Tibet & the issue of Violence

It is remarkable to see the attitude of the Chinese people following the unrest in Tibet (for example in http://news.xinhuanet.com/) because it so closely mirrors recent Western prejudice regarding anyone who challenges the West. People in the West think they are educated and well informed, and yet the Chinese who we have argued are ill informed and naive are arguing exactly the same as we have done!

Something is wrong. Either the Chinese people are well informed and it is not the Communist government which is spreading anti-Tibetan propaganda but our own spreading pro-Tibetan; or the Communist government has been successful in spreading anti-Tibetan propaganda as have our own governments in spreading anti-Taliban and anti-Hussein propaganda. You can't have it both ways!! This is a bad catch-22 for the West because either way they lose tremendously.

The general rule, plain and simple, is that whoever disagrees with us is wrong.

For this reason I would say that the Chinese are wrong, because they have a vested interest in keeping Tibet, and so are bias against the Tibetan's and anyone more powerful than the Chinese government. But that makes the West wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan because we have a clear vested interest in these areas (and have had for over a hundred years).

So I suppose the only thing the Chinese people must learn, exactly as the West needs to learn it: is never listen to anyone who has anything to gain from their point of view... because it is inevitable that this point of view will be biased in their favour.

Of course in the rare occasion you find someone saying anything that is against their interests then you know for sure you have found truth.

China has learned well from America tho. Ever since its inception and before America has excelled in this type of argument. I stamp on your foot, scratch your car, spit in your food and mount a prolonged and irritating offensive against the intended foe... until the point where the foe retaliates. All you need do is make sure that everyone sees the retaliation and then they look like the bad guys and you can then attack with impunity.

The sad think is the naive public fall for it every time... but maybe because the public have their vested interests also.

This is the way of the world I have noticed for a long time now, and at the moment I have no solution to what can best be described as the devil amongst us.

The path of non-violence (ahimsa) takes a "long time" so the Dalai-Lama says in Kundun. I have thought about that a lot. A "long-time" I have assumed means as long as it takes, in other words until the conditions that have caused something dissipate of their own accord. Fundamentally those conditions can be traced back to actions of our selves, it is karma that we must bear.

Last week however he admitted that "his" had got no results. This is something I have noticed also. If we show a weakl face to the devil then he will exploit that weakness. However if we express a strong face to the devil, we can be guarenteed that he will only fight the harder. How do you passify an agressive and ignorant agent?

Firstly one must act not from self-interest (after all that is part of the ignorance of the agent themselves), we must instead act with the interests of the agent at heart. If we can only raise hatred against the agent then there can be no resolution. But, at the same time not against our own interests where possible. This is often impossible where interests fundamentally conflict as in Tibet.

I have found that compassionate strength is the right way. That is we are powerful enough to be fearful, but we do not aim to harm. On an individual level that is fairly easy, on a national level it seems impossible. How can the Tibetan people form a Gandhi like resolve that would be prepared to be entirely massacred without any act of violence, and then simply not-cooperate with the authorities.

The other way of course is simply to become Chinese and give them what they want. The Dalai-Lama becomes a spirirtual leader out-side Chine like the many that already exist (including the master I have followed), and the Tibetans who wish to remain Tibetan must leave Tibet. The rest just become Chinese under the Communists. Big deal! "Communism" is a temporary formation, "Chinese" is a temporary formation that I would argue has already disintegrated (ask any Chinese what it means to be Chinese and they have no clue - its meaningless already), so what arethe Tibetans fighting for? A temporary formation called Tibetan? or spiritual enlightenment. If they want the latter they can do that anywhere under any name.