Destruction of Tibetan Culture

Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation
Press Release
July , 2000 - Dharamsala, India

Destruction of Tibetan Culture through a New Socialist Culture Department of Information and International Relations, Tibetan Government in Exile,

On 22 June China's State Council issued a White Paper, claiming great cultural, religious and educational development in Tibet. It is easy to see that this White Paper is actually yet another attempt to hide China's repressive policies of Cultural Genocide in Tibet. The Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, therefore, present the following facts on the situation inside Tibet:

Tibet-a distinct nation with a rich cultural heritage-has a recorded history of over 2,000 years and, as verified by archaeological findings, a civilization dating back over 6,000 years. From very ancient times, especially since the advent of Buddhism in the seventh century, Tibet developed as an extraordinary treasure house of culture.
However, since the destructive Maoist campaigns of Communist China's "democratic reforms" began in 1958, Tibet has been reduced to a cultural wasteland, where even the survival of the Tibetan language is in question. Speaking at the first meeting of China's Institute of Tibetology in Beijing in 1988, the late Panchen Lama said, "It is shameful to have to say that the Tibetan language must be studied and used in Tibet. The land that has managed well with its own Tibetan language over 1,300 years has lost its language completely just within two decades after its liberation by the Communist Party. This is the reason why we have to appeal for the promotion of the use of Tibetan language in Tibet."
>From the 1980s, Tibetan literacy and arts have enjoyed a minor revival in the hitherto cultural wasteland of Tibet, thanks to the efforts of the Tenth Panchen Lama and Tibetan patriots. Nevertheless, it must be stated that what survives today is only a fraction and reflection of what once flourished in this rich cultural reservoir on what was once the "Altar of the World".
Certainly, the traditional social structure in Tibet did not meet all the expectations and aspirations of the populace. However, this 2.5 million sq. km nation preserved a vast treasure of culture with every spiritually-minded Tibetan serving as its protector. China is the sole destroyer of this heritage. And this destruction continues. Beijing has claimed to be the political representative of Tibetans for 45 years. With the 21st century it now lays an additional claim to be the protector of Tibetan culture.

2. Preservation of ancient Tibetan manuscripts and cultural artifacts: A mere showcase

Starting with the "democratic reforms" of 1958, China unleashed a series of ideological campaigns in Tibet, leaving in their trail the ruins of 99.98 per cent of monasteries and nunneries. Altogether, Communist China destroyed over 6,000 temples, monasteries and nunneries along with their valuable statues and spiritual artifacts, ancient manuscripts, scriptures, religious relics, thangka paintings, etc. Tibetan religion and culture-with all their traditional values-were labelled the "Four Olds", and their practice invited persecution, imprisonment, torture and execution. Within 20 years from the advent of "democratic reforms", Tibetan civilization was driven to the brink of extinction.
Then, in 1978, China introduced a measure of "liberalization"and awarded minimal grants for the restoration of a handful of prominent historical monuments, such as the Dalai Lama's Potala palace, the Jokhang cathedral in Lhasa, and the major monasteries of Sera, Drepung, Tashilhunpo, Sakya, Kubum, Labrang Tashikyil, Derge Gonchen, Chamdo Gon, etc. Other monastic restoration was the result of Tibetan initiatives, labour and financial donations.
As in China, religious freedom does not exist today in Tibet. The authorities allow ritualistic practices, such as prostrating, offering butter lamps, and circumambulating holy monuments. However, if people want to rebuild their local temples, monasteries and nunneries-destroyed by Chinese ideologues-they must apply for government permits, which are difficult to obtain. Tibetans below 18 years are prohibited from joining the monastic community.
Across Tibet, monks and nuns are today being coerced into criticizing His Holiness the Dalai Lama, whose photos are currently banned. They are forced to declare their allegiance to the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama, Gyaltsen Norbu, and denounce Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who was recognized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The whereabouts and conditions of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima are currently unknown. Violations of these regulations result in expulsion from monasteries and nunneries, imprisonment, torture and in some cases even in the closure of monasteries and nunneries. By the end of 1999, 11,409 monks and nuns had been expelled from their institutions and about 20 monasteries and nunneries closed down.
As a part of this control mechanism, the administration of monasteries and nunneries is put under what is known as the "Democratic Management Committee". Additionally, the Chinese police take up residence in monasteries and nunneries. The number of monks and nuns in each institution has a very low ceiling; their chief function is to serve as tourist showpieces and caretakers of their monasteries and nunneries. Nuns and monks do not have the opportunity to seriously study and practice their religion to the traditional level as they are forced to attend interminable "political education" meetings. Solemn monastic festivals are turned into market economy events, causing them to lose all their spiritual significance.
In the name of modernization, Beijing promotes contemporary Chinese culture and social norms in Tibet. As a result of this, Tibetan urban centres have now become home to a large number of brothels, discos, gambling houses, and beer bars.
The policy of vandalism in the pre-liberalization era destroyed most of Tibet's religious statues and monastic objets d'art. The very few items that were salvaged and hidden by Tibetans were later donated to the newly-renovated monasteries. That the Chinese government now takes possession of these and pretends to be the Protector of Tibetan Culture is in reality like the fox guarding the hen house.

