7 Facts Pacifists Need to Learn

American Thinker ^ | April 20, 2008 | David Bueche

[TigersEye]

ping to post #20

[TigersEye]

Good post. In some respects I think the Tibetan people are doing that. For the most part I think they have maintained their culture and ethnicity as different simply because it is different. Another aspect is that the Chinese have been, even apart from the brutality, duplicitous, arrogant and extremely bigoted from the beginning. They have not given the Tibetan people the slightest positive motivation to like them or get along with them.

It is quite foreign to the traditional Tibetan mindset to be divisive or devious even with an enemy. They are so direct in the way they deal with others that the CIA had difficulty dissuading the Khampa warriors they were training from assaulting fortified PLA positions head on on foot and on horseback. (see article linked above)

I think that 58 years of PLA enforced occupation has worn down that POV, which is born of being raised to be open and respectful in the Buddhist tradition, and the younger generation has begun to absorb the rude and devious manner of their oppressors. They have been forcefully discouraged from pursuing the inner path to peace and spiritual wealth and are left with the outer example that the means to power and autonomy are deception and violence.

The ChiComs couldn't have chosen a worse way to conquer Tibet if they had planned to do everything possible to make it fail.

[cmdjing]

Boy thats rich, its good to know that flights of delusional fancy are popular among liberals and conservatives alike. Too bad your plan is about as useful as tilting at windmills. The glaring ommission in your passive resistance plan is it completly ignores the reality on the ground and the nature of Chinese migration to Tibet.

Most Tibetans do not speak Chinese very well to begin with, but the thing is, it doesn’t really matter and the Chinese do not particularly care. Daily life between the two societies already exist in a form of mutual self-segragation. The vast majority of Tibetans live in rural areas where they have virtually no day to day contact with Han Chinese to begin with. The Chinese are concentrated in the urban areas which are predominantly Han Chinese whose economy primarily caters to other Chinese .

The problem with passive resistance is that for it to work, the occupying power must require the cooperation of the locals in order to effectly run day to day affairs. The reason why it won’t work in Tibet is because the patterns of economic development and immigration in Tibet are turning Tibetans into an irrelevant underclass.

The Chinese don’t need their cooperation to begin with. Economic sabotage? Hah, that only works if Han business owners hired Tibetans to begin with. Consumer boycotts? Too bad Tibetans are too poor and that it is Han Chinese buying from other Han Chinese. Han Chinese being mistreated at Tibetan stores, most businesses are Han run to begin with and most Chinese won’t shop at Tibetan establishments with alternatives available. Tibetans giving people the evil eye? I hope they like staring at yaks because thats the only thing watching.

[TigersEye]

That is very true. You describe the callousness and bigotry of the Han Chinese and the Hu Jintao clique cult government very well. ; )

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I am under no illusions about the intentions of the Chinese being nothing less than ethnic cleansing via repopulation of Tibet with Chinese, marginalizing the Tibetans into extermination. The same process is clearly underway in both Xinjiang province, against the Uighars, and in Inner Mongolia, against the Mongolians.

However, that being said, this leaves the Tibetans, et al., facing only three alternatives. The first, armed revolt, will just result in their quick extermination. The second, passive resistance, as I suggested, might eventually work. The third is to do nothing, which will result in the Chinese goal of ethnic cleansing.

Since, as you point out, the Han stay with the Han, and the Tibetans stay with the Tibetans, then this situation must be reversed. The Tibetans must infiltrate the society of the Han in some way that imparts to them influence in the course of events.

Then, as someone else succinctly put it, they “monkeywrench” the Chinese. Some degree of creativity is a must.

Their goal is to make life in the area unpleasant for the typical Chinese civilian. If the civilians can be convinced to leave for greener pastures, much of the battle will be won, because the Chinese plan will be subverted.

If a Tibetan develops a nasty and communicable disease, by all means he should attempt to spread it among the Chinese. The same applies to Chinese animals. Tibetans can learn the art of graffiti, in Chinese. Tibetans can try to corrupt the Chinese youth, providing them with dangerous drugs.

