(East-West Question) Short Commentary: Looking at Tibet in 1963, how should reality and development be unified?
China News Agency, Beijing, March 27th, Question: Looking at Tibet in 1963, how should reality and development be unified?
China News Agency reporter Yang Chengchen
The 63rd anniversary of the liberation of one million serfs in Tibet on March 28 is approaching. The book "One Million Serfs Stand Up" published by American writer Anna Louise Strong in 1965 is still the world's most popular understanding of the history of democratic reform in Tibet today. One of the preferred readings.
This book uses twelve chapters to recall the year 1959, when Tibet's suppression of rebellion and democratic reforms were in full swing.
Well-known international journalist Israel Epstein commented when he wrote the preface to the English edition of the book that the author "truly unites the near-real and actual developments".
Cover of "A Million Serfs Rise Up"
However, this dialectical unity is still invaluable today when more than one million serfs have been emancipated.
In the eyes of some Western media, Tibet is still not entirely a real and material existence, and it is still imaginary and virtual in many cases.
Inheritance of thinking and even deliberate misreading have engulfed the West's perspective on Tibet.
This snow-covered plateau may only be the reality they imagined, and they do not admit or are unwilling to see "actual development".
Since the 1990s, with the deepening of the criticism of Orientalism, post-colonialism and cultural hegemony, the impression of Tibet under the influence of the Western context has caused extensive reflection.
People realize that the so-called spiritualized and Shangri-La Tibet does not exist, and the serfdom and feudal society that has been passed down for thousands of years here is not a pure land without exploitation, oppression, and materialism.
Strong's title, "A Million Serfs Rise Up," is apt in 1959, when she observed that the innovation that Tibet was promoting at the time was "as vibrant as the earth's recovery."
The author saw that the land that had been frozen for hundreds of years under the feudal serfdom was rejuvenated.
An ideal picture is being drawn - the fate of the Tibetan people is in their hands, and they are building a democratic Tibet.
In 2021, the new museum of the Tibet Million Serf Emancipation Memorial Hall in Lhasa will open, which is the only memorial hall in China dedicated to the abolition movement.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jiang Feibo
In fact, such a picture is being realized in the practice of people of all ethnic groups in Tibet today, or people on the plateau can clearly see its outline.
The mysterious and rich Tibetan cultural development may serve as an example.
In Tibet's primitive society, which lasted until the middle of the last century, the serf-owners, who combined political and religious power and accounted for less than 5% of the total population, possessed all cultural and educational resources and monopolized Tibet's material and spiritual wealth.
Even the women of the upper classes and the monks in charge of affairs in important temples such as the Jokhang Temple were "basically illiterate" and could not read newspapers or read any modern books.
The suffocated Tibetan social vitality has undergone earth-shaking changes due to the social mobility brought about by democratic reforms.
Today, Tibet has established a five-level public cultural service system, and the cultural industry has driven the construction of various industrial demonstration zones, with an output value of more than 6 billion yuan.
The illiteracy rate in old Tibet was as high as 95%. After the establishment of the modern education system in Tibet, ordinary people can enjoy 15 years of public education, and the average number of years of education for the labor force has also increased to 13.1 years.
On March 11, 2022, students of No. 3 Primary School in Chengguan District, Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region eat a nutritious lunch.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Gonggar Laisong
Virtualization, over-romanticization and even "exoticism" of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism are not helpful for understanding Tibet and the consciousness of the Chinese nation as a community.
"Building paradise on the roof of the world" was a slogan on the streets of Tibet in 1959. The 10th Panchen Lama Erdeni Chokyi Gyaltsen said to the press corps including Strong, "The Tibetan people will be happy from now on. ".
Today, 63 years later, Tibet's ushering in light and moving towards happiness is "practical development".
The beauty of Tibet belongs to China as well as to the world.
The determination of the Chinese government to continue to build the roof of the world is believed to be welcomed by more people.
(over)
In June 2021, Lhasa citizens "crossed the linka" in the local Zhangduo Internet celebrity linka to enjoy the Dragon Boat Festival holiday.
Passing Linka is the most common way of leisure and entertainment for Tibetans, and it is mostly concentrated between June and September.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Gonggar Laisong