Religions > Atheism > Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
11 Apr 2005 08:14:24 AM |
| Object: |
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese
rewriting of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=628297
By David McNeill in Seoul
11 April 2005
Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in Beijing
with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop distorting
history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to a new
low.
The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that many
Chinese say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest incident
to rock the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and its
rising star.
Koreas
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/de0d0aa1c4db6433
Kimigayo
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/21fb92934b52403a
Yasukuni
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/6b1c0faf27765d87
China / Japan
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/9a4257d68479713f
China
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/d3294ecc38a6a57d
Japan
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/69984d4c56600f09
Is the wakening giant a monster?
http://tinyurl.com/iws6
A Blueprint for the Future
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/59c28cd6dfe6f60f
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
14 Apr 2005 06:08:30 PM |
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On 11 Apr 2005 01:14:24 -0700, "maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote:
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese
rewriting of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=628297
By David McNeill in Seoul
11 April 2005
Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in Beijing
with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop distorting
history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to a new
low.
The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that many
Chinese say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest incident
to rock the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and its
rising star.
Protests also took place in South Korea, where Gil Won Ok and her
elderly comrades gathered at the Japanese embassy in Seoul to plead,
pray and bitterly denounce Tokyo. "Who will take away my pain," cried
the frail 77-year-old who was barely a teenager when she was forced to
provide sex to Japanese soldiers. "Atone for the past and let me die
in peace!"
The pensioners - among the few still alive from up to 200,000 comfort
women (sex slaves) of the Imperial Japanese Army, have been assembling
at the embassy since 1992 to demand an apology. But neither time nor
mortality has dulled the emotional heat of their campaign, which is
regularly stoked by what Chinese and Koreans consider fresh insults.
The new textbooks, which Korean government spokesman Lee Kyu Hyung
said "beautify and justify" Japan's occupation of much of Asia until
1945, have added fuel to the fire.
The most contentious history text removes all references to the
comfort women and suggests that Korea and China invited or benefited
from the Japanese occupation. A civics text claims jurisdiction over a
clump of rocks called Takeshima (in Korean, Tokdo) that Korea has held
since 1945. "What nonsense is this," said an editorial in the normally
mild Korea Herald.
Written by a group of neo-nationalist academics, the two texts, with
the backing of a right-wing media conglomerate, have sold nearly one
million copies since 2001. This success has dragged the teaching of
history sharply to the right: just one new history textbook out of
eight mentions the comfort women this year, down from seven in the
mid-1990s, and references to other war crimes have been toned down or
dropped.
If Tokyo can afford to ignore the anguish of Gil Won Ok and her
dwindling fellow survivors, however, the weekend riots in its biggest
trading partner, China, are far more worrying. The textbooks have
inflamed many already angry at Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
visits to the Tokyo war memorial, the Yasukuni Shrine, and Japan's
handling of the territorial conflict over the Diaoyutai (in Japanese,
Senkaku) Islands claimed by both China and Japan. A boycott of
Japanese goods is growing, and attacks on Japanese businesses in
Chengdu and Shenzhen have spooked otherwise bullish investors.
The attacks come on the heels of an online campaign in China which
claims to have gathered more than 25 million signatures against
Japan's hope for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. China's
foreign ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said last week that China
will not endorse Japan's UN campaign until the nation "clarifies some
historic issues" regarding its aggression. In a year full of political
and business possibilities, Tokyo is finding the way forward blocked
by its undigested history.
Tokyo's response to the textbook controversy has been a series of
bland statements calling on Korea and China to prevent differences in
historical interpretation from damaging ties. "It is important to
control emotions," Mr Koizumi said. But behind the diplomatic
platitudes lies a hardening of sentiment among his fellow Liberal
Democrats, well over 100 of whom - including his Education Minister,
Nariaki Nakayama - publicly back the historical revisionist movement
in schools. Under Mr Koizumi's government, hundreds of teachers have
been punished for refusing to stand for the national anthem.
Many in the government say that Japan has apologised enough, and given
enough cash - 3,000bn yen (£15bn) in overseas aid to China alone since
1980. China is stoking patriotism and anti-Japanese sentiment, they
say, while Korea has failed to digest its own history of collaboration
with Imperial Japan.
Historical revisionists also criticise US and European "hypocrisy" for
failing to teach their own children about their colonial past. "Great
Britain committed war crimes," one of the movement's leading lights,
Professor Nobukatsu Fujioka, said. "America too. My concern is that
Japanese children are taught to hate their country. They're taught
that only Japan was wrong in the war. Don't all countries use history
to instill pride in students?"
Japan is doing little to clear up its murky colonial past, however.
"The Japanese government is inflaming opinion across Asia with these
textbooks," said Takashi Hasegawa, a teacher and anti-textbook
campaigner in Tokyo. "If they really think Chinese communists are to
blame, why are they playing into their hands?"
Tokyo hopes that red-hot trade with China, which grew by 17 per cent
last year as China surpassed the US as Japan's largest trade partner,
and growing cultural links with Korea, will overcome the fallout from
its unpopular take on history. But a looming clash of old nationalisms
in the world's most dynamic economic region may not be good for
business.
Although support among ordinary Japanese for school textbooks that
extol the benefits of Japan's imperial rule in Asia is minuscule, the
backing of much of the country's political leadership is bound to have
an impact on the revisionist campaign. Revisionists already control
the country's largest educational council in Tokyo, which will decide
this summer whether the textbooks are to be used in thousands of
schools.
14 April 2005 11:05
©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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| User: "Ernest Schaal" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury atJapanese rewriting of history |
11 Apr 2005 08:51:35 AM |
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in article 1113207264.255332.246680@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 5:14 PM:
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese
rewriting of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=628297
By David McNeill in Seoul
11 April 2005
Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in Beijing
with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop distorting
history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to a new
low.
The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that many
Chinese say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest incident
to rock the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and its
rising star.
Apparently the Chinese don't realize how bad they look by stoning embassies
and beating up people on the street.
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
11 Apr 2005 10:25:18 AM |
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Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113207264.255332.246680@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com,
maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 5:14 PM:
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at
Japanese
rewriting of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=628297
By David McNeill in Seoul
11 April 2005
Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in
Beijing
with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop
distorting
history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to a
new
low.
