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Imperial Forum → Politics → Tibet Under Siege
"Say hypothetically, that you (Sir SupAll) are an atheist, and say Sir Gawain is a Protestant. Does Sir Gawain's belief of a God not infringe upon your belief that there is no God?"
Am I going to die? Then, no. He is not infringing on my beliefs. If he imposes himself on me, then I will feel like my belief is under threat and he would soon learn the consequences for doing so.
rofl, that sounds hilarious
"the consequences for doing so" like what... intellectual checkmate (hahahaha) or war?
out of curiousity, which religion do your moral beliefs align with?
""the consequences for doing so" like what... intellectual checkmate (hahahaha) or war?"
If that were the consequences, yes.
"out of curiousity, which religion do your moral beliefs align with?"
None. I believe in universal reincarnation, I believe that God is everything and nothing, I don't believe in heaven/hell, and I also believe that I was given a life and that as long as I live my life the way I want to and I die happy, I'll have lived a good life.
"and I also believe that I was given a life and that as long as I live my life the way I want to and I die happy, I'll have lived a good life."
i would like to applaud the redundancy here 
gave me a good laugh
My moral beliefs do not align with any religion. I say that there are no morals other than the ones we make up.
coffeeking, i knew someone that used either your name or a similar name on imperialconflict; your first name doesnt happen to be Ryan, does it?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7308169.stm
""If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China and the Chinese in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak out on human rights," Ms Pelosi told a crowd of thousands of cheering Tibetan exiles, including monks and schoolchildren, in Dharamsala."
lol wouldnt they like more incidents like this to happen 
. i hope you dont die of happiness when tibet or taiwan or any chinese province got its independence.
that kind of statement is clearly not helping the situation in tibet.
"I believe that all the land America has acquired was during war and ceded to us by treaty. Thus, it is a legitimate claim to the land."
The spoils of war argument is somewhat lacking in perhaps moral content but that argument can easily also be used to support China's claim on Tibet. The "Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" was signed by the Dalai Lama peaceably which recognised that Tibet was part of China. Like I said, the Dalai Lama and his fanatics only started all this talk of "independence" and an uprising when the Chinese began trying to introduce reforms to their oppressive feudal-serf system.
Tibet has long been considered a part of China and again this was recognised by the Dalai Lama before he realised that communists wouldn't allow a feudal system to continue for long and repudiated the treaty. The Chinese had an obligation to end the brutal religious theocracy and abolish slavery and serfdom for the common Tibetan peoples. Communism as bad as it was and is easily trumps what the DL had going on.
If a bunch of religious fanatics get offended that their power base has been destroyed, too bad. If they suddenly decide that they speak and act on behalf of all the common peoples of Tibet (ironic considering the relationship btwn the two in the past) and decide they want to incite terror radical Islamic style then a page has to be borrowed from the U.S rulebook in how to deal with religious extremists.
China's historical claim to Tibet is dubious at best. Tibet itself was once a powerful Empire- its only as Tibetan power declined that the Chinese Emperor's started flexing their muscles. from the 16th-19th centuries Tibet was a 'vassal' state if you will. It had its own leaders & was not a part of China although the Chinese Emperor did claim to be the boss. the British lead an exbidition to Tibet in the early 1900s, apart from massacring a thousand or so Tibetan troops the main thing they did was steal a chunk of Tibet which now lies in the Indian state of Anchur pradesh (or something like that). while the Chinese were too busy fighting themselves during the following years Tibet was relatively safe & fully independent, but once China had sorted itself out they turned once again to look at Tibet & the rest is history.
It is easy for Tavius to get on his high-horse- but what country is he from? how would he like it if his country had been invaded by a Giant of a neighbour, had suppressed the local culture & brought in huge numbers of settlers/colonists/immigrants (whatever u want to call them)?
the Tibetans are treated like 2nd class citizens in their own country, their language is discouraged, their culture discouraged, the Chinese are treated much better & as more roads & railways were built by the Chinese more & more chinese people moved there (be it down to government encouragement or for personal reasons). China with a population of 1.3Billion (or to put that in context: nearly 3x the EU or just over 4x USA). if the Tibetans arent a minority in their own land yet, they soon will be.
Tibetans -are- Chinese. Whoever started that stupid myth that the Chinese are all supposed to be of one ethnicity, monocultural and all the same (a subtly racist insinuation) has alot to answer for. Do the French differentiate their Alsatian people from the others?
Simply because the British showed up when China was weakened and as usual redrew the maps doesn't suddenly mean Tibet was meant to be separated from China. There was the Chinese Civil War yes but when it ended, the Dalai Lama was more than happy to sign a treaty re-recognising China's sovereignty with the winner which happened to be the CCP.
The biggest issue I think most people have is that they think the Chinese should have found a way to promote social reform and yet maintain the religious culture as it was. A religious system whereby the vast majority of the population were subservient to either the monasteries or the nobility as serfs or directly enslaved.
The problem is this - social reform came in direct conflict with the religious culture, you couldn't deal with one without dealing with the other. So initially the Chinese chose social reform over preserving the system as it was and ended the system og serfdom and slavery. That was when the nobility and the monasteries began the push for "independence". Did they truly represent the interests of the common Tibetan people as a whole? Anyone who believes this will believe anything.
