Protests in Tibet

machadinha

<cross-posted with Munivar. Isn't Chomsky's main plank linguistics still? It's his daily occupation I believe. Again, I'm not an ardent follower or anything.>

Yes, and thanks, but now we're touching on something:

In my reading he's just saying that we apply double standards to various forms of resistance in different parts of the world, depending on the geopolitical situation and our assessment of it, or our own particular predilections. As I don't think anyone can deny we do. I can't read into this passage that he's supportive of or defending Beijing.

Above, suddenly "the" far or radical left has been positioned as thinking this or that. Let me start by pointing out that I consider (former) Labor Party MP's or members such as Galloway or Livingstone far from "radical" or "far" left, but thoroughly enmeshed in mainstream politics instead. Such people cannot speak for me or the people I associate with, I do not feel affiliated to them, I do not feel the need to defend them or reflect on them, in fact I feel nothing for them but utter boredom at best. Those radical thinkers or speakers (I'm not sure if those two politicians can be considered thinkers in the common sense at all) I do feel affiliated to will naturally hold a vast array of positions on all sorts of issues, sort of like other human beings.

I've been surprised at the turn this thread has been taking, with its not-so implicit calls for Tibetan armed resistance. I've addressed it before on this thread, which went unanswered, maybe out of disinterest, whatever, I don't mind.

IndiaMike has never been renowned to me for its sympathies for radical (leftist) political stances or action. That's fine, and I don't expect it to, and it isn't a political platform after all (thank heavens).

However and like I said before, I find such calls naive and romantic. Armed resistance doesn't take place in a vacuum, the idea that one can "rise up" in arms and then all will be well & you will automatically have right on your side is a comic book (or perhaps easy newspaper) notion at best. (And not to mention the sacrifices and casualties involved, far from abstract as they are.)

Militant movements based on quite different ideologies aside (which would nonetheless merit studying of their own accord), radical and militant socialist and progressive-nationalist struggles under their many sub-umbrellas have a history of what, two hundred years if not longer. Peasant revolts and the likes have been going on before that since practically the dawn of mankind. One needs to study or at least be aware of these as well as their inherent dynamics (the fallback to even stricter authoritarianism I mentioned before not the least of them, not to mention practical military [im-] possibilities, or the wider question of how to organize and relate to and engage one's supporters, or how to effect change even in the midst of that struggle, how to organize oneself economically and so on, how to handle and fill in any liberated areas, and a thousand other things that spring to mind) in order to progress. In fact, any militant movement will expand on and apply anew and thereby add to that history, whether conciously or subconsciously.

Moreover, the necessary arms and finances and other resources don't come out of the blue, I am unaware of any radically progressive arms manufacturers or dealers or bankers to support such causes. Former Tibetan struggles commemorated on this thread, while obviously worthy of our appreciation, also make it clear how, in this case, they were firmly in control of the CIA. As even former guerrillas in some of the good articles pointed to bitterly bewail, speaking of how they feel abused in hindsight. It could have been any other power block, of course. War, after all, is dirty business no matter how you look at it.

Another crucial thing I think is we cannot underestimate how, post-9/11 (yes, there's that dreaded term again), any militant people's struggle -- ranging from demonstrators who are willing to do just a little more than marching and holding picket lines, to actual armed resistance in other places -- can and will be easily filed away under the label of "terrorism" and extremism. After 9/11, the "coalition of the willing" and those beyond were quick to jump on the bandwagon by pinpointing their own particular domestic struggles as being part of the "global war against terrorism." Russia did so with Chechnya, China with Xinjiang. Indonesia with its militants and secessionists, etc. And all by international consent, after all, said war suddenly reigned supreme. (And many of these cases underhighlighted in the press tho' they may be.)

So this looks like a check-mate for the notion that armed, or even and more broadly speaking radical, struggle may be a legitimate expression of people's struggle for self-determination, or again even more generally speaking any social struggle as such. (Which of course was never all that natural a notion to the public mind as I present it here to begin with, even long before it.) I think any serious struggle today would first have to seek to reclaim this notion if anything is to be achieved (other than giving up on it altogether, thereby relegating all exercise of force to the state, all of which have traditionally claimed the monopoly on it after all), something that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon. So at the moment, any state power, which doesn't naturally welcome that notion, seems to be at the upper hand, and has been so for quite some time.