The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that many
Chinese say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest
incident
to rock the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and its
rising star.
Apparently the Chinese don't realize how bad they look by stoning
embassies
and beating up people on the street.
Do you mean Chinese should kill Japanese just like the Japanese
militarists tortured and murdered Chinese in Nanjing?
Rape of Nanking
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/227db2b8a8a28d10
.
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| User: "Ernest Schaal" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury atJapanese rewriting of history |
11 Apr 2005 10:58:42 AM |
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in article 1113215118.516681.106040@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 7:25 PM:
Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113207264.255332.246680@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com,
maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 5:14 PM:
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at
Japanese
rewriting of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=628297
By David McNeill in Seoul
11 April 2005
Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in
Beijing
with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop
distorting
history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to a
new
low.
The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that many
Chinese say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest
incident
to rock the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and its
rising star.
Apparently the Chinese don't realize how bad they look by stoning
embassies and beating up people on the street.
Do you mean Chinese should kill Japanese just like the Japanese
militarists tortured and murdered Chinese in Nanjing?
Rape of Nanking
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/227db2b8a8a28d10
No, not as bad. But of course, Japan was at war with China at the time.
Presently, China is not in a state of war with Japan. I don't excuse what
the Japanese did in China, or what the Chinese did/do in Tibet.
Do you really think China does look good when it stones embassies and beats
up people in the streets? I don't. I think that it makes the government look
like a lawless country.
Instead, it seems to be more proof that the Olympics should not have been
given to them, at least until they can assure the safety of all the
participants.
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
11 Apr 2005 08:04:14 PM |
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Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113215118.516681.106040@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com,
maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 7:25 PM:
Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113207264.255332.246680@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com,
maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 5:14 PM:
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at
Japanese
rewriting of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=628297
By David McNeill in Seoul
11 April 2005
Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in
Beijing
with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop
distorting
history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to a
new
low.
The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that many
Chinese say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest
incident
to rock the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and
its
rising star.
Apparently the Chinese don't realize how bad they look by stoning
embassies and beating up people on the street.
Do you mean Chinese should kill Japanese just like the Japanese
militarists tortured and murdered Chinese in Nanjing?
Rape of Nanking
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/227db2b8a8a28d10
No, not as bad. But of course, Japan was at war with China at the
time.
Presently, China is not in a state of war with Japan. I don't excuse
what
the Japanese did in China, or what the Chinese did/do in Tibet.
Do you really think China does look good when it stones embassies and
beats
up people in the streets? I don't. I think that it makes the
government look
like a lawless country.
Instead, it seems to be more proof that the Olympics should not have
been
given to them, at least until they can assure the safety of all the
participants.
It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese government's
lies about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are
going to throw stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do
with the government? Police intervened before it became ugly.
.
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| User: "Jim Walsh" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
12 Apr 2005 10:47:23 AM |
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On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 13:04:14 -0700, maff thought carefully and wrote:
.....It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese government's
lies about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are going
to throw stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do with the
government? Police intervened before it became ugly.
No one in this NG more completely supports the right of the Chinese to
demonstrate their opinions (regardless of whether the CCP approves or
not).
1. Breaking windows of Japanese businesses is wrong and
counter-productive. It makes China look bad. It creates the (false)
impression that Japan is the real victim.
2. It is safe to say that demonstrations that are not immediately crushed
have been approved by the CCP, sadly.
--
Love, Jim
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
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.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
12 Apr 2005 08:26:28 PM |
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Jim Walsh wrote:
On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 13:04:14 -0700, maff thought carefully and wrote:
.....It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese
government's
lies about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are
going
to throw stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do
with the
government? Police intervened before it became ugly.
No one in this NG more completely supports the right of the Chinese
to
demonstrate their opinions (regardless of whether the CCP approves or
not).
1. Breaking windows of Japanese businesses is wrong and
counter-productive. It makes China look bad. It creates the (false)
impression that Japan is the real victim.
2. It is safe to say that demonstrations that are not immediately
crushed
have been approved by the CCP, sadly.
You're still glossing over war crimes in Japanese textbooks. It's not
just China. South Korean protesters have also condemned those
textbooks.
Germany has faced upto history and has become an exemplerary nation.
Japanese government should also do the same if it want to become a
member in the UN Security council.
--
Love, Jim
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet
News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption
=----
.
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| User: "Jim Walsh" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
13 Apr 2005 09:04:30 AM |
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On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:26:28 -0700, maff thought carefully and wrote:
Jim Walsh wrote:
No one in this NG more completely supports the right of the Chinese to
demonstrate their opinions (regardless of whether the CCP approves or
not).
1. Breaking windows of Japanese businesses is wrong and
counter-productive. It makes China look bad. It creates the (false)
impression that Japan is the real victim.
2. It is safe to say that demonstrations that are not immediately
crushed have been approved by the CCP, sadly.
You're still glossing over war crimes in Japanese textbooks. It's not
just China. South Korean protesters have also condemned those textbooks.
Perhaps you don't know, but the first time I protested the Japanese
textbooks was sometime in the middle 1970s. Were you born yet? Accusing me
of glossing over Japanese fascism is not based on fact.
Germany has faced upto history and has become an exemplerary nation.
Japanese government should also do the same if it want to become a
member in the UN Security council.
Agree.
--
Love, Jim
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
13 Apr 2005 08:15:23 PM |
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Jim Walsh wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:26:28 -0700, maff thought carefully and wrote:
Jim Walsh wrote:
No one in this NG more completely supports the right of the
Chinese to
demonstrate their opinions (regardless of whether the CCP approves
or
not).
1. Breaking windows of Japanese businesses is wrong and
counter-productive. It makes China look bad. It creates the
(false)
impression that Japan is the real victim.
2. It is safe to say that demonstrations that are not immediately
crushed have been approved by the CCP, sadly.
You're still glossing over war crimes in Japanese textbooks. It's
not
just China. South Korean protesters have also condemned those
textbooks.
Perhaps you don't know, but the first time I protested the Japanese
textbooks was sometime in the middle 1970s. Were you born yet?
