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Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

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Re: Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

#181

Post by whimsicalism »

yongjik wrote: post #173
whimsicalism wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is whataboutism. No relevance to the issue at hand whatsoever.

I'm saying that it's silly to argue that Tibetans don't deserve their own government because ancient Tibetans were horrible people, when the current alternative is Tibetans being ruled by China with its own horrible ancestors. Ancient people were horrible everywhere. It's not really an argument for anything.

The Tibetans deserve a government that represents them, but not the Dalai Lama led one (although I don't agree with a principle of "every ethnic group governs themselves" or something like that. I don't think it is wrong or colonialist to be part of a supranational, pluralistic state - but China is obviously authoritarian).

These aren't "ancient Tibetans"... this is quite literally the Tibetian government directly prior to the Chinese takeover, ie. within current people's lifetime. There are direct, credible witnesses to what Tibet under the current Dalai Lama's government was like. The current Dalai Lama was picked by people who tortured their citizens and gouged out their eyes for trying to organize away from serfdom. The current Dalai Lama oversaw a feudal system where these sorts of punishments continued to be carried out.

Tashi Tsering's autobiography details the extensive whippings and sexual assault he experienced working in the current Dalai Lama's dance troupe, prior to the Chinese takeover.

This is not "ancient" history.

Re: Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

#182

Post by whimsicalism »

mushbino wrote: post #168
technobabbler wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a side thought... if you look long enough at any country's history, you'll surely find horrors and terrible individuals. But that rarely means that country or its modern descendants would want to be "liberated" by a foreign conquerer, whether that's China or the USA. Forced assimilation is a form of genocide and people would almost always choose to be oppressed by one of their own rather than a foreigner...

Doesn't every country have official languages that they teach and conduct business in? There are very few groups who still speak their native languages after being assimilated into the US. Tibetan is still being taught in schools there along with mandarin. Wouldn't it be hard to integrate into the business community if you didn't speak the official language of business in a given country?

It's just definitional stretch, which is basically inevitable when you have a word like "genocide."

People want to make some odd simile to the holocaust when obviously assimilation is not at all close in magnitude to that horror.

Re: Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

#185

Post by 737min »

whimsicalism wrote: post #81
cyberpunk wrote: post #65

As a zen Buddhist, I've always kinda felt our Tibetan 'dharma brothers' style of buddhism (admittedly, I don't know a lot about) feels much more like a proper religion than the kind of thing I've been into.. Which put me off quite a lot of it, I still hope to someday visit the place. It’s pretty sad that such an essentially peaceful and introspective group of people are abused thus, even if they believe in some prett…

They were not so peaceful and introspective when they were actually in power. This is basically a CCP talking point at this point, but it is pretty true that the system they governed was essentially a serfdom-powered society. See the sort of punishments that were common for people who tried to organize the serfs in any way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungshar

https://infogalactic.com/info/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy

Lots of conflicting perspectives on this topic indeed.

Re: Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

#186

Post by presentation »

pmoriarty wrote: post #134
technobabbler wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO only, not an expert/informed analysis: Buddhism can be a risk to Chinese harmony if left to a separate authority (the real Dalai Lama). The Chinese grand social experiment of a strong state can only really work if they are relatively culturally homogenous, whether in Tibet or Hong Kong or Xinjiang or Taiwan. Dissent plants the seeds of change, and the CCP's system doesn't work when there is too much diversity of…

"Buddhism can be a risk to Chinese harmony" It boggles my mind that anyone would consider to be harmonious a society that kills, imprisons, tortures, censors, and brainwashes so many of its own people.

It certainly is harmonious if you are a mainstream Han Chinese person (or an expat) who lives in a major city with some level of affluence - you are insulated from the repression, your life will be comfortable and things appear to work quite well. From the outside people talk about these big social problems, which are bad, but from the perspective of day to day life for the vast majority of people, those issues don’t affect you and you just see a very productive and good standard of living society. (I lived there for some time)

Re: Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

#187

Post by whimsicalism »

737min wrote: post #185
whimsicalism wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not so peaceful and introspective when they were actually in power. This is basically a CCP talking point at this point, but it is pretty true that the system they governed was essentially a serfdom-powered society. See the sort of punishments that were common for people who tried to organize the serfs in any way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungshar

https://infogalactic.com/info/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy Lots of conflicting perspectives on this topic indeed.

