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Through the Eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult Heritage and Memory Intibet

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Through the Eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult Heritage and Memory Intibet Vetter, Through the eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult heritage and memory inTibet Through the eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult heritage and memory in Tibet Jordan Vetter Abstract : The Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet serves as an important religious symbol and an embodi- ment of Tibetan culture. Ever since Chinese troops invaded Tibet in the 1950s, the Chinese government has attempted to control Tibet, including converting the Potala Palace and its rich material culture into a secular institution on display for tourists. Now void of the Dalai Lama and most of its contents, the Potala has become a façade for public consumption of Chinese state-led narratives and a symbol of cultural oppression. Through their approaches to heritage management and tourism, and with the aid of the Potala’s listing as a UNESCO World Heritage site, China is capitalizing on Tibet’s cultural heritage, undermining the Ti- betan people and their culture, and controlling the narrative of Tibetan history to alter the collective memory of Tibetans. Keywords: Tibet, memory, cultural oppression, heritage management, UNESCO DOI 10.33137/ijournal.v6i1.35270 © 2020 Vetter, J. Through the eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult heritage and memory in Tibet. This is an Open Access article distributed under CC-BY. iJournal, Vol 6, No. 1, 1 Vetter, Through the eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult heritage and memory inTibet Introduction Situated within a tumultuous history, the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet serves as an evolving and important symbol, for the people of Tibet and for the Chinese government. Dating back to the 7th Century, the Potala is an iconic part of the region, a hub for Buddhists around the world, and an embodiment of the Tibetan culture (Wei, 2018). Ever since Chinese troops invaded Tibet in the 1950s and the Dalai Lama, the religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism, fled to India, the Chinese government has controlled Tibet, attempting to assimilate the region and turning the Potala into a museum and World Heritage site (Baculinao & Cumming, 2018; New World Encyclopedia (NWE), 2019; Perryer, 2019). In this way, the Potala is a symbol of cultural oppression and the Tibetan struggle for independence, and a façade for public consumption of Chinese state-led narratives. The Potala Palace is implicated in the academic and public conversations surrounding the portrayal of difficult history. The concept of difficult history refers to stories of oppression, vio- lence, and trauma (Rose, 2016). In the case of Tibet, it is a subjugated history, where stories are told by the victors, silencing or marginalizing other voices, and there is intentional altering of material records at the hands of the Chinese government, resulting in a collective loss or ‘social forgetting’ (Rose, 2016, p. 31-33). The Potala Palace, as a museum and World Heritage site, is not neutral and cannot be immune to politics. As has been argued by scholars like Robert Shepherd (2007), Clare Harris (2012, 2013), and Lynn Meskell (2018), this paper takes a similar stance that heritage management work is political, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultur- al Organization (UNESCO) is complicit in furthering strategic state-led narratives and destructive development. Through their approaches to heritage management and tourism for the Potala Palace, and with the aid of its UNESCO listing, China is capitalizing on Tibet’s cultural heritage to control the narrative of Tibetan history, while commodifying, undermining, and suppressing the Tibetan people and their culture. This report examines the influencing factors in the portrayal of Tibet’s difficult history through the Potala Palace, and the resultant impact onT ibetan society. iJournal, Vol 6, No. 1, 2 Vetter, Through the eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult heritage and memory inTibet Methodology To develop this case, I examined existing scholarly literature on heritage management, history and memory, and tourism in Tibet. I further researched official publications from various United Nations bodies related to heritage and human rights, as well as North American and Chi- nese news sources on developments in Tibet and on Tibet-China relations since the early 2000s. Information from tourism-related sites gave additional perspectives, as did exploration of related work of cultural institutions inside and outside of Tibet. It is important to note that some informa- tion is reportedly difficult to find, unavailable, or its accuracy is in question, given the strict con- trol on information within and outside of China (Xu & Albert, 2017). For this reason, I am con- scious of the fact that the information presented might be incomplete or misrepresenting certain facts, realities, and perspectives. This further exemplifies the ideas presented in this paper, of the political influence on and manipulation of difficult histories facingT ibetans. Background: Decades of