Accusing me
of glossing over Japanese fascism is not based on fact.
But individuals protesting makes no difference to the Japanese
government.
Germany has faced upto history and has become an exemplerary
nation.
Japanese government should also do the same if it want to become a
member in the UN Security council.
Agree.
--
Love, Jim
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet
News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption
=----
.
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| User: "Jim Walsh" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
14 Apr 2005 10:10:54 AM |
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On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 13:15:23 -0700, maff thought carefully and wrote:
Jim Walsh wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:26:28 -0700, maff thought carefully and wrote:
Jim Walsh wrote:
1. Breaking windows of Japanese businesses is wrong and
counter-productive. It makes China look bad. It creates the (false)
impression that Japan is the real victim.
2. It is safe to say that demonstrations that are not immediately
crushed have been approved by the CCP, sadly.
You're still glossing over war crimes in Japanese textbooks. It's not
just China. South Korean protesters have also condemned those
textbooks.
Perhaps you don't know, but the first time I protested the Japanese
textbooks was sometime in the middle 1970s. Were you born yet? Accusing
me of glossing over Japanese fascism is not based on fact.
But individuals protesting makes no difference to the Japanese
government.
If that is your apology for falsely saying that I was glossing over
anything, it is accepted. You are not very good at framing apologies, btw.
--
Love, Jim
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
.
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| User: "Ernest Schaal" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury atJapanese rewriting of history |
11 Apr 2005 09:51:14 PM |
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in article 1113249853.995385.19870@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 5:04 AM:
Ernest Schaal wrote: in article
1113215118.516681.106040@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 7:25 PM:
Ernest Schaal wrote: in article
1113207264.255332.246680@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 5:14 PM:
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese
rewriting of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=628297
By David McNeill in Seoul 11 April 2005
Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in Beijing
with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop distorting
history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to a new low.
The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that many Chinese
say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest incident to rock
the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and its rising star.
Apparently the Chinese don't realize how bad they look by stoning embassies
and beating up people on the street.
Do you mean Chinese should kill Japanese just like the Japanese militarists
tortured and murdered Chinese in Nanjing?
Rape of Nanking
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/227db2b8a8a28d10
No, not as bad. But of course, Japan was at war with China at the time.
Presently, China is not in a state of war with Japan. I don't excuse what the
Japanese did in China, or what the Chinese did/do in Tibet.
Do you really think China does look good when it stones embassies and beats
up people in the streets? I don't. I think that it makes the government look
like a lawless country.
Instead, it seems to be more proof that the Olympics should not have been
given to them, at least until they can assure the safety of all the
participants.
It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese government's lies
about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are going to throw
stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do with the government?
Police intervened before it became ugly.
You have a strange definition of "peaceful." Stoning buildings is
"peaceful"? Beating up people is "peaceful"?
Maybe the rest of the world are wimps because throwing stones isn't usually
considered peaceful protesting.
It makes one wonder if China can or will protect athletes during the next
Olympics.
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
12 Apr 2005 09:18:20 AM |
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Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113249853.995385.19870@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff
at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 5:04 AM:
Ernest Schaal wrote: in article
1113215118.516681.106040@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 7:25 PM:
Ernest Schaal wrote: in article
1113207264.255332.246680@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/11/05 5:14 PM:
Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at
Japanese
rewriting of history
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=628297
By David McNeill in Seoul 11 April 2005
Thousands of Chinese protesters pelted the Japanese embassy in
Beijing
with missiles and shouted "Japanese pigs come out" and "stop
distorting
history" over the weekend, dragging Sino-Japanese relations to
a new low.
The protests against Tokyo's authorisation of textbooks that
many Chinese
say whitewash Japan's 15-year occupation is the latest incident
to rock
the shaky partnership between Asia's leading power and its
rising star.
Apparently the Chinese don't realize how bad they look by
stoning embassies
and beating up people on the street.
Do you mean Chinese should kill Japanese just like the Japanese
militarists
tortured and murdered Chinese in Nanjing?
Rape of Nanking
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/227db2b8a8a28d10
No, not as bad. But of course, Japan was at war with China at the
time.
Presently, China is not in a state of war with Japan. I don't
excuse what the
Japanese did in China, or what the Chinese did/do in Tibet.
Do you really think China does look good when it stones embassies
and beats
up people in the streets? I don't. I think that it makes the
government look
like a lawless country.
Instead, it seems to be more proof that the Olympics should not
have been
given to them, at least until they can assure the safety of all
the
participants.
It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese
government's lies
about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are going
to throw
stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do with the
government?
Police intervened before it became ugly.
You have a strange definition of "peaceful." Stoning buildings is
"peaceful"? Beating up people is "peaceful"?
By that logic, all Americans are guilty because Bushie fascists are
torturing and killing Iraqis.
Maybe the rest of the world are wimps because throwing stones isn't
usually
considered peaceful protesting.
Some protesters aren't all protesters.
It makes one wonder if China can or will protect athletes during the
next
Olympics.
What are you going to do? Torture and kill more Iraqis?
.
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| User: "Ernest Schaal" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury atJapanese rewriting of history |
12 Apr 2005 09:53:36 AM |
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in article 1113297500.507893.204220@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 6:18 PM:
Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113249853.995385.19870@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff
at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 5:04 AM:
It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese government's lies
about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are going to throw
stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do with the government?
Police intervened before it became ugly.
You have a strange definition of "peaceful." Stoning buildings is
"peaceful"? Beating up people is "peaceful"?
By that logic, all Americans are guilty because Bushie fascists are
torturing and killing Iraqis.
No one is saying all Chinese are guilty. Instead, I was ridiculing your
absurd definition of "peaceful."
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
12 Apr 2005 09:24:11 PM |
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Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113297500.507893.204220@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com,
maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 6:18 PM:
Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113249853.995385.19870@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com,
maff
at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 5:04 AM:
It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese
government's lies
about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are
going to throw
stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do with the
government?
Police intervened before it became ugly.
You have a strange definition of "peaceful." Stoning buildings is
"peaceful"? Beating up people is "peaceful"?
