Police attack peacefully protesting monks in Tibet

(Image via Students for a Free Tibet.)

Following up on this previous BB post, thousands of Chinese security personnel today fired tear gas in an effort to scatter more than 600 monks taking part in the second day of rare street protests inside Tibet. Tibetan Buddhist monks from Sera and Drepung monasteries refused to return to their quarters for several hours, according to reports.

I have traveled in this region, and to those monasteries, and have spoken with monks and nuns who participated in similar actions in previous years. What is taking place this week would seem to be the most significant series of demonstrations inside Tibet in nearly 20 years. Snip:

The Tibet demonstrations follow a string of marches around the world to commemorate the 49th anniversary of an uprising against Chinese rule in the remote, mountainous region that has become a flashpoint for protesters ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

"The police were armed with electric prods. Other uniformed security forces had firearms," the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity.

"The monks chanted: 'Release our people'," the source said, quoting a witness. The group, from the Sera Monastery, also shouted "We want human rights and freedom", the source said.

Link More from the UK's Times:

Clearly rattled by the bold display of opposition, Chinese authorities have ordered the closure of the north face of Mount Everest to expeditions until after the Olympic torch is carried up to its peak in early May. The expedition web portal posted a copy of a notice from the Mountaineering Association of the Tibet Autonomous Region asking climbers to delay their ascents.

The notice, dated March 10, said: “Concern over heavy climbing activities, crowded climbing routes and increasing environmental pressures will cause potential safety problems in Qomalangma [Everest] areas. We are not able to accept your expedition, so please postpone your climbing.”

(...)Chinese officials had said previously that the north face of the mountain, which straddles the border between Tibet and Nepal, would remain open. They could now be concerned that international activists may try to use the occasion of the arrival of the Olympic torch to stage some kind of demonstration on the world's highest mountain. Last April, four protesters at the Everest base camp on the Tibetan side unfurled a banner reading, “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008” – referring to the official games slogan. The group was deported.

Link.

The Dalai Lama issued a related statement earlier this week, calling for a "comprehensive approach to resolve the problem of Tibet."

Pro-Tibetan-independence advocacy group Students for a Free Tibet is also covering the ongoing protests.

• [Takuan]

  Yes, perilous times.

  If the world looks away, anything could happen.

  Right now,the best help for Tibet is our attention.

• [Antinous]

  These Olympics are going to be one of history’s great train wrecks.

• [Motisbeard]

  When I read an article like this one, or see a FREE TIBET bumper sticker on a car in America, I shake my head and sigh. Not because I side with the Chinese; I don’t. I also don’t side with the monks. Never having been to Tibet, I have just enough information to know that there are two sides to the story, and that the Chinese version is as legitimately valid as that of the monks. Tibet was a slave state before China upset their apple cart, after all… and it was the monks and the monasteries who were the massahs and the plantations of that slave state.

  Someone should go to Tibet and ask the less wealthy people who live there who are NOT either Han Chinese or former overlord Buddhist monks what they think of the situation. I haven’t heard much at all from those people, but what little I have heard indicated that they definitely didn’t want the old slave state back even if they did want the Chinese out.

  Asking a Tibetan monk about the Chinese presence in Tibet is like asking a Confederate Colonel about the Yankee presence in the deep South, and those of us here in America who swallow their responses whole without questioning them are too blind and irresponsible to have a relevant opinion.

• [Talia]

  Heh. that’s a point of view I’d never considered.

• [Takuan]

  From what I have read and heard, ordinary Tibetans that do not belong to old wealthy families still want their independence and their culture.

  Consider: protest in China can get you jailed, tortured, killed and certainly poor. In view of all this, why are people still protesting? I can only conclude that the alternative is worse.

  If they are willing to die for a free Tibet, then Tibet under Chinese domination must be bad.

  I can tell you that from personal conversations I have had with a member of old Tibetan nobility, he anyway does not even dream of a return to feudalism.
  That is past history. He wants a free Tibet – not an exchange of oppressors.

