> To support the Chinese overthrow of the Dalai Lama's feudal theocracy is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in Tibet. This point is seldom understood by today's Shangri-La adherents in the West.
> The converse is also true. To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. One common complaint among Buddhist proselytes in the West is that Tibet's religious culture is being destroyed by the Chinese authorities. This does seem to be the case. But what I am questioning here is the supposedly admirable and pristinely spiritual nature of that pre-invasion culture. In short, we can advocate religious freedom and independence for Tibet without having to embrace the mythology of a Paradise Lost.
> ..allows that "contrary to popular belief in the West," the Chinese "pursued a policy of moderation." They took care "to show respect for Tibetan culture and religion" and "allowed the old feudal and monastic systems to continue unchanged.
Are the facts presented fake? If yes would help if you put a bit of effort to link to something. For me looks very human, same as in other places - so I would like to see details if in fact in this place and history period there was more a fantasy land with pace and harmony.
This seems to be true, but I have always wondered why? Is it just psychology? Or is there some rational basis? If your rulers are locals, are you more likely to have some basic control over them?
Well, in European history the answer is because wars and conquest were profit-seeking ventures, and those who managed to amass foreign lands intended to squeeze them for as much profit as possible.
It's easy to oppress people you never see, who are just numbers in a ledger. People you see every day and must rule face to face is another matter.
People don't generally like their culture being destroyed by an invading one, even if they enjoy some improvements while being converted into an ethnic minority in their own country? Could be that.
” The rich and powerful of course treated their good fortune as a reward for -- and tangible evidence of -- virtue in past and present lives. ”
This is very similar to how “the Family” (of the congressional prayer breakfast) reasons. Except in their it’s because they are “the chosen”, not that they had past lives.
Close, but not quite, IMHO. The people in the "Family" wants the rest of believe in the Just World Hypothesis, so we toil. They themselves are not bound by such considerations. Whatever they do, they are chosen, by God. That is why they have power. They are the representatives of God on Earth. It's not that they can do no wrong - they can. But if they do, they are still the chosen.
I'd definitely welcome some thoughtful, unbiased commentary on Tibet. I'd like to be certain that this is it (and not, e.g., the work of a hack for hire). I have to say that googling Michael Parenti does not fill me with encouragement, but I'll be happy to be corrected.
I met some Tibetan exiles working in the market in Dalhousie in India, 20+ years ago. They had fled Tibet to seek freedom and opportunity. If the border guards had seen them, they would have been shot.[1] So, I am not a huge fan of Chinese control of Tibet.
Thing is, "Psychologist and writer Colin Goldner[78] alleges that although human rights abuses carried out by the People's Liberation Army, especially during the Cultural Revolution, cannot be justified, the pronouncements of Tibetan exiles cannot be trusted, because "These are, if not totally invented out of thin air, as a rule hopelessly exaggerated and/or refer to no longer actual happenings." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Tibet#Verifiab...).
We could know more with the cooperation of China in the TAR, but they won’t let foreign observers in. Later in the same Wikipedia article:
> American sinologist Allen Carlson is of the opinion that it is nearly impossible, without substantial field research in Tibet, to verify the numerous allegations of violations advanced by China critics. He does, however, state, "my analysis of Beijing’s policies and practices has left me with the impression that the Chinese leadership has no reservations about using whatever means necessary to secure Chinese rule over Tibet."
> According to Amnesty International "The Chinese authorities have turned down as “inconvenient” requests for visits to the TAR by several UN human rights experts."
> I’m open to your sources, since you’re so convinced of your side being the one deserving of trust.
This is cheap. To say "we shouldn't blindly trust this side" doesn't mean "we should blindly trust that side" at all. It just means we shouldn't blindly trust this side. It may well be that we shouldn't trust either side, because both have reasons to lie.
Both sides could also be right. I do not have a stance, I am just saying what the Tibetan stance is. Why shouldn’t we believe that narrative? There could be good reasons either way, but I haven’t really seen any good sources in this thread. Perhaps you have some to share? I admit this is not my area of study.
When both sides claim opposing things, that's pretty unlikely. My point is that to jump from "don't just blindly trust A" to claiming the person meant to say "blindly trust B" is a cheap shot. It's "so you're saying [insert something they absolutely didn't say]" and it's a meme mocking the person that does it for a reason.
Please do not use HN for nationalistic flamewar. This comment is a noticeable step into the flamewar style, which is exactly the wrong direction take here, regardless of how right you are or feel on an important topic.
Stepping into snark is also a very bad sign. If you find yourself typing things like "since you're so convinced" into comment boxes, please step away from HN until it subsides.
I would ask you to read my partner’s comments again. They are self-replying and mixing up comment replies between different comment chains. Their comments are not germane to the discussion. It feels like the entire thread is being trolled. I don’t feel bad for trying to debate in good faith.
Already linked the source few comments above; if you read it there are quite a few more links.
The problem with victim's accounts is twofold. First, there are many accounts, and what gets quoted are folks telling the stories of terror, not the ones who fled for eg religious reasons.
Second, when it comes to China, there's a metric ton of fake news everywhere you look. You look into a story about communist government destroying a church, and later it turns out the church was actually a church-owned commercial building raised without a permit. You read about concentration camps, and only after going through few hundreds pages you realize they are more like western juvenile detention centers. And so on, and so on.
Thus, we shouldn't blindly trust either of sides; there's way too much politically-motivated misreporting involved.
I’m not blindly trusting; I don’t trust you at all because you are not arguing in good faith. You still never provided sources. One or two Wikipedia articles exist about every wrongheaded belief; why should I believe them if you don’t have anything more convincing, even if it’s just more convincing to you?
Regarding the sources you did provide, the articles you cited themselves are ambiguous about the factual, provable nature of your claims. More sources are required to make any kind of argument. Please pick a couple more sources, even ones from the Wikipedia article, or I’ll continue seeing your comments as not in good faith. If you can’t point at sources, I can’t just take your word for it. Neither one of us likely was present for these events, and anecdotes don’t get us anywhere we haven’t already been in this discussion.
I have provided sources, you hadn't. I do give a benefit of the doubt to both parties, you don't. I don't blindly trust any of the sides, while you do. That's pretty evident when you read through the comments above.
You are the one making affirmative claims. I am asking for evidence of your claims. You provided one Wikipedia page. I looked at it closely, and found it inconclusive. It did not reach a definitive conclusion as to your claims. I humbly ask that you link to sources either in the Wikipedia article, or another article, or ideally first and second party sources specifically which you find convincing. Simply saying an argument was made poorly or was made well by someone else somewhere else does nothing for our discussion here on HN.
I’m not advocating for either side. I’m presenting the Tibetan side as one groups’ position. I’m not a member of that group, nor do I argue on their behalf.
You are the interlocutor making claims that need proof; namely you take a stance and then demand others justify their own stance if it differs from your own.
I’ve asked repeatedly for you to link just one primary source for your claims. We’re all still waiting?
In any case - cool, if you are not advocating one side’s position as absolute and unquestionable truth, then the sources I’ve provided give the plural you pretty good idea how it looks like from the other side, as well as views in between. All is well then.
You never provided any sources. Wikipedia is a reference encyclopedia; it is not a primary source of any kind. Each article on Wikipedia cites its sources at the bottom of the article. Why don't you select a proper primary source, possibly even one cited from Wikipedia, and argue for it. Otherwise, you're only convincing yourself. You are arguing with positions I never made, using sources you never cited. I'm okay leaving things here if you are.
Because you wouldn't read them anyway. If you were interested in sources, they were one click away. The fact that you didn't even try proves your intentions.
Compared to the mass enslavement of Africans and genocide of indigenous people in the west, this sounds pretty tame. Modern Tibet is certainly flourishing.
Perhaps the people who fled were the ones guilty of crimes mentioned in the article?
> Perhaps the people who fled were the ones guilty of crimes mentioned in the article?
Yup. Lets trust the red terror system of justice
(do note: I have a quote from Russia, so, there is an important caveat there. Still...)
Martin Latsis, chief of the Ukrainian Cheka, stated in the newspaper Red Terror:
We are not fighting against single individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror.
The "red terror" certainly used to be the case few decades ago, but todays it's the USA that has the worlds largest percentage of population locked away in prisons and doing forced labor, not China.
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's as tedious and repetitive as it is grandiose. Internet comments can't support meaningful discussion about such topics.
This certainly isn't unbiased commentary (obvious tells are the way easily-established facts such as the Tibetan government in exile having a democratic constitution are qualified with the 'reportedly' weasel word, whereas the author's assumptions about lamas motivations are to be understood as unvarnished fact, the frequent use of the 'reactionary' label and the way more emphasis is given to the Dalai Lama granting an audience to a Republican senator than the Cultural Revolution!). But I don't think the author is wrong to say 1950s Tibet was an impoverished and unequal feudal society.
I also met quite a few Tibetan exiles in India. Those who had fled by spending their life savings to be guided across the Himalayan border had tales to tell of running out of food on the journey and eating snow, but no specific details of persecutions in China: they came because the Lama was in India. (I also met a Tibetan who arrived via a visa for overseas study who fully intended to return). But the risk of being shot was still a real one.
