Posted on 02/02/2013 5:03:01 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee
NEW DELHI — A crowd of Tibetans came here to India’s capital last week, bearing flags and political banners and a bittersweet mixture of hope and despair. A grim countdown was under way: The number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in Tibet had reached 99, one short of an anguished milestone.
Yet as that milestone hung over the estimated 5,000 Tibetans who gathered in a small stadium, so did an uncertainty about whether the rest of the world was paying attention at all. In speeches, Tibetan leaders described the self-immolations as the desperate acts of a people left with no other way to draw global attention to Chinese policies in Tibet.
“What is forcing these self-immolations?” Lobsang Sangay, prime minister of the Tibetan government in exile, asked in an interview. “There is no freedom of speech. There is no form of political protest allowed in Tibet.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
China never made those territorial claims prior to the 20th century as far as I have been able to find. That was a Mao thing.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Exactly correct , my FRiend.
Of course the “fundamentalist” queer regent of the Dalai Lama also helped in the destruction of Tibet. He took funds and resources otherwise dedicated to one of the 5 major Tibetan Clans who rotated their military in and out of the
Gelugpa imposed duty of defending the passes of Tibet against invasion on a five year rotation, and spent it on “art.” Otherwise the Chinese would have had to rely only on air transport of troops, which was impossible in the early years.It only took a few thousand Tibetan men to close those passes, to keep the Communists out.That military presence just were not there because the Dalai Lama’s Regent would not pay them as had been the custom for hundreds of years.
Few know of this history because of the currently redefined version of history of the Dalai Lama’s government in exile.The Chinese communists took full advantage of the weakness of the Dalai Lama’s Regent. The Chinese claim that Tibet was a part of China is a complete and utter fabrication.Tibet and China had diplomatic and religious ties to Tibet. Tibet was never a part of China, nor was it ever a colony of China.The Communist Chinese simply disappeared over 2 million Tibetans and subjugated a free nation while the United Nations sat there and watched , doing nothing.And then the Dalai Lama made a huge mistake. He told Tibetans not to resist in the early days. Many fought on, especially the Khampas in Eastern Tibet and Mustang, but it was not enough to defend the nation. An early uprising would heave seen the throat of every Chinese in the Country slit, but that too was prevented by the Dalai Lama.
I think the Dalai Lama is a wonderful human being, but he was not a very astute politician.He made the mistake of letting compassion principle separate from the protection principle.They two are actually inseparable, and are as one.
AAs a result, the CHICOMS now destroy the Tibetan people.
The Tibetans who self immolate themselves are wasting an opportunity. If Tibetans must die, they should become suicide bombers and just walk into the Cental Chinese Government Offices in Lhasa and touch themselves off.
Self immolation simply makes the Chinese applaud the fact that there is one less Tibetan radical alive.
The fact is that the Chinese should leave Tibet forever.Only force will make them leave, nothing else.
This seems to be related to latitude, and allows more light to penetrate into your body so you can produce more Vitamin D. That allows you to settle even further North.
Red Hair was developed two times that we know of ~ with entirely different genes doing the job. It, too, is probably related to long term climate ~ an area not only in the North, but also with lots of fog! Think of it as 'super light'. A recent discussion I read about it said everybody continues to produce melanin. They do that even if they have these light skin genes. The light skin genes do several things ~ they suppress melanin production, but not entirely, since you need the stuff for other things as well. The European version also converts some of it to a RED/YELLOW chemical in a minority of Europeans (the sacred 300,000,000 red heads).
As these same people age they lose some of the capacity to totally suppress melanin and it will start showing up in their hair ~ which is why you have naturally red and strawberry blond people grow old and develop darker hair. In younger people that process can also be seen as FRECKLES.
Then there are people who naturally produce multi-colored hair ~ which is indicative of competing melanin suppression systems irregularly distributed in your body's cells.
