A-Infos (en) Anarkismo.net, What Does "Free Tibet" Mean for You? by Laure Akai

The struggle to be free is one that is commendable and deserves our sympathy. At 
this time when the state is committing brutal violence against a people, 
solidarity and action is needed and in fact, around the world well-wishers have 
expressed their outrage at the situation in Tibet. Protest movements have been 
calling for "an end to cultural imperalism", "freedom", even for "crushing the 
oppressor" and are united in such slogans and demands. Yet what if Tibet were to 
gain independence from China? ----- The question of national liberation is a 
complicated one. Discrimination, destruction of culture and community are forms 
of repression which are often seen in the contest of nation against nation 
instead of in the context of the ruling classes against the subjugated. Thus 
national liberation movements of all kinds tend to create the illusion of a mass 
common interest against an oppressor which is always external.

"Self-determination" is too often a slogan which really means establishing the 
right of the elites of a given nation to exert power and influence, both 
economic and political, over those who would be subjects of a new nation state.
What Does "Free Tibet" Mean for You?

The struggle to be free is one that is commendable and deserves our sympathy. At 
this time when the state is committing brutal violence against a people, 
solidarity and action is needed and in fact, around the world well-wishers have 
expressed their outrage at the situation in Tibet. Protest movements have been 
calling for "an end to cultural imperalism", "freedom", even for "crushing the 
oppressor" and are united in such slogans and demands. Yet what if Tibet were to 
gain independence from China?

*****

The question of national liberation is a complicated one. Discrimination, 
destruction of culture and community are forms of repression which are often 
seen in the contest of nation against nation instead of in the context of the 
ruling classes against the subjugated. Thus national liberation movements of all 
kinds tend to create the illusion of a mass common interest against an oppressor 
which is always external. "Self-determination" is too often a slogan which 
really means establishing the right of the elites of a given nation to exert 
power and influence, both economic and political, over those who would be 
subjects of a new nation state.

*****

It is no coincidence that the "struggle to be free" is supported selectively. 
Individuals or larger groups of society may give precedence to one struggle over 
another for various reasons and in Europe and North America one can observe the 
existence of "causes célèbres" which are given both support by famous and 
powerful persons and disproportionate media attention (when compared to other 
analagous struggles). Causes célèbres are able to attract and mobilize people, 
gather ardent supporters for the cause. But not all social struggles or even 
human tragedy can qualify as a cause célèbre.

Causes célèbres are easily mobilized around those national liberation movements 
which are also (not coincidentally) related to establishing independence from 
the superstates created by so-called "communist nations". The brutal 
totalitarian nature of such states are joyously exposed with indignation by 
countries many of which even have equal atrocities on their account. Members of 
the American political establishment are quick to condemn human rights 
conditions in China and some even call for a boycott of the Olympics similar to 
that held in 1980, while Americans continue to kill civilians in wars for oil, 
support right-wing murderous paramilitaries, execute prisoners and financially 
support slave-like working conditions in factories around the world producing 
goods for American consumers. Few "concerned citizens of the world" were whipped 
into such a frenzy to demand a boycott of the Olympic Games in the US.

This is not to say that a reaction to the situation in Tibet is undue. Quite the 
contrary. However, I would like to pose a few questions for consideration.

The Tibetan situation is treated by many with, quite justifiably, a sense of 
urgency. In my city, at least three pickets have been held in the past week with 
large crowds in attendance and throughout the country, people mobilized 
instantly. We are being passionately implored to boycott the firm that is 
producing Olympic uniforms, to go to the Chinese embassy, to boycott Chinese 
goods and anybody who has been less than enthusiastic about this may be told 
they are supporting genoicide. By comparison, many recent events have gone 
largely ignored in these parts, for example recent Turkish military actions 
against Kurds or, even more tragically, the ongoing and outrageous situation in 
Congo. How is it that over 5 million people have been killed in Congo over the 
last ten years and the great local activist masses have stayed passive, if not 
totally ignorant of the situation?

The answer is complex, and, unfortunately not very convenient. Tibetans can be 
easily portrayed as the ultimate victims. As some internet commentor argued, 
Tibetans are more deserving of our support (than Kurds) because they haven't 
been violent. I was asked "how many people have they killed" (in comparison to 
Kurds).