I’m always baffled by Buddhism getting such a free pass from otherwise perfectly sensible westerners.
Many Buddhist societies are amongst the worst slave states know to history (the Tibet from this article, but also Burma and oh-so-beloved Thailand).
And this is not despite Buddhism but because of it. In all societies where it is dominant misfortunes such as being born poor (or worse) are seen as being justified somehow, leading to astonishingly callous mistreatment of the poor and unlucky - think the wholesale enslavement and transport of complete populations such as in Thailand not too long ago and in present day Burma.
Zen Buddhism, too, is a spectacularly nasty piece of work. It originally existed in two variants: one for the peasants, which taught them to accept their miserable lot, and one for the warrior class which taught it that life is fleeting and death inevitable (it is this variant of Buddhism that was used to indoctrinate Kamikaze pilots in WW2)
So why we in the west should think that this is an especially enlightened religion is beyond me. If you must do religion, why not Christianity or Islam? At least these two make a point of encouraging charity and kindness towards others.
The thing with feudal Tibet was that the monks didn't actually interfere with the average Tibetan's life too much. Unlike authoritarian China, dissenters in Tibet were by and large tolerated. For example, the newspaper Tibet Mirror was widely circulated in Tibet before the Chinese invasion, particularly among the ruling clerical strata, despite propagating Christian ideas and calling for political reform. That stopped very quickly after 1950.
Another thing largely tolerated in pre-Chinese Tibet was slavery. Which also stopped very quickly after 1950.
There are priorities. Chinese broke something of a lesser priority (free press), while providing something of a much higher priority (abolition of slavery).
It’s funny that in America we got those values inverted - freedom of the press first, and equality for other races and cultures much later. Both China and America are still dealing with their legacies of human rights violations, which continue in both countries today.
I don't think comparing 1950 feudal Tibet to modern day Tibet under Chinese rule is entirely fair. The assumption being that an independent Tibet wouldn't have changed at all in the last 70 years.
My guess is that an independent Tibet would have developed at about the same pace as neighboring Bhutan, which abolished slavery in 1958 and turned into a constitutional monarchy in 2005.
There are still human rights issues in Bhutan, but it's a far cry from where they were 70 years ago.
I guess such comparisons are hard to make and bound to be subjective.
According to [1] Bhutan's HDI was 6.17 in 2018, while according to [2] the regional HDI of Tibet was 5.85.
So at the very least they're not particularly far apart from each other.
You mean beside not getting raped by the feudal lords anymore, the end of punishments like gouging out eyes and severing hamstrings, the doubling of life expectancy, access to healthcare and education?
I'm all for criticising lack of democratic progress in China, but Tibet really is a bad argument for that.
It’s especially glaring in the Tibet case where the 20% monks living in temples exploit the rest of the country and redirect the wealth towards them. I’ve read numbers in an academic book, that was astonishing. The system is also a theocracy. While not as bad as other living examples, this is clearly not as "enlightened" form of government than the pop-culture would like us to think.
I disagree on your point about Islam though. Islam encourages charity within it’s own community only. For non believers it encourages the holy war (jihad), which causes many problems. In this case, it’s indeed better for a country to have bouddhism than islam as state religion, from the point of view of neighbors if not muslim themselves.
This is actually not true and another common misconception. Islam does not encourage Jihad as a form or spreading the religon, that word is consistently mistranslated.
Islam specifically encourages giving charity to the most needy, AND starts with your own community and family and works outwards to the larger good and society. The same Christian beliefs of taking care of your neighbors. Islam also encourages in enjoining in good wherever you find it.
Muslims in America donate to local food banks and soup kitchens.
You clearly are just repeating what the current false narrative is and have little understandinf of the religon.
If you made the point that people dont practice the way the religon is taught I might agree, but this is just false.
I spent 5 years living as a minority white person in a majority Middle Eastern area (in a western country). My take on it is as follows:
Muslims in the west are literally like white Christians. Some are culturally Muslim but don't practise the faith. Others are strongly Muslim. Some are amazing people and some are bigoted. Among the religious ones you have the ones who use religion to do good and those who use it as an excuse to be bigots. It's the exact same I see in white people.
I would take my son, aged 3-4, into a really dodgy barber (this whole area is low socioeconomic). Drug dealers and unsavoury characters. My little blond-haired, blue-eyed son and me in a sea of black hair. And we would be treated exactly as what we were, a father taking his son for a haircut. They would give him a lollipop and call my daughter over to make sure she got one too.
'Seventeen derivatives of jihād occur altogether forty-one times in eleven Meccan texts and thirty Medinan ones, with the following five meanings: striving because of religious belief (21), war (12), non-Muslim parents exerting pressure, that is, jihād, to make their children abandon Islam (2), solemn oaths (5), and physical strength (1).'[1]
So 29% of the evocations of jihad are about war.
Besides, there have been 20+ conflicts thought in the name of 'jihad' since 1980's [2].
I understand that you may have your own definition of what jihad is, but I guess not all muslims will think like you.
Besides, social care by islamic organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood [3] is used as a strategy to gain political power. Not only muslims do it, but when a political / religious group begins to substitute to the state, there is a strong susceptibility that the end goal is political rather than only altruistic.
For what I understand of Islam, there’s no final authority like the Catholic Pope. In Islam, authority is a matter of who has the most resources to make more followers.
Unfortunately the USA decided to bankroll the most reactionary sect, giving out the capacity to dominate the scene.
Imagine if Marcel Lefebvre had petro-dollars to back him...
Well, all variants of Christianity encourage proselytism which has historically resulted in many lit stakes all over the world. Until recently - if not to this day - pious donations to Missionaries in Africa lifted many from poverty on condition of conversion to Catholicism. You could even pick the new name of the poor little orphan, like a pet... (this detail struck my parents so badly, they decided to find other ways to help.)
> If you must do religion, why not Christianity or Islam? At least these two make a point of encouraging charity and kindness towards others.
You are comparing the historical reality of one religion to the ideals of other religions. In such a comparison the ideals will always look better. If you compare the ideals of Buddhism with the historical reality of Christianity and Islam (war, slavery, genocide etc.) I'm sure Buddhism will look better.
You will typically see people compare the ideals of their own religion with the realities of other religions and come to the conclusion that their own religion is best. The imperfect reality is explained by flawed people misunderstanding or misusing the religion, while the real-world problems of other religions is attributed to faults in the religion itself.
Or you can go one step further and conclude that all religions (and indeed anything that is based on non-scientific dogmatic infallibility like communism or Austrian economics) are all a bit wanting.
>and indeed anything that is based on non-scientific dogmatic infallibility
There's no such thing as a scientific ethical system. Science tells us how and why the universe behaves as it does, it cannot make a judgement about what the world should be. This has been known since antiquity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument.
So what is the realistic alternative - all I'm stating is that I get deeply suspicious when a political system is based on beliefs that you are not even allowed to question.
There's no alternative: all belief systems must have some axioms that people agree on "just because", as if the axioms required justification, then the system used for justifying them would also need to be justified, ad infinitum. It's a bit like Gödel's second incompleteness theorem: a moral system cannot prove itself to be moral.
What we can do is try to understand and compare the axiomatic systems upon which belief systems rest. Marxists believe in the labour theory of value (very roughly, "value" comes from time spent working). Austrians believe "value" is a form of ordinal utility with which intrapersonal utility comparisons cannot be made. Mainstream economics believes "value" is a form of cardinal utility with which intrapersonal comparisons can be made.
Within the context of one of those systems, if somebody argues for something that doesn't maximise what the system values, we could say it's unscientific. If somebody makes an inconsistent statement, we could argue it's illogical. But if somebody makes a statement that is consistent with maximising value as defined by that system, we cannot argue it's unscientific just because it doesn't maximise value as defined by our own system, because science cannot say whether our own system is morally superior.
I think you're a bit confused. The "not allowed to question this ideology" problem is independent of whether the ideology has a supernatural component or not. You weren't allowed to question Mao when he ruled China or Pol Pot when he ruled Cambodia; in many circles you aren't really allowed to question transgenderism or other ideas as well.
On the other hand, there are long histories of philosophical and theological inquiry in the Christian tradition; from what I understand the same is true of Islam. There are certainly times and places in both camps where small deviations were perceived as heresy, and perceived "heretics" were persecuted or killed; but as a Christian, I am as opposed to that as much as any atheist can be opposed to the persecutions of Mao.
Unless you are trolling, I think you are mixing up different senses of "not allowed to criticize". In totalitarian states it is literally not allowed to criticize the state ideology. That is not the case for "questioning transgenderism" anywhere I know, unless you are taking about things like literally calling for the murder of transgender persons, which indeed would be illegal in many jurisdictions.
Of course everybody have the same right to question your ideas, as you have to question their ideas. Some people seem to think that their freedom of speech is curtailed because other people are allowed to criticize them back or even ignore them.
> If you must do religion, why not Christianity or Islam? At least these two make a point of encouraging charity and kindness towards others.
If we're only talking about what religions superficially encourage, Tibetan Buddhism also encourages charity and compassion towards all beings, endlessly extolling the Bodhisattva ideal. The religion in theory is different from the religious state with living, breathing humans in charge.
The religion in theory is different from the religious state with living, breathing humans in charge.
