the encounter of buddhism and socialism in tibet:

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THE ENCOUNTER OF BUDDHISM AND SOCIALISM IN TIBET: bY Fran Conroy A Reply to Professor Harling’s “Tibet: A Totality of Non-Violence” Prof. Frederick Harling’s article “Tibet: A Totality of Non-violence” is the product of his long and close contacts with the Tibetan refugee community in the United States. I, too, have had such contacts. I learned the Tibetan spoken language by listening to the tales of a middle-aged Tibetan woman of her escape from the Chinese over the Himalayas into India. I lived for a month in a Tibetan refugee monastery. I have respected most and studied most the Tibetan Buddhist principle oftrue concern for the physical and spiritual welfare of all living things: the “total non-violence” referred to by Prof. Harling. What I have to say does not stem from any lack of sympathy with Tibetans and their plight. In fact, I write this under the influence of a large reproduction of the Potala (formerly the Dalai Lama’s palace), awe- some in the hazy, early morning sunlight against a January Himalayan backdrop of browns, blues, and greys. The reproduction hangs on the wall above my desk. It was distributed by the People’s Republic of China. However, I have a very different analysis of the Tibetan situation over the past twenty-five years than what Prof. Harling has offered. The analysisjs based on Western, Chinese and Tibetan sources, some of which are listed in the footnotes at the end; and on knowledge of Buddhist and Chinese socialist ideologies. Prof. Harling and most Tibetan refugees in the Un- ited States would have us believe that Tibet has been raped. Prof. Harling uses the phrase “cultural genocide and perhaps physical genocide” to describe what is happening to Tibetans. The terminology invites com- parison to the United States’ rape of Vietnam and genocide against the Vietnamese people. The compari- son could hardly be more inappropriate. In Vietnam the rice fields are poisoned, the countryside dotted with bomb craters, the forests defoliated, and many of the people in refugee camps or Thieu’s tiger cages. In Tibet, the forests and fields and awesome mountains are undiminished in their beauty; the Potala and other shrines and landmarks, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, have been carefully, and respectfully, preserved. They are still staffed by large communities of Buddhist monks and nuns, and the shrines’ sacred relics and art objects-whichTibetan emigres have claimed were destroyed or stolen-are on perma- nent display.’ And what is more, the common people are well-fed, literate, and can work their own land-none of which was true underthe old theocracy. This is not to say there are no problems in Tibet or with the way China has handled the Tibetan question. We shall look at these problems, but in the context of the interests of the whole Tibetan people, not in the context of the cries of “genocide” by the former elite of Tibet and their friends . There are three important factors that Prof. Harl- ing overlooks which result in significant distortions in his analysis of what has happened in Tibet since 19M: (1) feudalism; (2) the historical suzerainty of China over Tibet; and (3) the threat of joint U.S.-Taiwanese inva- sion of the People’s Republic of China through Tibet. (1) Edgar Snow describes pre-revolutionary Tibe- tan feudalism in this way: The Tibetan theocracy was an anomaly which inac- cessability alone had preserved into the 1950’s. Ab- solute feudalism prevailed, and most of the people were held in serfdom. The lamas and nobility owned nearly all the land, livestock, and other wealth.a The biggest landlord in pre-revolutionary Tibet was the Buddhist church; and the most oppressed sector of the peasantry was the monks and nuns, who were the abso- lute servants of their landlord-teacher-bishops. The combination of these three roles in one person was devastating: Buddhist custom gives the teacher abso- lute rights over the novice, even to the point of beating him to teach non-attachment to the body.5 When the teacher was also the landlord, this custom could be widely used as a weapon of class control. Again quoting Snow, Fear of devils and hellfire for the impious, com- bined with barbaric torture and death for hgitives from the system kept the population in subjugation. Didn’t Buddhism teach non-violence, helping others, and egalitarianism? Certainly it did. But it was not Buddhism in its pure form but Buddhism in its so- cial role of a ruling class ideology that was the problem in Tibet. Buddhism ceased to be only itself and became the means of control of a small, landed, edmated elite over the minds of the peasantry. The content of Buddh- ist teachings mattered little when this was the case. The same landlord-clergy class monopolized both the means of material production-the land, livestock, and tools-and the means of ideological production-the monastic schools, books, and the ability to read and write. It is Buddhism in this social role, as a spiritual weapon that backed feudal oppression, and not Buddh- ism itself that has always been attacked by China’s leader Mao Tse-tung. Mao, in a 1970 interview with Edgar Snow, said that he was not against Buddhism as a religion, but added, “The trouble was the living Bud- dhas didn’t always practice what they preached and were far from indifferent to non-spiritual affairs.” Mao was referring specifically to incidents in 1970 that led to the removal of the Panchen Lama from his post as 4 * . Peace & Change, 11, No. 2 (Summer 1974) -53 -

