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The Transformation of Tibetan Identity

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The Transformation of Tibetan Identity Linfield University DigitalCommons@Linfield Senior Theses Student Scholarship & Creative Works 5-28-2015 The Transformation of Tibetan Identity Mang Jia Linfield College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/soanstud_theses Part of the Race and Ethnicity Commons, Regional Sociology Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Jia, Mang, "The Transformation of Tibetan Identity" (2015). Senior Theses. 11. https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/soanstud_theses/11 This Thesis (Open Access) is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It is brought to you for free via open access, courtesy of DigitalCommons@Linfield, with permission from the rights-holder(s). Your use of this Thesis (Open Access) must comply with the Terms of Use for material posted in DigitalCommons@Linfield, or with other stated terms (such as a Creative Commons license) indicated in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, or if you have questions about permitted uses, please contact [email protected]. THE TRANSFORMATION OF TIBETAN IDENTITY A THESIS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY IN CADIDACY FOR GRADUATION WITH HONORS BY MANG JIA SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF LINFIELD COLLEGE MICNNINVILLE, OREGON MAY 2015 Signature redacted Signature redacted CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . 1 LITERATURE REVIEW . 5 THEORY . 9 METHODS . 17 Sample Interview with a Simi-structured Questionnaires Field Observations RESULTS . 19 THE POLITIICZATION OF TIBETAN IDENTITY . 19 THE RECOGNITION OF SECULARIZATION . .30 RELATIONSHIP OF SECULARIZATION WITH RATIONALISM AND MODERNIZATION . 34 SECULARIZATION AND SCHOOL EDUCATION . 45 CONCLUSION . .50 REFERENCE . .57 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS . 61 The Transformation of Tibetan Identity I. Introduction Before the Chinese Communist’s invasion of Tibet with military force in 1951, most of the Tibetan peoples often defined their own identities in terms of religious beliefs, ties to traditional culture, and geographic locations. For instance, they introduced themselves by expressing which monasteries they belonged to and which religious sects and spiritual Lamas that they followed. Therefore, their goals of worldly life and essence of both group and individual identities were deeply submerged in the religious culture. After the Chinese invasion, Tibetan identity shifted mainly into a certain degree of secularization, making it different from their traditional religious identity as consequence of the political shift. The focus of my research is to understand the wider forces that led Tibetans to secularize and politicize their national identity – which is an aspect missed by most Tibetologists, who continue to overemphasize the traditional, religious foundation of Tibetan identity. By secularization, I am specifically referring to the non-religious disposition and politicization of Tibetan identity, which emphasizes the importance of socioeconomic, secular cultural, and political promotion of Tibet above religious or spiritual promotion. First of all, it is important to give basic evidence for my belief of the existence of secularization among Tibetans and its significant increase since 1951 under Tibet’s political shift. I will give three examples to argue that secularization of Tibetan identity is not only real, but it is 1 also increasing. First, Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) propagandized this revolution as one initiated by the oppressed people for class equality and elimination of the oppression of he called “dark feudal society”. Thus, his communist ideology gained a notable following among many Tibetans. Yet those followers of Mao who were destroying traditional Tibetan culture (religion, rituals and traditional customs) never hesitated to say that they were Tibetans. This implies that for them, to be Tibetan was not necessarily to identify with Tibetan traditional culture - mainly represented by Tibetan Buddhism. They gave a different definition for Tibetan identity, centered in terms of political and secular values. For instance, there were many Tibetans like Phawang Puntschog who defined themselves as Tibetan Communists instead of identifying with religion. Second, as result of the Tibetan Central Government’s exile to India under the leadership of the Dalai Lama in 1959, Tibetans’ religiously anchored cultural identity gradually became the means for certain political ends; this identity was no longer something that could have an end in religious purpose itself. For instance, on September 21, 1987, the Dalai Lama addressed his Sino-Tibetan resolution proposal called “Five-points Peace Plan” to