Indeed. I practiced Buddhist meditation for some years and was very interested in Buddhism. However, what I always found difficult was the relation between teachers and students. On the one hand, someone who has many years of meditation experience is better at detecting typical pitfalls during practice and can help people move forward. On the other hand, this sometimes results in a strong division between laypeople and monks/teachers (typically ex-monks). A subset of teachers use their perceived religious authority this to go on power trips, or worse, physically abuse people.
Once religion becomes organized it becomes a very powerful tool to subject people.
Spending a lot of time with Tibetan Buddhism it led me to conclude our Western view on human rights is very very special and not natural at all. We should really cherish it.
It is probably, and often, tied to the evolution of Christianity and Western humanism that led to a special view on the rights of the individual. Which for instance led to the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. Which to us is baffling someone even ever though slavery was ok. Yet it was the standard for millennia.
When you read a summary of the Buddhist doctrine this Western view of individuality seems to fit perfect. Yet the cultures housing buddhism didn't yet seem to have evolved to support this view of the individual.
This might have something to do with the fact Buddhism started in a more complex society in India and then moved to more tribal places like Tibet. Yes India had a feudal type of cast system, but also had a very high level of philosophy.
This is an argument that's also sometimes made by scholars to explain certain differences between the word of Jesus and the more tribal verses of Mohammed.
Coming back to Tibet, even though it was far from perfect, there a still gems to be found in Tibetan Buddhism.
And to give them some credit there have definitely been attempts to reform in Tibet. Not every monastery was about politics, some teachers created their monasteries far away in hard to reach places to avoid the politics. For centuries the Tibetan writers already speak of dark times, so at least a few were aware.
I would disagree with the point of "evolution of views on individuality" effect on slavery. After fall of Roman Empire slavery was in a serious decline in western kingdoms and after some time in Bysantium and Eastern Europe too. Slavery became a bit more legal in XV century [0], and the peak of slavery (involving Christians) came on XVII century[1], somehow co-existing with those ideas of human rights, freedom, secular state and so on. Again slavery could have been abolished due to economic reasons in XIX century.
For example humanism didn't stop Scramble for Africa [2], nor Opium Wars and subsequent colonization of China.
Humans are always going to be humans. Governments will appropriate religious beliefs and buy out corrupt religious leaders as is convenient and beneficial for them. That's not unique to Buddhist countries.
As for the teachings: you have to look at them for what they are. I personally find much more value in Buddhism than in any other religion or philosophy (barring perhaps stoicism, which has many similarities).
I fail to see this charity and kindness in practice, especially in case of modern Islam. The country which contains the most holy places of Islam has a reputation for treating its foreign workers like trash, and has some of the highest income inequality in the world. Their funding of hate preachers abroad isn't a very nice behaviour either.
It's not just the teachings that matter, but the actual reality and practice. Unfortunately many of those with most power in Islamic world prefer hate over kindness. Historically, same has often been the case with Christianity as well.
It's also a country intertwined in ruling level with a sect that is considered the most radically fundamentalist and considered "bad idea" even across many other Islamic factions.
If you weren't aware of one of the basic tenets of Islam, then you might want to consider, say, reading the Wikipedia page on Islam before adding noise to discussions like these.
Certainly you have a point, I could be more informed on the theory. But I don't think that's all what matters. What reads in the Quran and how it's interpreted, and put into practice in different societies, countries and sects are two different things. For example, the Gulf-states would easily have the money to build the most well-being and equal welfare states in the world, if they so wished. Yet they haven't done it, which leads me to believe that no religion will overcome natural selfishness of people.
All religions teach their followers to show compassion towards the less fortunate of their society - and societies of all religions regularly fail to do this. Ideologies shouldn't be judged solely based on teachings, but also what actually happens. If there was an exceptionally good religion, it should deliver exceptionally good results. Religion and income inequality seem to have little correlation, which leads to a conclusion that they're all equally useful or useless in this practical aspect, no matter what other differences they may have.
Zakat is put into practice. In the UK for example, Muslims make disproportionately large charitable donations compared to other religious groups or non-religious people.
People hate it but that's the case with the regressive left. Islamism gets a huge pass from the left (see the whole welcome immigrants with open hands)
Only when they find a job and integrate. At least most European countries haven't been very successful at making this happen with migrants/refugees who have little education and money when they arrive. It appears the US is better at this.
Success rate varies, but when it's low, it's usually because of the legal hurdles imposed by those countries, eg having to wait an obscene amount of time to get a work permit.
As a Zen Buddhist (and completely secular naturalist at the same time) who has practiced with the tradition and teachers for two decades I somewhat agree.
To me Buddhism is two completely different things and I only belong to one of them.
(1) Religion for 400 million people that is just like any other religion. Religion as social hierarchy and cultural phenomenon.
(2) Spiritual practice. Something you do, not something you think or identify with. It's more like going to gym or eating healthy than reading scriptures. Social hierarchy is teacher/student level. You want to have teacher, but he should keep your own head. Just like you don't allow gym trainer to run your life outside the gym, teachers are just good at what they are good at. They have more practical experience.
Zen/Chan Buddhism has long written record with teachers writing autobiographies that record how it really was in those "good old times". In every era, it seems, constant lament from teachers is that Buddhism is in decline, monks are lazy and seek only fame and status.
As Buddhist practice is human activity, every human vice is known in Buddhist monasteries. Against this background strict discipline in remote training monasteries starts to make sense. It's harsh enough that bullshitters can't take it, but if you are there to train you thrive.
Small list of current bad things happening in Buddhism:
Myanmar and Sri Lanka have huge problems with supremacist movements where the leaders are Buddhist monks.
Tibetan Buddhist tradition has problems with sexual abuse of young boys (and nuns) probably at the similar level as Catholic church.
Thank you for this reply. I actually agree with you (except in not being Buddhist): we should differentiate between Buddhism the organized religion and Buddhism the spiritual practice.
Unfortunately, too many people are only familiar with the latter - and only with a variant of the latter that is much cleaned up and stripped of its folksy roots and made palatable for Western consumption - and then transfer the positive feelings they have about that to the former.
The distinction between religion - the organization and religion - the spiritual practice can be applied to most religions. What makes Buddhism special?
Societies organize and stabilize given their own environment, history and ethnic composition. I disagree with judging how people on the other side of the globe manage their lives and their beliefs, as long as they can do it on their own.
If a traditional Tibetan saw American society, he could tell that they "live in a slave state, having to bear the burden of debt and interest for the most part of their lives" - because it may be unnatural for them. They would be quite astonished to see the amount of atheists.
Promotion of humanism everywhere in the world is another piece of the occidental imperialism.
It's useless to claim you are against racism and else if you do not understand that people from around the globe are perfectly right not sharing your set of values.
Not sure why this is getting downvoted. It strikes me as the highest form of chauvinism to assume your own society has discovered the One True Ethics.
Still, I think some conception of Western Human Rights should be universalized (like slavery is always bad, for example) but a lot of thought should go into what values are important enough to always impose on others.
> If you must do religion, why not Christianity or Islam?
I'm amazed this aside isn't getting you downvoted. Have you been under a rock for the last 2000 years? The horrors of Abrahamic religion far outstrip anything Buddhism is responsible for.
Can you substantiate that claim? I never saw the death count per population of each religion and to know that one is higher than the other. Or the slave count per population.
> So why we in the west should think that this is an especially enlightened religion is beyond me. If you must do religion, why not Christianity or Islam? At least these two make a point of encouraging charity and kindness towards others.
The Prophet Muhammad owned, traded, and raped slaves according to the sayings and actions attributed to the Prophet and his companions (hadith), which is very highly regarded in the Islamic tradition (second only to the Qur'an). :\
I guess it is interesting to people who aren't aware that atrocities were present in all societies, no matter what the official religion was. But I wonder if this could be a pro-Chinese source.
As a modern society we would like to assume that human sacrifice doesn't happen but just try to blaspheme a nation state and see how quickly people get ready with the pitch forks. The semantics have merely shifted. Rene Girard talks a lot about this. Projecting collective dissatisfaction onto others is how a society renews itself.
I can't say anything about Islam. But I made a point of reading parts of the Bible. And I was schocked, to be frank. It is xenophobic (only israel is loved by god, all others are apparently some unworth form of accidental life), misogynistic (cheating women and those that were discovered to be no virgin are to be stoned by more or less the whole village), and many more things I dont even want to mention or even think about.
I am ashamed to be born a christian. What I have learnt in my excursions into religion is that I truely belief that all of them are fundamentally broken and have no right to exist in the 21st century.
Humanity would be way better off if it finally managed to get rid of its very brutal and hate-ridden legacy.
The jump from "they have a horrible history" to "they should all be abolished" is a but much, I think
The history of the state is also nasty. The history of engineering is also not that glorious, given that it was mostly for war. You can even go to the history of writing...
The question is: what each religion is doing, of harm and good, today. And what we expect they can do tomorrow. On those grounds, you might even be right. But the question is more complex.
(but I agree: the bible does not fit with our values today at all)
My point is that the bible (old and new testament) are still considered the basis of christianity.
Priests and religious teachers still pick and choose stories from the old testament. And its not just the old testament. Ever read the book of revelations? Still wondering why Israel has a pretty hardcore military?
