World Summit for Social Development Copenhagen, 1995
Development and Cultural Destruction in Tibet
Sunday, March 19, 1995[Paper read by Anders Hoejmark Andersen (The Tibet Support Committee, Denmark) at the "Social Development: A Tibetan Experience" conference in Copenhagen on 9 March 1995.]
One of the three main themes for the World Summit is Social integration. The report prepared for the Summit by the People's Republic of China takes up this issue with a readiness which shows its inherent dangers. The United Nations is comprised of nation-states, and nation-states naturally favour social and cultural coherence within themselves. To a large extent, the call for social integration will also lead to cultural unification if measures to avoid this are not spelled out clearly. In the case of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, such measures are not taken: the Tibetan people neither have human rights nor self-determination.
The so-called unity of nationalities is a key element in China's policies towards Tibetans. After the occupation of Tibet in 1949 - 51, this policy meant the introduction of collectivisation under Chinese rule. These social changes brought about complete disruption of traditional Tibetan ways of life and of their social institutions. Systematic destruction of the more than 6,000 monasteries began, and monks and nuns were killed or forced to give up their vows. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans were killed in warfare and by starvation, or they were executed because they resisted the policies being forced upon them.
In the 1960s, the policy of unity of nationalities amounted to a declared policy of sinicisation. During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 - 76, a campaign was launched to eradicate the socalled four olds: old thoughts, old culture and old customs and traditions. People were forced to attend meetings where their ideology was being criticised, often with the use of violence.
China skillfully used existing cleavages in Tibetan society to create distrust and conflict among Tibetans and to consolidate its own power in the country. People were sent for special education in China, and then brought back to Tibet, where they would take up positions in the Chinese administration as cultural and political brokers.
All of this had the effect that it became impossible for most Tibetans to trust each other. Everyone had to keep silent and pretend to be pro-Chinese by hiding their real views.
When I might seem to spend a long time explaining the history of Chinese rule in Tibet, it is because the fear and distrust among Tibetans in Tibet is still there today, despite the economic liberalisation in the 1980s, and because it greatly affects the survival of Tibetan culture.
The policy of unity of nationalities remains the first priority in China's policies towards Tibet. Recently, a campaign against Tibetan Buddhism was launched. Since the early 1980s, Tibetans have been rebuilding and re-populating their monasteries at a speed which China apparently perceives as a threat to its rule, because now all further reconstruction has been banned and an absolute limit has been placed on the number of monks and nuns. This is a severe attack on Tibetan identity and culture, because the re- introduction of Buddhist institutions in Tibet has precisely been an opportunity for young Tibetans to confirm their national and cultural identity and learn about Tibetan history.
In the 1960s and 1970s, schools often did not teach Tibetan to the children. Now Tibetan is widely used and taught in primary schools in Central Tibet but along the Tibetan border to China, in Amdo and Kham, the medium of instruction is often Chinese, and Tibetan might not be taught at all. The consequence of this is that the Tibetan language is dying out in these areas. After school, Tibetan students can often only get jobs if they speak Chinese. This is also true of Central Tibet, where large-scale immigration of better educated Chinese offer unfair competition to local Tibetans.
Despite fine-sounding promises, the Chinese government gives a very low priority to education. According to official Chinese figures, the illiteracy rate among Tibetans is as high as 70%. Among women it is 83%, and from 1982 to 1990 it rose by 20 percent. Tibetans are reluctant to send their children to school because they dislike Chinese indoctrination and because many are too poor to be able to forego the work that their children can do. Instead, Chinese student come to Tibet to occupy places in schools. In 1993, 55% of the students enrolled in Tibet University were Chinese. Every year, more than one thousand Tibetan middle school students are sent to schools in China, where they acquire Chinese habits and culture. Some reject Tibetan culture altogether when they return to Tibet and try to dress, speak and behave like Chinese. This last category is still only a small minority but they are important because they show the direction of development that Chinese policies in Tibet are encouraging.
The declaration of Lhasa as a special economic zone in 1992 brought a new wave of Chinese settlers into Tibet and a new wave of modern technology and communication. With its new, state-capitalist economy, Chinese rule in Tibet is actually itself responsible for the marginalisation of Tibetans. Investments in infrastructure and production benefits the Chinese immigrants first of all. It is the Chinese settlers who are at the forefront of the economic development and who trade in the new, modern goods. Chinese culture is portrayed as a civilising force in the state-controlled mass media, and when Tibetan culture is mentioned, it is praised for its fine old traditions. In other words, everything Tibetan is portrayed as something belonging to the past, while Chinese civilisation is said to be benevolent and modernising, helping Tibet to find the right course towards development. The Chinese media often also speak of the low cultural quality of Tibetans and of Tibet's "backwardness" as a country.
Chinese colonial attitudes in Tibet, and the lack of possibilities for Tibetans to organise themselves independently, leave many Tibetans with a deeply ingrained feeling of inferiority. Even Tibetans who say they are proud to be Tibetan tend to view the Chinese as a more able people. This is how many explain the Chinese domination in economy and technology.
To some extent, Tibetans have been reduced to passive onlookers to the destruction of their culture and national identity. This situation is guaranteed by a violent clampdown on voices that go against Chinese policies and by a pervasive surveillance and control that creates Tibetan fear and distrust towards other Tibetans. But many people continue to protest openly despite the threat of immediate imprisonment and interrogation under torture. They try to encourage other Tibetans to act according to what they believe. And they appeal to the international community for political support.
However, the UN and the world community bear part of the responsibility for the continued destruction of Tibetan culture. First of all, political support to Tibetans, other than well-meant expressions of sympathy, has been virtually non-existent. The perceived dependency of the international community on China for international decision-making procedures has left Tibet isolated as some sort of forgotten, romanticised Shangri-la, famed for its rich civilisation but politically insignificant. Secondly, the large-scale development projects that western countries are supporting in Tibet have been designed in cooperation with the Chinese government and therefore suffer from the same shortcomings as general Chinese development strategies. Tibetans are not being heard and are not involved in the planning of the projects. This further supports top-down decision-making are thereby strengthens Chinese influence and domination.
The lesson to be learnt from the Tibetan case must be that the theme of social integration and poverty alleviation should not have priority over human rights and the respect for people's right to self-determination. The latter provide the necessary foundation for just and democratic procedures of deciding the direction for social development.