Are the Tibetans doomed to go the way of the American Indians? Will they be reduced to nothing more than a tourist attraction, peddling cheap mementos of what a once-great culture? That sad fate is looking more and more likely, and the Olympic year already has been soured by the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress resistance to it.
The Chinese have much to answer for, but the fate of Tibet is not just a matter of semi-colonial oppression. It is often forgotten that many Tibetans, especially educated people in the larger towns, were so keen to modernize their society in the mid-twentieth century that they saw the Chinese Communists as allies against rule by holy monks and serf-owning landlords. In the early 1950’s, the young Dalai Lama himself was impressed by Chinese reforms and wrote poems praising Chairman Mao.
Alas, instead of reforming Tibetan society and culture, the Chinese Communists ended up wrecking it. Religion was crushed in the name of official Marxist atheism. Monasteries and temples were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (often with the help of Tibetan Red Guards). Nomads were forced to live in ugly concrete settlements. Tibetan arts were frozen into folkloric emblems of an officially promoted “minority culture. And the Dalai Lama and his entourage were forced to flee to India.
None of this was peculiar to Tibet. The wrecking of tradition and forced cultural regimentation took place everywhere in China. In some respects, the Tibetans were treated less ruthlessly than the majority of Chinese. Nor was the challenge to Tibetan uniqueness typical of the Communists. General Chiang Kai-shek declared in 1946 that the Tibetans were Chinese, and he certainly would not have granted them independence if his Nationalists had won the civil war.
If Tibetan Buddhism was severely damaged, Chinese Communism has barely survived the ravages of the twentieth century, either. But capitalist development has been even more devastating to Tibetan tradition. Like many modern imperialist powers, China claims legitimacy for its policies by pointing to their material benefits. After decades of destruction and neglect, Tibet has benefited from enormous amounts of Chinese money and energy to modernize the country. The Tibetans cannot complain that they have been left behind in China’s transformation from a Third World wreck to a marvel of supercharged urban development.
But the price in Tibet has been higher than elsewhere. Regional identity, cultural diversity, and traditional arts and customs have been buried under concrete, steel, and glass all over China. And all Chinese are gasping in the same polluted air. But at least the Han Chinese can feel pride in the revival of their national fortunes. They can bask in the resurgence of Chinese power and material wealth. The Tibetans, by contrast, can share this feeling only to the extent that they become fully Chinese. If not, they can only lament the loss of their own identity.
The Chinese have exported their version of modern development to Tibet not only in terms of architecture and infrastructure, but also people – wave after wave of them: businessmen from Sichuan, prostitutes from Hunan, technocrats from Beijing, party officials from Shanghai, and shopkeepers from Yunnan. The majority of Lhasa’s population today is no longer Tibetan. Most people in rural areas are Tibetan, but their way of life is not likely to survive Chinese modernization any more than the Apaches’ way of life survived in the United States.
Since Chinese is the language of instruction at Tibetan schools and universities, anyone who wishes to be more than a poor peasant, beggar, or seller of trinkets must conform to Chinese norms, that is, become Chinese.
Even Tibetan intellectuals who want to study their own classical literature must do so in Chinese translation. Meanwhile, Chinese and other foreign tourists dress up in traditional Tibetan dress to have their souvenir pictures taken in front of the Dalai Lama’s old palace.
Religion is now tolerated in Tibet, as it is in the rest of China, but under strictly controlled conditions. Monasteries and temples are exploited as tourist attractions, while government agents try to ensure that the monks stay in line. As we know from the recent events, they have not yet been entirely successful; the resentment among Tibetans runs too deep. In the last few weeks, that resentment boiled over, first in the monasteries, and then in the streets, against the Han Chinese migrants, who are both the agents and main beneficiaries of rapid modernization.
The Dalai Lama has repeatedly said that he does not seek independence.
And the Chinese government is certainly wrong to blame him for the violence. However, as long as Tibet remains part of China, it is hard to see how its distinct cultural identity can survive. The human and material forces arrayed against Tibet are overwhelming. There are too few Tibetans, and too many Chinese.
Outside Tibet, however, it is a different story. If the Chinese are responsible for extinguishing the old way of life inside Tibet, they may be unintentionally responsible for keeping it alive outside. By forcing the Dalai Lama into exile, they have ensured the establishment of a Tibetan diaspora society, which might well survive in a more traditional form than would have been likely even in an independent Tibet. Diaspora cultures thrive on nostalgic dreams of return. Traditions are jealously guarded, like precious heirlooms, to be passed on as long as those dreams persist.
And who is to say that such dreams will never come true? The Jews managed to hang on to theirs for almost 2,000 years.
Ian Buruma is Professor of human rights at Bard College. His most recent book is Murder in Amsterdam: The Killing of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).
