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https://freetibet.org/about/legal-status-tibet https://freetibet.org/about/legal-status-tibet Imagine being called a minority in a place you are the majority a
by JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
https://freetibet.org/about/legal-status-tibet https://freetibet.org/about/legal-status-tibet
Imagine being called a minority in a place you are the majority and have lived for centuries before occupation.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Tibet/People https://www.britannica.com/place/Tibet/People
"The population of the region is almost entirely Tibetan, with Han (Chinese), Hui (Chinese Muslims), Monba, Lhoba, and other minority nationalities. Thus, the majority of the people of Tibet have the same ethnic origin, have traditionally practiced the same religion, and speak the same language."
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoSo, native Americans?
- mesh 5y agoNative Americans represent 1.7% of the US population: https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvlid=62 https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvlid=6...
- nohr 5y agoAre you this dense, or is this on purpose?
- utunbu 5y agoTibetan people represent 0.4% of the Chinese population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_people
- echelon 5y agoTibet isn't China. They got Crimea'd in the "Peaceful Liberation of Tibet"
- antonzabirko 5y agoExactly. Similar situation, though. Both countries are being unrightfully claimed.
- utunbu 5y agoIn replying to > Native Americans represent 1.7% of the US population I think the analogy between (Tibetan people, China) and (native American people, US) makes sense.
- kunagi7 5y agoYou can't compare pears to apples. Tibet and Crimea annexations were quite different. Crimea used to be part of Russian Empire and then part of the Russian SSR until it was gifted to Ucranian SSR as a region in 1954. A 65% of the residents are Russians, 16% Ucranians and 12% Crimean Tatars. And most of their population speaks Russian (85%). There were tensions between Russia, Ukraine and Crimea thanks to that transfer (and they haven't disappeared). The annexation was a bad thing economically wise but it was done quite fast and clean. The Tibet was already under Chinese control since the Qing Dynasty (1720). At that time, Korea was also a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty. The Tibet independence (1911-1950) sadly didn't have any strength (obsolete military, bad and few foreign relations) and they were absorbed by the CCP military. Also, they speak different languages, have different cultures and the Han are still a small minority in the region.
- RHSeeger 5y agoBut the statement being replied to was > Imagine being called a minority in a place you are the majority which implies that only the area of Tibet is being discussed. And > Tibetan people represent 0.4% of the Chinese population implies that all of China is being discussed. So there's a disconnect there. The comment about Native Americans was presumably being read in the context of "Native Americans in the Unites States", which is a context where they are, indeed, a minority. I expect the original comment about Native Americans was made in the sense of "like how the US treated Native Americans", not "the facts presented (majority, living there for a long time) also apply to the Native Americans". Whereas the reply to that comment was, I assume, made based on the second interpretation. So not dense or intentional, just a different understanding of what was being said, because of ambiguity. And, because people like to feel superior and assume everyone interprets everything the same way they do even when ambiguous, the poor responder got a bunch of down votes lumped on them.
- majormajor 5y agoWhat percentage of the population of the land that is now the US did they represent when Europeans first started colonies there? From the CCP's perspective, would a similar decline in percentage be desirable? From our historical view of the US, are the actions that got us here praiseworthy?
- jimbob45 5y agoTo be fair, a majority of the native population died due to the Europeans inadvertently introducing Smallpox. While I agree with your argument as a whole, I would advise against trying to use numerical arguments for Europe's treatment of the natives.
- Cerium 5y agoI interpreted their argument to mean that the Native Americans were 100% of the American population before Europeans arrived.
- jfk13 5y ago> inadvertently introducing Not always inadvertently, perhaps: https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smal... Although that article says that "there’s only one clearly documented instance of a colonial attempt to spread smallpox", the fact that there is any "clearly documented instance" of such an attempt is pretty horrific.
- cronix 5y agoYes, only 1.7% after 500 years of....being left alone?
- ceejayoz 5y agoIn 1491, that number was probably a little different. Give things 500+ years and Tibetans may be down to 1.7% too.
- RHSeeger 5y agoNative Americans are not the majority in the Americas, outside of reservations. So if you meant "Native Americans on a Native American reservation", then I guess so... but I don't think they're considered a minority in that context, are there?