I don't think any historians are in a position to give an answer to this 
question. During the CIA-sponsored Tibetan resistance, surely tens of thousands 
of Chinese were killed, but supporters of the Tibet cause would argue that this 
was merely self-defense. Currently, some Tibetans have also taken part in random 
ethnic violence (in fact pogroms) which also tends to be justified by supporters 
of the cause as an appropriate reaction to Chinese settlement in Tibet. These 
types of episodes, if known at all, are easily juxtaposed by the dominant images 
of Buddhist monks, led by the Dalai Lama, as men of peace, a noble opposition to 
the violent and barbaric Chinese.

The creation of such images of peaceful, happy Tibetans is probably the result 
of a long-term PR campaign boosted by naive believers and well-wishers as well 
as government-sponsored propaganda. Few people care to know about the realities 
of the feudal system which existed in Tibet up until the second half of the 
twentieth century, nor do they wish to view "his holiness" the Dalai Lama as a 
human deity who lived in a huge palace, upkept and served by serf labour, a 
person whose prime interest was to maintain social servility and Tibetan elites. 
The social composition of Tibetan society played no role when the CIA supported 
the Tibetan resistance; its support was absent when it needed China as an ally 
and came when its political priority became "fighting the spread of communism".

The campaign to free Tibet which sprung up in the 1980s was largely kickstarted 
through help from the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy. With such 
backing it had a good start to build grassroots movements and student groups 
which would later give it complete activist legitimacy. The Tibetans were a 
perfect subject that could be presented as the ideal victims: peace-loving, 
religious, wise, living in Shangri-La and viciously oppressed by the world's 
worst human rights abusers. Celebrity Buddhists and New-Agers helped segue this 
issue into the mainstream. Thus gaining its legitimacy through the mainstream 
media and having become a cause célèbre, thousands of people interested in peace 
and social justice around the world have taken up the cause. Some may envision 
the development of some sort of bourgeois civil society after Tibetan is free, 
while others maintain some idolized vision of spiritual Tibet and appear at 
pickets donning orange robes and carrying portraits of the Dalai Lama. And while 
this cause is picked up by the thousands, hundreds of equally urgent struggles 
remain unknown or are dismissed as the actors in these struggles fail to present 
themselves as the perfect victims. They may have been defined and portrayed to 
the world through the lens of the capitalist-dominated press or otherwise did 
not inspire enough empathy to mobilize support.

*****

The struggle for a "Free Tibet" may begin with a struggle against the Chinese 
police state - but it certainly does not end there. Self-determination is 
usually a code word for national determination, but real self-determination 
begins with self-management.

Can the movement in Tibet be transformed from a national liberation struggle 
into a social revolution? We have no evidence of such revolutionary tendencies 
although the information we receive tends to be filtered through the ideological 
lens of the liberal establishment. Recent experience has tended to show that 
people can throw off the yoke of a totalitarian communist state but, without 
experience in grassroots self-organization, and operating largely in a vacuum, 
such countries can develop into more-or-less democratic market economies run by 
economic elites, or they can develop into autocracies or rather undemocratic 
regimes such as one finds in parts of Central Asia.

The struggle for freedom in Tibet is thus not just a struggle against the 
Chinese state, but also a struggle against all the powers which would enslave 
the average Tibetan upon gaining nominal independence. The feudal order 
represented by the monks, the Dalai Lama and the children of the merchant class 
in exile cannot be allowed to take root again in that country.

One may be quick to point out that feudalism is not likely to be restored in 
Tibet but this does not mean that similar conditions cannot arise under 
different socio-economic regimes. Many workers find themselves in indentured 
servitude even in Western Europe, the US or the Gulf States where such an 
economic system does not technically exist. In factories throughout Asia, 
workers are treated as chattels, although their countries have achieved national 
independence. The chains of one ruling class were simply exchanged for those of 
another, the form of slavery merely modified.

"Free Tibet" cannot be reduced to religious freedom, freedom to associate in 
non-threatening civic organizations or other freedoms which are normally the 
rewards of democratic independence movements. Of course one cannot justify 
repression of such freedoms; even a critic of clericalism can condemn repression 
on the grounds of religious conviction and understand the impulse to fight 
against this. Yet all of these freedoms do not amount to a society where there 
is true popular control, where workers and communities cooperate to create 
social equity and where the financial and political elites are divested of their 
power, their means of exploiting and controlling people. This vision of "Free 
Tibet" is inspiring but, unfortunately one that is still lacking in the popular 
imagination.


Laure Akai

Article written for Anarkismo.net
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