This installment of History Lectures Online features a lecture given last year by Tsering Shakya (Tibet: Does history matter?) as part of a conference on Tibetan history sponsored by the Center for Buddhist Studies, the Center for Chinese Studies, and the Institute of East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley. Professor Shakya is a professor of contemporary Tibetan studies at the University of British Columbia and works on the political, cultural, and literary histories of twentieth-century Tibet; among his many publications are Fire Under the Snow: The Testimony of a Tibetan Prisoner (1997) and The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 (1999).
Professor Shakya once wrote:
“It seems that asking some Chinese intellectuals—be they Communist Party officials, liberal democrats or dissident writers—to think about Tibet in an objective and reasonable manner is like asking an ant to lift an elephant; it is beyond their capabilities and vision. Their perception is impaired by racial prejudice and their imagination clouded by the convictions and certainties of all colonial masters.”
Nevertheless, Professor Shakya is no starry-eyed romanticizer of Tibetan nationalism. In his introduction to The Dragon in the Land of Snows, he writes:
“Today, the issue of Tibet’s recent past is hotly contested in the political arena and presented in a crude dialectic. Both the Chinese and the Tibetan authorities have vested interests in reducing the issue to simplistic terms…Neither the Tibetans nor the Chinese want to allow complexities to intrude on their firmly held beliefs. This has resulted in what I have called ‘denial of history,’ a process which necessarily entails negation of responsibility.”
It’s a fascinating talk, well worth the hour or so, for anyone interested in Tibet and/or Tibetan history.
7 responses so far ↓
1 davesgonechina // Feb 14, 2008 at 1:48 pm
“Neither the Tibetans nor the Chinese want to allow complexities to intrude on their firmly held beliefs. This has resulted in what I have called ‘denial of history,’ a process which necessarily entails negation of responsibility.”
Damn straight! The Uyghurs do it too. Aiya, it drives me crazy.
Another guy with this angle is John Powers.
2 richardlee // Feb 14, 2008 at 2:33 pm
If he were a white, I would believe what he said, because it would lend him a objective perspective. but since he himself is a tibetan, his credibility is dubious
3 Jeremiah // Feb 14, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Dave,
I’m with you. Everytime I hear “well, history says…” or “according to history…” used in the service of contemporary political exigencies, I can’t help but cringe.
4 Teluoyi_in_SF // Feb 14, 2008 at 4:09 pm
“Their perception is impaired by racial prejudice and their imagination clouded by the convictions and certainties of all colonial masters.”
Without reading the original text by Professor Shakya, I might risk commenting out of context. I wasn’t sure what “racial prejudice” and “colonial masters” he was referring to. But I suspect he meant that of the Han Chinese over the Tibetan Chinese (well, Tibetans are Chinese becasue Tibet is still under PRC rule anyway, much like Asian American or Hispanic American). If the answer is positive, this so-called racial tension as he described did not come into the full play as is today as in the past several centuries when the Chinese Empire’s central goverment, aka His Majesty the Emperor himself, must approve the Living Buddha or the Dalai Lama’s political leadership status. It became a problem after the Communists took over, because Communists are atheist per se.
Now the Dala Lama himself was no angel. Under his rule, Tibetans were mostly peasant slaves owned by and working for the Potala Palace. Go count the human skull lamps that used to be widely used in the Tibetan Buddhist temples.
Because the West, particularly the U.S. which is astoundingly Christian (which I found disturbing because Christians seem to dominate the country’s politics today, from gay marriage to abortion rights to stem cells research), considers the atheist communist China a sore in the eye. Now it so happened the self-exiled Dalai Lama gave them yet another God-sent “cause” for a crusade against communism.
Now I’m not defending communism. I’m simply tyring to say there’s no absolute objectivism or purity in thinking. Everything is a matter of relativism, partially explained by the famous syaing “There is no permanent friends or enemy; there’s only permanent interest,” which is so true in international politics, because everyone sets off from where they are from. Nobody can be an exception.
5 Frog in a Well - The Korea History Group Blog // Feb 15, 2008 at 8:04 pm
[...] Tibet: Does History Matter - Tsering Shakya (mentioned at Granite Studio here) [...]
6 Girl // Apr 9, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Teluoyi_in_SF
“Without reading the original text by Professor Shakya, I might risk commenting out of context.”
You risked it. Give me a break dude, read his work before you have an opinion on the matter.
I don’t get how you know your making a mistake and then make it.
7 Dab // May 14, 2008 at 12:52 am
Dear Richard Lee,
If you were a white, I would believe what you said, because it would lend you an objective perspective. but since you yourself are a [fill in the blank], your credibility is dubious.
Just asking you to employ a little more logic and a little less chauvinism, whichever kind of chauvinism that might be that you do clearly have. That’s all. ‘I would believe you if you were white!’ What kind of racist BS is that!
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