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freely depart as might labourers in a market context. The instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, overlords had the best of both worlds. breaking off hands and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, One 22-year-old woman, herself a runaway serf, reported: whips and special implements for disembowelling. The "Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who servants and used as he wished"; they "were just slaves without had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. rights".'* Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners __ There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24- in yuan and wheat but refused to pay, so he took one of the year-old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a master's cows; for this, he had his hands severed. Another "liberation". He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to —_ herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his incessant toil, hunger and cold. After his third failed escape, he lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of was mercilessly beaten by the landlord's men until blood poured Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.” soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.” Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth In 1895, an Englishman, Dr A. L. Waddell, wrote that the of each child and taxed for every death in the family. They were —_ populace was under the "intolerable tyranny of monks" and the taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorise the people. In They were taxed for religious festivals and 1904, Perceval Landon described the Dalai for public dancing and drumming, for being Lama's rule as "an engine of oppression". At sent to prison and upon being released. about that time, another English traveller, Those who could not find work were taxed A Captain W. F. T. O'Connor, observed that for being unemployed; and if they travelled The poor and afflicted "the great landowners and_ the to another village in search of work, they were taught that they priests...exercise each in their own dominion aid a passage tax. When people could not . a despotic power from which there is no ay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 had brought their appeal", while the people are "oppressed by to 50 per cent interest. Some debts were troubles upon the most monstrous growth of monasticism anded down from father to son to grandson. and priest-craft". Tibetan rulers "invented Debtors who could not meet their obligations themselves because of degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of risked being cast into slavery.” their wicked ways in superstition" among the common people. In The theocracy's religious teachings . li y 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, uttressed its class order. The poor and previous Ives... wrote: "The Lamaist monk does not spend afflicted were taught that they had brought The rich and his time in ministering to the people or their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives. The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly What happened to Tibet after the resisted, sometimes suffering dire Chinese Communists moved into the consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation—including country in 1951? The treaty of that year provided for ostensible educating them... The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth."™ As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticised Shangri- La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism's western proselytes. powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives. Il. Secularisation vs Spirituality eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing and self-governance under the Dalai Lama's rule but gave China amputation—were favoured punishments inflicted upon thieves military control and exclusive rights to conduct foreign relations. and runaway or resistant serfs. The Chinese were also granted a direct role in internal Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder administration "to promote social reforms". Among the earliest interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two changes they wrought were to reduce usurious interest rates and sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes build a few hospitals and roads. At first they moved slowly, gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that relying mostly on persuasion in an attempt to effect he no longer is a Buddhist: "When a holy lama told them to blind reconstruction. No aristocratic or monastic property was me I thought there was no good in religion." Since it was against confiscated, and feudal lords continued to reign over their Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were hereditarily bound peasants. "Contrary to popular belief in the severely lashed and then "left to God" in the freezing night to die. West," claims one observer, the Chinese "took care to show "The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking," respect for Tibetan culture and religion". concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet.” Over the centuries, the Tibetan lords and lamas had seen the In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture Chinese come and go. They had also enjoyed good relations with equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his reactionary Kuomintang were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and rule in China.* The approval of the Kuomintang government was The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon previous lives... The rich and — powerful treated their good fortune ee i Dae tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives. NEXUS = 45 themselves because of their wicked ways in as a reward for, and FEBRUARY — MARCH 2008 www.nexusmagazine.com