As to countries of origin, which is yours? Is it the U.S? Like I said then adopt a morally consistent position and begin returning the United States over to native American hands and whatever govt they choose. After all U.S territory only fell into European hands 400 odd years ago and was mostly free of European influence before that. Or were we just playing situation ethics?
/Panda informs that because such is the trend of human civilization, we pandas refuse to participate in it, refuse to further it, refuse to breed within it. Instead, as we are pandas, we will merely sit back, eat bamboo in solitude, and remain amusedly intrigued by you stupid humans.
"Simply because the British showed up when China was weakened and as usual redrew the maps doesn't suddenly mean Tibet was meant to be separated from China."
what do you mean by this? you say that Tibet wasnt meant to be separated from China; meant by whom?
"A religious system whereby the vast majority of the population were subservient to either the monasteries or the nobility as serfs or directly enslaved."
can you provide a source for this that isnt from China; not personally calling you a liar, but i have yet to find a source confirming that, and the chinese government would be extremly biased in this subject.
"The problem is this - social reform came in direct conflict with the religious culture, you couldn't deal with one without dealing with the other."
you already sited some reform had been occurring in Tibet, what obstacle was there that forced the chinese government to invade taiwan with 80,000 soliders in 1950?
"Did they truly represent the interests of the common Tibetan people as a whole? Anyone who believes this will believe anything."
well, roughly 80,000 people followed him when he fled china, apparently alot of the Tibetan people thought he was looking out for their best interest.
"As to countries of origin, which is yours? Is it the U.S? Like I said then adopt a morally consistent position and begin returning the United States over to native American hands and whatever govt they choose"
the problem with the actions of China was never because they were there first, so this doesnt hold any relavence.
Nothing changes the fact Tibet was a nation of it's own when China invaded.
China has all sorts of blood on their hands.
@Tavious
Do you think my country of Estonia should be a part of russia? We were a part of them from 1716-1918 and 1944-1991. We speak a different language like the tibetans, we were under a totalitarian re
"
Do you think my country of Estonia should be a part of russia? We were a part of them from 1716-1918 and 1944-1991. We speak a different language like the tibetans, we were under a totalitarian re
Tibet is a different country to China- they speak a different language there, they have a different society- heck China INVADED them!
This is an excellent online article about how Tibet was before the Chinese returned, it includes sources and makes salient criticisms of the Chinese as well.
It's a little too reverent of the Dalai Lama, after all many injustices were allowed to continue under his reign (he was 25 when exiled) and it was only when exiled that he was "enlightened" as it were though that didn't stop him from being a supporter of Pinochet and Indian nuclear testing or reining his fanatics in from harrassing and oppressing other Buddhist sects.
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
An excerpt:
The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation--including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation--were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.”21 Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. 22
@ EmperorHez and Einstein
It wasn't invasion. How many people here know that the current Dalai Lama was installed by the Chinese Nationalists or that when the CCP were the clear winners of the Civil War that the DL signed a treaty with them recognising the continuing sovereignty of China as well? The uprising led by pissed off nobility and monks was hardly on behalf of their former Tibetan serfs.
@ philo
The relationship between Estonia and Russia is different from the one between China and Tibet. To think that somehow the Dalai Lama's buddhist fanatics and the exiled feudal nobility represent the interests and wishes of Tibetans as a whole is well...misguided. If the vast majority of the Tibetan population favour independence or greater autonomy than it should be considered however if it's just the Dalai Lama and his band of nobles who want their religion to be regnant in Tibet once more then no submission to religious fundamentalism.
the colonisation of america in the past was imperialism. it is now accepted as something that is wrong; it was accepted throughout the world as wrong before the Chinese acted in an imperialistic manner when they invaded Tibet. the people living in the US now didnt oppress anyone and shouldnt be subject to oppression for what settlers did a few generations ago.
Tavius face facts- China wanted their greedy hands on Tibet so they invaded. they've claimed Tibet for ages but Tibet has always been a different country. its called TIBET not CHINA. they speak Tibetan! how about you speak to some Tibetans afterall they will tell you straight.
i bet they will. so will basques.
so if a country conquers your nation ill be sure to remind them to shoot your people when they riot
Come on now....
China is a peaceful socialist model society now.
Hell, they have manufacturing, and export a lot. They are the next super-power.
They are only using the military to bar any one from going in (media) or coming out (anyone not Chinese Commie party member in good standing).
Hell, its Chinese Democracy in action. Lets all join hands, and Sing:
China is good,
Chinis is a model for us all,
China is great,
China will never fall...
La la la laaaaa, la....
Laaaa la la laaa laaaaaa
Come on all of you now......
considering bloody sunday incident, great britain is just as bad as china, right?
of course the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is bad- but ur talking to someone who wants its break-up, so naturally I would agree with you.
China is good,
Chinis is a model for us all,
China is great,
China will never fall...
La la la laaaaa, la....
Laaaa la la laaa laaaaaa
Mind if I use that in a song I'm writing?
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