Forums > Social Discussion > Unrest in Tibet - Dalai Llama to resign?

Login/Join to Participate
Page:
FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
I guess everybody has followed the 'recent news' (oxymoron) about the unrest in Tibet and the reaction of the Dalai Llama, better speaking his "threat" to step down as the 'Dalai Llama', if violent unrest continues in Tibet.

You reckon it's just a political bluff?

You reckon ppl will continue to worship him, even if he's not the 'Dalai Llama' but just an "ordinary man"?

You believe that there is "cultural genocide" committed by the Chinese in Tibet?

You think that sitting and meditating will lead to the "liberation" of Tibet at any stage?

I refrain from polling on this one but feel free to post your opinion.....

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


Rouge DragonBRONZE Member
Insert Champagne Here
13,215 posts
Location: without class distinction, Australia


Posted:
I wasn't actually aware the the Dalai Lama could step down! I thought the Dalai Lama was born the Dalai Lama and was a reincarnation of the previous one?

Or I could have watched too many movies. Sorry if I have redface

i would have changed ***** to phallus, and claire to petey Petey

Rougie: but that's what I'm doing here
Arnwyn: what letting me adjust myself in your room?..don't you dare quote that on HoP...


FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
That adds the thrilling part to his call, Rouge.

Could one ever "watch too many movies"?

(Western) Buddhism allegedly renounces the idea of reincarnation, which makes the Dalai Llama an ordinary human being...

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


The Tea FairySILVER Member
old hand
853 posts
Location: Behind you...


Posted:
Even if he was a reincarnation of the pevious one, he could still probably step away from his duties as a religious leader. Maybe take a nice holiday for a lifetime or two?

Idolized by Aurinoko

Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind....

Bob Dylan


faith enfireBRONZE Member
wandering thru the woods of WI
3,556 posts
Location: Wisconsin, USA


Posted:
I thought he was just stepping down as a political leader not as the Dalai Lama which is also a religous leader

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed


MikeGinnyGOLD Member
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA


Posted:
And while he is a fantastic spiritual leader, he's a rotten politician.

And calling someone a "rotten politician" is probably the highest praise you can give a man. ubblol

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura


FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
 Written by : FT

You reckon it's just a political bluff?

You reckon ppl will continue to worship him, even if he's not the 'Dalai Llama' but just an "ordinary man"?

You believe that there is "cultural genocide" committed by the Chinese in Tibet?

You think that sitting and meditating will lead to the "liberation" of Tibet at any stage?



wink

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


Groovy_DreamSILVER Member
addict
449 posts
Location: Australia


Posted:
You quoted yourself, then winked. Awesome! Think i might do the same.

Groovy_DreamSILVER Member
addict
449 posts
Location: Australia


Posted:
 Written by :PsyRush


You quoted yourself, then winked. Awesome! Think i might do the same.



wink

LOCfanSILVER Member
newbie
14 posts
Location: Wilmington, NC, USA


Posted:
I must admit that I haven't been following this closely enough, but I'd like to put in my two cents...

I don't believe that the Dali Llama would resign, simply because it'd be like telling the Chinese leaders, "Okay, you win. Finish the genocide unhindered." It would be disheartening and confusing to his followers, and, in my opinion, would be a very submissive move.

I've heard that the British spy agency, GCHQ, has confirmed that the Chinese are staging violent riots whilst posing as monks, in order to justify what they are doing there. This isn't a new sort of technique, but it is a condemning one. Problem, solution, reaction - they create a problem, and offer a solution, in order to reach their goals with the consent of the people. It just proves, to me at least, that there is no real justification for killing and beating Tibetans.

.: Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting :.
~Russell


Yell fire!SILVER Member
member
151 posts
Location: London, United Kingdom


Posted:
I don't know what the implications are of the Dalai Lama resigning, but I think more people in the West need to read up on Tibetan history before making pro Dalai Lama noises.

