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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

#241

Post by holoduke »

Loic wrote: post #229
misja111 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that there would be something like a 'pure Belgian', or Dutch or French or whatever, is an illusion. How many of those 50% new Belgians had all Belgian ancestors? And not some French, Dutch, German, Italian .. person somewhere up in their family tree?

A pure French exist! A pure French has "core values". He is proud to be French, a bit arrogant, a bit thinking like his country is big ("la Grande Nation"), the source of all the enlightenment philosophers, that English has more than 30% of its words directly taken from French and that without French cuisine and mode, and his magnificent country for the people to visit, the world would not be a place to live, can dis…

The pure french of 100 years ago is very different than the pure french of today. Which is a good thing.

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

#242

Post by roeles »

technobabbler wrote: post #82
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…

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…

If diversity is a threat, then I wonder why Taoism is not treated like buddhism.

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

#243

Post by 1_player »

michaelscott wrote: post #239
1_player wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How was having people from all over Europe cultural uniformity? They could not even agree which version of Christianity to believe in. They arrived as Germans, Brits, Irishmen and Italians and now they're all indistinguishably Americans, and still are able to celebrate their heritage. Wiping out the native population is a very sad moment of US history that doesn't invalidate my point.

As parent said, all those Europeans went to America because they shared roughly the same ideals about what America could be. That's the foundation of any culture, and because it's shared it's "uniform". This is not the case in Europe, where people in different regions (never mind countries) can have very different ideals formed over the course of sometimes thousands of years

I disagree. Some went to America because of the ideals, but others went there because they had no choice (exile), or they wanted to start anew because of shady past or just because. The land of the free is a nickname that has been slapped on the USA after the fact.

Who says immigrants with a different skin colour don't move to Europe because of the ideals? That is bollocks and borderline discriminates other cultures with the assumption that they do not care about becoming European. The incorrect assumption being that it's never been the people that convert to a culture, but instead the culture evolves over time to accommodate the change in demographics. Racial and cultural purity is an ideal that never really existed. It's easy to imagine the citizens of Rome complaining about the Celts and, yikes, the Barbarians ruining the pure Roman blood two thousand years ago.

The future of Europe, and the rest of the world, culturally and genetically, is a melting pot of people from all over the world. To me it is an absolute win, especially since history proved time and time again that the more people with different experiences and lives come together, the more society advances.

Disclaimer: I am definitely biased as a European-born mixed race citizen. The more you mix the cultures, the more arbitrary those borders and ideals seem.

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

#244

Post by healsjnr1 »

jahnu wrote: post #219
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

I visited the 3 largest Tibetan cities in 2007. Each city had a "Tibetan Quarter". I can't see how this could ever be an independent country ever again.

Yeah I was there around the same time.

The scale of the work being done to dilute the population is astounding.

We were there at Christmas time, having driven from Kathmandu. That trip was telling in itself: there was only one way to get a visa to do that trip, and all of the trips were run by a single Chinese government run tour agency.

Even with terrible roads, your can do the trip in 3 days of about 4 hours driving each. Instead they try and force most people into a 7 day tour. Luckily we got a driver we managed to haggle with and cut it down to 3 days.

Those who did the 7 days ended up staying in weird empty towns that had large hundred room hotels that were _completely_ empty, but also fully staffed.

The closer we got to Lhasa the more of this we saw. Huge infrastructure that appeared to serve no purpose other than to get people into the region.

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

#245

Post by gigatexal »

copperwater69 wrote: post #234
gigatexal wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should there not be some platforms or speech that is ridiculed to death? I think they should be: anti-semitism (really any racism — it has no place on HN) or even the xenophobic fears of white Europeans being displaced… smh

I think its wrong to call it xenophobia when your culture and race is at risk of being diluted and minimised into a minority in your own country. I would even go so far as to call it xenophilia if you welcome that for your own people.

In the example I gave in the original response: "white Europeans being displaced" I think I was needlessly vague. What I should have mentioned was that this displaced demographic is usually enfranchised, wealthier, educated, etc. If jobs are in question it just means that the labor market is flattening and the incumbents need to step up and skill up etc. Nobody is considering or advocating forced removal of people from their stations that's what makes this an irrational fear.

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

#246

Post by chrisjc »

skilled wrote: post #53

I lived in Dharamshala (home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile) for 3 months a few years ago. My partner at the time went back to the US to visit family, and I didn't want to leave Asia so I went there since I had some interest in Buddhism at the time, too. In random book stores, I met actual monks who had served time (in China) as political prisoners. One of which had also written a book about it…

Sorry to ask such a macabre question... but why would China ever release political prisoners? Moreover, why wouldn't they just disappear them?

I'm in no way suggesting they should or asserting China's great because they have standards when it comes to taking political prisoners... Nor am I stating that China is so barbarous that I would expect nothing less of them... I just don't know and wonder about the answers to these questions?

Sounds like the former prisoners you met still hold the beliefs that probably made them prisoners in the first place. They're still monks (practicing I assume). They're now back in their country of origin?

What was accomplished?

Time? The best I can come up with is that it bought China time to begin and continue ethnically cleanse (displacing, not killing) Tibet (as well as other regions), while not breaking any international laws or attracting enough negative attention to jeopardize any foreign trade or financial relationships?

Look at the news about what's supposedly going on in Xinjiang... China is getting nothing but bad publicity, but no international entity is pulling out of those areas or others in China because of what they're supposedly doing to the Uyghur population. If anyone is leaving China, it's been reported that it's for unrelated reasons.

If China just disappeared these people instead of putting them in camps, would the world react any differently? It doesn't seem like anyone has been able to substantiate these claims about the resorts (concentration camps), so how much harder would it be for China create the same level of control around a massive park or recreation area (polyandrion or burial site)?

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

#247

Post by pvaldes »

treeman79 wrote: post #237
pvaldes wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for your experience. Colon cancer treatment, I guess?. Hope you are better now.

Poison. Clots, vascular and nerve damage

Wow, horrible experience then. I don't know what to say, frankly.

Some vascular problems can be fixed with surgery and some nerve damages can repair itself, even if is a frustrating slow process. Hope you the best in your recovery. Stay connected here if you need to talk.

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

#249

Post by blindmute »

gigatexal wrote: post #211
eloisius wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you making thinly veiled references to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about replacing white people in Europe? I wouldn't assume so quickly, except that in your recent comment history you've repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements. I'm not gonna flag or downvote your comment, but at least have the personal honor to be direct about what you're insinuating. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30681863 https://new…

Should there not be some platforms or speech that is ridiculed to death? I think they should be: anti-semitism (really any racism — it has no place on HN) or even the xenophobic fears of white Europeans being displaced… smh

Why is the Tibet situation sad, and the Belgium situation xenophobic?

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

#250

Post by actionfromafar »

technobabbler wrote: post #190
pmoriarty wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 s…

Your last paragraph goes too far to me. China represses its whole population. Yes, all empires are inherently "evil", but there are far more freedoms in the "west" than in China. You can't just equate them. This site we are talking on could not exist in China.
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