oppression, centuries of existence To understand the present day Potala Palace, one must first understand its history. On top of the Red Hill in the heart of Lhasa and the centre of pilgrimage routes, the Potala Palace has served as the traditional residence of the Dalai Lamas, the administrative base of the Tibetan government, and the institutional heart of Tibetan Buddhism (Harris, 2013; International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), 2018; NWE, 2019). Built in the 7th Century by the Tibetan King for his marriage to the Princess of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, the Palace was later converted into a residence for the Da- lai Lama with the end of dynastic rule and the emergence of the system of rule by Lamas (Choe- don, 2015; NWE, 2019; Wei, 2018). In 1950, Chinese troops invaded Tibet, declaring a peaceful liberation to free Tibet from the “tyranny of religion”, ending serfdom, and bringing prosperity to “a backward region” (Har- ris, 2013, p. 61; Reuters, 2018). Tibet signed the 17-Point Agreement, which recognized China’s sovereignty but affirmed that China would not alter Tibet’s political system (Perryer, 2019). When iJournal, Vol 6, No. 1, 3 Vetter, Through the eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult heritage and memory inTibet China broke its commitments, Tibetan resistance forces led a full-scale uprising in 1959 (Choe- don, 2015; Perryer, 2019). After the uprising failed, the current and Fourteenth Dalia Lama fled Tibet and sought exile in India (Perryer, 2019; Reuters, 2018). The Tibetan government was abol- ished, and the Potala Palace was effectively closed and taken into the hands of the Chinese gov- ernment, gaining state-level protection in 1961 (Harris, 2013; Nowakowski, 2019; Perryer, 2019). The government gradually removed the Potala’s contents, putting most of them in the national exchequer (Harris, 2012, 2013). In 1965, China drew new boundaries and split ethnic homelands to establish the Tibet Autonomous Region (ICT, 2018; Perryer, 2019). The Cultural Revolution in China between 1966 and 1976 resulted in the banning of displays of faith, sending monks to pris- on or to work in the fields, and the destruction of thousands of monasteries, historical documents, and works of art (The Guardian, 2002; NWE, 2019). An estimated 200,000 to 1 million Tibetans were killed (Perryer, 2019). In the 1980s, China returned a certain degree of freedom to Tibetans, restoring and re- constructing religious sites as it opened Tibet to foreign and domestic tourists (Choedon, 2015; Harris, 2013; Nowakowski, 2019). Between 1989 and 1999, the remaining contents of the Potala were designated as ‘Cultural Relics’ by the Chinese state and over 30,000 objects were transferred to the Tibet Museum in Lhasa (Harris, 2013, pp. 65-68). In 1994, China acquired the UNESCO World Heritage listing for the Potala Palace as a cultural heritage site, further opening it up for tourism and development (Harris, 2013). The site includes the Palace and its ancillary buildings, and is said to contain gold stupas (tombs) of eight Dalai Lamas, along with thousands of shrines, statues, murals, painted scrolls, carpets, carvings, historical documents, and objects of porcelain, jade, silver, and gold (NWE, 2019; World Heritage Convention (WHC), 2018). Buddhist practices and individual freedoms became increasingly restricted again in 1996 with the introduction of a science-based curriculum in monasteries and the Chinese government forbidding Tibetans from receiving teachings from the Dalai Lama (Baculinao & Cumming, 2018; The Guardian, 2002; Sinding-Larsen, 2016). Although Tibetan protests have been mostly peace- ful, Tibetans staged large-scale demonstrations in 2008 when China hosted the Beijing Olympics, and in the early 2010s monks attempted self-immolation to draw attention to their repression, re- iJournal, Vol 6, No. 1, 4 Vetter, Through the eyes of the Potala Palace: Difficult heritage and memory inTibet sulting in arrests, imprisonment and torture for charges of separatism or obstructing modernization (Choedon, 2015; Human Rights Watch, 2018; Marvin, 2013). Unaccompanied travel to Tibet for foreigners has been restricted, denying entry for many diplomats, journalists, non-governmental organizations, and independent evaluators (ICT, 2018; Perryer, 2019). The Dalai Lama continues to promote the Tibetan cause around the world and attempt negotiations with the Chinese govern- ment while in India, but proposals for peaceful agreement are quickly dismissed (The Guardian, 2002; Harris, 2013). As Tibetans face ongoing oppression, China continues to promote tourism and modernize the city of Lhasa, threatening the structural integrity and unique atmosphere of the Potala and its surroundings (ICT, 2018; NWE, 2019). Analysis The Chinese government’s attitudes towards Tibet, China’s approaches to heritage manage- ment and tourism, and the international context of the United Nations all play a role in contribut- ing to China’s portrayal of Tibet’s history through the Potala Palace. Leveraging these strategies, China is benefiting from Tibet’s cultural heritage to control the state-led narrative of the region and affect collective memories. Attitudes towards Tibet Despite documented historic accounts, China and Tibet view their roles in these events differently.
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