
Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (2003) - greencore
http://www.swans.com/library/art9/mparen01.html
======
dash2
I'd definitely welcome some thoughtful, unbiased commentary on Tibet. I'd like
to be certain that this is it (and not, e.g., the work of a hack for hire). I
have to say that googling Michael Parenti does not fill me with encouragement,
but I'll be happy to be corrected.

I met some Tibetan exiles working in the market in Dalhousie in India, 20+
years ago. They had fled Tibet to seek freedom and opportunity. If the border
guards had seen them, they would have been shot.[1] So, I am not a huge fan of
Chinese control of Tibet.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nangpa_La_shooting_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nangpa_La_shooting_incident)

~~~
ArtDev
Their stories of escape are harrowing and tragic.

You need to actually visit Tibet to see how brutal the occupation actually is.

Once there were these drunk Chinese soldiers who stole this old Tibetans
tractor and were doing broodies in the center of town.

That was wild I wish I had it on video (though if I had would I be here
today?).

~~~
zeroimpl
Compared to the mass enslavement of Africans and genocide of indigenous people
in the west, this sounds pretty tame. Modern Tibet is certainly flourishing.

Perhaps the people who fled were the ones guilty of crimes mentioned in the
article?

~~~
josinalvo
> Perhaps the people who fled were the ones guilty of crimes mentioned in the
> article?

Yup. Lets trust the red terror system of justice

(do note: I have a quote from Russia, so, there is an important caveat there.
Still...)

Martin Latsis, chief of the Ukrainian Cheka, stated in the newspaper Red
Terror:

    
    
        We are not fighting against single individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's as
tedious and repetitive as it is grandiose. Internet comments can't support
meaningful discussion about such topics.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
mtts
I’m always baffled by Buddhism getting such a free pass from otherwise
perfectly sensible westerners.

Many Buddhist societies are amongst the worst slave states know to history
(the Tibet from this article, but also Burma and oh-so-beloved Thailand).

And this is not despite Buddhism but because of it. In all societies where it
is dominant misfortunes such as being born poor (or worse) are seen as being
justified somehow, leading to astonishingly callous mistreatment of the poor
and unlucky - think the wholesale enslavement and transport of complete
populations such as in Thailand not too long ago and in present day Burma.

Zen Buddhism, too, is a spectacularly nasty piece of work. It originally
existed in two variants: one for the peasants, which taught them to accept
their miserable lot, and one for the warrior class which taught it that life
is fleeting and death inevitable (it is this variant of Buddhism that was used
to indoctrinate Kamikaze pilots in WW2)

So why we in the west should think that this is an especially enlightened
religion is beyond me. If you must do religion, why not Christianity or Islam?
At least these two make a point of encouraging charity and kindness towards
others.

~~~
nabla9
As a Zen Buddhist (and completely secular naturalist at the same time) who has
practiced with the tradition and teachers for two decades I somewhat agree.

To me Buddhism is two completely different things and I only belong to one of
them.

(1) Religion for 400 million people that is just like any other religion.
Religion as social hierarchy and cultural phenomenon.

(2) Spiritual practice. Something you do, not something you think or identify
with. It's more like going to gym or eating healthy than reading scriptures.
Social hierarchy is teacher/student level. You want to have teacher, but he
should keep your own head. Just like you don't allow gym trainer to run your
life outside the gym, teachers are just good at what they are good at. They
have more practical experience.

Zen/Chan Buddhism has long written record with teachers writing
autobiographies that record how it really was in those "good old times". In
every era, it seems, constant lament from teachers is that Buddhism is in
decline, monks are lazy and seek only fame and status.

As Buddhist practice is human activity, every human vice is known in Buddhist
monasteries. Against this background strict discipline in remote training
monasteries starts to make sense. It's harsh enough that bullshitters can't
take it, but if you are there to train you thrive.

Small list of current bad things happening in Buddhism:

Myanmar and Sri Lanka have huge problems with supremacist movements where the
leaders are Buddhist monks.