By that logic, all Americans are guilty because Bushie fascists are
torturing and killing Iraqis.
No one is saying all Chinese are guilty. Instead, I was ridiculing
your
absurd definition of "peaceful."
You're still conflating some protesters with all protesters and
glossing over the Japnese textbooks about war crimes. South Korean
protesters have also condemned those Japanese textbooks.
.
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| User: "Ernest Schaal" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury atJapanese rewriting of history |
12 Apr 2005 09:53:23 PM |
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in article 1113338391.226476.281730@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/13/05 6:24 AM:
Ernest Schaal wrote: in article
1113297500.507893.204220@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 6:18 PM:
Ernest Schaal wrote: in article
1113249853.995385.19870@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 5:04 AM:
It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese government's lies
about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are going to
throw stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do with the
government? Police intervened before it became ugly.
You have a strange definition of "peaceful." Stoning buildings is
"peaceful"? Beating up people is "peaceful"?
By that logic, all Americans are guilty because Bushie fascists are
torturing and killing Iraqis.
No one is saying all Chinese are guilty. Instead, I was ridiculing your
absurd definition of "peaceful."
You're still conflating some protesters with all protesters and glossing over
the Japnese textbooks about war crimes. South Korean protesters have also
condemned those Japanese textbooks.
Maff,
Frankly, your reading skills must be poor if you accuse me of glossing over
the Japanese textbooks about war crimes. I have been arguing with Kaz for
years about that.
I readily admit that the Japanese are whitewashing their history, as are the
Chinese. Both sides are wrong, and you and Kaz (the ultra-right Japanese)
show remarkable similarities in argument styles and rhetoric.
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
13 Apr 2005 08:04:31 AM |
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Ernest Schaal wrote:
in article 1113338391.226476.281730@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com,
maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/13/05 6:24 AM:
Ernest Schaal wrote: in article
1113297500.507893.204220@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 6:18 PM:
Ernest Schaal wrote: in article
1113249853.995385.19870@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, maff at
maff91@yahoo.com wrote on 4/12/05 5:04 AM:
It was individuals peacefully protesting about Japanese
government's lies
about Nanjing in text books. Of ocourse, some individuals are
going to
throw stones even in peaceful marches. What has it got to do
with the
government? Police intervened before it became ugly.
You have a strange definition of "peaceful." Stoning buildings
is
"peaceful"? Beating up people is "peaceful"?
By that logic, all Americans are guilty because Bushie fascists
are
torturing and killing Iraqis.
No one is saying all Chinese are guilty. Instead, I was ridiculing
your
absurd definition of "peaceful."
You're still conflating some protesters with all protesters and
glossing over
the Japnese textbooks about war crimes. South Korean protesters
have also
condemned those Japanese textbooks.
Maff,
Frankly, your reading skills must be poor if you accuse me of
glossing over
the Japanese textbooks about war crimes. I have been arguing with Kaz
for
years about that.
I readily admit that the Japanese are whitewashing their history, as
are the
Chinese. Both sides are wrong, and you and Kaz (the ultra-right
Japanese)
show remarkable similarities in argument styles and rhetoric.
Your apologetics is the same as fascists. There's no moral equivalence
to crimes committed by fascists and militarists and the allies.
The Chinese haven't occupied and committed atrocities in Japan.
.
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
13 Apr 2005 09:53:29 AM |
|
|
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
Your apologetics is the same as fascists.
What, did he defend China's ongoing rape of Tibet?
You'd have to be a fascist ***** to defend what China
IS DOING to Tibet.
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
14 Apr 2005 08:52:09 PM |
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JTEM wrote:
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
Your apologetics is the same as fascists.
What, did he defend China's ongoing rape of Tibet?
You'd have to be a fascist ***** to defend what China
IS DOING to Tibet.
That's only said by Christian fascists and neocon fascists. It was the
same when Catholic Diem was selected during the Vietnam war.
.
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
15 Apr 2005 11:37:47 AM |
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|
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
You'd have to be a fascist ***** to defend what China
IS DOING to Tibet.
That's only said by Christian fascists and neocon fascists.
I guess you'd have to be a fascist, a neo-con and a Christian
to have a problem with the brutal invasion & occupation of
Tibet.
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Cardinal Spellman |
15 Apr 2005 08:03:58 PM |
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JTEM wrote:
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
You'd have to be a fascist ***** to defend what China
IS DOING to Tibet.
That's only said by Christian fascists and neocon fascists. It was
the same when Catholic Diem was selected during the Vietnam war.
I guess you'd have to be a fascist, a neo-con and a Christian
to have a problem with the brutal invasion & occupation of
Tibet.
So why did you, Cardinal Spellman and other Vatican fascists aid and
abet in the killing of more than 3 million Vietnamese Buddhists? Your
fascist credibility is vanishing to zero.
Spellman (Cardinal OR Francis OR Joseph) Cardinal OR Francis OR Joseph
http://news.google.com/news?q=Spellman%20(Cardinal%20OR%20Francis%20OR%20Joseph)%20Cardinal%20OR%20Francis%20OR%20Joseph&num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=Spellman+(Cardinal+OR+Francis+OR+Joseph)+Cardinal+OR+Francis+OR+Joseph&num=100&hl=en&lr=&tab=nw&ie=UTF-8&sa=N
http://www.google.com/search?q=Spellman+%28Cardinal+OR+Francis+OR+Joseph%29+Cardinal+OR+Francis+OR+Joseph&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=Spellman%20(Cardinal%20OR%20Francis%20OR%20Joseph)%20Cardinal%20OR%20Francis%20OR%20Joseph&num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=N&scoring=d&tab=wg
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Cardinal Spellman |
16 Apr 2005 08:02:17 PM |
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"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
So why did you, Cardinal Spellman and other Vatican
fascists aid and abet in the killing of more than 3 million
Vietnamese Buddhists? Your fascist credibility is
vanishing to zero.
The Trilateral Commision told us to.
Their detailed instructions arrived via a black helicopter,
which had to interupt an afternoon of cattle mutilations
just to deliver it.
I probably don't need to tell you that your "cites" are
completely unrelated to your claim. That was are doing.