3. Promotion of a "new socialist Tibetan culture" to portray traditional Tibetan society as dark, barbarous, and backward

"Art must serve the cause of Socialism," said Mao Zedong in the first forum on art and culture, held in Yanan. This continues to be the guiding principle of the Communist rulers. Chinese intellectuals use the phrase "5,000 years of Han culture" to prove the cultural backwardness of Tibetans and other minority nationalities. This mindset has convinced Chinese intellectuals in Tibet that their task is to reform Tibetan culture, which, they believe, can be done only by showing how backward the Tibetan heritage is. The combination of this intellectual superiority and the government's political agenda has led to a series of campaigns in Tibet. This has resulted in the development of two cultures; the traditional spiritual culture of Tibet and the communist-nurtured "campus culture", which is neither Tibetan nor Chinese.
While the traditional spiritual culture is denounced as the culture of feudal lords, the "campus culture" is touted as the culture of new, socialist Tibet. Although "campus culture" is taught from primary school to university level, it has absolutely no relevance to the reality of Tibetan society.
The knowledge of this shallow "campus culture" may help one make a living as a poet, writer, translator or journalist or administrative clerk under the Chinese government. But it does not empower him or her to further the development of Tibetan culture.
What China terms "Tibetan cultural development" boils down to the production and dissemination of literature, films, songs, etc. in praise of the new socialist Tibet and denouncing traditional Tibet as a dark, barbarous, brutal and backward society.