the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and China immediately denounced Dalai Lama’s proposal by claiming “the status of Tibet was a question which simply does not exist” (Smith, 1996: 602). After China’s denial and denouncement of the Dalai Lama, monks from the two major monasteries-Drepung and Sera- near Lhasa city staged political demonstrations in Lhasa Barkhor Street on September 27, and October 1, 1987 with slogan of support for the Dalai Lama and 2 independence for Tibet. In March 2008, before China’s Olympic Games, Tibetan people from all over the Tibetan areas demonstrated with slogans of freedom and human rights for Tibet, a political uprising led by monks at first in Lhasa and later joined by lay people. In 2009 a monk from Kirti monastery in Ngaba County in Amdo set himself on fire to protest China’s policies over Tibet, and his action led to the ongoing Tibetan Self-immolation protest movement that has since caused about 139 Tibetan self-immolations. Among the self-immolators, more than 60 were monks, nuns and former monks. The goals of the monks and nuns who are actively involved in the political movements are no longer purely or even primarily for religious promotion but rather for political end. This increasing politicization is promoting a politically- over a religiously-oriented Tibetan identity. This is different from the traditional politicization in Tibet, which is ultimately religious. For instance, Tibetans would have rather worked with the Chinese than the British during the early 1930s. A reason is that first and foremost, China is a Buddhist country. Second, during the early Chinese republican period, both the government and the common people showed great support for Tibetan Buddhism such as “the Panchen held Kalacakra tantric rituals with well over ten thousand Chinese in attendance each time” (Tuttle, 2005:11) in 1931 and 1934 in order to encourage Tibetans to be part of China. As every Tibetologist, who has a basic knowledge about Tibetan history, knows that after the last king Lung Darma was assassinated, Tibet was ruled by religious leaders and their politics were always religious sectarianism, which aims on promoting their religious sect above others. Therefore, those early politicizations of Tibetan religion were still intrinsically religious rather 3 than political. However, the contemporary politicization of religion is fundamentally focused on its political goal, which after 1959 quickly became centered on the nation’s political freedom. Since the late 1980s, an increasing number of young intellectuals such as Dondrup Gyal, inspired by the May Fourth Movement in China, began to criticize Tibetans’ traditional culture. They criticized its lack of ability for innovation, claiming Tibetans needed innovation to prosper under the rapidly changing conditions of modern Tibet. Under the inspiration of Gyal, in 1999, Shockdong (2001:25-41) wrote an article “To Sir up Cultural Predisposition from Its Depth” and published in the Blue-Lake Tibetan Newspaper. It calls for a battle on one’s own traditional cultural internalization that is structured based on religious superstition, renunciation of the worldly values, blind faith and suppression of rational thinking. In 2001, he first published his most famous and influential book A Conscientious Crying From Afar. In the book, he argued that Tibet began to fall from its sovereign kingdom after Buddhism flourished in Tibet, because Buddhism destroyed Tibetans’ secular and political consciousness by forcing Tibetans to denounce “the world” and “self”. By the beginning of the 21st century, a new and bigger group of intellectuals became critical of Buddhist culture and its worldview while advocating an autonomous spirit of secularism and political identity for Tibetans. Therefore, secularism is mainly criticizing Buddhism or traditional religious culture for its repression of Tibetans’ political and secular consciousness. The only difference between secularization and secularism is that former one focused on socioeconomic and political promotion without necessarily criticizing religion, while secularism mainly focused on critiquing religiously oriented traditional culture in 4 order to promote political and secular consciousness. Therefore, keeping in mind this clarification, secularism is a part of secularization but secularization does not necessarily imply secularism. These three examples indicate that the increase of secularization among Tibetan people is really happening and suggest that a more secular, political identity may be replacing religious identity. With this understanding about the new shift of Tibetan identity, my research examines how secularization is actually playing out on the ground in the lives of ordinary Tibetans reveals unexpected relationships between political and religious identities in the context of this secularization trend. II.
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