We're sneaking like that. We got you to post nonsense
& discredit yourself, all to conceal our fiendish plans.
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Cardinal Spellman |
16 Apr 2005 08:40:02 PM |
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JTEM wrote:
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
So why did you, Cardinal Spellman and other Vatican
fascists aid and abet in the killing of more than 3 million
Vietnamese Buddhists? Your fascist credibility is
vanishing to zero.
The Trilateral Commision told us to.
Their detailed instructions arrived via a black helicopter,
which had to interupt an afternoon of cattle mutilations
just to deliver it.
I probably don't need to tell you that your "cites" are
completely unrelated to your claim. That was are doing.
We're sneaking like that. We got you to post nonsense
& discredit yourself, all to conceal our fiendish plans.
It's certainly relevalent to your credibility. Fascists calling others
fascists won't save Vatican fascists.
Conformista, Il (1970)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065571/
aka "Conformiste, Le" - France
aka "The Conformist" - USA
This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job
working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will
make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his
honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an
old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the
border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change
trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to
1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello's mind.
.
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Cardinal Spellman |
17 Apr 2005 02:33:35 AM |
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"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
Conformista, Il (1970)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065571/
imdb = Internet Movie Data Base
Psst. Star Wars isn't a documentary. It's a movie.
Exactly like your "Cite."
Boo.
.
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| User: "maff" |
|
| Title: Re: Cardinal Spellman |
17 Apr 2005 08:12:49 AM |
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JTEM wrote:
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
Conformista, Il (1970)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065571/
imdb = Internet Movie Data Base
Psst. Star Wars isn't a documentary. It's a movie.
Exactly like your "Cite."
Boo.
Thta's what all fascists also say. But they end up blowing their brains
out in underground bunker.
Not even Dalai Lama accepts your Vatican fascist apologetics. Even his
C.I.A. handlers have abandoned him. They're now going to abandon you as
well.
.
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Cardinal Spellman |
17 Apr 2005 11:57:27 AM |
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"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
Psst. Star Wars isn't a documentary. It's a movie.
Exactly like your "Cite."
Boo.
Thta's what all fascists also say.
Have you ever said anything worth reading?
Seriously. All you ever manage to do is spew wild nonsense.
Even your so-called "Cites" appear to be randomly selected
URLS, with (at best) little relevance at all to the people or
subjects you're babbling on about -- but never actually
supporting your claims.
I mean, a movie? That was your cite?
Please. Seek help.
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
13 Apr 2005 08:10:24 PM |
|
|
JTEM wrote:
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
Your apologetics is the same as fascists.
What, did he defend China's ongoing rape of Tibet?
You'd have to be a fascist ***** to defend what China
IS DOING to Tibet.
Why don't you first learn about the history of Tibet, Bushie fascist?
http://www.michaelparenti.org/=ADTibet.html
.
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| User: "JTEM" |
|
| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
14 Apr 2005 05:27:59 AM |
|
|
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
You'd have to be a fascist ***** to defend what China
IS DOING to Tibet.
Why don't you first learn about the history of Tibet,
Bushie fascist?
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Yes, I agree that everyone should read your cite, as
it is typical of your "supporting information."
Hint: "Not Found"
We should start calling you "Mr. 404"...
.
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| User: "maff" |
|
| Title: Re: Textbook war escalates as China and Korea vent their fury at Japanese rewriting of history |
14 Apr 2005 08:22:14 AM |
|
|
JTEM wrote:
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
You'd have to be a fascist ***** to defend what China
IS DOING to Tibet.
Why don't you first learn about the history of Tibet,
Bushie fascist?
http://www.michaelparenti.org/=ADTibet.html
Yes, I agree that everyone should read your cite, as
it is typical of your "supporting information."
Hint: "Not Found"
We should start calling you "Mr. 404"...
Lies won't help you, Vatican fascist.
Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------=
-----
July 2004 (updated)
The histories of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam are heavily
laced with violence. Throughout the ages, religionists have claimed a
divine mandate to massacre infidels, heretics, and even other devotees
within their own ranks. Some people maintain that Buddhism is
different, that it stands in marked contrast to the chronic violence of
other religions. To be sure, for some practitioners in the West,
Buddhism is more a spiritual and psychological discipline than a
theology in the usual sense. It offers meditative techniques that are
said to promote enlightenment and harmony within oneself. But like any
other belief system, Buddhism must be judged not only by its teachings
but by the secular behavior of its proponents.
Buddhist Exceptionalism?
A glance at history reveals that Buddhist organizations have not been
free of the violent pursuits so characteristic of religious groups. In
Tibet, from the early seventeenth century well into the eighteenth,
competing Buddhist sects engaged in armed hostilities and summary
executions.1 In the twentieth century, in Thailand, Burma, Korea,
Japan, and elsewhere, Buddhists clashed with each other and with
nonBuddhists. In Sri Lanka, armed battles in the name of Buddhism are
part of Sinhalese history.2
Just a few years ago in South Korea, thousands of monks of the Chogye
Buddhist order fought each other with fists, rocks, fire-bombs, and
clubs, in pitched battles that went on for weeks. They were vying for
control of the order, the largest in South Korea, with its annual
budget of $9.2 million, its additional millions of dollars in property,
and the privilege of appointing 1,700 monks to various duties. The
brawls partly destroyed the main Buddhist sanctuaries and left dozens
of monks injured, some seriously. The Korean public appeared to disdain
both factions, feeling that no matter what side took control, "it would
use worshippers' donations for luxurious houses and expensive cars."3
But what of the Dalai Lama and the Tibet he presided over before the
Chinese crackdown in 1959? It is widely held by many devout Buddhists
that Old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the
egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that
beset modern industrialized society. Western news media, travel books,
novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a
veritable Shangri-La.
The Dalai Lama himself stated that "the pervasive influence of
Buddhism" in Tibet, "amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled
environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We
enjoyed freedom and contentment."4 A reading of Tibet's history
suggests a different picture. In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai
Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the
other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later,
the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama,
an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai
(Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet. Here is quite a historical irony: the
first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army.