Or, lets talk about the split-offs. Ever talked to a Seventh-day Adventist? Do you know what keeps them going? The book of revelations is what keeps them going. Because it promises them that all their enemies will be roasted by god at some point. Pretty fucked up as the fundamental driving force in a belief-system.
My opinion still stands: All the major religions on this planet have such a broken legacy that all we can do is to get rid of them completely.
When you get rid of something that advocates horrible things, and there's a market need for advocating horrible things, something else will fill the need anyway. Thus, it might be better to just phase out the bad parts leaving the good ones in place. Case in point: revolutions are usually not a success stories.
> And this is not despite Buddhism but because of it. In all societies where it is dominant misfortunes such as being born poor (or worse) are seen as being justified somehow, leading to astonishingly callous mistreatment of the poor and unlucky
This is very much historically true of places dominated by Christianity, and streams of Christianity still actively seek to advance this in the developed West, where it has faded somewhat largely due to secular economic developments associated with the weakening of Christianity, rather than due to Christianity itself.
Sure, there have been streams within Christianity working against it, but they've always been working against the broader society even where Christianity has unquestioned dominance.
Most of the Wealth the West has comes from industrialization, and industrialization required a lot of capital in order to happen.
It happened in England powered from the money of traffic of slaves in the Atlantic. Those slaves went to the South of the US and also created lots of capital producing cotton that was very expensive at the time. That capital went into machines which powered industrialization too in the North of the US.
After that the US expanded to the West exterminating the native population. The native did not agreed on new cultivation methods that made their buffaloes and bison population stagnate.
In Germany they tried to copy the Americans but exterminating people at the East instead of the West (the "Lebensraum").
Japan tried to do the same "expanding"(and exterminating) to surrounding Asian countries.
In theory those that exterminated the native populations in the US and had black slaves were Christians. Most of the German population supported Hitler and they were(in theory) Christians.
It is human behavior, humans are predators and they predate other animals or Humans from other tribes.
Religion does not remove our canine and incisors teeth. Our nature remains there and it could be dangerous.
A lot of things that came from Buddhism have found appeal among the west and especially in progressive/liberal circles. Especially among people who are not otherwise religious. The Dalai lama is even regarded as a hero. It becomes difficult to categorically reject something when you take inspiration from it at the same time.
As someone living in Myanmar (Burma) nobody justifies being poor with Buddhism.
> wholesale enslavement and transport of complete populations such as in Thailand not too long ago and in present day Burma.
Nobody is being enslaved because of Buddhism in present day Myanmar. That’s ridiculous. The violence here has very little to do with religion. None of the ethnic independence armies are theological (like ISIS for example). Nobody is picking up guns because they read some sutras.
The emperor that had a huge influence marrying Buddhism with government in Myanmar and Thailand and who at one time ruled the Indian subcontinent, Ashoka the Great, abolished the slave trade (3rd century BCE). Slavery was practiced throughout the subcontinent before Buddhism became intertwined with the state.
The same Ashoka continued to slaughter en masse people who seemed to disagree with him, even after his conversion to Buddhism and taking up ahimsa (nonviolence) as a governing principle [1]. Except after his conversion he restricted the genocide to non-Buddhists. Though this may have been an improvement from before his conversion to Buddhism when he executed or enslaved the entire population of Kalinga [2].
> Ashokavadana mentions two incidents of Ashoka turning towards violence after adopting Buddhism. In one instance, a non-Buddhist in Pundravardhana drew a picture showing the Buddha bowing at the feet of Nirgrantha Jnatiputra (identified with Mahavira, the founder of Jainism). On complaint from a Buddhist devotee, Ashoka issued an order to arrest him, and subsequently, another order to kill all the Ajivikas in Pundravardhana. Around 18,000 followers of the Ajivika sect were executed as a result of this order.
Yes, he was a warring bloodthirsty emperor that used the popular religion at the time to consolidate his power. Like most other empires on the planet two thousand years ago. I’m not sure what that is supposed to prove about Buddhism in particular.
It doesn't prove anything about Buddhism. I only meant Ashoka is constantly put up as an example of someone whose conduct improved after conversion to Buddhism, but that is a very selective reading.
I agree about the naive free pass buddhism gets from those critical of christianity.
Ultimately though, religions tend to develop similar memes regardless of differences in philosophy or theology. "Accept your misery, peasant" is a highly recurring meme. It's not hard to find grounds for it in the christian gospels.
Victorian anglicans printed prayer books for household maids enforcing exactly this message. These were very young girls sent (sometimes sold) from villages to the cities. Many tried to escape. Religion was used as a chain.
The liturgical themes in these prayers trace back to aurelian stoicism. That nasty work (meditations) was highly influential on christianity. Originally intended to help the upper crust accept their misery, it's been recycled for millenia to help the truly miserable to obey their masters and accept their masters' cruelty... literally and in those words.^ This is just one small example of christianity re-enforcing slavery, meekness & servitude.
Modern "secular religions" entirely grounded in liberty and equality develop these themes too. 20th century communism(s), objectivism, etc. They all have (had?) ways of justifying "astonishingly callous mistreatment of the poor and unlucky." It doesn't seem to matter what philosophy you build from, it ends up in the same place.
Western philosophies of racism, imperialism & monarchy had both religious and secular justifications. The abolitionists also had both religious and secular justifications.
"Fundamentalism" is generally accepted as bad, dangerous and morally corrupting by many westerners today. Very few take the next logical step: Fundamentals don't matter. It doesn't matter what Jesus said, what the philosophy says, etc. Those things don't determine how the religion is practiced or what the operative day-to-day beliefs are.
OTOH, I am surprised that a comment like this is first on the page.
Lets look at some of your points
> 'not despite Buddhism but because of it.'
This is your main thesis and to support this you say -
> At least these two make a point of encouraging charity and kindness towards others.
Directly, (not subtly), implying that Buddhism does not do this.
A basic search would give you something like the basic virtues of Buddhist teachings - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmavihara and how these virtues are popularized via stories where the protagonist gives up lives to save tiger cubs or say, the story of Angulimala.
Note that there is no condemnation of non-believers to eternal hell - a belief which has caused tremendous violence and looks at lot of cultures as essentially devil's work- a belief is still not repudiated today (it cant as it is a core doctrine).
Also, modern industrialized societies are still having a hard time accepting an elementary insight that animals can suffer intensely and creating montrosities where this is noted quite early in Buddhist and similar traditions.
> misfortunes such as being born poor (or worse) are seen as being justified somehow
Another point you bring up is karma and the word you use is 'justified'. When a thief or a killer attacks and causes suffering to a Buddhist, they might take it as the result of past bad karma, but that doesnt make the action 'justified'. Indeed, that action itself generates bad karma. A ruler inflicting suffering on people also gets bad karma.
The notion that people are fatalistic about misfortune is false can be seen at multiple levels -
Firstly, at the whole point of the tradition itself is to overcome karma, secondly, popular cultures are filled with practices aimed at changing karma.
A more subtle but important point is that 'justification' is bringing in a different framework - the notion of normative ethics which is inherited from Christianity - whereas the concept of karma is seen more like a natural property like a bodily sickness.
Interesting that you bring up that James Scott book because that paints exactly the unflattering picture of Buddhist states I’m talking about: rice growing states in the valleys waging war on their neighbors and capturing their populations wholesale to put them to work (a practice that is very much still current in Burma where the military occupies villages in the periphery and forces everyone to work, either in the fields or in factories that work for companies like Pepsi).
This kind of violence hasn’t been common in other parts of the world for centuries. It’s also a phenomenon that is distinct to states in South East Asia - and, in fact, to the Buddhist states in South East Asia ( it was not practiced in what is now Malaysia in Indonesia - which are now Muslim and before that practiced a religion that mostly resembles Hinduism).
Just the existence of mass movements like the above(which is not isolated) refutes the Buddhism -> karma -> fatalistic acceptance that was postulated in the first comment try to establish a link with tyrannical governments.
Just living in any of these countries, one will see the constant effort of people, even hustling, to get ahead in life, far from any fatalistic conceptions one might have about their life.
I can, in fact, think of other examples of worse brutality, even in the last few centuries, for instance the American slave system and treatment of labourers in Congo. Not quite the same extent, but still terrible, the British had an indentured labour system transporting Indians whose local lands were devastated by colonial rule. I wouldnt casually attribute these to religion of the westerners.
Buddhism is romanticized in the West for the same reason Christianity is becoming so popular in China: it's easy to romanticize other people's superstition.
In the West, people are very familiar with Christianity. It's mundane, and a good portion of the population views it as backwards. But most people have no idea about Buddhism and what role it has played in Asian societies.
In China, people are exposed to Buddhism all the time, and it's not exotic in any way. But many people in China view Christianity as some sort of trendy Western religion, and don't know how it's viewed in the West.
Other people's superstition isn't laden with the same baggage as one's own society's superstition.
The article mentions Heinrich Harrer, who was a Nazi. During the war, he was interned by the British in India and eventually landed in Tibet where he spent seven years. There are a book and a movie about his experience.
I'll go a step further and say anywhere where ordinary people have very little money is going to be a very sad place for ordinary people to live.