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THE ENCOUNTER O F BUDDHISM AND SOCIALISM IN TIBET:

bY Fran Conroy

A Reply to Professor Harling’s “Tibet: A Totality of Non-Violence”

Prof. Frederick Harling’s article “Tibet: A Totality of Non-violence” is the product of his long and close contacts with the Tibetan refugee community in the United States. I, too, have had such contacts. I learned the Tibetan spoken language by listening to the tales of a middle-aged Tibetan woman of her escape from the Chinese over the Himalayas into India. I lived for a month in a Tibetan refugee monastery. I have respected most and studied most the Tibetan Buddhist principle oftrue concern for the physical and spiritual welfare of all living things: the “total non-violence” referred to by Prof. Harling. What I have to say does not stem from any lack of sympathy with Tibetans and their plight. In fact, I write this under the influence of a large reproduction of the Potala (formerly the Dalai Lama’s palace), awe- some in the hazy, early morning sunlight against a January Himalayan backdrop of browns, blues, and greys. The reproduction hangs on the wall above my desk. It was distributed by the People’s Republic of China.

However, I have a very different analysis of the Tibetan situation over the past twenty-five years than what Prof. Harling has offered. The analysisjs based on Western, Chinese and Tibetan sources, some of which are listed in the footnotes at the end; and on knowledge of Buddhist and Chinese socialist ideologies.

Prof. Harling and most Tibetan refugees in the Un- ited States would have us believe that Tibet has been raped. Prof. Harling uses the phrase “cultural genocide and perhaps physical genocide” to describe what is happening to Tibetans. The terminology invites com- parison to the United States’ rape of Vietnam and genocide against the Vietnamese people. The compari- son could hardly be more inappropriate. In Vietnam the rice fields are poisoned, the countryside dotted with bomb craters, the forests defoliated, and many of the people in refugee camps or Thieu’s tiger cages. In Tibet, the forests and fields and awesome mountains are undiminished in their beauty; the Potala and other shrines and landmarks, according to the Far Eastern

Economic Review, have been carefully, and respectfully, preserved. They are still staffed by large communities of Buddhist monks and nuns, and the shrines’ sacred relics and art objects-whichTibetan emigres have claimed were destroyed or stolen-are on perma- nent display.’

And what is more, the common people are well-fed, literate, and can work their own land-none of which was true underthe old theocracy. This is not to say there are no problems in Tibet or with the way China has handled the Tibetan question. W e shall look at these problems, but in the context of the interests of the whole Tibetan people, not in the context of the cries of

“genocide” by the former elite of Tibet and their friends .

There are three important factors that Prof. Harl- ing overlooks which result in significant distortions in his analysis of what has happened in Tibet since 19M: (1) feudalism; (2) the historical suzerainty of China over Tibet; and (3) the threat of joint U.S.-Taiwanese inva- sion of the People’s Republic of China through Tibet.

(1) Edgar Snow describes pre-revolutionary Tibe- tan feudalism in this way:

The Tibetan theocracy was an anomaly which inac- cessability alone had preserved into the 1950’s. Ab- solute feudalism prevailed, and most of the people were held in serfdom. The lamas and nobility owned nearly all the land, livestock, and other wealth.a

The biggest landlord in pre-revolutionary Tibet was the Buddhist church; and the most oppressed sector of the peasantry was the monks and nuns, who were the abso- lute servants of their landlord-teacher-bishops. The combination of these three roles in one person was devastating: Buddhist custom gives the teacher abso- lute rights over the novice, even to the point of beating him to teach non-attachment to the body.5 When the teacher was also the landlord, this custom could be widely used as a weapon of class control. Again quoting Snow,

Fear of devils and hellfire for the impious, com- bined with barbaric torture and death for hgitives from the system kept the population in subjugation.

Didn’t Buddhism teach non-violence, helping others, and egalitarianism? Certainly it did. But it was not Buddhism in its pure form but Buddhism in its so- cial role of a ruling class ideology that was the problem in Tibet. Buddhism ceased to be only itself and became the means of control of a small, landed, edmated elite over the minds of the peasantry. The content of Buddh- ist teachings mattered little when this was the case. The same landlord-clergy class monopolized both the means of material production-the land, livestock, and tools-and the means of ideological production-the monastic schools, books, and the ability to read and write.

