discovring the real tibet

8/13/2019 Discovring the Real Tibet

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SAM VAN SCHAIK:DISCOVERING THE REAL

TIBETArticle by Sam van Schaik

I wonder whether anyone believes in the old romantic images of

Tibet any more? I know that journalists still reach for the old

clichs. Inside the Court of the Tibetan God-King, exclaimed

theObserverrecently, above yet another articleaboutthe Dalai

Lama. Yes, the symbolic value of a remote and mysterious land

of hidden valleys and enlightened Buddhist masters is still

cashed in by lazy writers, but I doubt that many take it seriously.

Throughout the nineteenth century, when Tibet closed its

borders in an attempt to keep the British Empire at bay,

Europeans began to dream of what lay beyond the Himalayas.

It was the writer James Hiltonwho brought these dreams into

focus, and gave them a name, in his novel Lost Horizon. This

was the book that introduced the mythical Shangri-La, a secret

place of peace, spirituality and immortality. No matter that

Hilton, who never travelled to Tibet, wrote the book in the leafyLondon suburb of Woodford. For many, Shangri-La and Tibet

became interchangeable.

Now, in the twenty-first century, things have changed. The
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Horizonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hiltonhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/23/tibet.china1http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/23/tibet.china1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Horizonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hiltonhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/23/tibet.china1


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world is a much more interconnected place, and we are aware

of Tibet as part of our global politics. Western leaders assure

their countries that they will raise the Tibet issue with China on

state visits. Tibetan monks are seen on television, not in

peaceful meditation in remote settings, but protesting on the

streets of Lhasa.

Mao with the Dalai Lama on his left, and the Panchen Lama on

his right, 1954.

But it would be a mistake to think that we have a clearer view of

Tibet. In fact, we now have to contend with two distorted

visions, which are in competition with each other. The first

comes from China, which has been telling the same story since

1950, when the Tibetan government, under the threat of a

military invasion, agreed to become part of modern China. In

this story, Tibet was a benighted feudal kingdom up until that
http://yalebooks.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mao_dalai_panchen.jpg


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point. Power was vested in the aristocracy and the monks, who

exploited the ordinary people. The latter were essentially the

equivalent of serfs in medieval Europe, kept in their place by

ignorance and religious superstition.

The other vision comes from the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan

exile government in India, and their supporters in the West. In

this story, the Chinese annexation of Tibet was a tragedy which

resulted in the peaceful, spiritual, and largely happy Tibetan

people being crushed by the political domination and anti-religious ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. Since

1950, the Tibetans have been ruthlessly disenfranchised of

their religion, culture and language.

There is truth and untruth in both visions, but as the two sides

trade arguments and rhetoric both stories have become more

extreme, hardened into caricatures. When a few years ago the

Chinese government described Tibet before 1950 as hell on

earth, the Dalai lama shot back using exactly the same phrase

to describe Tibet after1950. Most people now, I think, no longer

believe in Shangri-La, but many arent sure what, or whom to

believe among the competing voices out there.

Anyone contemplating writing a history of Tibet is faced with

this difficult situation. In the end, I decided that it would be a

mistake to try pick through the truths and untruths in an attempt


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to arrive at the facts. There is so much more to Tibet than these

unsubtle visions distorted by twenty-first century global politics.

Best perhaps, to step back from them entirely. Tibets history is

full of great stories, and their narratives are strong enough to

draw our attention away from our contemporary fixations, to look

at Tibet on its own terms.

Detail of the Samye Monastery, the first Buddhist monastery

built in Tibet, constructed in the 8th century

Tibets recorded history began in the seventh century, in a

blaze of conquest, cultural innovation, and the forging of

relationships with other cultures. At one point the Tibetan

empire even extended as far as the Chinese capital, and it also

contested with Arabs, Turks and Indian kingdoms. From this

time onward Tibet has been part of the ebb and flow of global

culture. Lhasa has always thronged with merchants and
http://yalebooks.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/addor3017_3_samye_cropped.jpg


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pilgrims travelling from distant countries, and for many centuries

had its own Muslim community.

One way to save Tibets history from being crushed by

polemical representations is to tell this story, and what

happened afterwards, through to the struggles of the twentieth

and twenty-first centuries. Of course modern scholars have

been doing great work in recovering episodes from Tibetan

history. But this work only rarely filters through to the general

consciousness. if Tibets history could be retold as an engagingnarrative, one that doesnt shy away from politics, but does

avoid falling into one of the politically motivated representations

of Tibet, this might just allow people to consider Tibet in its own

right complex, fascinating and relevant.

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