It is hard to be oppressed when you make $50,000/annum. It is hard not to be if you make $365/annum. Culture is a problem insofar as it makes it hard to add 0s on the end of your income, and a matter of taste otherwise.
To me some of the more backwards Arab states are the exception that proves the rule; it took wealth literally welling up out of the ground to have a dominant culture that is both wealthy and unable to let women drive cars. And even then the ban was eventually ground down.
> It is hard to be oppressed when you make $50,000/annum.
I'm not sure that's true. A decent amount of disposable income certainly means one is unlikely to consider indentured servitude a possible means of survival, but it doesn't pay for law enforcement to remove their knee from your neck. The last century saw relatively prosperous industrialised countries carry out genocides of certain subsets of their middle classes.
It's certainly true it's hard not to be oppressed on starvation incomes though.
Last year I was staying in a mountain hut in Nepal, near the Annapurna range and a 3 day hike to the nearest road. A helicopter flew up from the nearby city (a 10 minute flight!) and I was surprised to see it contained buddhist monks. They took a bunch of photos, had a cup of tea and then all piled back in the helicopter for the flight back to the city.
A helicopter ride like that probably costs $500 a head, in a country where the average annual income is $862.
I think it was so surprising because my naive western viewpoint was that monks live a simple life. I'd love to know more about the reality of organised religion in that region!
List of tibetans who have self immolated in protest of the occupation. Perhaps the Tibetan people are not as grateful for taking their liberties away as this article suggests.
It’s considered rude to mock their sacrifice of life by trivializing their act as lacking virtue or faith. To take another religious figure oppressed by the state as an example, what makes the monks’ protest actions any less religious than those of Jesus allowing himself to be killed by the state? How is he any less brainwashed in your view, and why is your view relevant in this case if not in my example?
If it’s holy in the sight of their god, who are we to judge. If they were willing, it could be argued that no harm was done, even to those who ceased to exist. They chose to cease living to cast their prior life up to that point in starker contrast to their surroundings and peers in time, place, and belief.
[This post does not advocate self-harm. Please seek help from those you trust if you have urges to do so. I care about you, person reading this right now. Please be well.]
I’m responding to your comments. It’s relevant to the discussion you started. If you don’t follow your own comments to their logical conclusion, wouldn’t you say you’re not arguing in good faith? It’s kind of how we do things on HN.
Tibetan monasteries as they operated historically are an artifact of history. Further historical and archaeological studies would be the only way to gather verifiable data, facts, figures, and artifacts from the period when the supposed slavery occurred.
This conversation seems like it is mired in historical revisionism on all sides. I’m not a Chinese Tibetan anthropologist or archaeologist, nor am I a Tibetan Buddhist scholar. I don’t know the facts of what happened, or how their society interpreted those events and the people who experienced them. For me to stand in judgement of such a nebulous concept would be irresponsible.
That you are convinced of the correctness of your beliefs is good; you should seek to share your sources so we too can be similarly convinced. Otherwise we’ll just have to take your word for it, which is no better a place than we’re in now.
For what it’s worth, slavery is much worse than being a serf. However, being a serf was likely so miserable that the distinction to our modern sensibilities may be one without a difference. I am opposed to forced servitude in all the world in all its forms.
The studies already exist, though. I don't think any of them questions the fact that monasteries benefited greatly from serfdom/slavery; the dispute is about how horrible it was for the rest of the population. (Random Wikipedia quote: "Tibetan communist Phuntso Wangye recalled his anger at seeing freshly severed human ears hanging from the gate of the county headquarters in Damshung north of Lhasa in 1945".)
Random Wikipedia quotes aren’t verifiable, and thus aren’t valid sources in this context.
But to keep in the spirit of debate, Communist sources would be suspect, as would Tibetan ones. Neutral bystanders or third parties have less incentive to misrepresent events and context to put their side in a better light, like Communist and Tibetans would both naturally be suspected to be doing.
Do you have any third party sources for these time periods and events?
Wikipedia’s sources are Wikipedia’s. I’m asking you to post some specific links here in the discussion so we can discuss them. We already discussed your last batch of Wikipedia sources and found them inconclusive and lacking. If you’d like to discuss specific links, then link me to the specific original source and we can look at them. I am open to being convinced, but only you know what sources you’re finding so convincing. Simply saying you already posted them is a dodge because we already discussed the Wikipedia page you linked, but you don’t say which sources in that article you are referring to. Please clarify so we can all be on the same page together.
You posted one inconclusive Wikipedia article, and no further links to primary sources, by my count. And you would have me find this lack of adequate sourcing acceptable. I don’t. Despite your attempt, bare minimum that it was, I remain unconvinced. If you wanted to appeal to your sources, link one. Wikipedia is a reference encyclopedia; it is not a primary source. This concept is subtle to some people. I did not mean to be confusing in that regard.
I can only do as well as the debate and my debate partners allow. No offense intended; I am trying to ascertain the truth claims and justifications of my partner’s statements of fact and their position on the topic. I didn’t choose this topic, I just have standards of sourcing that may be unfamiliar to others. That’s why I asked for sources before continuing. I seek to figure out why we disagree, and what we disagree about and why. I can’t comment on why none were provided beyond the initial Wikipedia page, which is inconclusive on the topic of this discussion, making it a uniquely unhelpful source to use in a discussion of this ambiguity.
The article naively suggests that the Communists freed the Tibetan people.
Because there was a feudal system didn't negate their right to run their own affairs.
The United Kingdom is a feudal system should it be invaded and a caretaker government be installed?
Communism is an evil system that has systematically stripped people of their basic humanity.
Let us never stop to demand that Tibet be free.
My point is that Tibet deserved to develop its own system of government not effectively be colonized by China.
Obviously the UK has a modern democratic system of government that developed through stages of feudalism and monarchy.
Engaging in genocide olympics is bad enough, but this is probably the most overt example of bad history I've ever seen. You've managed to even surpass the black book of Communism (100 million claimed) in your reaction.
Yes millions died in China from 1950 to 1960. But it was a combination of failed social experiments, aka communism and central planning of everything, and natural disasters.
Mao was brutal to his political opponents but he never ordered massive massacres.
That's interesting. The article seems to be extremely biased, portraying the worst that happened over the centuries, and glorifying the benefits of the Chinese occupation. Basically it repeats line by line what the Chinese say.
But I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle, otherwise dozens of Tibetans wouldn't self-immolate every year in protest agains the Chinese regime.
Sounds biased. Very pro-China article. Everything was horrible and then saviors occupants came and live got better.
Reminds me of all other occupations throughout the history as well as some recent ones. My country was occupied by Soviet Union in the past. Overall I prefer when my country is independent.
Jump in here to share some of my random views as a mainland Chinese for what CCP did to Tibet and Xinjiang, and China in general.
I have said somewhere else and to my western friends many times that despite all the horrible things CCP has done or might just have been pinned on to it by Western propaganda, CCP did three great things to China, Tibet and Xinjiang as well:
1. Liberation of women
I couldn't emphasize enough of it. China as a country, including Tibet and Xinjiang, by the country's law, women are equal to men. Mao Zedong himself said women are half the sky. Yes there are inequalities of course, there are no institutional discrimination against women.
2. Literacy education
CCP went extra miles to teach poor people to read and write. Han Chinese has a tradition of valuing education but it was a privilege just among privileged class. After 1949, CCP launched many campaigns to teach soldiers and peasants read and write. And CCP also made it law of 9 years free education for everyone, even for those living in the remotest villages, though it took years to actually achieve that.
3. Freed Chinese from the burden of religion
This is debatable according to if you are religious or not. Combined with advancement of education and science, Chinese people believe in science and technology. Now many Chinese are puzzled by the now anti-science movements, such as anti-vaccine or flat earth theory in the U.S.
At least in the decades after opening up, CCP also tried hard to bring those to Tibet and Xinjiang. I hate romantization of the old golden religious days of Tibet and Xinjiang and anywhere in the world. It means only one thing: a few privileged ruling the majority with religion, cult and brutality.
The author's Wikipedia page and bibliography implies he has socialist political tendencies, and this article is written supportively in favour of the Chinese. I don't dispute some of the examples but I do note his references don't work - they are simply lists of sources without details (i.e. #34, 'Los Angeles Times'). He makes comments such as that Harrer, who wrote a book about his travels in Tibet, was a member of Hitler's SS. Yes, he was - but only after Austria was annexed, under duress, and was later cleared of any wrongdoing (the Pope was a Hitler Youth member, btw).
Overall a very biased, slanted piece, written in an interesting way but without any credence from well-linked citations and fails to take into account the reported atrocities committed by the Chinese after their occupation.
174 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 210 ms ] thread> To support the Chinese overthrow of the Dalai Lama's feudal theocracy is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in Tibet. This point is seldom understood by today's Shangri-La adherents in the West.
> The converse is also true. To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. One common complaint among Buddhist proselytes in the West is that Tibet's religious culture is being destroyed by the Chinese authorities. This does seem to be the case. But what I am questioning here is the supposedly admirable and pristinely spiritual nature of that pre-invasion culture. In short, we can advocate religious freedom and independence for Tibet without having to embrace the mythology of a Paradise Lost.
Who's the bot now?
That not what happened though.
