Talk:Tibet

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[edit] Tips for some Hippie/Neoliberal/Asiophobe/Red Scare wooing

Pick one of them if you need to defend Tibet in a debate.

Tibet used to be a democracy!
The CTA will bring a democracy, more equal than any other country!
Being a serf is a spiritual endeavor!
The Communist ethnicity is initiating a race war in Tibet!
The Chinese will eat all Tibetan animals!
Tibetans are Aryans!
Tibet needs to be mysterious for ever!

--Teslashark with Danzhen Yangtsin.(talk) 08:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

[edit] About the last paragraph

A website called Students for a free Tibet has a nice page, "China’s Favorite Propaganda on Tibet ... and Why It’s Wrong" . I'll quote:

Beijing (as well as sympathetic Western scholars such as Michael Parenti, Tom Grunfeld and Anna Louise Strong) asserts that "pre-liberation" Tibet was a medieval, oppressive society consisting of "landowners, serfs and slaves." Tashi Rabgay, a Tibetan scholar at Harvard, points out that these three alleged social classes are arbitrary and revisionist classifications that have no basis in reality. There were indeed indentured farmers in old Tibet. There were also merchants, nomads, traders, non-indentured farmers, hunters, bandits, monks, nuns, musicians, aristocrats and artists. Tibetan society was a vast, multifaceted affair, as real societies tend to be. To try to reduce it to three base experiences (and non-representative experiences at that) is to engage in the worst kind of revisionism.

No country is perfect and many Tibetans (including the Dalai Lama) admit that old Tibet had its flaws and inequities (setting aside whether things are better under Chinese occupation). But taking every real or imagined shortcoming that happened in a country over a 600-year period and labeling it the "way it was" is hardly legitimate history. Any society seen through this blurry lens would come up short. And in many ways, such as the elimination of the death penalty, Tibet was perhaps ahead of its time. The young 14th Dalai Lama had begun to promote land reform laws and other improvements, but China's take-over halted these advances. It is instructive to note that today the Tibetan government-in-exile is a democracy while China and Tibet are under communist dictatorship.

The crucial subtext of Beijing's condemnation of Tibet's "feudal" past is a classic colonialist argument that the target's alleged backwardness serves as a justification for invasion and occupation. These are the politics of the colonist, in which the "native" is dehumanized, robbed of agency, and debased in order to make occupation more palatable or even necessary and "civilizing." China has no more right to occupy a "backward" Tibet than Britain had to carry the "white man's burden" in India or Hong Kong.

--Earthland (talk) 07:59, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

This quote is from a biased source. Every credible scholar except Tashi Rabgay, says that Tibet, pre-China, was a horrible, oppressive theocracy. Even Tashi Rabgay admits they had slaves, although he uses the weasel word "indentured farmers." I am not one to defend the current Chinese government, but if you honestly think feudalism, theocracy and slavery are better, I really don't know what to say to you.UncleHo (talk) 08:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Note that the article is not defending the theocrats, only saying that one should not use a condemnation of the theocrats to excuse the Chinese abuses. Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 08:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Note that my edit doesn't defend the Chinese actions in Tibet, only saying that the previous government of Tibet was no better, if not worse. Oh wait, you can't do that, you're LX, and LX is ALWAYS right!UncleHo (talk) 08:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
That is true; I was merely adding to what you had said. Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 08:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
No, you were heavily editing a long quote to only contain the parts which make you appear right and underhandedly diss those evil reds. You are making a regressive, feudal theocracy seem good just so you can make communist China look extra bad. The rest of the edit would be acceptable, as I have no time to keep arguing against your incredible determination to be right no matter what, but that quote is cherrypicking at it's worst.UncleHo (talk) 08:45, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I do think that the article paints an overly rosy picture of the old feudal society, but that does not make the paragraph I quoted any less valid. Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 08:49, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I do think what I quoted was wrong, but that doesn't make me wrong! Do you have ANY idea how ridiculous you sound, LX? I tell you what. Cut the cherry picked quote out and I'll let the rest of it go.UncleHo (talk) 08:50, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Also admit you were wrong and quoting shit out of context to make your point and satiate your desire to win arguments no matter how ridiculous, contradictory and intellectually dishonest you need to be until the other party gets tired of it and gives up, paste the admission to your userpage and I'll let you do whatever you want to the socialism article.UncleHo (talk) 08:54, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The part of the quote that LX chose to put in the article wasn't out of context. It was relevant and a whole idea. And there was nothing wrong with it. --Earthland (talk) 09:49, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
No, it's a bullshit, hand wringing tu quoque that tries to make a horrible, regressive theocracy look good by saying "COLONIALISM IS BAD OK?" I agree that colonialism and imperialism are wrong and should be opposed, but that doesn't mean we should support slave owning feudal states, either. This is not a zero sum game. We CAN say they're both assholes. The only thing is, everyone says the Chinese are assholes, yet the horrible conditions in Tibet are glossed over when the Dalai Lama visits Berkeley.UncleHo (talk) 18:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
The article is not making any excuses for the alleged "regressive theocracy". It simply says that it is not a reason to invade and occupy a country. --Earthland (talk) 18:55, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Look, I know you're not a native English speaker, but that quote is so full of loaded language it's just propaganda, and it's coming from a very biased source. Also it's a tu quoque. It's using the crimes of the Chinese occupation to deflect criticism of the Dalai Lama and his kingdom in exlie. So, as the quote is biased, dishonest, loaded and made by a group that exists to defend a slave owning theocratic monarchy, why, exactly should it be allowed in?UncleHo (talk) 19:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
You're the only one who's spreading propaganda. The article as it stands is neutral. -- Nx / talk 19:24, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Do you even know what propaganda is? Hint: It is not any statement which is critical of international celebrity and best selling author "His Holiness"UncleHo (talk) 19:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Tell me, how many slaves does the evil theocratic monarch, the Dalai Lama, currently own? -- Nx / talk 19:48, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks to China, 0. Prior to the invasion, he essentially owned the whole country as slaves (Being as it was feudalistic) and had thousands of personal "indentured servants."UncleHo (talk) 21:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
It's just trading one authoritarian regime for another. I agree with Ho on a few things, notably, pre-invasion Tibet sucked royally. 2nd, every religion not in power will try to brand itself as a peaceful one. However, the current Lama seems a pretty decent fellow. If he got Tibet back, he might indeed make it a much nicer place, but we can't know that. What would help the most is a democratic, secular Tibet, but China doesn't want to lose control, and the Lama, nice man though he is, is a theocrat. Also, if he got Tibet back, and tried to change it into a theocracy again, he wouldn't have all that many supporters anymore, would he? There is no oil, no uranium, no diamonds, nothing of value. There are mountains and Yaks. It's China's poorest province. He is a figure because 1. Chinese are Dirty Commies, 2. He seems to be a nice guy, 3. New Agers love Tibet, 4. He's a government-in-exile which makes him useful to trot out for human-rights-things. Was the invasion justified? No, it was senseless. Did the Chinese commit atrocities? Yes indeed. Does Tibet need to be freed? Yes. Should we give it to the Lama? I am not sure. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 23:53, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
Under Thubten Gyatso, Tibet was corrupt, poorly run, and weak. The People's Republic of China is brutal, overbearing, and a totalitarian police state not seen since the USSR, only capitalist-ish. The current gov't in exile (CTA), or practically any other gov't, would be better than what the Tibetans have ever had before or have now.cm2 02:34, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
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