Under Lama rule, out of a population of 1.2 million, 700,000 Tibetans were slaves who were owned by Lamas.

According to Wickipedia, "Prior to 1959, Tibet's land was worked by serfs most of whom were owned by the lamas and were sometimes subjected to punishment and cruel conditions, particularly if they tried to escape. Before Chinese rule, mass slavery existed with over 700,000 of Tibet's population of 1.2 million in feudal serfdom."

So all those 'free Tibet and bring back the Dalai Lama' people are actually supporting an oppressive theocracy that exploited and enslaved the working classes (or peasants to be more accurate).

newgabeSILVER Member
what goes around comes around. unless you're into stalls.
4,030 posts
Location: Bali, Australia


Posted:
Good lord Yell fire. Go talk to some Tibetans. Particularly older ones. Though I suppose its too late now. Should have done it in the 70s like I did. Spent years with them. Wikipedia. Good grief. Chinese propoganda is about as clever as everyone elses then *lets go sit people to plant crap on websites shall we.* Good lord. Then find out something about the Cultural Revolution. Then talk to some Tibetans.

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....


DentrassiGOLD Member
ZORT!
3,045 posts
Location: Brisbane, Australia


Posted:
what? are you trying to say Gabe that China are NOT the glorious liberators of oppression they claim to be?!



thats crazy talk! next youll be trying to convince us all that Mao was a sadistic psychopath.

wink
EDITED_BY: Dentrassi (1206658597)

"Here kitty kitty...." - Schroedinger.


Rouge DragonBRONZE Member
Insert Champagne Here
13,215 posts
Location: without class distinction, Australia


Posted:
*hugs the Gabe*

Calm down hun.

i would have changed ***** to phallus, and claire to petey Petey

Rougie: but that's what I'm doing here
Arnwyn: what letting me adjust myself in your room?..don't you dare quote that on HoP...


FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
Yell fire: any other sources available (than Wicky)?

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
Even if the Tibet regime was corrupt and infringed on human-rights, that in no way justifies Chinas invasion, Chinas brutality during that invasion and, the brutality and human-rights abuses that China has continued to perpetuate to the present day.

Clearly, whatever the state of the Tibetan regime was, Tibetans would prefer it to Chinas rule.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


The Tea FairySILVER Member
old hand
853 posts
Location: Behind you...


Posted:
A little history timeline for anyone who doesn't know what happened:

https://www.freetibet.org/info/key_issues.html

Idolized by Aurinoko

Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind....

Bob Dylan


Rouge DragonBRONZE Member
Insert Champagne Here
13,215 posts
Location: without class distinction, Australia


Posted:
I also think that even if that was the case, then that's the sort of thing the current world doesn't stand for. Making it a win/win for Tibetans.

i would have changed ***** to phallus, and claire to petey Petey

Rougie: but that's what I'm doing here
Arnwyn: what letting me adjust myself in your room?..don't you dare quote that on HoP...


Yell fire!SILVER Member
member
151 posts
Location: London, United Kingdom


Posted:
FireTom, I am at work at the moment but will dig up some more reliable references as soon as I have a bit of time. I assure you, it won't be a problem.

Newgabe, when you visit a developing country as an outsider a lot of the contact you have with the local population is limited to people belonging to the bourgeoisie or at least people in relatively privileged positions. These are generally the people who have the most to lose with the introduction of a more fair, egalitarian system such as socialism. So while I do not doubt that you spent a lot of time with Tibetans, I have reservations about how representative a view you were getting.

I am sure many Tibetans did prefer Tibet before Chinese rule, especially the many monks who can be seen on TV protesting, however the majority of the population who were living in slavery under the monks are probably better off under communist Chinese rule.

Feudal systems are inherently unfair and oppressive for the majority, whether they are in Tibet or in countries like India or Pakistan (still very prevalent). Theocratic feudal systems are possibly even worse.