• [angryafrican]

  The Olympic Committee should be consistent with how they implement and execute their decisions on who gets the Olympics. If China is okay – should Zimbabwe get it next? It will be consistent with what they call “the Olympic” values. Or maybe we should have a closer look at their values – if we can find it. More on this in my blog at http://angryafrican.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/and-the-olympics-goes-to-zimbabwe/

• [Anonymous]

  The chinese govt. appears to use cyber-attacks as well. See this report by the SANS Internet Stomr Center: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4177

• [Motisbeard]

  Takuan:

  Protest in Tibet under the old system that the Buddhist monks ran could also get you tortured and killed… and the article isn’t about ordinary poor people in Tibet protesting Chinese rule, it’s about Buddhist monks protesting Chinese rule. Again, it’s the equivalent of a bunch of Confederate Colonels protesting Yankee rule in the deep South.

  You say that from what you’ve heard, “ordinary Tibetans that do not belong to old wealthy families still want their independence and their culture.” That’s no doubt true, but it has little to nothing to do with Buddhist monks protesting the Chinese presence in Tibet, since it was those same Buddhist monks who used to use them as slave labor, torture and kill them at will, and keep them impoverished.

  I lived in China for six years, and I can tell you first-hand that ordinary Han Chinese see their government as a liberator of the oppressed poor in Tibet. I make no statement regarding the accuracy of that opinion, but it is further evidence that any automatic assumption about conditions in Tibet based solely on what the former slave owners say is gullible foolishness. It also tells me that righteous indignation at the Chinese man in the street over what happens in Tibet is misplaced and unfair.

• [Antinous]

  I feel compelled to call bullshit. How many feudal era monks are still alive? If they’re not dead of old age, they were killed by the Chinese.

  These Tibet discussions always compare apples and oranges. Zimbabwe was a racist state before ZANU took over. Does that mean that Robert Mugabe doesn’t need to have his ass kicked out for destroying the country? Icing Mugabe doesn’t mean going back to colonialism. Freeing Tibet doesn’t mean going back to feudalism. Specious arguments.

• [Takuan]

  Ordinary Tibetan opinions?

  Xeni Jardin? Can you comment, having been there?

• [noiblau]

  I would really like if some of you read another point of view about China. Don’t say they are doing the right thing, but even if it’s painful sometimes we should have the whole view to get a proper opinion.

  http://www.noiblau.com

• [Nelson.C]

  Nice framing of the discussion there, Motisbeard. Beneath the false binary old-regime-is-as-bad-as-the-new, you tried to smuggle in the idea that Tibet is indisputably part of China with your American Civil War analogy. Of course, Tibet does dispute that it is a part of China, and has been disputing it for some centuries. Much as the Irish have disputed that they are part of the UK for several centuries.

  A better analogy might therefore be that the monks are like Catholic priests calling for home rule for Ireland in the early twentieth century.

• [Tenn]

  If you don’t know the history of the previous regime, how can say that the current regime is so bad? I hear that they’re waterboarding people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bottom line is read up on the issue; both sides, not just the one that’s cool and popular. While you’re at it look into the movement to free Hawaii from the white man or idea that Alta California is for La Raza.

  I guess the Olympics are being held in China because something like over 15 to 20% of the world is Chinese and they wanted to host it.

  No, because the 15-20% of Chinese did not get the vote I’d imagine. I’ll not stand behind Takuan and Antinous’ interpretation without some extensive research, but the idea that China got the Olympics because of having a majority of the world’s people doesn’t make much sense. Global issues are never that simple. And you’re right: I don’t know if the current regime is ‘that’ bad compared to the last regime. But if it is ‘bad’, on it’s own right, it is wrong. In Iraq, Afghanistan? They are waterboarding in Guantanamo Bay. My home country. To people who may or may not be terrorists. I don’t care if those people -are- terrorists. I care that they are Schroedinger’s Terrorists, and evidently the only way you know if they are criminals is because they admit to being one when being tortured. I’m cheering on OUR regime change. I’m cheering on Iraq being conducted less like Vietnam and more like a charity mission. If we focused on rebuilding (WITHOUT corrupt officials and companies) we’d get a lot more done. And sure, Hussein might have been bad, but I don’t see that we’re much better. His evils do not excuse ours. Possible Buddhist evils do not excuse possible, provable Chinese evils.

