Talk:Serfdom in Tibet controversy

Goldstein a tweasel

Clearly, Goldstein is a tweasel and therefore should be excluded from the article altogether. His claims that Tibetans were surfers are absurd. Jomellon has freely admitted as much several times already. Bertport (talk) 09:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Astonishingly there were people arguing for the exclusion of Goldstein (! ...not an historian! ...scholarship superceded! ) 6 weeks or so ago: which shows just what a funny place some TBs had manouvered this page into. Crossette and Laird (!) were being presented as the 'last word' opinions. IMHO Powers is a big step up from Crossette and Laird: but still very much a TB POV and not the 'last word'. --Jomellon (talk) 08:48, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you looked all the way back to the origins of this article. It was started by Chinese propagandists (no joke) as a straight presentation of their POV. Others moved quickly to delete the article altogether - they didn't want it to even exist. The present article is a fair illustration of Wikipedia policies at work -- content based on verifiable sources, resulting from the contributions of multiple editors with their own perspective. Each editor has tas own opinions as to what should be emphasized more and what is overdone or overstated, and no one gets exactly the article ta wants. In the future, this article will be the target of occasional drive-by shootings, which will be reverted; but it will also see more meaningful reshaping over the course of time, as people bring more good source material forward. There is no last word. Many articles also go through episodes of active controversy, with long stretches of relative stability between. Bertport (talk) 13:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok! BTW: I find Tsering Shakya very reasonable... If you look at a lecture he gave in Berkeley, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA6jlvwrtns at about 1 hr 15 mins he describes talks with publishers in the PRC where he had asked them about interactions with censors, and what they can publish. The whole lecture is very interesting, tho he is not so flowing in English.--Jomellon (talk) 18:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"Chinese" Source: Anna Louise Strong

Could I ask anyone interested in editing this page to read Anna Louise Strong "When serfs stood up"? Chapters 7 & 8: available in the comfort of your own home and free: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/strong-anna-louise/1959/tibet/ch07.htm

She was a Marxist, a POV, and can be regarded as a "Chinese" source. There is also a bit of Marxist polemic mixed in, but - just read these two chapters and make up your own mind as to whether she is lying. She is actually quite cautious when evaluting the truth of the peasants reports, noting for example during 'denunciation' sessions that the denouncers seemed to be following directions.

But read and decide yourself!--Jomellon (talk) 14:50, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Such claims of "moral authority for [China] governing Tibet, based on narratives that portray Tibet as a feudal serfdom" and the PRC claims of improving Tibet - seeming to imply that without them Tibet would still be in the dark ages - are rather undermined by the fact that neighbouring Bhutan, which had a similar (possibly even more "feudal") social system, has managed improve and develop very well without being "liberated", invaded or taken over by Communist China. -- Chris Fynn (talk) 12:54, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

But why would we debate that on a talk page, which is for discussing improvements to the article and not rehashing the heated arguments we could be having on other parts of the internet! --Gimme danger (talk) 18:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Should 'controversy' be in the title?

I took a look (though not a thorough one) through the discussion archives, and cannot seem to find out why the word 'controversy' is in the title. Controversy is a very vague word which could be tacked onto nearly anything. If the intention behind it was to undermine the idea that there was really serfdom in Tibet, perhaps that would be better expressed in the lead and the body of the article - if, of course, such a view is strongly supported by reliable sources.

In any case, it's unclear to me why 'controversy' should be in the title.

Aside from that, the article reads remarkably neutrally for such a charged subject. —Zujine|talk 08:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Check the archive page, especially the sections "Article name", "Split", and "Name change - again?". Bertport (talk) 13:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I looked at the pages long enough to recognise that I probably do not want to dredge up that dispute. If this is the title chosen after long discussion - and it is supposed to be more about the contested discourse surrounding the topic than the topic itself - then I don't have more input. Thank you. —Zujine|talk 13:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Alleged Return of Serfdom

I also removed the insights of Frederick Hayek which, while interesting, seemed unrelated to the article. —Zujine|talk 09:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I restored this brief passage, which contributes to the discussion of whether the allegations that pre-1950 Tibet was a feudal serfdom gives the PRC moral justification for ruling Tibet. Bertport (talk) 13:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Does the source which mentions this, about serfdom in other places, say that it undermines the moral justification of the CCP? I can see the logic to your argument, but so far that just seems like... your logic. If a scholar had said: "The CCP's argument is weakened by the fact that serfdom was practiced in X place and Y place..." - then we could report that (though perhaps not in the lead).