4. Tibetan studies used to undermine Tibetan people's interests

China's White Paper claims that great progress has been made in Tibetan studies in general and Tibetan medicine in particular. As we see it, the volume of recent research in Tibetology was pioneered from 1973 by westerners with active support from the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, India. The immense scholarly interest now shown in Tibetan studies by western institutions and students compelled the Chinese government to initiate wide-ranging research works of its own. But objectivity is not the aim of Chinese-sponsored research in Tibetan studies. This is why it serves to harm rather than benefit the interests of the people of Tibet.
Researchers in Tibet work under strict directives to ensure that their output supports Chinese rule in Tibet. For example, the first issue of the scholarly journal Bod-jong Shib-jung (1982) carried an article by Doje Cering, Deputy Party Secretary and Chairman of the TAR government, which lays down the ground rules for research works in Tibet. He writes, "We believe that Marxism-Leninism and Mao's thoughts are the compass to be followed by all scientists. These thoughts are the sole guiding principle of our Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences." He goes on to write that the conclusion of all research works on Tibetan studies must further the cause of the unity of the Motherland.
Expressing concerns about the approach of Tibetologists in Tibet, Dungkar Lobsang Trinley wrote in a 1985 issue of Bod-jong Shib-jug that, "It is not scientific if the research work, in the name of Tibetan studies, is done on Tibetans or any minority nationality with the aim of dividing it (into smaller nationalities)." But some researchers of the Minorities Research Institute, he writes, take such an approach. "And those who speak against this approach are accused of harbouring sentiments favouring the idea of Greater Tibet and local nationalism."
It is therefore clear that the basic aims of China's Tibetan studies are to undermine Tibetan nationalism and support the claim that Tibet is an inalienable part of China.
China's White Paper states that Tibetan traditional medical science has gained a new lease of life in Tibet. But it does not mention that the destroyer of Tibet's ancient medical tradition was the Chinese Communist Party itself.
Before the Chinese invasion, Tibet had many institutes and private and monastic practitioners who trained young doctors/pharmacists and looked after the health care needs of the local populace. The Tibetan medical tradition flourished widely during the time of Tibet's ancient dharma kings. In the eight century, Yuthok Yonten Gonpo trained thousands of Tibetan doctors and pharmacists. In the eleventh century, the Great Translator Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo established a medical college at Thoding Monastery, Ngari (Western Tibet). In 1643 the Fifth Dalai Lama established Drophel-ling Medical School in Drepung Monastery, near Lhasa and in 1695 Desi Sangye Gyatso had a medical college built-Chakri Bedre Drophen Tana Ngotsar Rigje Ling. In 1916, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama had the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute inaugurated in Lhasa and enrolled students from monasteries and the various districts of Tibet. Upon graduation, most of these students were sent back to serve their respective villages. Similarly, many monasteries in Kham and Amdo incorporated medical colleges.
The Tibetan medical tradition was patronized, preserved and developed for centuries through government and private initiatives. However, in 1959 China shelled the 17th-century medical institute, Chakri Bedre Drophen Tana Ngotsar Rigje Ling, in Lhasa. Even today this hill-top institution remains as stark ruins.
During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) Tibetan medical science was dubbed as a "superstitious and backward" tradition. Many renowned doctors were vilified, "struggled" and incarcerated in labour camps. One eminent example is Amchi Jampa Thinley, who was later rehabilitated and given official recognition as one of the most learned practitioners in China.
So, reality is that it was the Chinese government which destroyed and neglected tradional Tibetan medicine until the early 1980s. On the other hand, His Holiness the Dalai Lama kept alive and encouraged the development of this science of healing in exile by opening the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute in Dharamasala in 1960. This institute and its doctors and pharmacologists serve as the engine to spread the knowledge of Tibetan medicine in India and throughout the world. As international medical circles started recognizing the role and value of Tibet's science of healing to alternative medicine, the Chinese government reviewed its own policy and revived the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute in Lhasa. This is why Tibetan medicine and pharmacology came to be revived in Tibet.

5. China's act of rendering Tibetan language obsolete

China's claim that spoken and written Tibetan is "widely used in every aspect of social life in Tibet" and that "Tibetan language is protected by law" are totally contradictory to the prevailing reality of Tibet.
It is widely believed in Tibet today that those who study the Tibetan language have no future prospects. In a book, entitled Thunderous Secrets to the People of the Snowland in the 21st Century (published by Serthang Thekchen Choeling monastery in Golok, northeastern Tibet in 1996), Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok, writes, "Actually, the Tibetan language has no value in present-day Tibet. For instance, if a letter was mailed with an address written in Tibetan, it wouldn't reach its destination even within Tibet, let alone outside. In the case of travels, no matter how literate a person is in Tibetan, he would not be able to know the bus timing or read the seat number on his ticket. Even if one has to look for a hospital or a shop in the county headquarters or a city, the knowledge of Tibetan is useless. A person who knows only Tibetan will find it difficult even to buy daily necessities. If our language is useless in our own country, where else will it have any use? If the situation remains like this for long, the Tibetan language will become extinct one day."
He later writes, "Rare in Tibet are schools where one can study Tibetan language and culture. ... Moreover, parents have developed the habit of not sending their children to school. This is because the primary school teaches Chinese rather than Tibetan. Even if the students learn Chinese and graduate from the middle school, there is no employment scope in Tibet. They end up herding cattle and working in fields. There is, of course, a slight opportunity for learning Tibetan. But the parents know that Tibetan language is useless in day-to-day life. Therefore, they have no motivation to send children to school."
In 1987 the "Tibet Autonomous Region" (TAR) Congress passed a regulation stipulating that by 1993 all new junior middle school students must be taught in Tibetan and that by 1997 most subjects in senior middle schools and secondary schools would also be in Tibetan. But these plans were never implemented. To make matters worse, in April 1997 an official announcement was made to reverse the 1987 policy on Tibetan language. Tenzin, Deputy Secretary of the "TAR" Communist Party said, "The 1987 decision to allow boys and girls to be taught only in the Tibetan language will do no good to their growth." He further described the 1987 policy as "impracticable and not in conformity with the reality of Tibet".
In 1989 four experimental Tibetan-medium classes in secondary schools were established at the initiative of the Tenth Panchen Lama. The "TAR" Education Committee in 1995 acknowledged the success of these experimental classes and called for gradual expansion of Tibetan medium education to cover rural secondary schools. However, the Chinese authorities abandoned this project in 1996 as it was seen to breed Tibetan nationalist sentiment.
The late Dungkar Lobsang Trinley, a leading cultural and intellectual figure of modern Tibet-recognized even by China as a "national treasure"-was a powerful campaigner for the development of the Tibetan language. Until his death in 1992, Dungkar expressed great concerns at the predicament of the Tibetan language. In one of his statements he said: "We have reached a dangerous point. In Tibet today, the number of people literate in Tibetan is diminishing, in spite of the avowed aim of the nationalities policy over the last 40 years. ... In spite of Tibetan being declared the first official language in all government offices and meetings and official correspondence, Chinese is used everywhere as the working language."
Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok observed, "In the cities and county headquarters there are serious cases of people being unable to speak Tibetan, although both their parents are Tibetans. Many of them have lost their Tibetan characteristics. Moreover, the Tibetan officials cannot speak pure Tibetan. One-fifth or two-thirds of the words they use are Chinese. That's why common Tibetans can't understand their speech."