It is Buddhism in this social role, as a spiritual weapon that backed feudal oppression, and not Buddh- ism itself that has always been attacked by China’s leader Mao Tse-tung. Mao, in a 1970 interview with Edgar Snow, said that he was not against Buddhism as a religion, but added, “The trouble was the living Bud- dhas didn’t always practice what they preached and were far from indifferent to non-spiritual affairs.” Mao was referring specifically to incidents in 1970 that led to the removal of the Panchen Lama from his post as

4 * .

Peace & Change, 11, No. 2 (Summer 1974) -53 -

scheduled air operations throughout the F a r East,” was actually “a CIA property.” . . . by 1961 CAT carried out “more than 200 overflights of mainland China and Tibet. Lansdale’s memo forces us to reconsider the revolt against China that took place in Tibet in 1959.. . . At the time, Peking charged that outside help for the rebels came from T a i ~ a n . ’ ~

The Far Eastern Economic Review reports that it has uncovered similar evidence:

This American incitement of tribal uprisings in Tibet, according to U.S. sources, was part of an overall American policy of harassing China, which also included support for KMT forces and tribal insurgents in Yunnan P r ~ v i n c e . ’ ~

It was 1959, w e must remember, when the Chinese for the first time sent large numbers of People’s Libera- tion Army soldiers to Tibet and began to accelerate the mobilization of the peasantry for land revolution. Up until that time Chinese pressure for change had been “most r e ~ t r a i n e d . ” ’ ~ What appears to Prof. Harling a s a Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, then, was actually a response to American and Taiwanese interference in Tibetan affairs. China was forced to accelerate the re- volutionary process in Tibet, and to rely on massive Chinese assistance to the Tibetan serfs. This is a devia- tion from China’s usual position that revolutions must almost entirely grow out of a nation’s indigenous popu- lation, with only minor assistance from other socialist peoples. The deviation led to considerable friction be- tween many Tibetans and the Chinese, who at first per- ceived the Chinese as a conquering people. However, China’s efforts to guarantee the autonomy of the Tibe- tan Autonomous Region have since largely reversed

this impression. The impression of invasion was heigh- tened by the fleeing of the Dalai Lama to India. Appar- ently, this was planned by the American government. The Far Eastern Economic Review reports:

According to Americans involved in the operation, the Dalai Lama’s departure from his own capital was engineered by the CIA. American agents flew a i r cover for the Dalai Lama’s party hundreds of miles inside Tibet, parachuting supplies, maps, radios, and money, and strafing Chinese positions. Color films of the operation were taken, and they were l a t e r viewed in the U.S. by a number of people.lB What a re we to conclude from all these considera-

tions about the events in Tibet, 1950-1974? Certainly these have been difficult years ofchange for many Tibe- tans, both in exile and in Tibet. Economic and cultural revolution does not occur without bloodshed and bit- terness; it is especially hard on those people who loved, and benefited by, the old way of life. Too, the major role of Chinese people in changing Tibet has led to further antagonisms and misunderstandings between Chinese and Tibetans.

But on the whole, there is no doubt that life has improved for the vast majority of the Tibetan people: socialism has in many ways realized the concern for human life that Buddhism long promised. We must look at any shortcomings of the People’s Republic ofchina’s policies toward Tibet within the context of the overall purposes of t he Chinese revolut ion, which a r e egalitarian and liberative; and not from the perspec- tive of the former feudal rulers who would have the shortcomings be deemed sufficient reason for anti- Communist armies to intervene and restore the elite to power.

NOTES 1. “Red Star Over Shangri-la,’, by T.D. Allman, Far Eastern Economic Review, February 11,

2. Snow, Edgar, Red China Today, Vintage Books, N.Y., 1971, p. 562. 3. See Tibetan Interviews and When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet, both by Anna Louise Strong (New

4. Red China Today, p. 562. 5. Snow, Edgar, The Long Revolution, Vintage Books, N.Y., 1973, pp. 195-197. 6. (refers to two quotations) “Diplomacy and the Dalai Lama,” Far Eastern Economic Review,

7. “Red Star Over Shangri-la,” p. 28. 8. Ibid., p. 28. 9. Quoted by Snow in Red China Today, p. 561.

1974, p. 26.

World Press, Peking, 1959 and 1960 respectively) on these matters.

March 18, 1974, p. 22.

10. “Red Star Over Shangri-la”, p. 28. 11. Ibid., p. 28. Also see the pamphlet “Great Changes in Tibet” on these matters (Foreign Lang.

12. New York Review of Books, Oct. 6, 1971, p. 10 ff. 13. Ibid., p. 1Off. 14. “A Half-forgotten Conflict,” by T.D. Allman, Far Eastern Economic Review, Feb. 11,1974, p.

15. Ibid., p. 27. 16. Ibid., p. 27.

Press, Peking, 1972).

27.

Peace & Change, 11, No. 2 (Summer 1974) -55 -