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Tibetan lawmakers have designated March 28 as an annual "Serfs Emancipation Day" to mark the liberation of about one million serfs in the region and the end of what the Chinese government says was a system of feudal oppression 50 years ago. This CCTV report carries the official party line of what life in pre-Liberation Tibet looked like for serfs. It portrays them as having suffered immensely under a theocratic system and the despotic rule of lamas and aristocrats, and how they were often subjected to judicial mutilation such as the gouging out of eyes, and the cutting off of hands or feet.
There is a lack of consensus among Tibetologists as to the accuracy of the above portrayal of pre-Communist Tibet, and today, this topic remains highly politicised and controversial. Some academics are arguing that the essentially Western terms 'serf' and 'feudalism' may be completely inappropriate to the Tibetan context, while others say judicial multilation was declared illegal in 1913 by the 13th Dalai Lama, way before the Chinese took over.
For more on the subject, refer to Wikipedia's treatise on the Serfdom in Tibet controversy and Social classes of Tibet. Then compare BBC and Xinhua's reports on the declaration of the new holiday and make up your own mind. Also of interest: a look by Shanghaiist last November at how China is fighting the Tibet propaganda battle by means of Google Ads.
For more Tibet-related stories, click here.
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---"what the Chinese government says was a system of feudal oppression 50 years ago"?
i realy wish that ccp were as a liar as Dalai and that tibet were a shangri-la where serfs ruled over lamas and aristocrats instead.
i guess mr. parenti has same wish:
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
So they went from being serfs under their religious leaders to serfs under the CCP. If you call that progress...
nanheyangrouchuan boy,
as to if serfs under their religious leaders are still serfs under the CCP, i would be a fool, though i missed your beautiful azz a lot, to argue with you who just said farewell in tear to his beloved FORMER leader who would be more rememebered than ccp. if obama wanted to be rememberd as well as bush and be voted a second time by smart and great americans who like to quote freedom and demoncrazy as every performers and speakers did yesterday, to go liberate tibeten serfs would not be a bad idea. maybe bin ladin with wmd is hiding there among serfs. anyway, you paper tiger need a war every few years to be scared and bugged and to rally behind your boss and to consume 10%gdp and to feed your brave servemen and lockheed martin, with an empty wallet.
Hmm. Can't respond to a point without invoking the US huh? Typical.
i can imagine some poor peasants crowded around a tv thinking that the serf's lives do not sound all that different from life during the 50's-late 70's.
And still to this day, tilling land that they can not sell, and all but traded by local officials, when at a whim, they are told to move elsewhere as there land has been given to someone else. Oh, and being shot in a yard without a real trial...
Sure there have been some positive changes, but i don't believe the government should pat itself on the back for liberating anyone. Any country with that level of corruption and censorship can't claim to do any liberating.
The Dalai Lama was one of the biggest slave owners. Shame on him!