(Case in point: I was reading the other day how Bush had urged China to open negotiations with the Dalai Lama, but on the condition that the latter stop supporting violent actions. Er, what support, one might ask?)

This also reflects on the possibilities of any international solidarity movements, who will by association likely be accused of being at least supportive of any such "terrorists" or radicals. This has always been a problem for such movements -- how to build up a mass support movement involving the necessary middle classes today, who won't naturally take kindly to the use of violence or again any "radical" means -- let alone how to hopefully have such a movement reflect back on one's own radicalization, or bid for self-determination -- but for the same reasons, that problem has only increased, not decreased.

To get back to Chomsky then, all I read in that quote is it's sort of wondrous how we don't recognize the right of one people to militantly demand its rights for lack of other avenues, while supporting another in doing so -- and I would add to that in what I think so far doesn't extend beyond the abstract and the ill-defined, or at least not from what I've been reading here. And as I would have expected Chomsky to comment, indeed, and I agree.

Well, thus endeth this little rant.

[Edit, only later upon looking up that link]:

As you'll have seen Vistet, that short quote you pointed to is preceded by another short one. To quote both in full, as I feel it offers some necessary context:

It's apparently taken from a more substantial contribution at the (excellent) ZNet, which however requires subscription to read this particular piece.

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Shiver me Timbers

The point is that Chomsky is always very willing to give the Chinese the benefit of the doubt on almost all issues - see the following quotes -

Sadly, it fits into a larger pattern of his and his followers way of thinking -

"US = Bad, therefore anyone opposed to the US = Good (or at least, not worth wasting any significant time condemning)."

Witness him and Pilger's minimising of Serbian atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo for another example (See here). His analogy comparing Tibet with Israel/Palestine is so so mis-guided it's not worth getting into here, suffice to say he would never dream of giving Israel or the US the kind of benefit of the doubt he gives China.

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Shiver me Timbers

The world's newest states are all the result of some kind of seperatist struggle - armed in Kosovo and East Timor, peaceful in Montenegro.

Indeed the most likely future new states - Kurdistan and Southern Sudan - will also come into existance as a result of armed struggle. Of course, none of them were facing China, but I do think there is a precedent there.

For me, armed struggle must be the last resort when all other avenues are closed, and a people's very survival is at stake. I think Tibet meets those requirements, although I've outlined in my post #270 how NOT to do it.....

I certainly wouldn't rule out armed struggle without offering any alternative......

IVAN

Without a serious destabilisation of China, caused by God knows what, the power/numbers ratio, combined with the probable readiness of the Chinese to really do "whatever is necessary" to keep Tibet, makes the success of a Tibetan armed struggle highly improbable for the time being.
The countries that succeeded to get independence militarily (like my own) did not face odds such as 6 millions against more than one billion...

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Shiver me Timbers

Sorry, my last post was poorly worded.

Just to clarify, I'm not calling for armed struggle against the Chinese, for the very good reasons that IVAN has outlined above. However, I do think it would be morally justifiable under the current circumstances, and with no other alternatives to secure the future of the Tibetans, it would be perfectly understandable if it did come to that.

IVAN

Agreed.

puchoo

One of India's top athlete's Baichung Bhutia refused to carry the olympic torch to show his solidarity over the situation in tibet.

Link here

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IVAN

Since conscience has been mentioned, it is interesting to remember Hu Yaobang, who Went To Lhassa to apologise for the unjust policy of China towards Tibetans, and promised to remove tens of thousands of Han administrators from Tibet.
Yaobang was sacked, in a large measure for precisely that reason.


It is important to understand that the Chinese communist party is not homogenous, and that very different visions of China coexist and sometimes collide inside it.

