Colonialism, Tibet, and Political Theories

Last week, similar to every year, my nationalist friends posted cliche (celebrating killing native americans) against celebrating Thanksgiving. I know that Thanksgiving is not about celebrating any colonialist tradition, but what my irrational friends were criticizing is really something related to Rousseau's state of nature. 

Using Rousseau's terminologies, Thanksgiving is celebrated because of native american's compassion towards Pilgrims, and native american was killed because of Pilgrims' concept of private property: give me your land or I will kill you. Tragedy happens because Pilgrims are in a state of civilization, while native americans are more closely related to the state of nature. So according to Rousseau, Thanksgiving is really correspondent to killing, it is about civilization's inevitable killing of the nature. 

I am not trying to argue here whether we should celebrate Thanksgiving. What is necessary to discuss is the fact that the same kinds of colonialist tragedy still happens nowadays in the place I care most--Tibet.

In Marxism, we read about an extended version of the invasion of civilization. 

        "The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image."

--Manifesto of Communist Party Chapter 1, Marx/Engels

The Potala Palace

That's approximately what is happening in Tibet. When I was in Lhasa (capital of Tibet), I see monks doing business all over the day, monasteries surrounded by business area; from the natives I learnt that some tibetan girls becomes prostitutes for money, and because of the free market, some of them ask for 30 yuan a night-that's less than 5 dollars, a lunch in an ordinary restaurant costs even more. These activities are driven by desires, the arch enemy for every Buddhist, and economics itself is advocating this idea of desires. So maybe internally there is nothing "wrong" with doing business, or with prostitution, but they are not only so wrong but the worst of all the wrongnesses to a Buddhist, which also means, they will end up in hell, they will end up being tortured in afterlife--if they still keep their faith. Of course they can abandon their faith: a tibetan drawer told me that in order for them to "construct" their hometown (which is done by the government), they should firstly be a member in CCP; and every CCP is required to be an atheist and non-religious.

There is also a thing I hated most: tourism. I could remember in front of Jokhang Monastery (one of the most sacred temples in Lhasa), some guy with a Canon tried to take photo of the praying people. He looked through the camera, deliberately compositing his picture, meanwhile pacing forward slowly, finally he stepped on a praying lady (because one step in a Tibetan pray requires people laying down on the ground). Who are the most offensive? Tourist. They know nothing about the culture, and they are in Tibet because 1. "everybody is doing so"-Hobbesian contract; 2. "an unpossessed scenario--praying people, plus my labor-pressing down the shutter, and I create my property-Lockean contract. Why are they touring? Because they are citizen of communist-colonialist China.

Tourist colonialism also brought up environmental problem. Tourists are the free-riders, because they only stay for a short time, so there is no contractarianistic obligation for them to cooperate in the game. Environment protection is a classical example of game theory, yet these things are one-time event for tourists. And a big-brother of free-riders, CCP, says to those Tibetan who are in the state of nature, "see how rich those westerners are, toursim contributed a lot. Tibet has great scenario, let's do some toursim." "What about the environment?" asked a Tibetan. "Forget it, money is everything. Marx said 'infrastructures are determined by economic foundations'. With no money Tibet is nothing."Of course, why should the ignorant big brother in Beijing cares about the environment in Tibet.

I'm still wondering why people would like to apply Marxism in every non-economical area such as Soviet Union and China. Soviet Union practically proved failure of "socialism", and so did China in 60's by the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, so we all know that China is economically a capitalist country. "But that's not the end", says CCP, "let's do the same thing colonialists did in the Age of Discovery, let's secretly do some exploit to those who look different to our Han people". Let's turn to the quotation from the Manifesto I brought up in the post, obviously it is the stuff that Marx and Engels are against, but that's also what modern communist party is doing. It seems my previous questions are answered: Marx serves as a guidance showing them how to do ego-benefiting but evil things, and that's why Marxism are widely applied in Third World. Is it an example of dirty hand problem? I am going to say the same thing we said about Hitler: absolutely not. 

There will be two consequence for Tibetan: 1. Some Tibetan Marx arises and write against exploit; 2. We Chinese people celebrate thanksgiving for the extinction of Tibetan.

(Click here and here if you want to know more about Tibet political situation)