The Guardian 4 June, 2008
Tibet: a socialist’s perspective
Bob Clegg
Green Left Weekly’s reactionary position on Tibet undermines its noble claim to fight for a better world.
An article by Dick Nichols, "Let the Tibetans decide their future" (GLW, 2008-04-30, p7), is a dialectically unsound apologia for the Free Tibet movement using fallacious arguments exhorting socialists to abandon progressive principles and support a return to a despotic and feudalistic Lama-run Tibet. Make no mistake, that’s exactly what "Free Tibet" means. There’s nothing "free" about it.
The Socialist Alliance National Executive, writes Nichols, recognises that the right of self-determination applies as much to the Tibetan people as to any other people. "It’s not for others to decide according to some private benchmark of oppression whether or not the Tibetans are ‘really’ oppressed", he says, adding that the protests in Tibet reflect feelings of discrimination and alienation.
It is true opposition to Chinese rule exists in Tibet. It is also true there is support within Tibet for what socialist rule has brought them. They aren’t all Buddhists and they are not all pro-Lamas. They don’t all feel the oppression the Free Tibet movement and the mainstream media tell us is taking place.
As teacher Andrew Mellis writes in The Guardian (2008-04-30), the formerly theocratic Tibet was feudalistic and minorities were enslaved. Education was not universally available. Penalties for petty crimes included floggings, mutilations and amputations. Equality for women was non-existent. Why doesn’t the Socialist Alliance recognise the self-determination of these people?
Chinese rule abolished the Lamas’ backward society and brought great social gains and economic development to the region. The new railway to the "Roof of the World" will bring such development and open up this once isolated region to the world.
The Chinese communists are understandably suspicious of religions and cults, yet Tibetan Buddhists may practise their religion. As The Guardian reported on April 16, the Chinese have spent millions to repair temples and other religious sites.
Even non-socialists would be gobsmacked at Nichols’ assertion: "The fact that the Tibetan resistance army up until 1959 was funded and trained by the CIA is … irrelevant." No, this is not a mistake. This is in black and white in a newspaper that claims to be of the Left
How can any socialist make such a reactionary comment? Do we extend Nichols’ argument and suggest it is irrelevant that the United States financed and armed the Mujahadeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan? And that the Americans set up the Taliban in neighbouring Pakistan? This part of the world is in flames today because of American interference. China has every right to protect Tibet. The corporate and military elites in America would welcome Tibet as a wedge to destabilise communist China and its tiger economy.
Nichols argues illogically that if the Left doesn’t support the Free Tibet movement, it will turn to the Right. Free Tibet is an entrenched right-wing movement and should be opposed by socialists. Right-wing Free Tibet groups are behind the violent protests in Tibet. They are blowing up government buildings and beating and killing Han and Muslim Chinese.
"The campaign orchestrated against China is like a bugle call aimed at unleashing an attack on the country’s well-earned success and against its people who will host the next Olympic Games", writes Cuba’s Fidel Castro in Granma on March 31.
Which brings us to Nichols’ intellectually and dialectically dishonest patronising gibe at Fidel Castro’s opposition to Free Tibet. Great revolutionaries like Castro, says Nichols, "see the Tibetan struggle through the prism of British, Japanese and US imperialism’s abominable role in China, before and after the 1949 revolution".
Abandonment of historical materialist argument has led Nichols to call on socialists, including Castro, to take an extraordinary lurch to the right.
Nichols’ error is compounded because he admits Castro’s argument cannot be negated, but goes on to say with twisted logic: "But does this truth negate the reality that the Tibetans today feel oppressed and marginalised in their own country?"
Sadly, Nichols is not talking about the minorities in Tibet, especially those who suffered under the Lamas and now enjoy the benefits and enlightenment of a socialist society. Whatever the faults in socialist societies, a return to feudalism is not a solution.
Fidel Castro in Granma (2008-03-31) reminds us the Dalai Lama praised President Bush "for his efforts in defence of freedom, democracy and human rights". So we know whose side The Dalai Lama is on.
On page 2 of the same edition of GLW Chinese protesters are accused of intimidating Free Tibet protestors during the Olympic Torch relay. Many who saw Free Tibet’s violent protests were disgusted at their intimidation. Free Tibet supporters have tried to disrupt the torch relay at every opportunity. They have assaulted and attempted to assault torch bearers including one young girl in a wheelchair.
The Torch relay, it has been said, was originated by Germany as propaganda for the Nazis during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Maybe so. In any case, the relay has evolved into an egalitarian event to help the Olympic movement meet its goals of good will between nations, something we experienced in Australia in 2000. Free Tibet’s contempt for the Torch relay was not only for the Chinese, but for the world and for the concept of good will.
There are effective ways of protesting respectfully and peacefully. Kevin Rudd, bearing in mind Australia’s prosperous trading partnership with China, raised tough issues with China about Tibet. Why wasn’t Free Tibet satisfied with Rudd’s intervention? Of course, they weren’t because Rudd supports the need for Tibet to remain part of China. Tibet is on the road to progress and pseudo-socialists like the Socialist Alliance should reconsider their reactionary position on the Tibet question.
China has come a long way since the Cultural Revolution and today they deserve the support of socialists from around the world.
A so-called "Free Tibet" is not an option socialists should support.