The Truth, nothing but the Truth !!
http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/28/stories/2009032854911000.htm
Celebrating social emancipation in Tibet
N. Ram
History shows that resistance to anti-feudal reform was deeply entrenched in the Dalai Lama’s theocratic regime — fusing the causes of separatism and the preservation of feudal serfdom. The events of 1959 brought forward China’s project of freeing a million serfs.
Today the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of the People’s Republic of China celebrates its first Serfs Emancipation Day, an official annual holiday. The commemoration has come half a century after the Democratic Reform did away with feudal serfdom and slavery and the theocratic system in Tibet, emancipated a million serfs, and laid the basis for the autonomous modern development of the region as part of the Chinese socialist system. It was on March 28, 1959 that the central government announced it would dissolve Tibet’s local government and replace it with a Preparatory Committee for establishing the Tibet Autonomous Region.
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But right now, thousands of Chinese schoolchildren and university students are sampling the historical evidence at an exhibition on the ‘Democratic Reform in the Tibet Autonomous Region’ at Beijing’s Cultural Palace of Nationalities. You can see they are engaged, at points wide-eyed and wide-mouthed with astonishment, as they see and file past the documents, the photographs, the artefacts, and the instruments of the most savage medieval torture imaginable, which were employed, by both the lay and monastic serf-owning nobility, right up to the middle of the 20th century to conserve ‘friendly feudalism.’ In the last week of February, I spent a couple of hours at the Beijing exhibition, observing the exhibits as well as the reactions of the young visitors. It was a powerful and compelling unveiling of the truth.
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Version (2) .. I watched Rashomon
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http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13382035
Rejoice, damn you
China prepares to celebrate a dangerous anniversary
IT’S official: “Tibet has moved from darkness to light, poverty to affluence, dictatorship to democracy and seclusion to opening up.” So proclaims the notice at an exhibition in Beijing marking the 50th anniversary of Tibet’s “democratic reforms”. To celebrate, officials in Tibet have designated March 28th Serf Liberation Day. Lest anyone not share the mood of rejoicing, security will be tightened, dissidents kept behind bars and foreigners firmly steered away from the region.
With grim determination the authorities are trying to manufacture joy. Floral displays bedeck parts of Lhasa. The official media are filled with stories of happy Tibetans. In Beijing, the Tibet exhibition aims to show how the region has flourished under Communist rule after “centuries of slavery and suppression”. Pride of place goes to a diorama showing former serfs merrily chucking “feudal documents” into the fire.
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YouTube may also be a victim. Access to it has been blocked in China since shortly after the Tibetan government-in-exile released video footage (denounced as a lie by China) purporting to show Tibetan protesters being beaten by Chinese police. No such slur is permitted in Beijing. The cause of human rights in Tibet, says an exhibition brochure, has made “remarkable progress”.
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