New Left Review published a very long and very interesting article in 2002 by Wang Lixiong. Here’s the first paragraph:
In the current debate on Tibet the two opposing sides see almost everything in black and white—differing only as to which is which. But there is one issue that both Chinese authorities and Tibetan nationalists consistently strive to blur or, better still, avoid altogether. At the height of the Cultural Revolution hundreds of thousands of Tibetans turned upon the temples they had treasured for centuries and tore them to pieces, rejected their religion and became zealous followers of the Great Han occupier, Mao Zedong. To the Chinese Communist Party, the episode is part of a social catastrophe—one that it initiated but has long since disowned and which, it hopes, the rest of the world will soon forget. For the Tibetan participants, the memory of that onslaught is a bitter humiliation, one they would rather not talk about, or which they try to exorcise with the excuse that they only did it ‘under pressure from the Han’. Foreign critics simply refuse to accept that the episode ever took place, unable to imagine that the Tibetans could willingly and consciously have done such a thing. But careful analysis and a deeper reflection on what was involved in that trauma may shed light on some of the cultural questions at stake on the troubled High Plateau.
It’s well worth reading the rest (good proxy needed in China). The 1998 Chinese article is posted at the Tianya Forum among other places.
There’s a bit of an irony in this: the English version, which few Chinese people would choose to read, is currently blocked by keyword, while the Chinese-language version is freely accessible.
See also: Tsering Shakya’s rebuttal.
4 Comments
FYI, his wife is a Tibetan.
Pretty interesting stuff. A bit contradictory in places, but the main message - that Tibetans (probably like most people) didn’t understand the CPC’s message in quite the way it was meant, sounds pretty convincing. The concomitant analysis of why Tibetans are now so “ungrateful” for the benefits the central government has brought them is possible, though not the only explanation.
One point that does seem a bit questionable: Wang says that the destruction of the temples “must have” had massive Tibetan participation; and yet in the 1970s Tibetans accounted for only 23% of leading cadres. I can accept that many Tibetan people did physically participate in the breaking up of the buildings. But can we really be sure that this was their own idea? Is it not equally likely that they were told (made?) to participate by Han superiors, and complied because the power of the clergy had been broken?
The point in the first paragraph is well taken, though. I had never considered this aspect of modern Tibetan history at all, before reading this piece.
Han accounted for a much higher percentage of cadres in big cities than in rural area. Wang did mention that temples and monasteries survived best in the main cities (Lhasa, Shigatse) where “the authorities could still exercise some control”.
To understand why the ‘authorities’ would not necessarily side with the radical Red Guards, you have to know the root cause of the Culture Revolution. CR was a campaign to purge ‘the Liberal Establishment’ inside the party. Both State President Liu and party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping disgraced during the CR. In Wang’s book, he described how the Tibet Party Chief later died in the hands of the Red Guards.
It’s impossible that a mass movement in such a scale would happen without either the incitement of Party ‘activists’ (Tibetan or not) or the participation of the local people, just like in other parts of China. Wang’s question is, isn’t Tibet supposed to be different?
I think WANG’s point is not distinguish Tibetans. Tibetans Chinese had something that most Hans Chinese don’t have, religion, even a living God. That’s why it is asked by WANG.
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