• [Motisbeard]

  Antinous:

  You talk as though the rule of the monks is ancient history. 1959 is not the Stone Age, the Dalai Lama is the same age as my father, and a great many of the ruling class survived the coming of the Chinese.

  As for your final statement: “Freeing Tibet doesn’t mean going back to feudalism.” We’re not talking about “freeing Tibet” here unless you accept without question whatever rhetoric the monks hand you… again, this isn’t a protest by ordinary people the article is talking about, it’s a protest by monks.

  I know that if I was a member of Tibet’s displaced ruling class, I’d want as many friends as I could get on the international scene, and I’d be canny enough to recognize that the powerful and very vocal Americans respond remarkably well to phrases like “human rights”.

  I think one would have to spend several years in Tibet to understand the real situation there and form an opinion worth squat. I haven’t. Xeni Jardin hasn’t. Very few Westerners have.

• [Takuan]

  I know that if I was a member of China’s ruling class, I’d want as many friends as I could get on the international scene, and I’d be canny enough to recognize that the powerful and very vocal Americans respond remarkably well to phrases like “civil war” and “confederate colonels”

• [Motisbeard]

  Nelson C.:

  I don’t have an opinion as to whether or not Tibet is properly part of China, and I wasn’t “smuggling in” any ideas by comparing Buddhist monks with Confederate Colonels.

  I said (and meant) from the very beginning that I don’t side with either the Buddhist monks or the Chinese government, because I think they both have their own slant on things and I’m certain the truth lies somewhere in between. You, on the other hand, seem to think that one side is right and one wrong, and that you know which is which. Your arrogance is as offensive as the way you shove words into my mouth.

• [Motisbeard]

  Takuan:

  I find it absurd and repulsive that I am being accused of having an agenda and taking sides when what I am in fact doing is pointing out that both sides have an agenda and that neither should be trusted.

• [Antinous]

  1959. That’s 49 years ago. Tibetan life expectancy is 65.81 years, lower than anywhere China. School attendance, by the way, is lower than China by 20%. What part of “freeing Tibet” are you having a hard time comprehending? Not part of China, but ruled by China. That’s called a colony.

  I think one would have to spend several years in Tibet to understand the real situation there and form an opinion worth squat.

  Should we enslave you for a couple of years, too, so that you can form a worthwhile opinion of slavery. More specious arguments. You sound remarkably like the propaganda arm of the Chinese government.

• [Antinous]

  Motisbeard,

  You are starting to smell suspiciously like the underside of a bridge.

• [coldmtn]

  @MOTISBEARD: Dude, with all due respect (very little, frankly), you don’t know what you’re talking about. Your ‘Tibetan monks protesting Chinese rule = Confederate Colonels protesting Yankee rule” (why Colonels?… not Generals? Or Majors?) shows you’re clueless about Tibetan culture and politics. You equate average monks in Tibet today – when the theocratic system you rightly disparage has been gone for decades – to the feudal landowning lords of the monasteries of times long gone. Tibetan monasteries have no real corollary to institutions in the ‘democratic’ West. And indeed they have always been seats of power, and as such thay have also been – like within any society past or present that you or I can name – places where people conspired to concentrate power, corrupt authority, and repress others for cynical gain. But in Tibet, monks and nuns make up a relatively enormous percentage of the population. I’m really not sure but something like 1/5… maybe only 15%…I’m not sure (Tibetan independence activist and uncompromising gadfly Jamyang Norbu has written about how this phenomenon has contributed significantly to ‘holding Tibetan culture back’ in modern times). Regardless, Tibetan monks and nuns come from all walks of life and can hardly be said to represent any sort of monolithic social class that seeks the return of feudal theocratic rule. Most of them would not by any means benefit from such a (counter-)revolution. Furthermore, the most important thing you fail to understand is that the monasteries remain the one institution within Tibetan social and political life that the Chinese government have not completely destroyed. Of course, the Chinese have paid spies and infiltrated and reduced the numbers of monks and/or nuns to small percentages of original populations at all the monasteries. But inside Tibet, the monasteries remain a place – the only place – where Tibetans live together in large groups, with a common purpose, spiritually dedicated to a common teacher (guess who?) and maintain the intimacy required to coordinate plans under the most frightening and repressive conditions. No, not a den of counter-reactionaries, dumbass. A group of like-minded patriotic Tibetans (like millions throughout the country) who happen to have the benefit – and recognize the responsibility – of being in a situation that enables them to organize resistance against their oppressors. Your insinuation that Tibetan monks are automatically part of the Tibetan ruling class is absurd and would be comical if it wasn’t used so often by pretend-lefties to disparage the legitimate independence struggle of the Tibetan people.

