts talk about the economic growth between the two nations. They are all ignoramuses. Notice that not a single one is an economist (odd considering this is about macro economics of developing countries).
They don’t even question the logic (which they all seem to acquiesce without criticism) behind the claim that the reason India fell behind in growth to China is that India is a “democracy” while China is “autocratic.”
If you’d mention that reasoning to any economist they’d laugh you out of the room. Democracy does not hold India behind; corruption, inefficiency, being one of the most inegalitarian societies in the world, however, does. That is so obvious that it needs no mention and it shows the power of propaganda in masking such obvious truths from the discussion. The reason India has lagged behind is not that it is a democracy (which it is most certainly not in any robust sense). It’s because it is seriously corrupt (much more so than even China) and it systematically keeps hundreds of millions of its own people in illiteracy and poverty through its cultural institutions directed towards minorities, lower castes and women. You can’t advance society as fast when you have a 60% literacy rate (vast majority of illiterates are women, minorities and “untouchables”) compared to China’s 93%. The Mughal is indeed without a robe but no one seems to acknowledge that fact.
silentvoice says
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/business/global/india-looks-to-china-as-an-economic-model.html?pagewanted=all
Besides an achievement gap, there’s also an attention gap. Most Chinese don’t see India as a potential adversary, but Indians do and they pay alot of attention to Chinese politics, military developments, etc.
Charles Liu says
Here’s another example. The “forced sterilization” charge against China’s population management policy in 70’s also existed in US as “eugenic sterilization” in 60’s and 70’s:
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/07/8640744-victims-speak-out-about-north-carolina-sterilization-program-which-targeted-women-young-girls-and-blacks
Charles Liu says
Here’s another one, linking the Chinese government to CIA’s made-up WMD charge against Iran:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/opinion/irans-nuclear-program-and-china.html
Reminds me of yellow cake uranium.
zack says
regarding the sino-indian war, i should probably note that the Chinese treated their Indian POWs well, even cleaning and returning captured weaponry and (here’s the kicker) after overrunning Arunachal Pradesh, the PLA actually withdrew behind the McMahon line.
For that act of mercy and civility, the Indians would repay the Chinese with nationalistic rhetoric, and entrenched attitudes with respect to negotiations over the sino-indian border.
melektaus says
@zack
This is true. I’ll be writing a post on the Sino-India war soon. The image that is portrayed of it in the west and in India and the reality is so starkly different and the image is rarely even questioned today that it needs its own post. It is actually one of the most egregious instances of the last 50 years of territorial expansionism from nationalist and irredentist motives (wholly illegal in international law) in the world. And the so called peaceful nation of India was the perpetrator in that and they (both the politicians and the mass public) have still to atone for the sins of their invasion while fanning the flames of militarism.
Ray says
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/italian-jobs-chinese-illegals-11032011.html
raventhorn says
@Ray
It’s more enlightening to read the comments for that article, to get a sense of the prevailing ignorant racisms in the West.
(1) China’s immigration policies are actually very non-restrictive. Lots of African business people (even small time buyers/sellers) live in China on temporary visas, they renew their visas very easily, and even if they overstay, the police rarely go after them.
pug_ster says
@Charles Liu
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-fg-israel-iran-20111108,0,1666106.story
It seems incredibly nuts that all the ducks are in order for a potential conflict in Iran. China and Russia is not going to give the West a free pass unlike Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact is that the paranoid Israeli government is having some kind of open discussion of a ‘preemptive strike’ on Iran shows that they are a crazy war mongering country it is.
Charles Liu says
Here’s another example of the defamation those of use witness on regular basis – delay of Keystone XL pipeline, where Reuters singles out China:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/10/column-oil-keystone-idUSN1E7A91OB20111110
Compare above with Bloomberg covering the same story, acknowledging Canada sells oil to not just China, but all over Asia:’
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/11/11/bloomberg_articlesLUHA2807SXKX.DTL
One singles out China while another doesn’t.
Charles Liu says
Here’s another example. Remember the Confucius Peace Prize that was lambasted last year as Chinese government propaganda? Now the truth comes out it’s created by some academics headed by a poet named Qiao Damo, not the Chinese government:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/china-group-proceeding-with-awarding-of-homegrown-peace-prize-to-russian-prime-minister-putin/2011/11/15/gIQAhYnTNN_story.html
According to Baidu, the prize is not sponsored by the Cultural Ministry, but another NGO, Chinese Indigenous Arts Association:
http://news.ifeng.com/mainland/detail_2011_11/14/10635090_0.shtml
Jim says
Charles, you’ve misread these articles.
First, as is often the case on this site, you’re comparing articles that aren’t similar at their core. That is, the articles serve different purposes and speak to different points. The Bloomberg article (at sfgate.com) is more or less an actual news article; it details a Canadian official’s statement and frames it as an update on the Keystone Pipeline story. The article at Reuters.com is an opinion piece that provides the author’s personal perspective on the broader discourse surrounding the Keystone Pipeline story.
Second, the article that you think “singles out China” doesn’t defame China; the author is actually taking to task others who single out China! (In other words, he is in part expressing an opinion that you support!) Indeed, a few paragraphs down, the author states: “Doubtless this theme will be dredged up by Keystone’s backer, TransCanada and other oil industry lobbyists in Washington with an eye to fanning Americans’ fears about oil supply security should the Obama Administration opt for further study of fresh routes for the pipeline.” If you want to criticize Robert Cambell’s article, criticize its poor organization at the macro level — all he’s saying is that he thinks one side is entirely missing the point in the debate over the decision to delay the Keystone Pipeline project.
The Bloomberg article also mentions China. The article first mentions the Canadian official’s statement that the Canadian government will have to “ensure that [it] can export our oil to Asia through British Columbia”; later the article reveals that, oh by the way, the Canadian official is travelling to China “where he will discuss increasing energy exports to China and facilitating investment in Canadian natural-resource assets.”
Charles Liu says
Jim, I disagree. I’m in particular focusing on the tone of each piece.
Here’s another comparison – use of the term “crack down” to indict China.
Here are the Google News article counts as of 1pm today:
“China” 31300
“China crack down” – 4310
14%
“OWS” – 5410
“OWS crack down” – 220
4%