To elevate his authority beyond worldly challenge, the first Dalai Lama
seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to
have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to
divinity. The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life,
enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other
ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For this he was done in
by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized status as
gods, five Dalai Lamas were murdered by their high priests or other
courtiers.5
Shangri-La (for Lords and Lamas)
Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with
economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation
that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan
theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet,
most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates
worked by serfs. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that
"a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of
them amassed great riches. . . . In addition, individual monks and
lamas were able to accumulate great wealth through active participation
in trade, commerce, and money lending."6 Drepung monastery was one of
the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs,
300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries
went mostly to the higher-ranking lamas, many of them scions of
aristocratic families.
Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the
commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, who owned 4,000 square
kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. He also was a member of the Dalai
Lama's lay Cabinet.7 Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some of its
Western admirers as "a nation that required no police force because its
people voluntarily observed the laws of karma."8 In fact. it had a
professional army, albeit a small one, that served as a gendarmerie for
the landlords to keep order and hunt down runaway serfs.
Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their families and brought
into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they became
bonded for life. Tash=EC-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for
peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He
himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine.9 The
monastic estates also conscripted impoverished peasant children for
lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.
In Old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a
kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who
composed the "middle-class" families of merchants, shopkeepers, and
small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. A small minority were
slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring
were born into slavery.10 The greater part of the rural
population---some 700,000 of an estimated total of 1,250,000---were
serfs. Serfs and other peasants generally were little better than
slaves. They went without schooling or medical care. They spent most of
their time laboring for high-ranking lamas or for the secular landed
aristocracy. Their masters told them what crops to grow and what
animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of
their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their
families should their owners send them to work in a distant location.11
One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: "Pretty serf
girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he
wished." They "were just slaves without rights."12 Serfs needed
permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture
those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese
intervention as a "liberation." He claimed that under serfdom he was
subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed
escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord's men until blood
poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic
soda on his wounds to increase the pain.13
The serfs were under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land---or the
monastery's land---without pay, to repair the lord's houses, transport
his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide
carrying animals and transportation on demand.14 They were taxed upon
getting married, taxed for the birth of each child, and for every death
in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and
for keeping animals. There were taxes for religious festivals, for
singing, dancing, drumming, and bell ringing. People were taxed for
being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find
work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another
village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could
not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest.
Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who
could not meet their obligations risked being placed into slavery
sometimes for the rest of their lives.15
The theocracy's religious teachings buttressed its class order. The
poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles
upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence
they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic
atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve upon being
reborn. The rich and powerful of course treated their good fortune as a
reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
Torture and Mutilation
In the Dalai Lama's Tibet, torture and mutilation---including eye
gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation--were
favored punishments inflicted upon runaway serfs and thieves.
Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder
interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep
belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and
his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a
Buddhist: "When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was
no good in religion."16 Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take
human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then "left to God"
in the freezing night to die. "The parallels between Tibet and medieval
Europe are striking," concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet.17
In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment
that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of
all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for
cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, and breaking off hands.
There were instruments for slicing off kneecaps and heels, or
hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements
for disemboweling.18
The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had
been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There
was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and
wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master's cows; for this
he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife
taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were
pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and
a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.19
Early visitors to Tibet comment about the theocratic despotism. In
1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was
under the "intolerable tyranny of monks" and the devil superstitions
they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon
described the Dalai Lama's rule as "an engine of oppression." At about
that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O'Connor, observed
that "the great landowners and the priests . . . exercise each in their
own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal," while the
people are "oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and
priest-craft." Tibetan rulers "invented degrading legends and
stimulated a spirit of superstition" among the common people. In 1937,
another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, "The Lamaist monk does not
spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . .
The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the
jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to
increase their influence and wealth."20
Occupation and Revolt
The Chinese Communists occupied Tibet in 1951, claiming suzerainty over
that country. The 1951 treaty provided for ostensible self-government
under the Dalai Lama's rule but gave China military control and
exclusive right to conduct foreign relations. The Chinese were also
granted a direct role in internal administration "to promote social
reforms." At first, they moved slowly, relying mostly on persuasion in
an attempt to effect change. Among the earliest reforms they wrought
was to reduce usurious interest rates, and build a few hospitals and
roads. "Contrary to popular belief in the West," writes one observer,
the Chinese "took care to show respect for Tibetan culture and
religion." No aristocratic or monastic property was confiscated, and
feudal lords continued to reign over their hereditarily bound
peasants.21
The Tibetan lords and lamas had seen Chinese come and go over the
centuries and had enjoyed good relations with Generalissimo Chiang
Kaishek and his reactionary Kuomintang rule in China.22 The approval of
the Kuomintang government was needed to validate the choice of the
Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. When the young Dalai Lama was installed in
Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chinese troops and an attending
Chinese minister, in accordance with centuries-old tradition. What
upset the Tibetan lords and lamas was that these latest Chinese were
Communists. It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the
Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian solutions
upon Tibet.
In 1956-57, armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples
Liberation Army (PLA). The uprising received extensive assistance from
the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training,
support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.23 Meanwhile in the
United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA front,
energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the
Dalai Lama's eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in
that group. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup,
established an intelligence operation with the CIA in 1951. He later
upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted
back into Tibet.24
Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country
were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent
of them were never heard from again, according to a report from the CIA
itself, meaning they were most likely captured and killed.25 "Many
lamas and lay members of the elite and much of the Tibetan army joined
the uprising, but in the main the populace did not, assuring its
failure," writes Hugh Deane.26 In their book on Tibet, Ginsburg and
Mathos reach a similar conclusion: "As far as can be ascertained, the
great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining
countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both
when it first began and as it progressed."27 Eventually the resistance
crumbled.
Enter the Communists
Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese in Tibet,
after 1959 they did abolish slavery and the serfdom system of unpaid
labor, and put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a
form of criminal punishment. They eliminated the many crushing taxes,
started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary.
