Monday, 07 July 2008 18:36

After the protests in March, there has been a lot of concern all over the world for the plight of the people of Tibet, which has been under Chinese occupation since the early 50s.

As Tibetans protest and demonstrate on the streets of Lhasa and around the world, people are quite rightly concerned that they don’t enjoy the same rights and freedoms that we do in the west. Additionally, Tibet holds something of mystical significance for many westerners who are profoundly disturbed by the dreary mechanical-ness of “modern life”.
As usual, the truth is that there’s a reasonably solid germ of truth in people’s instincts here, but it’s somewhat more complicated. Tibet is an extremely oppressed nation, and certainly deserves freedom! But it’s no Shangri-La. The question then, is how can Tibet actually be liberated, and what significance does this have for ordinary people in the rest of China, in the West and indeed the rest of the World?
The most recent protests against Chinese rule in Tibet began on the 10th of March, as monks marking the 49th Tibetan Uprising Day were arrested by Chinese police in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. The following day, a Tuesday, more than 600 monks staged a protest outside the Lhasa police headquarters demanding the release of the arrestees of the day before. Sporadic protests occurred throughout the rest of the week, leading to more arrests.

Anger explodes

By the Friday, Lhasa residents had had enough. Angry and embittered by decades of living as second-class citizens in their own land, when the police prevented monks from the Ramoche monastery demonstrating, Tibetan residents rioted. Protestors smashed and burned over 100 shops, banks, hotels, cars and busses owed by ethnic Han Chinese.
The response of the Chinese Government was brutal. The police and the military were mobilised to suppress the riots. Protestors were given a deadline of the following Monday by which to surrender. Large parts of Lhasa were sealed off by the police and heavily armed soldiers patrolled around the Jokhang temple – Tibetan Buddhism’s holiest shrine. Armoured vehicles drove the streets and loudspeakers called on residents to “discern between friends and enemies” and to “maintain order”.
A media blackout was launched to prevent information filtering out and spreading the unrest. Only the state-controlled media was allowed to report on events and no foreign journalists except those from the CNN (which was blacked out anyway) were allowed in. Online information through news websites such as those of The Guardian and The Times as well as the video-sharing site YouTube was blocked. Even cell phones appear to have been blocked and tourists were asked to leave.
Chinese government reports of the unrest can hardly be trusted. Protesters were described as “lumpen” and “hooligan” elements – the same terms that were used to describe Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989. Meanwhile, the Xinhua news agency claimed that “Throughout the incident, Lhasa police officers exercised great restraint. The remained patient, professional and were instructed not to use force”. This is a load of bollocks. The Dalai Lama’s government claims to have confirmed at least 80 dead at the hands of Chinese troops.
The crackdown, however, couldn’t stop the protests spreading. On Sunday the 16th there were demonstrations in several neighbouring provinces that historically have been a part of Tibet. In Gansu, 500 Tibetan students staged a sit-in in the Northwest Minorities University. A curfew was imposed at another location in Gansu after police suppressed a demonstration numbering over 1,000. In Sichuan province, demonstrators threw petrol bombs, burning down a police station, a market and several houses. Even as far afield as Beijing, students at the Central Nationalities University held a candle-lit vigil under the watchful eyes of the political police.

Moderation and restraint

The Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibetan government in exile has called mainly for moderation and restraint. In an appeal to end the violence he said that “We must not develop anti-Chinese feelings. Whether we like it or not we have to live side-by-side,” and asked journalists at a press conference to “Please help stop violence from the Chinese side and also from the Tibetan side”. In an attempt to maintain control of the situation, he even threatened to resign as head of the government-in-exile if protestors continued to be violent.
The Dalai Lama’s position revolves around guaranteeing greater autonomy for Tibet rather than actual independence, and so his demands focus simply on the issue of preserving Tibetan culture. To be sure, Tibetan culture is severely repressed by the Chinese occupation. But the issue goes far deeper than the need for “cultural freedom” that the Dalai Lama claims. For all their claims of benevolence, the Chinese occupiers have never brought anything but continued poverty and deprivation for the vast majority of the Tibetan people, and this is what underlies the protests in Lhasa. Coming from a privileged elite, the Dalai Lama is as terrified of their rebellion as the Chinese.
Before the Chinese army invaded in 1953, Tibet was a monarchy - a dictatorship - presided over by the Dalai Lamas. The majority of Tibetans worked and lived in desperate poverty on the estates of large landowners.
When the PLA arrived, at first they collaborated with the Dalai Lama and the landowners. But as the army asserted ever greater control, Chinese imperialism was thrown onto a trajectory of conflict with the local rulers, culminating in an uprising in March 1959. When this was crushed 50,000 Tibetans were forced to flee to India, including the Dalai Lama and many of his wealthy entourage.