Old timers here remember my complaint about cataract surgery depriving me of my naturally bright green eyes with their golden center. Well, they're back. The bad blue eyes began to produce melanin, and the anti-melanin genes began breaking it down. What that means is most of my eye color was located in two layers ~ the top of my lens and the inside of my cornea ~ so when the lens pocket was vacuumed by the eye surgeon it was all sucked out. Now, as i'm getting older, and producing less and less anti-melanin chemicals, the melanin has been able to use a single surface ~ the inside of my cornea ~ to build back some natural flashing green color.
The European people with the most intense melanin production system, and the red hair gene, are demonstrably derived from the Western European Ice Age Refugia population ~ and they lived in Northern Spain/Southern France in an unglaciated region.
They are the primary source of red hair in this world. They began moving out of the area toward the end of the ice age but before its peak about 24,000 years ago ~ and made it to North Africa, Scandinavia, Africa and North America. They appear to have stopped moving to North America (across the Atlantic ice bridge) by the peak of 20,000 years ago. Then, when the ice began the big meltdown they moved North in Europe to Scandinavia as fast as the ice melted. Light skin and blond hair may have shown up in European derived populations with that particular movement. The ability to drink cows milk as an adult didn't develop universally at that time, which is definitely in line with the thinking that the far north Scandinavian population experienced an extended isolation from the more Southerly populations for several thousandyears ~ an inability to digest milk sugar continues on in the far north even today ~
The answer to the question ~ where did you get Red Headed Chinese ~ is currently addressed by noting that these people's DNA also shows genes typical of East Asians. They are mixed. Some had pronounced European features and others pronounced East Asian features, but they were also mixed culturally, so you find those tartans on some of those East Asian looking mummies as well.
These folks arrived together in that part of the world about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. The red heads necessarily came from the Far West and North ~ where red heads are still numerous. Many archaeologists are prepared now to say these people are ancestral to the Tocharians ~ who spoke a sort of Gaellic.
We know the Gaellic speaking peoples had a major settlement area in Central/Eastern Anatolia ~still, notice that jump I just made from 18000 years ago to 5000 years ago ~ just moving your camp a couple of times a year could, over that period, enable your tribe to go almost everywhere in Eurasia!
Peeps moved away ~ they came back ~ they went North, they went South, the Sa'ami seem to be genetically ancestral to the first Paleolithic populations in North America, North Africa, parts of West Africa, and various spots in Eastern Europe. They are even ancestral to the Yakuts-Sakha. Before the age of DNA analysis there were those who imagined the Sa'ami came from the far east ~ but lo and behold, they are Western European in origin. At the same time East Asians have a 5% European ancestry, and Europeans, in general, have a 5% East Asian origin.
That's probably from nothing more than random genetic spread that occurs when you tribes trade their daughters to other neighboring tribes, and that, of course, is what human beings do to maintain genetic diversity. Those who don't just kinda' die off and disappear, so we don't know anything about those guys.
The differences between Tibetan people and Chinese people derive from the last 6,000 years of history ~ not from any true genetic difference.
Now there is a gene that popped up in the Tibetan plateau that enables SOME PEOPLE to handle high altitude oxygen levels better than others ~ and this gene is fairly widespread among ALL traditional Western Chinese ethnic groups as well as the Japanese ~ who haven't lived in China for a pretty long time BTW.
That one gene suggests much of China was settled by people coming from the Tibetan plateau, many thousands of years later after having lived in caves in moutains above what is today called Peking.
Back to the Chinese dilemma ~ we can look at their DNA to figure out who they are, but figuring out where they lived is the big question because other than a few hunting camps there don't seem to have been anyone doing anything in the Eastern plains of China until about 10,000 years back. i think that's due to the high density of big cats in the region. The climate anomaly called the Younger Dryass returned that region to hard core ice age desert overnight, and that probably wiped out the cats ~ including several species of Saber Toothed Tigers! The humans in their mountain plateau fastness survived somewhere eh! Actually, a bunch of them could have easily survived the Younger Dryas in the PAC NW, and then migrated back to Asia to repeople Tibet and Siberia, and begin the development of China.
The tribe of the guy that left the copralite in that cave in Oregon might be father to them all!
