No subject

The media imposes certain stories on us, and the one about Tibet goes like =
this.
The People?s Republic of China, which, back in 1949, illegally occupied Tib=
et,
has for decades engaged in the brutal and systematic destruction not only o=
f the
Tibetan religion, but of the Tibetans themselves. Recently, the Tibetans?
protests against Chinese occupation were again crushed by military force. S=
ince
China is hosting the 2008 Olympics, it is the duty of all of us who love
democracy and freedom to put pressure on China to give back to the Tibetans
what it stole from them. A country with such a dismal human rights record
cannot be allowed to use the noble Olympic spectacle to whitewash its image=
.
What will our governments do? Will they, as usual, cede to economic pragmat=
ism,
or will they summon the strength to put ethical and political values above
short-term economic interests?
There are complications in this story of ?good guys versus bad guys?. It is
not the case that Tibet was an independent country until 1949, when it was
suddenly occupied by China. The history of relations between Tibet and Chin=
a is
a long and complex one, in which China has often played the role of a prote=
ctive
overlord: the anti-Communist Kuomintang also insisted on Chinese sovereignt=
y
over Tibet. Before 1949, Tibet was no Shangri-la, but an extremely harsh fe=
udal
society, poor (life expectancy was barely over 30), corrupt and fractured b=
y
civil wars (the most recent one, between two monastic factions, took place =
in
1948, when the Red Army was already knocking at the door). Fearing social
unrest and disintegration, the ruling elite prohibited industrial developme=
nt,
so that metal, for example, had to be imported from India.
Since the early 1950s, there has been a history of CIA involvement in stirr=
ing
up anti-Chinese troubles in Tibet, so Chinese fears of external attempts to
destabilise Tibet are not irrational. Nor was the Cultural Revolution, whic=
h
ravaged Tibetan monasteries in the 1960s, simply imported by the Chinese: f=
ewer
than a hundred Red Guards came to Tibet. The youth mobs that burned the
monasteries were almost exclusively Tibetan. As the TV images demonstrate, =
what
is going on now in Tibet is no longer a peaceful ?spiritual? protest by
monks (like the one in Burma last year), but involves the killing of innoce=
nt
Chinese immigrants and the burning of their stores.
It is a fact that China has made large investments in Tibet?s economic
development, as well as its infrastructure, education and health services. =
To
put it bluntly: in spite of China?s undeniable oppression of the country, t=
he
average Tibetan has never had such a high standard of living. There is wors=
e
poverty in China?s western rural provinces: child slave labour in brick
factories, abominable conditions in prisons, and so on.
In recent years, China has changed its strategy in Tibet: depoliticised rel=
igion
is now tolerated, often even supported. China now relies more on ethnic and
economic colonisation than on military coercion, and is transforming Lhasa =
into
a Chinese version of the Wild West, in which karaoke bars alternate with
Buddhist theme parks for Western tourists. In short, what the images of Chi=
nese
soldiers and policemen terrorising Buddhist monks conceal is a much more
effective American-style socio-economic transformation: in a decade or two,
Tibetans will be reduced to the status of Native Americans in the US. It se=
ems
that the Chinese Communists have finally got it: what are secret police,
internment camps and the destruction of ancient monuments, compared with th=
e
power of unbridled capitalism?
One of the main reasons so many people in the West participate in the prote=
sts
against China is ideological: Tibetan Buddhism, deftly propagated by the Da=
lai
Lama, is one of the chief points of reference for the hedonist New Age
spirituality that has become so popular in recent times. Tibet has become a
mythic entity onto which we project our dreams. When people mourn the loss =
of
an authentic Tibetan way of life, it isn?t because they care about real
Tibetans: what they want from Tibetans is that they be authentically spirit=
ual
for us, so that we can continue playing our crazy consumerist game. ?Si vou=
s
=EAtes pris dans le r=EAve de l?autre,? Gilles Deleuze wrote, ?vous =EAtes
foutu.? The protesters against China are right to counter the Beijing Olymp=
ic
motto ? ?One World, One Dream? ? with ?One World, Many Dreams?. But
they should be aware that they are imprisoning Tibetans in their own dream.
The question is often asked: given the explosion of capitalism in China, wh=
en
will democracy assert itself there, as capital?s ?natural? political form
of organisation? The question is often put another way: how much faster wou=
ld
China?s development have been if it had been combined with political
democracy? But can the assumption be made so easily? In a TV interview a co=
uple
of years ago, Ralf Dahrendorf linked the increasing distrust of democracy i=
n
post-Communist Eastern Europe to the fact that, after every revolutionary
change, the road to new prosperity leads through a ?vale of tears?. After
socialism breaks down the limited, but real, systems of socialist welfare a=
nd
security have to be dismantled, and these first steps are necessarily painf=
ul.
The same goes for Western Europe, where the passage from the welfare state
model to the new global economy involves painful renunciations, less securi=
ty,
less guaranteed social care. Dahrendorf notes that this transition lasts lo=
nger
than the average period between democratic elections, so that there is a gr=
eat
temptation to postpone these changes for short-term electoral gain. Fareed
Zakaria has pointed out that democracy can only ?catch on? in economically
developed countries: if developing countries are ?prematurely
democratised?, the result is a populism that ends in economic catastrophe a=
nd
political despotism. No wonder that today?s economically most successful Th=
ird
World countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Chile) embraced full democracy only a=
fter
a period of authoritarian rule.
Following this path, the Chinese used unencumbered authoritarian state powe=
r to
control the social costs of the transition to capitalism. The weird combina=
tion
of capitalism and Communist rule proved not to be a ridiculous paradox, but=
 a
blessing. China has developed so fast not in spite of authoritarian Communi=
st
rule, but because of it.
There is a further paradox at work here. What if the promised second stage,=
 the
democracy that follows the authoritarian vale of tears, never arrives? This=
,
perhaps, is what is so unsettling about China today: the suspicion that its
authoritarian capitalism is not merely a reminder of our past ? of the
process of capitalist accumulation which, in Europe, took place from the 16=
th
to the 18th century ? but a sign of our future? What if the combination of
the Asian knout and the European stock market proves economically more
efficient than liberal capitalism? What if democracy, as we understand it, =
is
no longer the condition and motor of economic development, but an obstacle =
to
it?
Slavoj ?i?ek
Birkbeck College, London WC1

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n08/letters.html