They established secular education, thereby breaking the educational
monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and
electrical systems in Lhasa.28
Heinrich Harrer (later revealed to have been a sergeant in Hitler's SS)
wrote a bestseller about his experiences in Tibet that was made into a
popular Hollywood movie. He reported that the Tibetans who resisted the
Chinese "were predominantly nobles, semi-nobles and lamas; they were
punished by being made to perform the lowliest tasks, such as laboring
on roads and bridges. They were further humiliated by being made to
clean up the city before the tourists arrived." They also had to live
in a camp originally reserved for beggars and vagrants.29
By 1961, the Chinese expropriated the landed estates owned by lords and
lamas, and reorganized the peasants into hundreds of communes. They
distributed hundreds of thousands of acres to tenant farmers and
landless peasants. Herds once owned by nobility were turned over to
collectives of poor shepherds. Improvements were made in the breeding
of livestock, and new varieties of vegetables and new strains of wheat
and barley were introduced, along with irrigation improvements, all of
which reportedly led to an increase in agrarian production.30
Many peasants remained as religious as ever, giving alms to the clergy.
But the many monks who had been conscripted into the religious orders
as children were now free to renounce the monastic life, and thousands
did, especially the younger ones. The remaining clergy lived on modest
government stipends, and extra income earned by officiating at prayer
services, weddings, and funerals.31
Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin
Choegyal, claimed that "more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a
result of the Chinese occupation."32 But the official 1953 census---six
years before the Chinese crackdown---recorded the entire population
residing in Tibet at 1,274,000.33 Other census counts put the ethnic
Tibetan population within the country at about two million. If the
Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then whole cities and
huge portions of the countryside, indeed almost all of Tibet, would
have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with
death camps and mass graves---of which we have not seen evidence. The
thinly distributed Chinese military force in Tibet was not big enough
to round up, hunt down, and exterminate that many people even if it had
spent all its time doing nothing else.
Chinese authorities do admit to "mistakes," particularly during the
1966-76 Cultural Revolution when religious persecution reached a high
tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s,
thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward,
forced collectivization and grain farming was imposed on the peasantry,
sometimes with disastrous effect. In the late 1970s, China began
relaxing controls over Tibet "and tried to undo some of the damage
wrought during the previous two decades."34
In 1980, the Chinese government initiated reforms reportedly designed
to grant Tibet a greater degree of self-rule and self-administration.
Tibetans would now be allowed to cultivate private plots, sell their
harvest surpluses, decide for themselves what crops to grow, and keep
yaks and sheep. Communication with the outside world was again
permitted, and frontier controls were eased to permit Tibetans to visit
exiled relatives in India and Nepal.35
In the 1990s, the Han, the ethnic group comprising over 95 percent of
China's immense population, began moving in substantial numbers into
Tibet and various western provinces. On the streets of Lhasa and
Shigatse, signs of Han preeminence are readily visible. Chinese run the
factories and many of the shops and vending stalls. Tall office
buildings and large shopping centers have been built with funds that
might have been better spent on water treatment plants and housing.
Chinese cadres in Tibet too often view their Tibetan neighbors as
backward and lazy, in need of economic development and "patriotic
education." During the 1990s Tibetan government employees suspected of
harboring nationalist sympathies were purged from office, and campaigns
were launched to discredit the Dalai Lama. Individual Tibetans
reportedly were subjected to arrest, imprisonment, and forced labor for
carrying out separatist activities and engaging in political
"subversion." Some arrestees were held in administrative detention
without adequate food, water, and blankets, subjected to threats,
beatings, and other mistreatment.36
Chinese family planning regulations allow a three-child limit for
Tibetan families. (For years there was a one-child limit for Han
families.) If a couple goes over the limit, the excess children can be
denied subsidized daycare, health care, housing, and education. These
penalties have been enforced irregularly and vary by district.
Meanwhile, Tibetan history, culture, and religion are slighted in
schools. Teaching materials, though translated into Tibetan, focus on
Chinese history and culture.37
Elites, =C9migr=E9s, and the CIA
For the rich lamas and lords, the Communist intervention was a
calamity. Most of them fled abroad, as did the Dalai Lama himself, who
was assisted in his flight by the CIA. Some discovered to their horror
that they would have to work for a living. However, throughout the
1960s, the Tibetan exile community was secretly pocketing $1.7 million
a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State
Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama's
organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received
millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads
of exiles into Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai
Lama's annual payment from the CIA was $186,000. Indian intelligence
also financed both him and other Tibetan exiles. He has refused to say
whether he or his brothers worked for the CIA. The agency has also
declined to comment.38
In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a
frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the
reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline
"Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right."39 In April 1999, along
with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush,
the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto
Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA
client who had been apprehended while visiting England. The Dalai Lama
urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to
stand trial for crimes against humanity.
Today, mostly through the National Endowment for Democracy and other
conduits that are more respectable-sounding than the CIA, the US
Congress continues to allocate an annual $2 million to Tibetans in
India, with additional millions for "democracy activities" within the
Tibetan exile community. The Dalai Lama also gets money from financier
George Soros, who now runs the CIA-created Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty and other institutes.40
The Question of Culture
We are told that when the Dalai Lama ruled Tibet, the people lived in
contented and tranquil symbiosis with their monastic and secular lords,
in a social order sustained by a deeply spiritual, nonviolent culture,
inspired by humane and pacific religious teachings. The Tibetan
religious culture was the social glue and comforting balm that kept
rich lama and poor peasant spiritually bonded together, to maintain
those proselytes who embrace Old Tibet as a cultural purity, a
Shangri-La.
One is reminded of the idealized imagery of feudal Europe presented by
latter-day conservative Catholics such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire
Belloc. For them, medieval Christendom was a world of contented
peasants living in a deep spiritual bond with their Church, under the
protection of their lords.41 Again we are invited to accept a
particular culture on its own terms, which means accepting it as
presented by its favored class, by those at the top who profited most
from it. The Shangri-La image of Tibet bears no more resemblance to
historic reality than does the romanticized image of medieval Europe.
When seen in all its grim realities, Old Tibet confirms the view
expressed earlier in this book that culture is anything but neutral.
Culture can operate as a legitimating cover for a host of grave
injustices, benefiting some portion of a society's population at great
cost to other segments. In theocratic Tibet, ruling interests
manipulated the traditional culture to fortify their wealth and power.