• [Takuan]

  Trusting neither side would be fair if the power was fair. It is not. I use Occam’s Razor.

  I find it repulsive that the side with the balance of probabilities in its favour is characterized as making the lesser argument appear the greater.

  “Objectivity” when blood is being spilled is of questionable morality. First: stop the violence. Then it can be sorted out.

  As to agendas: on the internet, no one knows you are a dog. You could be PLA. I could be PLA,

• [Antinous]

  Stand back. He’s got a razor.

• [Takuan]

  well, it isn’t really MINE

• [Tenn]

  I agree with Takuan. Whether or not the Buddhist monks of the past were wicked dictators, (which I honestly don’t know and will have to learn, because this is not something we’ve ever discussed in history), the current government looks rather wicked. Right now. I’m a Western kid with no sense of the problem, but just because the other side might be wrong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to help the situation and drag a ‘right’ side out of all the mess.

  Why are we holding the Olympics there anyway?

• [Antinous]

  Possession is not a prerequisite of exsanguination.

• [Tenn]

  I’ve got a gun! Don’t bring a razor to a gunfight.

• [Takuan]

  is it the Canon of Reason and Virtue?

• [Takuan]

  33. THE VIRTUE OF DISCRIMINATION.

  1. One who knows others is clever, but one who knows himself is enlightened.

  2. One who conquers others is powerful, but one who conquers himself is mighty.

  3. One who knows contentment is rich and one who pushes with vigor has will.

  4. One who loses not his place endures.

  5. One who may die but will not perish, has life everlasting.

• [Antinous]

  Why are we holding the Olympics there anyway?

  Officially, the carrot half of the carrot and the stick.

  Really, because we’re all desperately trying to sweet-talk them into correcting the trade imbalance so that we can sell them shit.

• [Takuan]

  there! some authentic gibberish many a child in Klatch would be grateful for!

• [Tenn]

  Silly Takuan, virtue is in a lightning bolt.

• [Antinous]

  Om ah hum vajra guru padma siddhi hum.

• [Tenn]

  Officially, the carrot half of the carrot and the stick.

  Really, because we’re all desperately trying to sweet-talk them into correcting the trade imbalance so that we can sell them shit.

  Though I have no real understanding of foreign policy or economics, that still sounds like the Chinese are going to gobble up the carrot. And leave us wondering why we didn’t get anywhere.

• [Antinous]

  Yup. Appeasement hasn’t really been working all that well.

• [scottfree]

  re the olympic train wreck: it already is mate. About half of Beijing went the way of my beloved Dalston theatre; mass evictions, disastrous privatisations etc. The sad fact is far from preventing, the Olympics /cause/ massive human devastation just to build the one time use only infrastructure.

  As the protest went: horrible echoes of Burma from not too far back. I hope nobody thought the time had come to watch the news without a good bottle of stiff liquor on hand.

• [Takuan]

  foreign policy and economics vis a vis Chioa and America: A Short Essay

  China lent a trillion bucks to America.

  America buys all this low quality crap made in China by slaves in polluting factories run by corrupt government cronies.