6. Mass education to impart Chinese culture

It is true, as claimed by the Chinese authorities, that there were only very few modern educational institutions in Tibet before 1959. However, pre-1959 Tibet also had thousands of monastic institutions, which served as learning centres for traditional wisdom and met the educational needs of people.
Beijing boasts of having taken on an important task over the past few decades to develop "popular education". But the reality is that this mass education system is a recent phenomenon. Due to the "democratic reforms", and particularly the chaos and madness of the Cultural Revolution, the mass education system could not take firm root in Tibet till the early 1980s.
In 1980 China adopted an ethnic-sensitive social and economic policy in Tibet as an internal strategy to encourage the "return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to China". As part of this policy, genuine efforts were made to improve educational facilities in Tibet. But this initiative was hamstrung by a scarcity of funds. Whatever funding was available was largely invested for the development of the market economy, the pet project of China's supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping. Consequently, between 1980 and 1989, more than 62 per cent of primary schools in the "TAR" were closed down and the number of students fell by 43 per cent. [Ref: 1995 TAR Statistical Yearbook]
In May 1980, Yang Jingren, head of the State Commission for National Minorities Affairs, stated, "everything must be done in line with ethnic and regional conditions rather than vague generalization or arbitrary uniformity". However, in reality the educational curricula are tailored to impart the knowledge of Chinese culture rather than Tibetan culture.
Then, in 1994, China adopted a compulsory education policy for Tibet. But this policy did not benefit the Tibetan people, as the government did not change post-1984 economic policies requiring rural dwellers to fund their own primary education, with only minimal assistance from county-level governments for capital construction and teachers' salaries. Since the majority of the Tibetan populace lives in rural areas, these economic policies disadvantaged Tibetans from reaping the benefit of the compulsory education policy.
Most Tibetans could not afford the expense of sending their children to school. On June 4, 1994, the chairman of the TAR government, Gyaltsen Norbu, acknowledged that "...one third of children in the TAR cannot afford to go to school".
The post-1984 economic policies have also resulted in an extreme rural-urban disparity in education as most state-run schools-which receive substantially greater government funding-are located in urban areas where the Chinese population predominates.
These are the reasons why many Tibetans are compelled to send their children all the way to India to enrol in educational facilities in the exile Tibetan community. According to a report by the Dharamsala-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, between 6,000 to 9,000 Tibetan children and young adults have fled Tibet since 1984 to seek educational opportunities in India and Nepal.
China's White Paper claims that the government of the PRC invested a total of 1.03 billion yuan to promote mass education in Tibet from 1990 to 1995. But, the reality is that a large portion of this budget was spent to pay the expenses of educating Tibetan students in China in order to groom a new generation of ideologically brainwashed Tibetan cadres. Improving facilities in Tibet was not the intention.
China's White Paper boasts impressive statistics on the educational performance of its government in Tibet over the past few decades. What the White Paper fails to tell is that the "Tibetan Autonomous Region" and the other Tibetan areas of Qinghai (Amdo) and Kham are still the lowest on the educational index of China-lower even than China's most backward province, Guizhou. [China Human Development Report 1997.]
In short, no matter how many institutions the Chinese government has developed in Tibet since 1959, the overriding goal of education for Tibetans has always been to encourage political allegiance to China. This is clearly reflected in the speech of "TAR" Party Secretary Chen Kuiyan at the 1994 TAR Conference on Education: "The success of our education does not lie in the number of diplomas issued to graduates from universities, colleges...and secondary schools. It lies, in the final analysis, in whether our graduating students are opposed to or turn their hearts to the Dalai clique and in whether they are loyal to or do not care about our great Motherland and the great socialist cause."