Chinese colonialism

However, far from “liberating” Tibet as Maoists claim, the colonial regime only bought further poverty and repression. A famine broke out in the early 60s as the government banned traditional crops in favour of cereals that didn’t grow at Tibetan altitudes. During the Cultural Revolution, attacks were encouraged in Tibetan cultural and religious institutions – Tibetans were even attacked in the street for wearing traditional clothing.
More recently, the economic growth of China has passed most Tibetans by. In China’s poorest region, 1/3rd of Tibetans live below the poverty line. There is little infrastructure – even rail travel between Tibet and China only became a reality in 2006. The logic of divide and rule means that market reforms have ripped apart the social structure of the country, while providing little in the way of benefits. One in ten Tibetan farmers have been forcibly resettled in the cities, where they have found only social dislocation and unemployment, all the new jobs created by growth going the Han Chinese or other minorities.
Tibetan poor told the story recently to interviewers from Human Rights Watch “The Chinese are not letting us carry on our occupation and forcing us to live in Chinese-built towns, which will leave us without livestock and we won’t be able to do any other work, so we will surely be beggars” and that “No new houses have been built, they have just put new doors and windows in the old prison buildings. The government make a lot of publicity about bringing electric and water facilities, but those who moved there say there is no such facility. The government talks about providing a food subsidy eventually, but so far they got nothing…”
This then is why we need a free Tibet. The problem with the Dalai Lama’s approach is that his aim is simply to negotiate a deal for the benefit of the old Tibetan ruling class. This is why he calls for “restraint”, and restricts himself to talk of “autonomy” and “cultural freedom” rather than independence and political freedoms.

Chinese working class

However, if the Dalai Lama’s approach won’t win real liberation, then where does that leave the struggle for a free Tibet? The answer is that we must look to the struggles of Tibetan workers and peasants themselves, and also to those of the working class in China and internationally. They are the ones that have the real interest in shaking off the chains of poverty, war and oppression once and for all. And they are becoming increasingly rebellious.
The current protests in Tibet are taking place in the middle of a rising movement of strikes, riots and demonstrations against poor conditions and living standards that have involved millions of Chinese workers and peasants in the past few years. The political atmosphere resembles 1989, when rising prices and the negative impacts of market reform fuelled a wave of protests, which also began in Tibet with the death of a religious leader. Then, events in Lhasa anticipated nationwide protests later in the year, culminating in the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square on June 4.
Discontent in recent years is focusing on many of the same issues. Inflation is higher than it has been for 12 years and is rising fast. In January the Chinese regime narrowly averted a political crisis when snowstorms paralysed the transport system, leaving millions stranded – and angry. In this case, the fragility of China’s infrastructure came within a hair’s breadth of igniting long-simmering social tensions.
In another instance, unemployment has been a driver for social unrest. This is particularly true amongst hundreds of thousands of ex-soldiers who, after being demobilised as the Chinese army modernises, are left in the cities with few decent job opportunities. Anger at poor conditions, low pay and high living expenses has lead to numerous riots and clashes with police.
Workers in struggle are a powerful social force that is capable of bringing capitalist and authoritarian regimes to their knees, turning the world upside down (or perhaps the right way up?) and overthrowing them. Only in a world organised and run by ordinary people and not elites, will oppression and poverty be ended forever. This is the real meaning of freedom. If the movement in Tibet is to win real, lasting freedom then it must link up with the struggles of Chinese workers. Freedom cannot be granted to some people only – it must be won for all.

Cory A

April 2008

References:

J. Chan, ‘China cracks down on Tibetan protestors’, World Socialist Web Site, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/tibe-m19.shtml

J. Chan, ‘Snowstorms and blackouts create chaos in China’, World Socialist Web Site, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/chin-f01.shtml

J. Chan, ‘Protests by former Chinese soldiers: another source of political instability’, World Socialist Web Site,

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/nov2007/chin-n01.shtml

J. Chan, ‘China’s National Peoples’ Congress haunted by spectre of social unrest’, World Socialist Web Site,

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/chin-m12.shtml

D. Fieldes, ‘Chinese crack down on Tibet uprising’, Socialist Alternative, issue 127.

C. Hore, ‘Tibet rises up against decades of oppression’ Socialist Worker online, http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=14452

International Socialists