  The poor in America depend on Walmart, low prices and low wages both. Walmart sell the cheap Chinese crap and kills American domestic manufacturing.

  If America don’t pay back China, China’s screwed.

  If China stops shipping cheap crap to America, America is screwed.

  America’s got a buncha guns.

  China’s got a buncha guns.

  No way China can keep down a billion people that are gonna stay poor.

  No way America can keep a standard of living that was inflated for decades.

  Tibet’s a sideshow for America.

  Tibet’s a problem to be squashed for China.

  Tibet is for Tibetans.

  there you go, all explained

• [Tenn]

  Now why can’t you teach my history class?
  That makes sense. The kind of ‘oh, we really -are- screwed’ sort of epiphany. Like the one about our changing magnetosphere that will probably kill us in the intervening years anyway.

  The more I learn about the world, the more cynical I become.

  By the way, I Googled your cannon, who knew it was actually a canon? It intrigues me. Are you Taoist?

• [Motisbeard]

  The main point that I get out of all the replies to my comments can be distilled into the following exchange:

  ==============================
  ME: Both sides are biased. Neither you, nor I, nor Xeni Jardin has enough reliable information to form a strong opinion. I’m not taking sides until I have more and better information from a less biased source.

  THEM: If you’re not with us, you’re against us!!! I bet you’re a Chinese agent or a troll!!!1!!
  ==============================

  Well, good luck with that then. I’m done, and disgusted.

  In general, political activism in America has suffered a serious loss of power and credibility since the 1960s, not only because there are fewer activists now, but because activists are all too often willing to blindly accept whatever rhetoric, dogma, or propaganda best validates their own pre-conceived knee-jerk opinions and gut instincts (which are frequently dead wrong). It’s no wonder that activism is no longer taken seriously by anyone who might be in a position to listen and bring about some real change. It’s too easy to dismiss the opinions of people who can so easily be led into stridently protesting things like the use of that terrible solvent, dihydrogen oxide. In order for activism to recapture any meaning or effectiveness, activists need to learn to think more critically, accept that the scientific method works, realize that the maintenance of huge conspiracies is incompatible with human nature and our woeful inability to keep a secret, and remember to question authority even when the authority in question is one that validates what we want to believe is true.

• [Takuan]

  only in the way of Mrs. Cosmopolite.

  I fear for you, young one. Have you not been warned about weird strangers?

• [Takuan]

  Dear Motisbeard:

  Bullshit. You came in with your mind made up.
  That is fine if your ears are also open. But they ain’t.

  Be honest. Start with yourself.

• [Tenn]

  Doubly, nay, triply.

  Since I figured out I could lie to COPPA forms though, I’ve been on an absolute rampage talking to all sorts of weird strangers. Six years and counting, and I’m still alive and I haven’t talked to annyone who has starred on that show with the kiddy-diddlers and the actor and Chris Hanse.

  You are a really weird stranger, though, I’ll give you that.

• [Antinous]

  You are a really weird stranger, though, I’ll give you that.

  Doesn’t ‘weird stranger’ translate to henna gaijin?

• [Takuan]

  more weird than strange I hopehttp://www.chapelhillcomics.com/newimages/reviews/dr_strange_the_oath_1.jpg

• [Takuan]

  zo’ I used to smoke

  http://www.adliterate.com/archives/dr_strangelove_1ed07.jpg

• [Tenn]

  Both translation and parts weird to parts stranger remain to be seen.

  However, I will be responding to doubtless more stranger danger tomorrow, provided I survive the much more pressing danger of childhood- School.

• [Antinous]

  Nemui! Oyasuminasai.

• [Takuan]

  yup, gotta date with Halle Berry (she gives great back rubs)

• [autark]

  I was in Tibet last October for a few weeks, visiting both Drepung and Sera monasteries during the course of the trip. We had a local Tibetan guide and I also talked to a few monks… Of course this is only anecdotal, but the feeling I got was that all the Tibetans we came across were just trying to thrive as much as possible within the current situation, and that it wasn’t this kind of outright oppression of speech that was threatening them, but rather the Han Chinese immigration that is flooding Tibet and diluting their unique culture.