Tibetans can clog the pipes, and pit the roads, knock out power supplies, yet never confront the Chinese head on. If they are upwind, burn foul things on their fires. If they know where the Chinese intend to walk, that is a great place to go to the toilet.

No one is helpless, and struggling against oppressors revitalizes the spirit in powerful ways. All Tibetans should make it their mission to make life as miserable for the Chinese as possible.

[LonghornFreeper]

The first, armed revolt, will just result in their quick extermination.

The Russian army was sent home in defeat and disgrace from Afghanistan. Tibet has terrain just as harsh, there is no reason they could not do the same, if enough of them chose to die on their feet rather than live on their knees.

[TigersEye]

There might be one reason. No one in the world will supply them with arms. The Afghans had a lot of guns to begin with but still would have lost if the U.S. had not supplied lots more along with Stinger missiles.

[expatguy]

bump

[cmdjing]

The Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan not because of military failure but because of politics. People forget but the Soviets were invited into Afghanistan by the original communist government to put down rebellion. The intention was never to actually stay in Afghanistan in the long term but rather prop up and stabilize the government and leave. The problem is that Soviet strategy focused on holding Afghanistan’s cities as they had in putting down rebellions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia while they should have been fanning into the country side which they lacked the manpower to do effectively. The Soviet army in Afghanistan was never large to begin with (only the 40th Army was deployed) and relied on what proved to be an unreliable Afghan national army. The constant shifts in Soviet leadership during the early 80’s did not help either. The failure of the Soviet mission in Afghanistan was not characterized by the withdraw of Soviet forces, but rather the overthrow of Afghanistan’s communist government after they left.

The problem with comparing it to Tibet is that Tibet has no independent government, it has no national army, and the Chinese do not intend to leave.

[LonghornFreeper]

I appreciate the information about the Afghan conflict. I was barely able to walk at the time, and I admit I haven’t done much research on the topic.

[LonghornFreeper]

Perhaps (or even almost certainly, as you and another poster suggest) they would be crushed if they fought.

However, I don't think that your idea of passive resistance will work either. The current situation in Tibet seems to me to be very similar to the situation in America in the 1800's, with a far more advanced civilization pushing westward into the lands of indigenous peoples. I am not trying to start an argument about US-Native American relations. I am just making the point that quite obviously, European civilization won and they lost, badly.

To be painfully honest, Tibet only has three options at this point. First, they could mostly abandon their culture and do everything they can to mimic the Chinese, in the hope that one day they will be treated better and possibly even allowed to keep some aspect of their culture (Tibetan reservations, essentially what we have here for those Native Americans who still cling to their culture, or at least pretend that they do).

Second, they could continue their non-violent resistance, which will lead to the slow assimilation of Tibet into China, and will leave the Tibetans as a permanent underclass within what used to be their country. That is if they are allowed to continue to live there at all.

Third, they can fight, even against overwhelming odds, and at least be remembered for their bravery. Perhaps one day in the future the Tibetan exile community could even return. If nothing else, an event in Tibet like the Alamo or the Warsaw Ghetto uprising or the battle of Thermopylae might at least rally the world to take more decisive action.

[TigersEye]

First of all it was yefragetuwrabrumuy's idea to employ passive resistance not mine. I support guns and butter if we could find someone to supply them.

Secondly, cmdjing is a confirmed ChiCom operative so anything he says is PRC propaganda.

First, they could mostly abandon their culture and do everything they can to mimic the Chinese, in the hope that one day they will be treated better and possibly even allowed to keep some aspect of their culture (Tibetan reservations, essentially what we have here for those Native Americans who still cling to their culture, or at least pretend that they do).

I don't see any sense in that. If they give up their culture and mimic the Han Chinese then there would never be any going back. Their culture would be gone forever after one generation. Which is basically what is happening under duress right now. The Han Chinese are so bigoted and racist that the Tibetans will always be an underclass no matter how hard they try to assimilate. Assimilation in the minds of the Hu Jintao clique means complete genetic and geographical dilution.