Following are letters to the Editor published in Canada’s Globe and Mail daily :
Stop romanticizing Tibet
Thunder Bay, Ont. – The rail line to Tibet presents another opportunity to champion the Tibetans as poor, oppressed and culturally threatened (A Railway To Oblivion For Tibet? — front page, June 30). Unfortunately, this conventional narrative of Chinese imperialism lacks historical perspective and excessively romanticizes the past.
It’s critical to remember that, before the Chinese claimed Tibet, it was no paradise. In material terms, the economy was poor, backward and one crop failure away from starvation. In terms of human rights and human dignity, the kingdom was run as a rigid feudal system that allowed no upward mobility and no personal freedom.
Under the Chinese, there have been serious infringements of religious freedoms and basic human rights — no different, though, than the usual disregard for dissent and due process that you frequently report happening in the rest of China. The average Tibetan is a lot better off than he would have been had the old feudal system been left in place.
– Brian P. H. Green
July 5, 2006
Tibetan Destiny
St. Catharines, Ont. — Brian Green (Stop Romanticizing Tibet — letter, July 5) says the average Tibetan in Chinese-occupied Tibet “is a lot better off than he would have been had the old feudal system been left in place.” This is the sort of justification for cultural imperialism that one would expect from the Chinese Communist Party. The Tibetan refugees I met in India are also better off than they would have been in “feudal” Tibet, but most of them continue to hope that, one day, China will allow the Tibetan people to determine their own destiny.
China seems determined to flood Tibet with Chinese settlers and suppress Tibetan nationalism at all costs. The new railway is but another means to that end.
– Tom O’Neill
July 6, 2006
Just an average Tibetan
Toronto – I want to thank Brian Green (Stop Romanticizing Tibet — letter, July 5) for pointing out that Tibet before the Chinese came was not a perfect place. As a Tibetan, I will agree with Mr. Green. In Old Tibet, however, we had the right to choose what we wanted to read, pick whom we wanted to dedicate our prayers to and shout out a word as simple as “freedom” without having to worry about who was listening.
I invite Mr. Green to have his neighbour set up permanent camp at his house and decide all these things and more on his behalf. I’m sure he’ll quickly want to trade places with an average Tibetan in Old Tibet.
– Tenzin Rangzen
July 7, 2006