7. Mass media: a tool of Communist China's propaganda

China's White Paper boasts the establishment of "52 newspapers and periodicals", television stations, radio stations, etc. But are they free to publish objective and unbiased news and views? This is the crux of the matter.
As in all totalitarian countries of the past, Beijing monopolizes the mass media in Tibet and uses it as a tool of Communist Party propaganda, whose sole purpose is to brainwash Tibetans into complete subservience to Chinese rule. Private ownership of media and freedom of the press are anathema in Chinese-occupied Tibet. As a matter of fact, it is futile to expect freedom of the press from a government which jails and tortures people for merely putting up wall posters or shouting slogans of dissent.
Furthermore, in order to ensure the effectiveness of its propaganda, China makes concerted and systematic efforts to erect a wall against the flow of alternative news and views from the outside world. Audio-visual and print materials containing statements of His Holiness the Dalai Lama are banned in Tibet; their possession has earned many Tibetans long prison sentences. Similarly, the Chinese government invests a lot of money to jam the Tibetan-language radio broadcasts of the Voice of Tibet from Norway, and Voice of America and Radio Free Asia from the United States.
What's more, the Tibetan authorities ironically rely on Chinese as the predominant language of their mass media, although the nation has one of the world's oldest and most highly-developed written language traditions of its own. Tibet People's Broadcasting Station and Lhasa Television devote the major portion of their airtime to broadcasts in the Chinese language. Similarly, as China's White Paper claims, only "14 magazines and 10 newspapers" out of the total of "52 newspaper and periodicals" in Tibet are published in Tibetan. What is little known, but remarkable, is that the majority of reports and articles in the Tibetan language version of Tibet Daily, the biggest newspaper in Tibet, are mere translations of the preceding day's Tibet Daily in the Chinese language.
As for the claim of having published "6,600 titles of book", it is common knowledge that there has not been a single book published that deviates from the Communist Party's official line. If any writer dares to dispute the official propaganda, he or she will be fired from the job and imprisoned for "counter-revolutionary" propaganda. The majority of publications from Tibet disdain the Tibetan people's perspective on their own history and culture; some of them openly ridicule Tibetan history, culture and traditional wisdom. Like the news media, book-publishing ventures in Tibet do not serve to further the cause of Tibetan culture. They serve only to keep the people of Tibet in ignorance and under the subjugation of their communist masters.

It is pointless to trot out and publish impressive statistics to gloss over the destruction of religion and culture in Tibet. Over the last five decades, China has destroyed more than 6,000 Tibetan temples, monasteries and nunneries, and plundered and sold priceless statues and religious objets d'art. Similarly, over 1.2 million Tibetans have perished as a direct result of China's occupation of Tibet.
More recently, Beijing has come up with the "Western China Development Plan" to exploit Tibet's natural resources and escalate the migration of Chinese settlers to Tibet. This poses a new and greater threat of extinction to Tibet's unique culture and national identity.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)