  I am also curious about this… while there we learned that many (most?) of the monks at these monasteries (a mere fraction of the number that used to live there) are selected by and (supposedly) faithful to the Chinese government. Our guide who felt free to discuss the political situation with us outside of the monasteries told us she had to be careful when monks were around because she did not know who could be trusted. I certainly never saw anything to indicate what Motisbeard is talking about above. But the political motivations of these groups can be confusing and situational.

• [scottfree]

  Peter Sellers wins at life.

  But I have to say, I put in my time organizing and so on, and I always look at the Free Tibet people and wonder: why is it I have to work so hard to give someone a bit of paper describing oppression in Oaxaca or wherever that they just throw out anyway while the Tibet people seem to have such a strong column of support? I mean, as these things go, Tibet isn’t anywhere near as drastic as many places, but everyone has heard of it, many people are actively concerned about it, even. Is there a limit to how much people care about the world or what?

• [seicho]

  Antonius,

  “Tibetan life expectancy is 65.81 years, lower than anywhere China. School attendance, by the way, is lower than China by 20%.”

  Tibetan life expectancy may be 65.81 years, lower than any where in China but what was Tibetan life expectancy in the 1950′s? The trend has been upwards. Also don’t forget that Tibet is one of the poorer regions of China. Poor people tend to die earlier. It is because of China’s econonic reforms and improved infrastructure and healthcare in Tibet that the life expectancy is as high as it is and improving still.

• [seicho]

  Tenn,

  “Whether or not the Buddhist monks of the past were wicked dictators, (which I honestly don’t know and will have to learn, because this is not something we’ve ever discussed in history), the current government looks rather wicked. Right now. I’m a Western kid with no sense of the problem, but just because the other side might be wrong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to help the situation and drag a ‘right’ side out of all the mess.

  Why are we holding the Olympics there anyway?”

  If you don’t know the history of the previous regime, how can say that the current regime is so bad? I hear that they’re waterboarding people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bottom line is read up on the issue; both sides, not just the one that’s cool and popular. While you’re at it look into the movement to free Hawaii from the white man or idea that Alta California is for La Raza.

  I guess the Olympics are being held in China because something like over 15 to 20% of the world is Chinese and they wanted to host it.

• [Nelson.C]

  Motisbeard @14: Oh, piffle. I forced no words into your mouth, merely pointed out the inaccuracy of those you had already written. What’s the point of pretending to be aggressively neutral if you’re already carrying around your own (presumably) unconscious biases? If you continue to flaunt your biases while denying their existence, you will get called out on them. As a true neutral, you should welcome my criticism, no matter how biased I am towards those who get tear-gassed and against those who deploy tear-gas.

  I fear that you will remain perpetually ignorant as long as you insist that all your information comes from unbiased sources. There is no such thing on this planet. If you truly want to make a difference and not just seek an excuse for indifference, then you will have to do what the rest of us do: screen all sources for bias and decide which side of the fence you’re on. And be prepared to change your mind when new information comes in.

  “Evil, triumph, men, do nothing” Fill in the missing words to form a well-known phrase or saying. In this case, insisting that the old regime is as bad as the new (implying that those are the only two choices) and supporting (presumably unconsciously) the view that Tibet is part of China are not neutral choices: these are Chinese propaganda. By uncritically repeating them you are breaking your neutrality and supporting the latest Chinese invasion of Tibet. You are supporting the Chinese. And that’s why you’re getting grief here.

• [Anonymous]

  come’on dont you think they are poor and weak for a reason? more than a half of century and nothing?
  If they were trully slaves they should do something about it instead they march like a bunch of lossers getting kill for their medicre attempt of revolution!

  Do you think that China will give up??

• [Talia]

  Im starting to fear this is going to end in some serious bloodshed and these monks will lose their lives. Then either China will get super-hostile at the world’s outrage, or the world will be too keen on sucking up to them to say anything… :(