TIBET AND CHINA: I COLD WIND OF CHANGE AND ITS EFFECT ON TIBETANS

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33433, 15 January 1974, Page 12

TIBET AND CHINA: I COLD WIND OF CHANGE AND ITS EFFECT ON TIBETANS

(By

T. D. ALLMAN.

in fhe "Guardian")

(Reprinted 6y arrangement)

oon n i s me ie J’ ear » Lhasa shivers. The Tibetan capital is 11,830 feet above sea level, and on winter nights, as gale winds blow into Skjid Chu valley from the plateaux of central Asia, temperatures often tall to zero Fahrenheit.

The ordeal of the cold is intensified because tlie electricity supply in Lhasa becomes most unreliable during the coldest months Voltage is reduced, and often cut altogether. As electric lights and heaters flicker out, the city huddles in fireless rooms.

■ Vegetation is so sparse on the arid Tibetan plateau that firewood is an unobtainable luxury. Even though Tibetans are devout Buddhists, the lack of firewood prevents them even from cremating their dead.

Instead, according to tradition, the bodies of the dead are dismembered and fed to vultures and dogs. The act is justified as a final deed of Buddhist selflessness.

But it is also a sign of how all doctrines must inevitably

be modified when they are transplanted to Tibet’s’ wild and inhospitable “roof of the world." When the Chinese Communists started modernising Tibet in 1952, they saw that the most obvious source of electric power was water. But Tibet’s rivers freeze solid in winter, so the supply of hydro-electricity withers. I The Chinese hope that ■ some day the Tibetan plateau ! can act as an immense screen I for gathering solar energy. !But until then, Tibet under (Communism — as it was [under the Lamaist theocracy — will remain remote and j poor, and outside theories will have to be accommodated to Tibet's awesome reality. The givens of the environment also dominate Tibet during more clement seasons. During the picnicking season the whole of Lhasa, as if in reflection of its nomadic, ori-

I gins, still locks up its houses land moves to the outskirts of town for merrymaking. : According to those who! [have witnessed the spectacle, the Tibetans have lost none of their love for drink, dancing. and joking. The more; prim Chinese do not participate in the revelry. But, neither do they discourage it. I Religion strong Religion also remains a strong force in Tibet. Communist statistics claim that 20 per cent of Tibet’s 1.2 million people are Buddhist monks or nuns. Non-Com-imunist sources agree that there are still very sizeable religious communities. But the clerics are growing old and there are no new recruits. “The Communists tolerate the past because they are sure of the future,” one source said. Like young people everywhere, however, the young of Lhasa often show more interest in each other than in ideology. They daily gather around Lhasa’s four cinemas —- to buy soft drinks, gossip, and flirt. Strolling couples are not a rarity in Lhasa, unlike in the other parts of China. The men all wear Chinese-style padded clothing. But the girls still wear i traditional Tibetan dress. The elaborate gold, silver, and gem-studded Tibetan jewellery, however, now is a thing of the past. Much of the country’s wealth, it is claimed, was carried off by ■ members of Tibet’s 200 noble ; families when they fled to India with the Dalai Lama. For those Tibetans who never could afford jewellery — more than 99 per cent of the population — non-Com-munist sources with access to Lhasa agree that life now is much better than it was. Before 1959, they say, outright slavery was practised Many other Tibetans were serfs with no personal or property rights. And to this fuedal system were appended some of the worst aspects of the Indian caste system. In Lhasa, for example, disposal of the dead was the province of one untouchable caste — its members were forbidden to marry outside the caste, obliged to' live in filthy shanties, and prohibited by law even from acquiring wealth. In many cases, the aristocracy had become, through selective intermarriage, radially distinct from the main population. And the immense spiritual prestige of the Dalai Lama was used to buttress the monopolisation of wealth by the hereditary [aristocracy. Tibetan culture “It was a system of great anthropological curiosity, which filled Westerners full of romantic sentiments,” commented one Asian visitor to Lhasa. “At least now you [don’t see emaciated serfs in [rags carrying the litter of a ,noble dressed in warm clothing, turquoise rings, and gold bracelets,’’

Those with first-hand knowledge say that, contrary to other reports, the Chinese have not attempted to eradicate Tibetan culture. The Tibetan language remains the

imedium of government and (education — even though (what is taught is no longer (Buddhist scriptures but technical skills. No Chinese colonies have been set up in (Tibet. Tibetans hold most (administrative posts, though jthe Chinese hold others, and (undoubtedly dominate power !in the last resort. In addition, the Chinese have built motorable, allweather roads, linking Lhasa with both China and Nepal, and established regular air services between Lhasa and Cheng-Tu in Schezuan province. A railroad now links eastern Tibet with China. And even in the most remote areas, according to nonCommunist sources, important changes have occurred. Income from lands and herds now goes to co-operatives, rather than to absentee landlords or livestock owners. Teachers and doctors — both Tibetan and Chinese — no longer sit in district offices Instead they now travel with nomads, teaching in tent schools, and treating patients from portable dispensaries which follow the herds of lyaks and sheep .Modern buildings I Lhasa now is a town of 'more than 100,000 people with broad, but virtually trafficless boulevards, a few carefully nurtured gardens, and austere but modern-style office buildings. The winter’s sole saving grace is its bright, sunny days. Because it is frequently w’armer outside in the sun than inside, much of the city moves its wmrk out of doors, or into south-facing glassed-in rooms, which retain a little of the heat after nightfall. Besides its Tibetan and Chinese population, Lhasa also retains colonies of Nepalese craftsmen, and traders from Ladakh. But they sell only small assortments of shoes, dried food, and readymade clothing. Lhasa’s bazaar is no longer an emporium for the remote treasures of central Asia.

As always, Lhasa is dominated by the massive silhouette of the Potala — the Dalai Lama’s winter palace. Those in a position to have seen for themselves ridicule reports that Lhasa’s religious shrines were looted or desecrated by the Communists, or that the Potala was shelled. Instead they say the shrines are kept in perfect condition, with many relics ion permanent display. At the same time, they report that Lhasa — like the rest of China — went through turmoil during the cultural revolution. Tranquil Lhasa “Lhasa is tranquil,” one source said, “and the people seem, from joking and laughing you see, happy. At the same time, Tibet has experienced the same progress, and some of the same disruptions as the rest of China.” Perhaps what has happened to Tibet is summed up by the Potala itself. The palace, those who have visited it say, is kept spotlessly clean and treated with respect, although it no longer houses the Dalai Lama. The destiny of Tibet has clearly passed to a new, nontheocratic Tibetan leadership with close ties to China. For the first time in Tibetan history. the benefits of the many, rather than the privileges of the few, have become the standard of government. At the same time it cannot be doubted that as the iprice of this progress Tibet —like Mongolia, the Amazon, or the Arctic slope of Alaska —has ceased to be a world unique and solitary unto itself. It is difficult to weigh the gain of a new school against [the loss of an ancient religious ritual. But the loss, one visitor suggested, is perhaps greater for those who admired Tibet’s cultural curiosity from a comfortable distance than for those who endured its harshness. (To be continued.)