This guy is a Buddhist Goebbels: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashin_Wirathu
what _is still_ happening
It's easy to oppress people you never see, who are just numbers in a ledger. People you see every day and must rule face to face is another matter.
This is very similar to how “the Family” (of the congressional prayer breakfast) reasons. Except in their it’s because they are “the chosen”, not that they had past lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
I met some Tibetan exiles working in the market in Dalhousie in India, 20+ years ago. They had fled Tibet to seek freedom and opportunity. If the border guards had seen them, they would have been shot.[1] So, I am not a huge fan of Chinese control of Tibet.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nangpa_La_shooting_incident
You need to actually visit Tibet to see how brutal the occupation actually is.
Once there were these drunk Chinese soldiers who stole this old Tibetans tractor and were doing broodies in the center of town.
That was wild I wish I had it on video (though if I had would I be here today?).
> American sinologist Allen Carlson is of the opinion that it is nearly impossible, without substantial field research in Tibet, to verify the numerous allegations of violations advanced by China critics. He does, however, state, "my analysis of Beijing’s policies and practices has left me with the impression that the Chinese leadership has no reservations about using whatever means necessary to secure Chinese rule over Tibet."
> According to Amnesty International "The Chinese authorities have turned down as “inconvenient” requests for visits to the TAR by several UN human rights experts."
Only one side is forbidding people to look at things for themselves. It seems better epistemological practice to suspect this side more
I’m open to your sources, since you’re so convinced of your side being the one deserving of trust.
This is cheap. To say "we shouldn't blindly trust this side" doesn't mean "we should blindly trust that side" at all. It just means we shouldn't blindly trust this side. It may well be that we shouldn't trust either side, because both have reasons to lie.
When both sides claim opposing things, that's pretty unlikely. My point is that to jump from "don't just blindly trust A" to claiming the person meant to say "blindly trust B" is a cheap shot. It's "so you're saying [insert something they absolutely didn't say]" and it's a meme mocking the person that does it for a reason.
Stepping into snark is also a very bad sign. If you find yourself typing things like "since you're so convinced" into comment boxes, please step away from HN until it subsides.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The problem with victim's accounts is twofold. First, there are many accounts, and what gets quoted are folks telling the stories of terror, not the ones who fled for eg religious reasons.
Second, when it comes to China, there's a metric ton of fake news everywhere you look. You look into a story about communist government destroying a church, and later it turns out the church was actually a church-owned commercial building raised without a permit. You read about concentration camps, and only after going through few hundreds pages you realize they are more like western juvenile detention centers. And so on, and so on.
Thus, we shouldn't blindly trust either of sides; there's way too much politically-motivated misreporting involved.
Regarding the sources you did provide, the articles you cited themselves are ambiguous about the factual, provable nature of your claims. More sources are required to make any kind of argument. Please pick a couple more sources, even ones from the Wikipedia article, or I’ll continue seeing your comments as not in good faith. If you can’t point at sources, I can’t just take your word for it. Neither one of us likely was present for these events, and anecdotes don’t get us anywhere we haven’t already been in this discussion.
In short, sources or why bother?
You are the interlocutor making claims that need proof; namely you take a stance and then demand others justify their own stance if it differs from your own.
I’ve asked repeatedly for you to link just one primary source for your claims. We’re all still waiting?
In any case - cool, if you are not advocating one side’s position as absolute and unquestionable truth, then the sources I’ve provided give the plural you pretty good idea how it looks like from the other side, as well as views in between. All is well then.
Perhaps the people who fled were the ones guilty of crimes mentioned in the article?
Yup. Lets trust the red terror system of justice
(do note: I have a quote from Russia, so, there is an important caveat there. Still...)
Martin Latsis, chief of the Ukrainian Cheka, stated in the newspaper Red Terror:
Is it considered wrong to force prisoners to perform labor in China?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I also met quite a few Tibetan exiles in India. Those who had fled by spending their life savings to be guided across the Himalayan border had tales to tell of running out of food on the journey and eating snow, but no specific details of persecutions in China: they came because the Lama was in India. (I also met a Tibetan who arrived via a visa for overseas study who fully intended to return). But the risk of being shot was still a real one.
Many Buddhist societies are amongst the worst slave states know to history (the Tibet from this article, but also Burma and oh-so-beloved Thailand).
And this is not despite Buddhism but because of it. In all societies where it is dominant misfortunes such as being born poor (or worse) are seen as being justified somehow, leading to astonishingly callous mistreatment of the poor and unlucky - think the wholesale enslavement and transport of complete populations such as in Thailand not too long ago and in present day Burma.
Zen Buddhism, too, is a spectacularly nasty piece of work. It originally existed in two variants: one for the peasants, which taught them to accept their miserable lot, and one for the warrior class which taught it that life is fleeting and death inevitable (it is this variant of Buddhism that was used to indoctrinate Kamikaze pilots in WW2)
So why we in the west should think that this is an especially enlightened religion is beyond me. If you must do religion, why not Christianity or Islam? At least these two make a point of encouraging charity and kindness towards others.
There are priorities. Chinese broke something of a lesser priority (free press), while providing something of a much higher priority (abolition of slavery).
Also, "figures show that since the early 1960s, the Tibetan population has been increasing, probably for the first time for centuries" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Tibet).
There are still human rights issues in Bhutan, but it's a far cry from where they were 70 years ago.
According to [1] Bhutan's HDI was 6.17 in 2018, while according to [2] the regional HDI of Tibet was 5.85. So at the very least they're not particularly far apart from each other.
[1] http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/BTN
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_administrative_divisio...
I'm all for criticising lack of democratic progress in China, but Tibet really is a bad argument for that.
I disagree on your point about Islam though. Islam encourages charity within it’s own community only. For non believers it encourages the holy war (jihad), which causes many problems. In this case, it’s indeed better for a country to have bouddhism than islam as state religion, from the point of view of neighbors if not muslim themselves.
Islam specifically encourages giving charity to the most needy, AND starts with your own community and family and works outwards to the larger good and society. The same Christian beliefs of taking care of your neighbors. Islam also encourages in enjoining in good wherever you find it.
Muslims in America donate to local food banks and soup kitchens.
You clearly are just repeating what the current false narrative is and have little understandinf of the religon.
If you made the point that people dont practice the way the religon is taught I might agree, but this is just false.
Muslims in the west are literally like white Christians. Some are culturally Muslim but don't practise the faith. Others are strongly Muslim. Some are amazing people and some are bigoted. Among the religious ones you have the ones who use religion to do good and those who use it as an excuse to be bigots. It's the exact same I see in white people.
I would take my son, aged 3-4, into a really dodgy barber (this whole area is low socioeconomic). Drug dealers and unsavoury characters. My little blond-haired, blue-eyed son and me in a sea of black hair. And we would be treated exactly as what we were, a father taking his son for a haircut. They would give him a lollipop and call my daughter over to make sure she got one too.
So 29% of the evocations of jihad are about war.
Besides, there have been 20+ conflicts thought in the name of 'jihad' since 1980's [2].
I understand that you may have your own definition of what jihad is, but I guess not all muslims will think like you.
Besides, social care by islamic organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood [3] is used as a strategy to gain political power. Not only muslims do it, but when a political / religious group begins to substitute to the state, there is a strong susceptibility that the end goal is political rather than only altruistic.
[1]Al-Dawoody, Ahmed (2011). The Islamic Law of War: Justifications and Regulations. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 56. https://archive.org/details/islamiclawwarjus00alda [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad#Warfare_(Jihad_bil_Saif) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood_in_Egypt#So...
Unfortunately the USA decided to bankroll the most reactionary sect, giving out the capacity to dominate the scene.
Imagine if Marcel Lefebvre had petro-dollars to back him...
You are comparing the historical reality of one religion to the ideals of other religions. In such a comparison the ideals will always look better. If you compare the ideals of Buddhism with the historical reality of Christianity and Islam (war, slavery, genocide etc.) I'm sure Buddhism will look better.
You will typically see people compare the ideals of their own religion with the realities of other religions and come to the conclusion that their own religion is best. The imperfect reality is explained by flawed people misunderstanding or misusing the religion, while the real-world problems of other religions is attributed to faults in the religion itself.
There's no such thing as a scientific ethical system. Science tells us how and why the universe behaves as it does, it cannot make a judgement about what the world should be. This has been known since antiquity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument.
What we can do is try to understand and compare the axiomatic systems upon which belief systems rest. Marxists believe in the labour theory of value (very roughly, "value" comes from time spent working). Austrians believe "value" is a form of ordinal utility with which intrapersonal utility comparisons cannot be made. Mainstream economics believes "value" is a form of cardinal utility with which intrapersonal comparisons can be made.
Within the context of one of those systems, if somebody argues for something that doesn't maximise what the system values, we could say it's unscientific. If somebody makes an inconsistent statement, we could argue it's illogical. But if somebody makes a statement that is consistent with maximising value as defined by that system, we cannot argue it's unscientific just because it doesn't maximise value as defined by our own system, because science cannot say whether our own system is morally superior.
On the other hand, there are long histories of philosophical and theological inquiry in the Christian tradition; from what I understand the same is true of Islam. There are certainly times and places in both camps where small deviations were perceived as heresy, and perceived "heretics" were persecuted or killed; but as a Christian, I am as opposed to that as much as any atheist can be opposed to the persecutions of Mao.