Tea Fairy, I'm sorry but the source of your historical timeline is even less reputable than Wikipedia.

faith enfireBRONZE Member
wandering thru the woods of WI
3,556 posts
Location: Wisconsin, USA


Posted:
I'm sorry but my cousin is very unsatisfied with the Chinese rule and his whole family is suffering because of it

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed


newgabeSILVER Member
what goes around comes around. unless you're into stalls.
4,030 posts
Location: Bali, Australia


Posted:
Yellfire, Actually I hung out with refugees of every kind who had walked out with great suffering because they were being murdered and their culture destroyed. Many of the original ones had already died or were old by the time I got there. I met many of the second wave fleeing the horrors of the cultural revolution and systematic abuse of the Chinese occupation.



Feudal theocracy is a misapplied construct. You are not getting that this was a deeply religious society which created itself how it wished to. People supported, and had members who lived in, monasteries which in turn supported them. Big deal. That doesn't makes them serfs.

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....


Rouge DragonBRONZE Member
Insert Champagne Here
13,215 posts
Location: without class distinction, Australia


Posted:
There is a big difference between reading history books and talking to people who made the history.

I remember the powerful difference between reading about a dictatorship and talking to the people who survived it. I have no doubt that Gabe experienced the same difference in talking with the refugees.

i would have changed ***** to phallus, and claire to petey Petey

Rougie: but that's what I'm doing here
Arnwyn: what letting me adjust myself in your room?..don't you dare quote that on HoP...


FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
One should also not forget that Tibetan culture is a great deal about 'devotion'.

Whilst it may be or may not be true that Tibetans were living as subordinates of monks and monasteries, this would not automatically equal 'slavery' and 'living under the wage of an oppressive regime' - something that is not easy to understand in our western perception.

Further I strongly doubt that the current (Chinese) regime is much of a better alternative. There is a great deal of 'cultural genocide' going on in Tibet - common Chinese style...

Rouge this is a very true statement: "There is a big difference between reading history books and talking to people who made the history." Side that.

YellFire: It'd be splendid to have more/ better sources for these claims.

Thanks guys

smile

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


Rouge DragonBRONZE Member
Insert Champagne Here
13,215 posts
Location: without class distinction, Australia


Posted:
https://www.anti-cnn.com

Chinese propaganda site. Just thought I'd post it for interest sake.

i would have changed ***** to phallus, and claire to petey Petey

Rougie: but that's what I'm doing here
Arnwyn: what letting me adjust myself in your room?..don't you dare quote that on HoP...


FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
Indeed the pictures 'seem' to show Nepali police, not Chinese...

But let's take a closer look at the uniforms here:


Non-Https Image Link


Same riot gear, same camouflage - am I right?

However, its a fact that the media is as unscrupulous as politicians when it comes to manipulation of facts and to form opinions. Who was believing otherwise.

But what would that implicate? There is no violent unrest in Tibet? There is no police violently cracking down on protesters?

umm

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


Rouge DragonBRONZE Member
Insert Champagne Here
13,215 posts
Location: without class distinction, Australia


Posted:
I actually thought it was interesting that when the media showed cropped photos, and the site showed the original photo - it still looked bad! ubblol

Reading that site you'd think there was no violent unrest in Tibet and that the West had made it all up!

i would have changed ***** to phallus, and claire to petey Petey

Rougie: but that's what I'm doing here
Arnwyn: what letting me adjust myself in your room?..don't you dare quote that on HoP...


PyrolificBRONZE Member
Returning to a unique state of Equilibrium
3,289 posts
Location: Adelaide, South Australia


Posted:
yeah having talked to Tibetans I cant support the Chinese party line of "but we are liberating Tibet". Its crap. They are carrying out a cultural genocide right under the nose of the world, most likely to gain access to the rich natural resources, and hydro electric generation capacity of Tibet.



cultural genocide?



-thats what it is when you deliberately squash a religion that forms the basis of a social structure.

-thats what it is when you force all state-education to be in a non-native language and outlaw religious education.

