Tibet

[Grudge]

Those who have positive views of the Dalai Lama must make a reassessment and form an objective view of what he represents, and the Tibetian situation in general. Read about what Tibet used to be like and it will horrify you.











Tibet Leaps Forward

by Hsi Chang-hao and Kao Yuan-mei

1977

(extracts)





Blood Sucking Exploitation



Tibet used to be a serf society built on manorial estates. The serf owners and their agents who constituted only about 5 percent of Tibet’s total population ow.ned all the land and forests and the overwhelming majority of the livestock, while the serfs and slaves who made up 95 percent of the population had no land of their own.



Outwardly, there were three types of serf-owners, commonly known as the “three manorial lords” of Tibet. They were the nobles, who had their manorial holdings and lingka (private parks); the local government, which, apart from possessing land holdings, also had the right to bestow or confiscate land; and the monasteries, which had their own manorial holdings. The area of land owned by the local government or the monasteries was greater than that owned by the nobles.



Actually, the whole of Tibet was then in the hands of the 200-300 powerful families of hereditary nobles. The members of these families were either the heads of the manorial estates, top clerical and secular officials of the local government, or higher lamas of the monasteries. And they alone wielded political, military, economic and religious power in old Tibet. At the pinnacle of this social pyramid sat the Dalai, playing his triple role of political ruler, religious leader and the biggest serf-owner.



The serfs, having no land of their own, belonged to the serf-owners, as did their children and their children’s children. Bound for life to their masters’ land, they had no political rights or personal freedom whatsoever. To their masters, they were nothing more than “talking cattle,” which could be bought, sold and exchanged as commodities or given away as gifts.



A serf owner usually allotted 30 percent of his land (poor land) to the serfs and kept the rest (mostly good land) under self-management for his own benefit. The serfs, besides working on the plots allotted to them, had to do the farming on their masters’ “self- managed” land and provide the draught animals required. Yet all the income from this “self-managed” land went to the serf-owners. This was part of the corvee, which also included non-productive labor of various kinds such as building houses, collecting firewood, fetching water, looking after children and cooking. The serfs even had to hand over 70 percent of the yield from the allotted plots the serf-owners. Under such a system, the serfs could barely eke out a living.



Serfs had also to perform corvee for the local government, such as “conscription corvee” (joining the army with self-supplied food and clothing), “foot corvee” (transporting goods either by themselves or with their own draught animals and doing repair and building work), and “hand corvee” (cutting grass and supplying chingke barley, butter, firewood and other things to the local government and officials).



The most common form of corvee was ula, which often caused the break-up of a serf’s family, or the death of its members. Whenever an offical passed through a village, the serfs had to discharge ula duties by providing him with food, lodging and other services. They had to supply whatever he wanted – horses, fodder, mattresses, tents, tables, chingke barley, beef and mutton, butter tea, and even girls. As he left, the official would step on the shoulders of a kneeling serf to mount his horse. In old Tibet, along the post routes, a serf was often seen currying after a mounted official. Regardless of weather conditions or the lie of the land, the serf, whether in good or bad health, had to keep up the pace, or he would never recover his only horse.



Exorbitant taxation was another means of exploiting the serfs. There were many kinds of taxes collected by the serf-owners. When a child was born to a serf family, his name was entered in the lord’s register and his parents had to pay a “birth tax.” After that they had to pay a “child tax” every year until he reached the age of 18. From then on, the young serf was considered an adult and began paying a “poll tax.” When he married, he had to present a hata (ceremonial scarf), butter and a sum of Tibetian money to the master. This was known as the “marriage tax”. The wedding was valid only if the serf-owner gave his consent. Whenever a serf bough anything, say a shirt or a pair of boots, there was also a tax for him to pay. If he violated his master’s regulations and was jailed, he had to pay a “jail tax.” Yet another tax was levied for expanding the Tibetian army, and the local government authorized the tax-collector to cut off the ears of anyone who could not pay. This was called the “ear tax”. When a serf reached 60 and as too weak to do corvee, he had to pay an annual “duty exemption tax”. Even when he died, he was not finished with the taxes. The family of the deceased was required to present the serf-owner with his earrings, an ornament most serfs couldn’t afford, or pay a “corpse tax.”



All serf-owners in Tibet, including the Dalai, were usurers. Manorial estates, monasteries, and government at all levels set up special offices with full-time staff to handle usurious loans. Over 10 percent of the annual income of the local government of Tibet came from usurious dealings. The most common was the seed grain loan. A loan given in spring had to be paid back in autumn with an interest rate ranging from 20 to 100 percent. If the serf failed to pay in time, the interest would be compounded. Usury was like a bottomless pit. Once in debt, a serf could never extricate himself. When a debtor died, the family had to take over the burden. In this way serfs were endlessly paying debts, year after year and generation after generation. People called this the “son’s and grandson’s debt.” Before the 1959 Democratic Reform, there wasn’t a single village in Tibet with no indebted serfs.



Tibetian monasteries were by no means purely religious organizations. Exploitation and plunder by the monasteries, whether in the form of corvee, taxation or usury, often surpassed those by the government officals and nobles.