Of interest to those concerned with how recent some of these movements have been, you find many Japanese ~ particularly in the higher ranked old noble families ~ who look more like Tibetans than they do any other Japanese. That's because, lo and behold, those Tibetans look like the Yakuts Sakha who'd resided in the Eastern regions of India for several hundred years before Buddha ~ and then until about AD200 when the Hindu Revolution drove them back up to Siberia. About 560 AD they invaded Japan but they'd been involved in spreading Zen Buddhism long before then. China is kinda' in between there of course.
Definatly doing it wrong, BUMP
I agree. I think he was just too young and naive. A very realized practitioner but not old enough to be savvy about samsara. In a sense I think he erred on the side of protecting the Dharma instead of the Tibetan people and for that I can't fault him. That goes to show the distinct disadvantage of a leader who is responsible for both the spiritual and secular aspects of a nation.
I understand what you are thinking and feeling about that. Taking some enemy with you has a satisfying ring to it. But taking ten Chinese isn't ten less anything to the Chinese except ten less mouths to feed and ten less males competing for scarce females.
But, as a post earlier on alluded to, there is a psychological hit to the enemy from immolation and by killing some Chinese and introducing the aspect of revenge into the equation that negates the psychological impact. The act of immolation doesn't provoke anger which can be used to motivate counter-revenge. It deprives the Chinese of playing the Victim Card which is a major propaganda tool of socialists, communists and tyrants in general.
The red heads necessarily came from the Far West and North ~ where red heads are still numerous. Many archaeologists are prepared now to say these people are ancestral to the Tocharians ~ who spoke a sort of Gaellic.
So, I had it a little backwards. Some of my Scots ancestors may have wandered off to Asia for a little several thousand year holiday. But my direct ancestors were probably bitter clingers who stuck closely to the Isles. Some might have even come back from their Asian holiday in time to rejoin my tree. Fascinating!
My Mom is one of those sacred freckled red heads though it has mostly turned gray now. I'm one of the multi-colored hair types. Every hair color except jet black. And a red beard now grayed out. When I was younger my hair made quite a display when viewed closely under direct sunlight. From a distance or under dull light it just looks brown.
It sounds like humans in general are wanderers by nature. Thanks again, muawiyah!
That kind of confuses me though. Most basic histories of the Tibetans that I have found cite their linguistic heritage as Tibeto-Burman which I would think would parallel their genetic origins as well.
Real briefly, language and DNA are only broadly connected ~ roughly at the continental landmass level. Tibetans have been moving down hill to China and Mongolia for thousands of years. They are the Chinese!
“The Xia dynasty is thought to have run from the end of the third millennium B.C. to the middle of the second.”
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/chinadynasties/p/032409XiaDynst.htm
This would indeed put the first known dynasty’s beginning well after the migration to Tibet. In which case, yes, China is playing dirty pool here. Their traditional culture, predating Communism, portrayed them as being at the center of the world, so it’s understandable to me that they felt little compunction at playing fast and loose.
Just making it all up as you go is sounding familiar again isn't it? So far no bullets, just vague threats. A little character assassination for the recalcitrant.
Well, self immolation may empower and awaken Tibetans. But something effective must be done to get the Chinese out of Tibet. It may be far too late.
Tghat can only be accomplished by force majeur.The ancient darma Kings of Tibet, such as Gesar of Ling, had no problem in that regard, it is how Tibet was created by the major clans. There must be an enlightened military, or all is lost.
That goes to show the distinct disadvantage of a leader who is responsible for both the spiritual and secular aspects of a nation. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The current Dalai Lama’s predecessors would have had little hesitation in exercising the protective function.
Supporting the brutality of war while simultaneously trying to teach the compassion of the Buddha would be tough to balance in the best of circumstances. But the first cause was lost, or nearly lost, and the second was the higher calling in any event. Plus he was presenting the Dharma to so many newcomers who would be prone to confusion about principles. He became the voice of the Dharma to the world almost as fast as the Chinese invaded Lhasa. And probably almost as surprising to him.