To give an example, it would be the same order of logic to include information about the CCP's grotesque human rights abuses, like torture and organ harvesting of religious dissidents, to show that they have no moral justification for anything. The reason we don't include that in the lead, or anywhere in this article, is the same reason we should not include the notes about serfdom in Europe. —Zujine|talk 13:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think that's valid justification for excluding it from the article. Hayek/Gorbachev is not just about Europe, but about communist claims to rescue peasants from serfdom, and includes China in that argument. How about a compromise - we move it from the lead to the "Comparison to other regions" section. Bertport (talk) 04:34, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I guess that would be slightly better. I would not be opposed to a sentence in the lead saying something like "Advocates for Tibetan freedom seek to undermine the CCP's argument for moral legitimacy in invading Tibet by pointing to other societies that practiced serfdom elsewhere in the world."

OK, so it would not be quite like that, but the point is some words that make explicit why that information is relevant. Just my view. I accept the idea of moving it, and I will do so now. —Zujine|talk 13:26, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

That one tiny passage on "a return to serfdom" has no fewer than three problems with it. I think the stinker should just be deleted.

• First of all, its unsourced. We need a specific source where Gorbachev and Hayek analyze the PRC's social system as serfdom.
• Neither Hayek nor Gorbachev is an authority on China. Hayek was not exactly a Sinologist (and he is a fierce polemicist), while Gorbachev's was the leader of a regime that saw China as enemy #1-#2.
• Both Hayek and Gorbachev are likely to be using "serfdom" rhetorically here. I appreciate the idea that Communism, particularly under Stalin, had features which resembled feudalism and serfdom but that's a line of thinking that should be fleshed out and made very concrete; an article on Tibet is not the place to do it, and neither Hayek nor Gorbachev are authorities on the issue. Historically-specific words like serfdom, slavery, capitalism etc are thrown around all the time, with little scientific merit. Hayek is particularly well-known for this, and his "return to serfdom" was aimed at the emerging Welfare State more than anything else. This bit is crucial here. Such rhetorical ploys are acceptable only in articles that deal with ideology and polemics, not in historical articles.
• The link to "alleged Return to Serfdom" only links to the "Serfdom", which sensibly refrains from engaging Hayek's metaphor and sticks to actual serfdom (excepting the minor and very comical allegation about Belarus). IF hayek's concept of "serfdom" belongs here, it also belongs in Welfare State, Keynesianism, Social Democracy, Labour Party etc. ...and Ben Carson's quip that the PPACA==slavery belongs in PPACA.

So yeah, I've inserted the relevant tags and urge the regulars to delete this silliness which undermines an otherwise very commendable article.

questionable material

The following paragraph is sourced to a Website where the same material is used. The problem is this site does not provide any source for this material, all it says is "In 1916 an American missionary, with experience in Chinese administered Eastern Tibet wrote." Since this paragraph does not have a reliable source I think it should be removed. Any ideas? Tibetsnow (talk) 04:27, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

"There is no method of torture known that is not practised in here on these Tibetans, slicing, boiling, tearing asunder and all …To sum up what China is doing here in eastern Tibet, the main things are collecting taxes robbing, oppressing, confiscating and allowing her representatives to burn and loot and steal."

Never mind I found the proper link. Tibetsnow (talk) 05:03, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Have the Tibetans themselves reported brutalities like this? We should not rely on the words of a unknown American. Tibetsnow (talk) 06:29, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I added the following after reading the whole page. Believing that the American missionary's account might be an mistake, Sir Eric Teichman, a British diplomat clarified that whatever brutality existed, it was "in no way due to any action of the Chinese government in Peking or the provincial authorities in Szechuana."[76] Does anyone have more info on this? Tibetsnow (talk) 17:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Very biased piece of work

The word "China" has been repeatedly mentioned, and was insinuated that it was the wrong and biased POV. Sometimes, when writing about history, people need to be less general, instead of writing "Chinese propaganda, Chinese state media and Pro-Chinese". Historical actors are not as simple as this. It makes me wonder if this article is written by a liberal hippie. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.239.152.25 (talk) 01:39, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect characterization of Marx's "opiate of the masses"

In the Competing versions of Tibetan history section, the text says, "Marx condemned religion as 'the opiate of the masses'".

This is a common but incorrect interpretation of Marx's view, and this is clear if you read the quote in context over at the Opium of the people article. At the time this quote was made, the negative value judgments we have today were not attached to opium. Marx's point was not that religion was evil in and of itself, but rather that it was an attempt to adorn the chains of oppression. His point in wanting to abolish religion was not to simply force people to view their chains in the harsh light of day, but rather to encourage them to do something about their oppression instead of contenting themselves with the significantly reduced state of merely being distracted from it.

From the article Marxism_and_religion#Karl_Marx_on_religion:

According to Howard Zinn, Marx "saw religion, not just negatively as 'the opium of the people,' but positively as the 'sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions.'

This article should not repeat and reinforce this common misinterpretation.