Tibetan Buddhist tradition has problems with sexual abuse of young boys (and
nuns) probably at the similar level as Catholic church.

~~~
mtts
Thank you for this reply. I actually agree with you (except in not being
Buddhist): we should differentiate between Buddhism the organized religion and
Buddhism the spiritual practice.

Unfortunately, too many people are only familiar with the latter - and only
with a variant of the latter that is much cleaned up and stripped of its
folksy roots and made palatable for Western consumption - and then transfer
the positive feelings they have about that to the former.

------
roenxi
I'll go a step further and say anywhere where ordinary people have very little
money is going to be a very sad place for ordinary people to live.

It is hard to be oppressed when you make $50,000/annum. It is hard not to be
if you make $365/annum. Culture is a problem insofar as it makes it hard to
add 0s on the end of your income, and a matter of taste otherwise.

To me some of the more backwards Arab states are the exception that proves the
rule; it took wealth literally welling up out of the ground to have a dominant
culture that is both wealthy and unable to let women drive cars. And even then
the ban was eventually ground down.

~~~
notahacker
> It is hard to be oppressed when you make $50,000/annum.

I'm not sure that's true. A decent amount of disposable income certainly means
one is unlikely to consider indentured servitude a possible means of survival,
but it doesn't pay for law enforcement to remove their knee from your neck.
The last century saw relatively prosperous industrialised countries carry out
genocides of certain subsets of their middle classes.

It's certainly true it's hard not to be oppressed on starvation incomes
though.

------
gandalfian
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy)

------
leoedin
Last year I was staying in a mountain hut in Nepal, near the Annapurna range
and a 3 day hike to the nearest road. A helicopter flew up from the nearby
city (a 10 minute flight!) and I was surprised to see it contained buddhist
monks. They took a bunch of photos, had a cup of tea and then all piled back
in the helicopter for the flight back to the city.

A helicopter ride like that probably costs $500 a head, in a country where the
average _annual_ income is $862.

I think it was so surprising because my naive western viewpoint was that monks
live a simple life. I'd love to know more about the reality of organised
religion in that region!

~~~
tim333
Apparently it's fairly common for successful business men to go off for a
stint as a monk in later life. Most of those have money.

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dvfjsdhgfv
That's interesting. The article seems to be extremely biased, portraying the
worst that happened over the centuries, and glorifying the benefits of the
Chinese occupation. Basically it repeats line by line what the Chinese say.

But I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle, otherwise dozens of
Tibetans wouldn't self-immolate every year in protest agains the Chinese
regime.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
Reminds me of what happened in Burma/Myanmar.

This guy is a Buddhist Goebbels:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashin_Wirathu](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashin_Wirathu)

~~~
peteretep
> what happened

what _is still_ happening

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
This is true. My sister has been heavily involved in trying to address the
Rohingya disaster. It’s a horror show.

------
carlsborg
List of tibetans who have self immolated in protest of the occupation. Perhaps
the Tibetan people are not as grateful for taking their liberties away as this
article suggests.

[https://savetibet.org/tibetan-self-
immolations/](https://savetibet.org/tibetan-self-immolations/)

------
jacobush
” The rich and powerful of course treated their good fortune as a reward for
-- and tangible evidence of -- virtue in past and present lives. ”

This is very similar to how “the Family” (of the congressional prayer
breakfast) reasons. Except in their it’s because they are “the chosen”, not
that they had past lives.

~~~
arethuza
Sounds like "Just-world" thinking:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-
world_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis)

~~~
jacobush
Close, but not quite, IMHO. The people in the "Family" wants the rest of
believe in the Just World Hypothesis, so we toil. They themselves are not
bound by such considerations. Whatever they do, they are _chosen_ , by God.
That is why they have power. They are the representatives of God on Earth.
It's not that they can do no wrong - they can. But _if_ they do, they are
_still_ the chosen.