Of course I am assuming much of this for the sake of discussion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/02/mutation-gene-tibetans-altitude A gene identified as EPAS1 makes all the difference. 9% of Han Chinese have it ~ 87% of Tibetans have it ~ it is believed this is the gene that makes it possible for Tibetans to live at high altitudes far longer than people who are not Tibetan ~ so, eventually, the Chinese Chinese die.
This view you summarize may be the truest that we in the West can understand. But the fact is that from the traditional Tibetan point of view, there was no separation between the state and religion in Tibet, it was not even within the purview of possibility. Its just the way the Tibetan world was assembled.
Protective functionm simpkly was compassion, and its manifestation was not seen as “ non compassionate.” That idea came from the West with the traveller philosephers who managed to speak of such things to the Dalai Lama and Tibetans, in the traditional “weatern liberal” view.In fact what this exchange did in essence was to move the administration of giovernment from the Vajrayana View to a Theravadin view of protection so that Tibet woiuld be seen as “more civilized and modern”, when in fact the seeds of Tibet’s destruction were being sown, what compassionate activity should be. Even today The DL is extremely hesitant about encouraging the protective practices such as Vajrakilaya.This is somewhat questionable and actually hails back to the false view that there can be only 3 “proper” karmic actions, pacifying , enriching and magnetizing with the fourth , destroying being omitted or diluted. This is a historically false path, unfortunately.
The historic trajectory of Tibet was interrupted by these modern aberrations. Its difficult but not impossible to source the true history of Tibet and its fall. I spent several years assembling the necessary material. One interesting book is the biography of the 13th Dalai Lama,Thubten Gyatso, not the revised history approved version by the 14th Dalai Lama but Bell’s book.
Sir Charles Bell (1870-1945) wrote a biography of the 13th Dalai Lama called Portrait of the Dalai Lama, first published in 1944. He was commonly called “The Precious Protector, “ signifying just how important the role of protecting the country was traditionally.
The legendary view of the role of the military in Tibet which was obscured by the the 14th Dalai Lama and his government in exile can bee seen in the Gesar of Ling epic.
This is in fact what the genuine history of the protective principle of the Tibetan people truly is, not the politically correct Theravadin-like version we see manifest today by the 14th Dalai Lama.The ordinary people pf Tibet emulated Gesar for Centuries.
http://www.shambhala.com/the-superhuman-life-of-gesar-of-ling.html
As Chögyam Trungpa explains in the Foreword:
“When we talk here about conquering our enemy, it is important to understand that we are not talking about aggression. The genuine warrior does not become resentful or arrogant . . . It is absolutely necessary for the warrior to subjugate his own ambition to conquer at the same time that he is subjugating his other more obvious enemies. Thus the idea of warriorship altogether is that by facing all our enemies fearlessly, with gentleness and intelligence, we can develop ourselves thereby attaining self-realization.”
Travelling bards in Tibet, despite the overwhelming communist Chinese presence, still tell the Epic of Gesar of Ling to the Tibetan people, of the Great Warrior who
continues to protect Tibet to this day.Its a living oral tradition.
The definitive version of this Epic Cycle will be released
in July of 2013, and there is much to be gained from it in terms of the correct view of how Tibet protected itself throughout its history, including during the various reigns of the Dalai Lamas, from the earliest days of Padmasambhava in Tibet:
Just as one cannot truly understand Great Britain without reading about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, little or no understanding of Tibet’s tradition of self protection can be understood without reading about Gesar of Ling. It has a direct impact on what modern Tibetans must accomplish to regain their country.
The lung capacity of Tibetans who live above ten thousand feet is extraordinary.They are barrel chested and extremely vigorous, and as the Chinese have found, extremely hard to kill. They are hardly “Chinese.”
And yet (I won’t annoy folks with it, but it Googles up readily enough) there’s a .cn web site that is now bragging about peoples in China back to 10,000 B.C.
India can show an archeologically credible trace back further than the Xia dynasty, I believe. One has to go to the bible to find civilizations prior to this.
Kind of a micro-evolution of the Chinese... if that is even applicable.
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