The theocracy equated rebellious thought and action with satanic
influence. It propagated the general presumption of landlord
superiority and peasant unworthiness. The rich were represented as
deserving their good life, and the poor as deserving their mean lowly
existence, all codified in teachings about the karmic residues of
virtues and vices accumulated from past lives, all presented as part of
God's will.
It might be said that we denizens of the modern secular world cannot
grasp the equations of happiness and pain, contentment and custom, that
characterize more traditionally spiritual societies. This is probably
true, and it may explain why some of us idealize such societies. But
still, a gouged eye is a gouged eye; a flogging is a flogging; and the
grinding exploitation of serfs and slaves is a brutal class injustice
whatever its cultural wrapping. There is a difference between a
spiritual bond and human bondage, even when both exist side by side
Many ordinary Tibetans want the Dalai Lama back in their country, but
it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he
represented. A 1999 story in the Washington Post notes that he
continues to be revered in Tibet, but
.. . . few Tibetans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic
clans that fled with him in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his
advisers. Many Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in
surrendering the land they gained during China's land reform to the
clans. Tibet's former slaves say they, too, don't want their former
masters to return to power.
"I've already lived that life once before," said Wangchuk, a
67-year-old former slave who was wearing his best clothes for his
yearly pilgrimage to Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of Tibetan
Buddhism. He said he worshipped the Dalai Lama, but added, "I may not
be free under Chinese communism, but I am better off than when I was a
slave."42
Kim Lewis, who studied healing methods with a Buddhist monk in
Berkeley, California, had occasion to talk at length with more than a
dozen Tibetan women who lived in the monk's building. When she asked
how they felt about returning to their homeland, the sentiment was
unanimously negative. At first, Lewis thought their reluctance had to
do with the Chinese occupation, but they quickly informed her
otherwise. They said they were extremely grateful "not to have to marry
4 or 5 men, be pregnant almost all the time," or deal with sexually
transmitted diseases contacted from a straying husband. The younger
women "were delighted to be getting an education, wanted absolutely
nothing to do with any religion, and wondered why Americans were so
naive." They recounted stories of their grandmothers' ordeals with
monks who used them as "wisdom consorts," telling them "how much merit
they were gaining by providing the 'means to enlightenment'-- after
all, the Buddha had to be with a woman to reach enlightenment."
The women interviewed by Lewis spoke bitterly about the monastery's
confiscation of their young boys in Tibet. When a boy cried for his
mother, he would be told "Why do you cry for her, she gave you up -
she's just a woman." Among the other issues was "the rampant
homosexuality in the Gelugpa sect. All was not well in Shangri-la,"
Lewis opines."43
The monks who were granted political asylum in California applied for
Social Security. Lewis, herself a devotee for a time, assisted with the
paperwork. She observes that they continue to receive Social Security
checks amounting to $550 to $700 per month along with Medicare and
MediCal. In addition, the monks reside rent free in nicely furnished
apartments. "They pay no utilities, have free access to the Internet on
computers provided for them, along with fax machines, free cell and
home phones and cable TV." In addition, they receive a monthly payment
from their order. And the dharma center takes up a special collection
from its members (all Americans), separate from membership dues. Some
members eagerly carry out chores for the monks, including grocery
shopping and cleaning their apartments and toilets. These same holy men
"have no problem criticizing Americans for their 'obsession with
material things."44
To support the Chinese overthrow of the old feudal theocracy is not to
applaud everything about Chinese rule in Tibet. This point is seldom
understood by today's Shangri-La adherents in the West.
The converse is also true. To denounce the Chinese occupation does not
mean we have to romanticize the former feudal r=E9gime. One common
complaint among Buddhist followers in the West is that Tibet's
religious culture is being undermined by the occupation. Indeed this
seems to be the case. Many of the monasteries are closed, and the
theocracy has passed into history. What I am questioning here is the
supposedly admirable and pristinely spiritual nature of that
pre-invasion culture. In short, we can advocate religious freedom and
independence for Tibet without having to embrace the mythology of a
Paradise Lost.
Finally, it should be noted that the criticism posed herein is not
intended as a personal attack on the Dalai Lama. Whatever his past
associations with the CIA and various reactionaries, he speaks often of
peace, love, and nonviolence. And he himself really cannot be blamed
for the abuses of the ancien r=E9gime, having been but 15 years old when
he fled into exile. In 1994, in an interview with Melvyn Goldstein, he
went on record as favoring since his youth the building of schools,
"machines," and roads in his country. He claims that he thought the
corv=E9e (forced unpaid serf labor for the lord's benefit) and certain
taxes imposed on the peasants were "extremely bad." And he disliked the
way people were saddled with old debts sometimes passed down from
generation to generation.45 Furthermore, he now proposes democracy for
Tibet, featuring a written constitution, a representative assembly, and
other democratic essentials.46
In 1996, the Dalai Lama issued a statement that must have had an
unsettling effect on the exile community. It reads in part as follows:
Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is
founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with
gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of
wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilization of the means of
production. It is also concerned with the fate of the working
classes-that is the majority---as well as with the fate of those who
are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of
minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to
me, and it seems fair. . . I think of myself as half-Marxist,
half-Buddhist.47
And more recently in 2001, while visiting California, he remarked that
"Tibet, materially, is very, very backward. Spiritually it is quite
rich. But spirituality can't fill our stomachs."48 Here is a message
that should be heeded by the well-fed Buddhist proselytes in the West
who wax nostalgic for Old Tibet.
What I have tried to challenge is the Tibet myth, the Paradise Lost
image of a social order that actually was a retrograde theocracy of
serfdom and poverty, where a favored few lived high and mighty off the
blood, sweat, and tears of the many. It was a long way from Shangri-La.
Notes:
Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and
the Dalai Lama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 6-16.
Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2000), 113.
Kyong-Hwa Seok, "Korean Monk Gangs Battle for Temple Turf," San
Francisco Examiner, December 3, 1998.
Dalai Lama quoted in Donald Lopez Jr., Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan
Buddhism and the West (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press,
1998), 205.
Stuart Gelder and Roma Gelder, The Timely Rain: Travels in New Tibet
(New Yo | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