------
orbifold
I think it is relatively obvious that the popularity of the Dalai is partially
the result of a CIA psy-op
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Tibetan_program](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Tibetan_program))

------
zerof1l
Sounds biased. Very pro-China article. Everything was horrible and then
saviors occupants came and live got better. Reminds me of all other
occupations throughout the history as well as some recent ones. My country was
occupied by Soviet Union in the past. Overall I prefer when my country is
independent.

~~~
trasz
Quesion is, would you rather be an ordinary citizen in China-occupied country,
or a slave in an independent one?

------
mr_gibbins
The author's Wikipedia page and bibliography implies he has socialist
political tendencies, and this article is written supportively in favour of
the Chinese. I don't dispute some of the examples but I do note his references
don't work - they are simply lists of sources without details (i.e. #34, 'Los
Angeles Times'). He makes comments such as that Harrer, who wrote a book about
his travels in Tibet, was a member of Hitler's SS. Yes, he was - but only
after Austria was annexed, under duress, and was later cleared of any
wrongdoing (the Pope was a Hitler Youth member, btw).

Overall a very biased, slanted piece, written in an interesting way but
without any credence from well-linked citations and fails to take into account
the reported atrocities committed by the Chinese after their occupation.

------
sbmthakur
The article mentions _Heinrich Harrer_ , who was a Nazi. During the war, he
was interned by the British in India and eventually landed in Tibet where he
spent seven years. There are a book and a movie about his experience.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120102/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120102/)

------
hirako2000
Thanks for this less biased view on Tibet society.

------
pritovido
What a sectarian article:

So there is a distressing symbiosis between religion and violence but the
Cultural revolution was a "mistake".

So the most violent and murderous event in Human's History was just a mistake.

Communism has the biggest distressing symbiosis with violence and murder ever:

Lenin killed the highest number of religious people ever, and they did not
defend themselves.

In Spain the communist also killed from 6.000 to 10.000 religious people that
by the way did not apostatize or defend themselves.

Stalin killed millions of their own people.

Pol Pot millions.

Mao killed hundreds of millions.

This article is a piece of propaganda in order to defend the invasion of China
of a foreign country.

Now the big lords are the Chinese communist and Tibet and Nepal continue being
extremely poor.

~~~
ianleeclark
> Mao killed hundreds of millions.

Engaging in genocide olympics is bad enough, but this is probably the most
overt example of bad history I've ever seen. You've managed to even surpass
the black book of Communism (100 million claimed) in your reaction.

------
peter_retief
The article naively suggests that the Communists freed the Tibetan people.
Because there was a feudal system didn't negate their right to run their own
affairs. The United Kingdom is a feudal system should it be invaded and a
caretaker government be installed? Communism is an evil system that has
systematically stripped people of their basic humanity. Let us never stop to
demand that Tibet be free.

~~~
macspoofing
The United Kingdom isn't 'a feudal system'.

~~~
peter_retief
Kingdom?

~~~
macspoofing
Monarchy does not imply feudalism. Certainly not a Constitutional Monarchy.

~~~
peter_retief
My point is that Tibet deserved to develop its own system of government not
effectively be colonized by China. Obviously the UK has a modern democratic
system of government that developed through stages of feudalism and monarchy.

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ArtDev
Is this what they brainwash Chinese youth to think what the history of Tibet
is? Because its rubbish. Ask any Tibetan.

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stormdennis
I think however that history has shown that it's generally more tolerable to
be oppressed by your own kind than by occupiers and colonists.

~~~
dash2
This seems to be true, but I have always wondered why? Is it just psychology?
Or is there some rational basis? If your rulers are locals, are you more
likely to have some basic control over them?

~~~
nmeofthestate
People don't generally like their culture being destroyed by an invading one,
even if they enjoy some improvements while being converted into an ethnic
minority in their own country? Could be that.

------
eridan2
It happened 300 years ago, but similar overtaxing policies:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_conquest_of_Altishahr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_conquest_of_Altishahr)

