Slavery and Serfdom in Tibet, historical evidence
Here is some list of books that show evidence of Serfdom and Slavery in Tibet.[font=Times New Roman]One article can be read here [/font][url=http://rwor.org/a/firstvol/tibet/tibet1.htm][font=Times New Roman]http://rwor.org/a/firstvol/tibet/tibet1.htm[/font][/url]
[font=Times New Roman]Might contain bias read at your own discretion.[/font]
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[b][font=Times New Roman]Anna Louise Strong [/font][/b]
[font=Times New Roman]She was in Tibet during 1950s, she wrote a book "[i]When Serfs Stood Up"[/i][/font]
[font=Times New Roman]On page 270 She was interviewing a local serf after Chinese government took over and the serf said[/font]
[font=Times New Roman]"In the past you didn't dare wash your face, for the overseer would think you were showing off, but now you wash your face several times a day. You even wash your hair and your dirty shirts. You sing out loud in the fields without worry. If you sang in the fields formerly, the boss would say: ' You'll attract the hail from the heaven. Will you take the responsibility for that"' But now you sing as much and as loud as you like. We put new words to the old songs. We even have dramas and dances at the rest period in the fields."[/font]
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[font=Times New Roman]Hisotrian [b]Michael Parenti[/b] in his article Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth [/font][url=http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html][font=Times New Roman]http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html[/font][/url][font=Times New Roman] wrote[/font]
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[font=Georgia][font=Times New Roman][i]"[size=4]In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [/size][/i][/font][url=http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html#notes][font=Times New Roman][size=4][color=#800080][i]15[/i][/color][/size][/font][/url][i][font=Times New Roman][size=4] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care, They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land--or the monastery’s land--without pay, to repair the lord's houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand.[/size][/font][size=4][font=Times New Roman] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location[/font]."[/size][/i][/font]
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[b]Sir Charles Bell[/b], a British colonial officer, also a renowned Tibet Scholar and a personal friend of the 13th Dalai Lama wrote book [color=#003399]Tibet: Past & present [/color], on page 79:
"Slaves are sometimes stolen, when small children, from their parents. Or the father or morther being too poor to suppor their child would sell it to a man, who paid them "sho-ring," "price of mothers' milk," brought up the child and kept it or sold it as a slave ..."
"Two slaves I saw ... had been stolen from their parents when five years old, and sold in Lhasa for about seven pounds each."
"The slavery in the Chumpi valley was of a very mild type. If a slave was not well treated, it was easy for him to escape into Sikkim and British India."
[b]Israel Epstein[/b] interviewed many local Tibetan during his travel to Tibet in the 1960s, described his book [i]Tibet Transformed[/i]: in some worse cases serfs had to hand over children to the manor as household slaves or nangzan, because they were too poor to keep them alive.
There are many more books I can list, but I will leave it right here. There is the common perception for the western is Tibet was a heavenly land, and the Communist Government invaded it. Keep in mind there are 2 sides of every story.
Old Communist China vs Old Tibet
Continually raising this topic does not help to persuade anyone that China's current hard line on Tibet is justified. In fact, quite the opposite.1. The Chinese government keeps claiming that issues about Tibet are purely domestic Chinese issues because "Tibet had been a part of China for 700 years". But if Tibet has always been just a province of China, ruled by China, then aren't the evils of Old Tibet actually the responsibility of the Chinese government at the time?
In reality I think everyone knows that China only had very loose control over Tibet for much of that time. Tibet was effectively autonomous, which explains why different policies were pursued there. So there is nothing unreasonable about the Tibetans asking for similar autonomy now. (Note I am not talking about independence, just a substantial level of self-government, like Scotland within the UK.)
2. The nature of Tibetan government 200 years ago or 60 years ago has nothing to do with what choices Tibetans should be offered today. Japanese government 70 years ago was a nasty militaristic one. Does that mean Japan should not have democracy today? Same with Germany.
More to the point, the Chinese communist party did worse things to the whole of China in the "Great Leap Forward" and Cultural Revolution than the Old Tibetan government ever did to Tibet. But all reasonable people agree that this is in the past and does not mean the current Chinese government is illegitimate and should be overthrown. If the CCP wants everyone to be reasonable and treat its crimes as a thing of the past then it had better not keep bringing up the older crimes of previous Tibetan governments. Slavery and Serfdom in Tibet.Da liar lama dispears his true face.
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