The demarcation of classes and ranks were distinct and inviolable in the monasteries. The economic power of the monasteries was in the control of a handful of grand lamas, some of whom also owned private holdings and lingka. They led extravagant of dissipated lives, never worked and were waiting upon even when dressing or going to bed. Poor lamas made up the majority in the monasteries. There was a world of difference between their social position and living conditions and those of the grand lamas. Most became lamas as a form of corvee, or to evade debts, or to make a living. The Dalai had ruled that “if there are three boys in a family, one of them must become a lama as part of the family’s corvee.” In the Zheibung Monastery on the western outskirts of Lhasa, ther was a lama called Jagodwangdan who entered the monastery, while only nine. For 53 years he did all kinds of corvee, fetching water, sweeping, collecting firewood and herding cattle. Though he worked to the best of his ability, he still couldn’t get away from the higher lamas’ whipping. Once when he broke a small jar by accident, he was beaten unconscious, and has been disabled since. At the time of the Democratic Reform in 1959, he was in his sixties, and penniless. Inhuman treatment forced about 300 poor lamas to run away from this monastery every year at the risk of their lives.



As Engels pointed out: “The clergy was divided into two distinct groups.” (The Peasant War in Germany) Although all the lamas wore the same habit, there were in fact two antagonistic classes – the grand lamas who were the serf-owners, and the poor lamas who were the serfs and slaves.



It is difficult to estimate how much wealth was robbed from the serfs by the “three manorial lords.” A survey of the Talungcha Manor in 1959 showed that it had 67 serfs and slaves and 96 hectares of land, which yielded 5,670 kilograms of grain a year. Eighty six percent of the yield, amounting to 4.800 kilograms, went to the manorial lord. The serfs and slaves, apart from working the fields, had to do corvee duties for the lord and pay exorbitant taxes and usurious interest on loans. Another survey revealed that the family of the Dalai, the chieftain of the serf-owners, possessed 27 manors, 36 pastures, 6,170 field serfs, and 102 house slaves. Not counting that he had squandered and smuggled abroad (the Dalai smuggled a large quantity of gold and other valuables to India in 1949 and in 1959), his family’s liquid property fleeced from the Tibetian people included 160,328 taels of gold, 95,000 taels of silver, 20,331 pieces of jewelry, and 14,4676 articles of clothing. All this was confiscated by the People’s Government.





Revolution Inevitable



This savage political oppression and economic exploitation forced on the serfs an existence worse than even that of the beasts. Agriculture and animal husbandry in Tibet had been stagnant and backward for centuries in the past. Development of culture or public health was out of the question. With the prevalence of disease, of death at relatively young ages, and the widespread flights from torture and persecution, the population dropped drastically. Statistics for 1763-95 showed that there was a population of two million in Tibet (excluding the present Chamdo area). But by the time of the Democratic Reform in 1959, it had fallen to 870,000 – a reduction of more than 50 percent in one and a half centuries!



Oppression always gives rise to resistance. The savage rule of the Tibetian serf-owners served only to instill a burning hatred in the serfs, which was liable to erupt at any time. Nearly 100 serf uprisings took place in the period between 1908 and the eve of Tibet’s peaceful liberation in 1951. One hundred and fifty serf families in one dzong (equivalent to a county) in northern Tibet rose in rebellion in 1919 against the local government’s intolerable corvee and exploitation. They attacked the dzong government, killed its magistrate and routed the local garrison. For several years, the local government did not dare send a new magistrate to the plane. However, owing to historical limitations, these uprisings were unable to uproot the serf-owners’ rule. It was only under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party that this great historical mission was accomplished by the Tibetian people.



-------

[bills bro]

FREE TIBET

[ANGEL OF DESEASE]

[Grudge]

please read what I have posted.



I didn't just copy paste it from some website, I typed these extracts out from a book. It took effort.

[bills bro]

you could have scanned the book or taken a picture of it

[Grudge]

Mabb is not the only place where I had intended to post this. Some forum types don't show photos. So typed is ok.

[bills bro]

There are programs that convert images of text (scanned or photos) into text.

[Ninny]

Commie propaganda

[Grudge]

No. Objective facts.

[Teignub]

exactly how long ago was this system, with all the taxes and such, in place?

It was only under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party that this great historical mission was accomplished by the Tibetian people.

and that doesnt seem very objective to me.

[Redd]

Himmler funded an expedition to Tibet to find evidence of the "Aryan Atlantians."

[Haunty]

From the wording, I have a tough time believing this is the least bit objective. While I'll grant it some credibility, it more notably is filled with ideas that keep cropping up in Chinese publications.



One reason I have a tough time believing your article is because it contains so many "weasel words" (as wikipedia calls them). Your article exclusively contains one side of the story, completely neglecting the opinions of both the Tibetan nobility and serf-class. Furthermore, the fact that Beijing has warned countries that receiving the Dalai Lama on his current tour will "severely damage relations with China" makes it sound like they have something to hide.



Anyway, I do give you credit for pointing out the plight of the labor class in Tibet, even if it's not the whole story.

[baron von blondle]

true or not it's out of the frying pan into the fire.



one oppressor replaces another who wears a different uniform and changes the form of oppression..thats the way of things.

[Grudge]

On what real basis are you all accusing me of lacking objectivity?



HBW says I have not looked at the issue from the point of view of the Tibetian nobility. But I have looked at it from their point of view. The nobility were once in a position where they could exploit serfs. It is not so anymore. The living standards of the Tibetians have shown concrete improvement since the Communists came. Feel free to compare the two periods. It is a completely objective assessment.