[Marxism] Barry Sautmanon recent Protests in Tibet

["Fei Jiao" <feijiao@xxxxxxxxx>]

Barry Sautman is an Associate Professor of Social Science at the Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology. He is the author of "Tibet and The
(Mis-)Representation of Cultural Genocide" inside the book he edited :
"Cultural Genocide and Asian State Peripheries" published in 2006. His other
book is named "Contemporary Tibet : Politics, Development, and Society in a
Disputed Region" (edited by June Teufel Dreyer, 2005). He also published
many articles about Tibet. One of them also focus on cultural genocide which
is one of the major arguments by Tibetan separatists for an independent
Tibet : ""Cultural Genocide" and Tibet", published in Texas International
Law Journal, 2003, volume 38 , issue 2.

Last month Saul Thomas posted an article on this list named "How Repressive
Is the Chinese Government in Tibet?" by Leslie Evans is about a talk by
Sautman at the UCLA :
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2008w07/msg00258.htm.

Also in below is a short comment by Sautman in a report session on the
recent events in Tibet on the Australia ABC Radio in March 17.

Fei Jiao

*** *** ***

Protests in Tibet and Separatism: the Olympics and Beyond
Barry Sautman

South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
March 18, 2008

The protests in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas last week were organized to
embarrass the Chinese government ahead of the Olympics. The Tibetan Youth
Congress (TYC), the major Tibetan exile organization that advocates
independence for Tibet and has endorsed the use of violent methods to
achieve it, has said as much. Its head, Tsewang Rigzin, stated in a March 15
interview with the Chicago Tribune that since it is likely that Chinese
authorities would suppress protests in Tibet, "With the spotlight on them
with the Olympics, we want to test them. We want them to show their true
colors. That's why we're pushing this."

Several groups of Tibetans were likely involved in the protests, including
in the burning and looting of non-Tibetan businesses and physical attacks
against migrants to Lhasa. The large monasteries have long been centers of
separatism, a stance cultivated by the TYC and other exile entities. Monks
are self-selected to be especially devoted to the Dalai Lama. However much
he may characterize his own position as seeking only greater autonomy for
Tibet, monks know he is unwillingto recognize that Tibet is legitimately
part of China, an act that China demands of him as a precondition to formal
negotiations.


Because the exile regime eschews a separation of politics and religion, many
monks adhere to the Dalai Lama's stance of non-recognition of the Chinese
government's legitimacy in Tibet as a religious obligation.

Reports on the violence have underscored that Tibetan merchants competing
with Han and Hui Chinese are especially antagonistic to the presence of
non-Tibetans. Alongside monks, Tibetan merchants were the mainstay of
protests in Lhasa in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This time around, many
Han and Hui-owned shops were torched. Many of those involved in the arson,
looting, and ethnic-based beatings are also likely to have been unemployed
young men. Towns have experienced much rural-to-urban migration of Tibetans
with few skills needed for urban employment. Videos of the riots in Lhasa
showed almost all those involved to have been males in their teens or
twenties. In that regard, the actions in Lhasa differed sharply from the
broad-based demonstrations of "people power" in places like Southeast Asia.

Tibetans have legitimate grievances about not being sufficiently helped to
compete for jobs and in business with migrants to Tibet. There is also job
discrimination by migrants in favor of family members and people from their
native places. The gaps in education and living standards between Tibetans
and Han are substantial and too slow in narrowing. Raising these grievances
however is a very different matter from the calls for Tibet's independence
that featured in last week's demonstrations. The grievances have long
existed, but the protests and rioting took place this year because it is an
opportune time for separatists to advance their agenda.

While there is no chance that separatists will succeed in detaching Tibet
from China by rioting, they believe that China will eventually collapse,
like the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and they seek to establish
their claim to rule before that happens. Alternatively, they think that the
United States might intervene, as it has elsewhere, to foster the breakaway
of regions in countries to which the US is antagonistic, e.g. Kosovo and
southern Sudan. The Chinese government also fears such eventualities,
however much they are unlikely to come to pass. It accordingly acts to
suppress separatism, an action that comports with its rights under
international law. International law also gives the Chinese government the
right to regulate religious institutions to prevent them from being used as
vehicles for separatism.

The separatists know they can count on the automatic sympathy of Western
politicians and media, who view China as a strategic economic and political
competitor. Western elites have thus widely condemned China for suppressing
riots that these elites would never allow to go unsuppressed in their own
countries. Witness, for example, the Los Angeles riots of 1992, in which 53
people died. Western leaders urge China to exercise restraint, but neither
they, nor the Dalai Lama have criticized those Tibetans who engaged in
ethnic-based attacks and arsons.

Western elites give the Chinese government no recognition for significant
improvements in the lives of Tibetans as a result of subsidies from the
China's central government and provinces, improvements that the Dalai Lama
has himself admitted. Western politicians and media also consistently credit
the Dalai Lama's charge that "cultural genocide" is underway in Tibet, even
though the exiles and their supporters offer no credible evidence of the
evisceration of Tibetan language use, religious practice or art. In fact,
more than 90% of Tibetans speak Tibetan as their mother tongue. Tibet has
about 150,000 monks and nuns, the highest concentration of full-time
"clergy" in the Buddhist world. Western scholars of Tibetan literature and
art forms have attested that it is flourishing as never before.

The riots in Tibet have done nothing to advance discussions of a political
settlement between the Chinese government and exiles, yet a settlement is
necessary for the substantial mitigation of Tibetan grievances. For Tibetan
pro-independence forces, a setback to such efforts may have their very
purpose in fostering the riots.

*** *** ****
ABC Online
The World Today - Athletes consider Beijing Olympics boycott

[This is the print version of story
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2191373.htm]

The World Today - Monday, 17 March, 2008 12:16:00

Reporter: Barney Porter

ELEANOR HALL: The Chinese crackdown in Tibet - which Tibet's
government-in-exile says has killed at least 80 people - has sparked
international outrage.

Australia's Prime Minister this morning described the Chinese actions as
disturbing and said he would raise human rights issues during his official
visit to China this month.

The Dalai Lama is calling for an international inquiry into what he says is
"cultural genocide".

There have been protests in several European and American cities.

And now, just months away from the Olympics, there are reports that some
athletes may be considering a boycott of the Beijing Games.

Barney Porter has our report.

BARNEY PORTER: Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has spoken
of cultural genocide.

He says the situation is desperate and China's repression must come to an
end.

DALAI LAMA: Stability, unity, must come from heart. Not simply fiscal
control by force. It is wrong method.

BARNEY PORTER: Professor Barry Sautman from Hong Kong University says
economic conditions in Tibet are playing a key role.

BARRY SAUTMAN: Pretty much all Han Chinese living in Tibet are earning an
income whereas many Tibetans living in the cities, particularly Lhasa are
migrants from the countryside who arrived in Lhasa hoping to find a job but
with rather low level education so of course there are large percentage who
are unemployed. That's why you see in the films taken in Lhasa over the past
few days, that the majority of people engaged in this beating, looting,
burning etc, are young men. These are people who are most likely unemployed.

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