There's numerous direct primary sources who were alive at least until the 1990s about what life was like in Tibet. It is only because this is such a politically contentious issue that the wikipedia page is "both sides"-ing it.

The only source they have in that article that disagrees that amputation and gouging of the eyes was a routine punishment was a literal Nazi.

The overwhelming weight of evidence, even in that wiki article, is towards Tibet having a feudal society with routine amputation/gouging as punishment.

https://infogalactic.com/info/Lungshar - had their eyes gouged out by the state

Re: Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

#188

Post by cercatrova »

copperwater69 wrote: post #177
anadem wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tibet has an estimated population of about 6 million Tibetans and 7.5 million Chinese settlers." [0] This is using the Chinese definition of Tibet, which is less than half of the historical Tibet. Han Chinese are encouraged to move into Tibet (and Xinjiang) to dilute the indigenous population. [0] https://unpo.org/members/7879

Quoted post unavailable.

It was the tactic of the British into Northern Ireland, interestingly enough. I suppose it's also the story of colonists coming into the Americas as well as parts of Africa, mainly South Africa.

Re: Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

#189

Post by sacrosancty »

hutzlibu wrote: post #97
technobabbler wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a side thought... if you look long enough at any country's history, you'll surely find horrors and terrible individuals. But that rarely means that country or its modern descendants would want to be "liberated" by a foreign conquerer, whether that's China or the USA. Forced assimilation is a form of genocide and people would almost always choose to be oppressed by one of their own rather than a foreigner...

Thats true, but you do not have to look long to see, that Tibet was a feudal theocracy, with no dissent allowed, either. But that is history. Modern Tibet deserves to make their own choices, I hope they get the chance to make them one day. And about old Tibet, I recommend "Seven Years in Tibet", real story of a Nazi who fled a british war prisoner camp in india and then spend 7 years in Tibet, also as a teacher for t…

How would modern Tibetans making their own choices work? They're majority Han Chinese now so are you proposing some kind of apartheid or ethnostate, or Han dominated democracy?

Re: Popular Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu dies of self-immolation protest

#190

Post by technobabbler »

pmoriarty wrote: post #134
technobabbler wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO only, not an expert/informed analysis: Buddhism can be a risk to Chinese harmony if left to a separate authority (the real Dalai Lama). The Chinese grand social experiment of a strong state can only really work if they are relatively culturally homogenous, whether in Tibet or Hong Kong or Xinjiang or Taiwan. Dissent plants the seeds of change, and the CCP's system doesn't work when there is too much diversity of…

"Buddhism can be a risk to Chinese harmony" It boggles my mind that anyone would consider to be harmonious a society that kills, imprisons, tortures, censors, and brainwashes so many of its own people.

They use "harmony" the same way we use "freedom": as propaganda for control and imperialism.

How do you sell violence to the populace? For collectivist countries, it's "they are unlike us, we will show them our ways." For individualist countries, it's "we are unlike them, we will show them our ways." It doesn't really matter what noble buzzword you attach to your violent ideology, in the end you have a hierarchical society predicated upon the exploitation of the less powerful.

In describing what I perceive their objectives to be, it does not in any way mean I condone their actions. Only that I desire to understand a great power that is more than likely going to become a great enemy someday soon, unless we can somehow find common ground with their common people and rebel against the violent, coercive elitism in both cultures.

The average person anywhere isn't really all that different, in my personal experience. But their supposed values, most of which go unexamined their whole lives, are largely shaped by the cultural environment they grew up in. More often than not they just toe the line of whatever hero their parents or friends happened to worship, typically some asshole elite. That's as true in China as it is in the USA. That's not a defense of Chinese oppression, it's a recognition of human folly in the aggregate.

For what it's worth, we incarcerate more people than the Chinese, even though they have 4x the population. For every Xinjiang they have we have a Gitmo, for every Tibet we have Afghanistan and Iraq. There are no innocent superpowers; all are evil and got there by doing great evil in the not-so-distant past.

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