It has been mentioned that the Olympic games should not have been attributed to China, but while it is true that the games are used in part by the CPC as a tool for the affirmation of the party and China as a world power (and I share Edwardesecco's concerns about an emergent obsolete imperial state of mind of world domination among Chinese), the comparison with the Berlin games would be a mistake because China is still searching its way, and these games indeed also represent a need among the Chinese population to open to the world, to become a part of the "normal" world.

In that perspective, it would not be a good idea to make these people feel rejected, and even more importantly, it would not be a good idea to undermine the efforts of certain factions of the CPC which are trying to direct China in a positive direction.

So the protests and actions in relation to this present situation should be intelligent, as the situation is in fact quite subtle.

It will probably come as a surprise to many, that some high ranking cadres of the CPC actually contacted certain associations who organise protests on the route of the olympic flame, expressing their support for these protests, but asking that they do not get exagerated. Those are the people who represent a different line inside the CPC, and who hope that this situation could help them inside the party, but are also afraid that it could help the hardliners.

Sama

how do you know this? has this been in newspapers anywhere or you know of a website with this info? because if you have a link I'd like to write about it in my blog.

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IVAN

The info comes from a reliable source inside one of these organisations. No link sorry.

Munivar

Got this in email. Cannot vouch for authenticity. But I won't be surprised if that is true.

Mods: please remove if I am in violation.

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capt_mahajan

Mod note : Violition, no, though a source url would have been nice for copyright purposes.

But maybe your email did not mention it.



Member's note and excited PS:

Meanwhile, I found this link

http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/ch...iots-tibet.htm

Dunno who's view this is, just above the photo

machadinha

Left this lying around, not wanting to engage in a yes/no affair. But to not answer it seems childish as well. I guess both our positions are clear:

Or one could turn that around; one who criticizes one's own government is a [given country]-basher, who is moreover open to condemnation for not bashing [subject X].

Those quotes tell us very little; they've obviously been compiled by some Chomsky-basher (looking up the author whom I don't know, an apparent ardent defender of the state of Israel who for some reason seems to have his sights set on Chomsky while he's at it, if you backtrack to his homepage: http://www.paulbogdanor.com/, with such uplifting titles as "Jews Who Hate the Jewish State" or "Leftists For a Second Holocaust," or his reviews such as "Chomsky’s Totalitarian Apologetics" and "Chomsky’s Protocols" -- the reference can only be to the infamous yet still current Tsarist anti-Semitic hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion of course. In that particular piece, he never repeats or explains that reference even, apparently considering it understood to the reader instead. Distasteful, wouldn't you say, and what a way to silence a critic. You will of course realize that Chomsky is Jewish and considers himself both a libertarian socialist and a Zionist, and that so-called "self-hating Jews" are the worst kind among some of Israel's more adamant proponents.) He references Chomsky's paper works in his footnotes alright, which you'll forgive me for not looking up.

Taken out of context, they could mean anything. Most of the quotes you gave seem to derive from a critical comparison of the Chinese vs. the Soviet system. Not knowing enough of the subject, to make the comparison as such doesn't strike me as intrinsically evil or unjust.

(ps Not very surprisingly, a web search for this Paul Bogdanor throws up some responses by a number of people, no few of them Jewish, who have come under fire by him, as interesting as they are often hilarious. He seems quite active on web forums, so before we know he'll show up here googling for his name to give us his piece of mind I'm reminded of a member here actually, if the two are identical I'd like that member to speak up now or forever hold their peace.)

John Pilger, btw (and who you also mentioned before), a former war correspondent in SE Asia among other places, is accredited with being among the first to have highlighted the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Of course, in doing so he has also addressed the US's role in the matter.

Dilliwala

Hmm, 1.3 billion population and they cudn't find civilians as extras?

At least we can take comfort that in case there are unfilled seats at the Olympics, they shall not remain unfilled for long!

Shiver me Timbers

Scuffles mar Olympic torch relay

More on this story.....

Mach, the fact that the guy is a 'Chomsky-basher' (he's biased so he must be wrong, right?) does not alter the fact that:

1. Chomsky has very little to say about the plight of Tibet in comparison to certain other conflicts.

and

2. His silence on the issue fits into a wider pattern of ignoring or minimizing situations where the US is deemed (by him) not to be the aggressor/oppressor.