Of course everybody have the same right to question your ideas, as you have to question their ideas. Some people seem to think that their freedom of speech is curtailed because other people are allowed to criticize them back or even ignore them.
Isn't that pretty much what I wrote?
If we're only talking about what religions superficially encourage, Tibetan Buddhism also encourages charity and compassion towards all beings, endlessly extolling the Bodhisattva ideal. The religion in theory is different from the religious state with living, breathing humans in charge.
Indeed. I practiced Buddhist meditation for some years and was very interested in Buddhism. However, what I always found difficult was the relation between teachers and students. On the one hand, someone who has many years of meditation experience is better at detecting typical pitfalls during practice and can help people move forward. On the other hand, this sometimes results in a strong division between laypeople and monks/teachers (typically ex-monks). A subset of teachers use their perceived religious authority this to go on power trips, or worse, physically abuse people.
Once religion becomes organized it becomes a very powerful tool to subject people.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0863V3617
It is probably, and often, tied to the evolution of Christianity and Western humanism that led to a special view on the rights of the individual. Which for instance led to the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. Which to us is baffling someone even ever though slavery was ok. Yet it was the standard for millennia.
When you read a summary of the Buddhist doctrine this Western view of individuality seems to fit perfect. Yet the cultures housing buddhism didn't yet seem to have evolved to support this view of the individual.
This might have something to do with the fact Buddhism started in a more complex society in India and then moved to more tribal places like Tibet. Yes India had a feudal type of cast system, but also had a very high level of philosophy.
This is an argument that's also sometimes made by scholars to explain certain differences between the word of Jesus and the more tribal verses of Mohammed.
Coming back to Tibet, even though it was far from perfect, there a still gems to be found in Tibetan Buddhism.
And to give them some credit there have definitely been attempts to reform in Tibet. Not every monastery was about politics, some teachers created their monasteries far away in hard to reach places to avoid the politics. For centuries the Tibetan writers already speak of dark times, so at least a few were aware.
For example humanism didn't stop Scramble for Africa [2], nor Opium Wars and subsequent colonization of China.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dum_Diversas [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#S... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa
Romantization of the exotic certainly plays a role, but additionally there were projects like the CIA Tibet program:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Tibetan_program
* https://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet.htm
As for the teachings: you have to look at them for what they are. I personally find much more value in Buddhism than in any other religion or philosophy (barring perhaps stoicism, which has many similarities).
It's not just the teachings that matter, but the actual reality and practice. Unfortunately many of those with most power in Islamic world prefer hate over kindness. Historically, same has often been the case with Christianity as well.
What about Zakat? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat
That is a pretty concrete and practical example of kindness and charity.
All religions teach their followers to show compassion towards the less fortunate of their society - and societies of all religions regularly fail to do this. Ideologies shouldn't be judged solely based on teachings, but also what actually happens. If there was an exceptionally good religion, it should deliver exceptionally good results. Religion and income inequality seem to have little correlation, which leads to a conclusion that they're all equally useful or useless in this practical aspect, no matter what other differences they may have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_left
To me Buddhism is two completely different things and I only belong to one of them.
(1) Religion for 400 million people that is just like any other religion. Religion as social hierarchy and cultural phenomenon.
(2) Spiritual practice. Something you do, not something you think or identify with. It's more like going to gym or eating healthy than reading scriptures. Social hierarchy is teacher/student level. You want to have teacher, but he should keep your own head. Just like you don't allow gym trainer to run your life outside the gym, teachers are just good at what they are good at. They have more practical experience.
Zen/Chan Buddhism has long written record with teachers writing autobiographies that record how it really was in those "good old times". In every era, it seems, constant lament from teachers is that Buddhism is in decline, monks are lazy and seek only fame and status.
As Buddhist practice is human activity, every human vice is known in Buddhist monasteries. Against this background strict discipline in remote training monasteries starts to make sense. It's harsh enough that bullshitters can't take it, but if you are there to train you thrive.
Small list of current bad things happening in Buddhism:
Myanmar and Sri Lanka have huge problems with supremacist movements where the leaders are Buddhist monks.
Tibetan Buddhist tradition has problems with sexual abuse of young boys (and nuns) probably at the similar level as Catholic church.
Unfortunately, too many people are only familiar with the latter - and only with a variant of the latter that is much cleaned up and stripped of its folksy roots and made palatable for Western consumption - and then transfer the positive feelings they have about that to the former.
If a traditional Tibetan saw American society, he could tell that they "live in a slave state, having to bear the burden of debt and interest for the most part of their lives" - because it may be unnatural for them. They would be quite astonished to see the amount of atheists.
Promotion of humanism everywhere in the world is another piece of the occidental imperialism.
It's useless to claim you are against racism and else if you do not understand that people from around the globe are perfectly right not sharing your set of values.
Still, I think some conception of Western Human Rights should be universalized (like slavery is always bad, for example) but a lot of thought should go into what values are important enough to always impose on others.
I'm amazed this aside isn't getting you downvoted. Have you been under a rock for the last 2000 years? The horrors of Abrahamic religion far outstrip anything Buddhism is responsible for.
Can you substantiate that claim? I never saw the death count per population of each religion and to know that one is higher than the other. Or the slave count per population.
Was Christianity worse, or just larger?
The Prophet Muhammad owned, traded, and raped slaves according to the sayings and actions attributed to the Prophet and his companions (hadith), which is very highly regarded in the Islamic tradition (second only to the Qur'an). :\
https://sunnah.com/abudawud/20/70 https://sunnah.com/bukhari/51/28 https://sunnah.com/urn/1268350 https://sunnah.com/nasai/36/21 https://sunnah.com/nasai/37/84 https://sunnah.com/nasai/37/87 https://sunnah.com/bukhari/95/17
Anyways, I'm not sure why this is on HN.
I guess it is interesting to people who aren't aware that atrocities were present in all societies, no matter what the official religion was. But I wonder if this could be a pro-Chinese source.
The history of the state is also nasty. The history of engineering is also not that glorious, given that it was mostly for war. You can even go to the history of writing...
The question is: what each religion is doing, of harm and good, today. And what we expect they can do tomorrow. On those grounds, you might even be right. But the question is more complex.
(but I agree: the bible does not fit with our values today at all)
Or, lets talk about the split-offs. Ever talked to a Seventh-day Adventist? Do you know what keeps them going? The book of revelations is what keeps them going. Because it promises them that all their enemies will be roasted by god at some point. Pretty fucked up as the fundamental driving force in a belief-system.
My opinion still stands: All the major religions on this planet have such a broken legacy that all we can do is to get rid of them completely.
This is very much historically true of places dominated by Christianity, and streams of Christianity still actively seek to advance this in the developed West, where it has faded somewhat largely due to secular economic developments associated with the weakening of Christianity, rather than due to Christianity itself.
Sure, there have been streams within Christianity working against it, but they've always been working against the broader society even where Christianity has unquestioned dominance.
It happened in England powered from the money of traffic of slaves in the Atlantic. Those slaves went to the South of the US and also created lots of capital producing cotton that was very expensive at the time. That capital went into machines which powered industrialization too in the North of the US.
After that the US expanded to the West exterminating the native population. The native did not agreed on new cultivation methods that made their buffaloes and bison population stagnate.
In Germany they tried to copy the Americans but exterminating people at the East instead of the West (the "Lebensraum").
Japan tried to do the same "expanding"(and exterminating) to surrounding Asian countries.
In theory those that exterminated the native populations in the US and had black slaves were Christians. Most of the German population supported Hitler and they were(in theory) Christians.
It is human behavior, humans are predators and they predate other animals or Humans from other tribes.
Religion does not remove our canine and incisors teeth. Our nature remains there and it could be dangerous.
> wholesale enslavement and transport of complete populations such as in Thailand not too long ago and in present day Burma.
Nobody is being enslaved because of Buddhism in present day Myanmar. That’s ridiculous. The violence here has very little to do with religion. None of the ethnic independence armies are theological (like ISIS for example). Nobody is picking up guns because they read some sutras.
The emperor that had a huge influence marrying Buddhism with government in Myanmar and Thailand and who at one time ruled the Indian subcontinent, Ashoka the Great, abolished the slave trade (3rd century BCE). Slavery was practiced throughout the subcontinent before Buddhism became intertwined with the state.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashokavadana
> Ashokavadana mentions two incidents of Ashoka turning towards violence after adopting Buddhism. In one instance, a non-Buddhist in Pundravardhana drew a picture showing the Buddha bowing at the feet of Nirgrantha Jnatiputra (identified with Mahavira, the founder of Jainism). On complaint from a Buddhist devotee, Ashoka issued an order to arrest him, and subsequently, another order to kill all the Ajivikas in Pundravardhana. Around 18,000 followers of the Ajivika sect were executed as a result of this order.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinga_War
Ultimately though, religions tend to develop similar memes regardless of differences in philosophy or theology. "Accept your misery, peasant" is a highly recurring meme. It's not hard to find grounds for it in the christian gospels.
Victorian anglicans printed prayer books for household maids enforcing exactly this message. These were very young girls sent (sometimes sold) from villages to the cities. Many tried to escape. Religion was used as a chain.