-thats what it is when you make all official government positions non-native language dependent, and then import workers to fill them because Tibetans of working age can't speak the language required.

-thats what it is when you saturate the mass-media with imposed culture.

--
Help! My personality got stuck in this signature machine and I cant get it out!


Yell fire!SILVER Member
member
151 posts
Location: London, United Kingdom


Posted:
Here's an interesting excerpt taken from an article written by American political analyst Michael Parenti. For the full article and references, see https://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

---------------

... Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.” 10

Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” 11

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. 12 Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” 13 In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. 14 The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. 15 The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care, They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land--or the monastery’s land--without pay, to repair the lord's houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand.16 Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. 17

As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.”18 Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.19

The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery.20

The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives. ...

Yell fire!SILVER Member
member
151 posts
Location: London, United Kingdom


Posted:
Here's what the article says about the Chinese occupation, although it would be better to read the entire article from start to finish:

----------------

... Over the centuries the Tibetan lords and lamas had seen Chinese come and go, and had enjoyed good relations with Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and his reactionary Kuomintang rule in China.26 The approval of the Kuomintang government was needed to validate the choice of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. When the current 14th Dalai Lama was first installed in Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chinese troops and an attending Chinese minister, in accordance with centuries-old tradition. What upset the Tibetan lords and lamas in the early 1950s was that these latest Chinese were Communists. It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian schemes upon Tibet.

The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.27 Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.28

Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never heard from again, according to a report from the CIA itself, meaning they were most likely captured and killed.29 “Many lamas and lay members of the elite and much of the Tibetan army joined the uprising, but in the main the populace did not, assuring its failure,” writes Hugh Deane.30 In their book on Tibet, Ginsburg and Mathos reach a similar conclusion: “As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed.”31 Eventually the resistance crumbled.

Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese after 1959, they did abolish slavery and the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary. They established secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.32

Heinrich Harrer (later revealed to have been a sergeant in Hitler’s SS) wrote a bestseller about his experiences in Tibet that was made into a popular Hollywood movie. He reported that the Tibetans who resisted the Chinese “were predominantly nobles, semi-nobles and lamas; they were punished by being made to perform the lowliest tasks, such as laboring on roads and bridges. They were further humiliated by being made to clean up the city before the tourists arrived.” They also had to live in a camp originally reserved for beggars and vagrants--all of which Harrer treats as sure evidence of the dreadful nature of the Chinese occupation.33

By 1961, Chinese occupation authorities expropriated the landed estates owned by lords and lamas. They distributed many thousands of acres to tenant farmers and landless peasants, reorganizing them into hundreds of communes.. Herds once owned by nobility were turned over to collectives of poor shepherds. Improvements were made in the breeding of livestock, and new varieties of vegetables and new strains of wheat and barley were introduced, along with irrigation improvements, all of which reportedly led to an increase in agrarian production.34

Many peasants remained as religious as ever, giving alms to the clergy. But monks who had been conscripted as children into the religious orders were now free to renounce the monastic life, and thousands did, especially the younger ones. The remaining clergy lived on modest government stipends and extra income earned by officiating at prayer services, weddings, and funerals.35

Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that “more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation.”36 The official 1953 census--six years before the Chinese crackdown--recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000.37 Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves--of which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up, hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else.

Chinese authorities claim to have put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. They themselves, however, have been charged with acts of brutality by exile Tibetans. The authorities do admit to “mistakes,” particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached a high tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls “and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades.”38 ...

FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
However, we have to acknowledge that...

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
As mentioned on the UK TV thread, tonight there's a documentary on this-

'Undercover in Tibet'- 8.00pm, Channel 4

(I've no idea if it'll be any good or not)

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


Page:

Similar Topics

Using the keywords [unrest tibet dalai llama resign] we found the following existing topics.

  1. Forums > Unrest in Tibet - Dalai Llama to resign? [70 replies]

      Show more..

HOP Newsletter

Sign up to get the latest on sales, new releases and more...