The liturgical themes in these prayers trace back to aurelian stoicism. That nasty work (meditations) was highly influential on christianity. Originally intended to help the upper crust accept their misery, it's been recycled for millenia to help the truly miserable to obey their masters and accept their masters' cruelty... literally and in those words.^ This is just one small example of christianity re-enforcing slavery, meekness & servitude.
Modern "secular religions" entirely grounded in liberty and equality develop these themes too. 20th century communism(s), objectivism, etc. They all have (had?) ways of justifying "astonishingly callous mistreatment of the poor and unlucky." It doesn't seem to matter what philosophy you build from, it ends up in the same place.
Western philosophies of racism, imperialism & monarchy had both religious and secular justifications. The abolitionists also had both religious and secular justifications.
"Fundamentalism" is generally accepted as bad, dangerous and morally corrupting by many westerners today. Very few take the next logical step: Fundamentals don't matter. It doesn't matter what Jesus said, what the philosophy says, etc. Those things don't determine how the religion is practiced or what the operative day-to-day beliefs are.
^https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-pamphlet-for-servants
Lets look at some of your points
> 'not despite Buddhism but because of it.'
This is your main thesis and to support this you say -
> At least these two make a point of encouraging charity and kindness towards others.
Directly, (not subtly), implying that Buddhism does not do this.
A basic search would give you something like the basic virtues of Buddhist teachings - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmavihara and how these virtues are popularized via stories where the protagonist gives up lives to save tiger cubs or say, the story of Angulimala.
Note that there is no condemnation of non-believers to eternal hell - a belief which has caused tremendous violence and looks at lot of cultures as essentially devil's work- a belief is still not repudiated today (it cant as it is a core doctrine).
Also, modern industrialized societies are still having a hard time accepting an elementary insight that animals can suffer intensely and creating montrosities where this is noted quite early in Buddhist and similar traditions.
> misfortunes such as being born poor (or worse) are seen as being justified somehow
Another point you bring up is karma and the word you use is 'justified'. When a thief or a killer attacks and causes suffering to a Buddhist, they might take it as the result of past bad karma, but that doesnt make the action 'justified'. Indeed, that action itself generates bad karma. A ruler inflicting suffering on people also gets bad karma.
The notion that people are fatalistic about misfortune is false can be seen at multiple levels -
Firstly, at the whole point of the tradition itself is to overcome karma, secondly, popular cultures are filled with practices aimed at changing karma.
At the political level, try reading James Scott on how peasants resisted states which became tyrannical https://www.amazon.com/Art-Not-Being-Governed-Anarchist/dp/0...
A more subtle but important point is that 'justification' is bringing in a different framework - the notion of normative ethics which is inherited from Christianity - whereas the concept of karma is seen more like a natural property like a bodily sickness.
This kind of violence hasn’t been common in other parts of the world for centuries. It’s also a phenomenon that is distinct to states in South East Asia - and, in fact, to the Buddhist states in South East Asia ( it was not practiced in what is now Malaysia in Indonesia - which are now Muslim and before that practiced a religion that mostly resembles Hinduism).
Just living in any of these countries, one will see the constant effort of people, even hustling, to get ahead in life, far from any fatalistic conceptions one might have about their life.
I can, in fact, think of other examples of worse brutality, even in the last few centuries, for instance the American slave system and treatment of labourers in Congo. Not quite the same extent, but still terrible, the British had an indentured labour system transporting Indians whose local lands were devastated by colonial rule. I wouldnt casually attribute these to religion of the westerners.
In the West, people are very familiar with Christianity. It's mundane, and a good portion of the population views it as backwards. But most people have no idea about Buddhism and what role it has played in Asian societies.
In China, people are exposed to Buddhism all the time, and it's not exotic in any way. But many people in China view Christianity as some sort of trendy Western religion, and don't know how it's viewed in the West.
Other people's superstition isn't laden with the same baggage as one's own society's superstition.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120102/
It is hard to be oppressed when you make $50,000/annum. It is hard not to be if you make $365/annum. Culture is a problem insofar as it makes it hard to add 0s on the end of your income, and a matter of taste otherwise.
To me some of the more backwards Arab states are the exception that proves the rule; it took wealth literally welling up out of the ground to have a dominant culture that is both wealthy and unable to let women drive cars. And even then the ban was eventually ground down.
I'm not sure that's true. A decent amount of disposable income certainly means one is unlikely to consider indentured servitude a possible means of survival, but it doesn't pay for law enforcement to remove their knee from your neck. The last century saw relatively prosperous industrialised countries carry out genocides of certain subsets of their middle classes.
It's certainly true it's hard not to be oppressed on starvation incomes though.
A helicopter ride like that probably costs $500 a head, in a country where the average annual income is $862.
I think it was so surprising because my naive western viewpoint was that monks live a simple life. I'd love to know more about the reality of organised religion in that region!
https://savetibet.org/tibetan-self-immolations/
[This post does not advocate self-harm. Please seek help from those you trust if you have urges to do so. I care about you, person reading this right now. Please be well.]
Religious figures aren’t always perfect in our eyes; that doesn’t mean aspiring to virtue is meaningless.
It’s an endless journey to salvation and nirvana, but we’re all slouching towards Bethlehem.
In Tibet, monasteries benefited greatly from slavery. Abolition of slavery hurt them a lot. No wonder they are protesting.
Tibetan monasteries as they operated historically are an artifact of history. Further historical and archaeological studies would be the only way to gather verifiable data, facts, figures, and artifacts from the period when the supposed slavery occurred.
This conversation seems like it is mired in historical revisionism on all sides. I’m not a Chinese Tibetan anthropologist or archaeologist, nor am I a Tibetan Buddhist scholar. I don’t know the facts of what happened, or how their society interpreted those events and the people who experienced them. For me to stand in judgement of such a nebulous concept would be irresponsible.
That you are convinced of the correctness of your beliefs is good; you should seek to share your sources so we too can be similarly convinced. Otherwise we’ll just have to take your word for it, which is no better a place than we’re in now.
For what it’s worth, slavery is much worse than being a serf. However, being a serf was likely so miserable that the distinction to our modern sensibilities may be one without a difference. I am opposed to forced servitude in all the world in all its forms.
But to keep in the spirit of debate, Communist sources would be suspect, as would Tibetan ones. Neutral bystanders or third parties have less incentive to misrepresent events and context to put their side in a better light, like Communist and Tibetans would both naturally be suspected to be doing.
Do you have any third party sources for these time periods and events?
Am I missing anything?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Don't be snarky."
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
These were young men and women who desire freedom. You do not need brainwashing to demand freedom from an authoritarian rule.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_Feudal_Tenure_etc...
So there is a distressing symbiosis between religion and violence but the Cultural revolution was a "mistake".
So the most violent and murderous event in Human's History was just a mistake.
Communism has the biggest distressing symbiosis with violence and murder ever:
Lenin killed the highest number of religious people ever, and they did not defend themselves.
In Spain the communist also killed from 6.000 to 10.000 religious people that by the way did not apostatize or defend themselves.
Stalin killed millions of their own people.
Pol Pot millions.
Mao killed hundreds of millions.
This article is a piece of propaganda in order to defend the invasion of China of a foreign country.
Now the big lords are the Chinese communist and Tibet and Nepal continue being extremely poor.
Engaging in genocide olympics is bad enough, but this is probably the most overt example of bad history I've ever seen. You've managed to even surpass the black book of Communism (100 million claimed) in your reaction.
Yes millions died in China from 1950 to 1960. But it was a combination of failed social experiments, aka communism and central planning of everything, and natural disasters.
Mao was brutal to his political opponents but he never ordered massive massacres.
But I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle, otherwise dozens of Tibetans wouldn't self-immolate every year in protest agains the Chinese regime.
I have said somewhere else and to my western friends many times that despite all the horrible things CCP has done or might just have been pinned on to it by Western propaganda, CCP did three great things to China, Tibet and Xinjiang as well:
1. Liberation of women
I couldn't emphasize enough of it. China as a country, including Tibet and Xinjiang, by the country's law, women are equal to men. Mao Zedong himself said women are half the sky. Yes there are inequalities of course, there are no institutional discrimination against women.
2. Literacy education
CCP went extra miles to teach poor people to read and write. Han Chinese has a tradition of valuing education but it was a privilege just among privileged class. After 1949, CCP launched many campaigns to teach soldiers and peasants read and write. And CCP also made it law of 9 years free education for everyone, even for those living in the remotest villages, though it took years to actually achieve that.
3. Freed Chinese from the burden of religion
This is debatable according to if you are religious or not. Combined with advancement of education and science, Chinese people believe in science and technology. Now many Chinese are puzzled by the now anti-science movements, such as anti-vaccine or flat earth theory in the U.S.
At least in the decades after opening up, CCP also tried hard to bring those to Tibet and Xinjiang. I hate romantization of the old golden religious days of Tibet and Xinjiang and anywhere in the world. It means only one thing: a few privileged ruling the majority with religion, cult and brutality.
Overall a very biased, slanted piece, written in an interesting way but without any credence from well-linked citations and fails to take into account the reported atrocities committed by the Chinese after their occupation.