- stuaxo 5y agoThey clearly were in at one point, which is why the situation is comparable.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoAlso Tibetans aren't the majority in Shanghai, just Tibet - Like native Americans on current reservations, which continued to shrink in size for a long time.
- 8note 5y agoYeah, the chinese government is looking for a way to get rid of the Tibetans. The Americans have done well in ensuring the native population has lost power and are shrinking. The end goal of china is to be rid of their Tibetan scourge, just like the Americans would like it if the natives stopped existing
- emkoemko 5y ago"just like the Americans would like it if the natives stopped existing" really? why?
- bpodgursky 5y agoDo you think the 17th-century treatment of Native Americans is a good template for the treatment of minority-majority populations? I'd like to think we've gotten better.
- 8note 5y agoFrom a colonial perspective, colonists got everything they wanted it's a good template for anyone looking to take sovereignty over somebody else's land. If you're trying to do that, youre already dropping ethics
- bpodgursky 5y agoRight.. both are bad things. If we could go back in time, we should be telling the US not to abuse and displace the native americans. I'm confused why there's any disagreement here.
- thereare5lights 5y agoBack in time? Who needs to go back in time? We're literally still abusing them today. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline_protests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline_prote...
- Quillbert182 5y agoNative Americans are not unified by language and religion. They have a wide variety of both of these things.
- yorwba 5y agoTibetans are not unified by language or religion. There are more than a dozen Tibetic languages, and speakers of more distantly related language families like rGyalrongic are also classified as Tibetans by the government. The official policy of one standard language per recognized ethnicity does mean that many of them will have been educated in Lhasa Tibetan at school. On the religion front, next to the various schools of Tibetan Buddhism, there's also the older Bön and other, less popular religions like Islam.
- swiley 5y agoI have yet to meet someone IRL who thinks what was done to native Americans was just and also condemns the CCP for their treatment of minorities.
- vkou 5y agoYou'll immediately find a lot of those people if you re-frame the question in terms of reparations. In the same way, there's no shortage of people in America condemning police treatment of HK protestors (Repressed people fighting for freedom), who also support police treatment of BLM protestors (Rioters and lowlifes with no real grievances who just want to ruin everything). That's because most people don't hold political ideology derived from first principles, they just check what their political tribe likes/hates, and follow suit.
- bpodgursky 5y agoNot everyone views reparations are an appropriate response for past injustices. Your framing the situation is a litmus-test aimed at excluding people. Every human being in history is at the tail of a long line of injustices and atrocities. The current way to fix things today is to look at the situation people are in, today, and remediate as necessary. I'm the 4th generation from eastern european serfs, who were treated as livestock or part of the land. It doesn't affect me today in the slightest. I don't deserve reparations. This isn't an argument against a social safety net or social welfare. It's an argument against crude race-based cash transfers that ignore who is and isn't hindered today by past injustices.
- vkou 5y agoMy framing is the only meaningful litmus test. I don't give a shit about feelings, are you going to do anything about past and current injustice, where you can? The answer, in the United States, is predominantly "No" from both sides of the political spectrum to the first question, and "Mostly No/No" to the second. I'd also like to point out that even the Soviet Union/the Russian Federation flirted with reparations for victims of Stalin's repression.
- sillyquiet 5y agoNot sure of the point of this comment, other than textbook whataboutism. Yes, the situation with the Native Americans wrt the expansion of European settlement in the Americas is similar. At the same time, chattel slavery was widespread and common amongst most nations in the world. Should we tolerate a nation today having slavery because it was a thing for us previously?
- sangnoir 5y agoThe United States governement is not honoring its treaties with the native peoples to this day. This is not just an artifact of the past, but an ongoing injustice. https://www.history.com/news/native-american-broken-treaties https://www.history.com/news/native-american-broken-treaties
- sillyquiet 5y agoSure, ok that sucks. Still not sure why this is the topic of conversation in an article about the CCP treatment of a conquered nation.
- sangnoir 5y agoYou don't see any links with successive US governments treatment of conquered (first) nations? To borrow a Canadian phrase. I think there is value in deep consideration of patterns across time and political ideology, and perhaps draw informed generalizations on certain societal failure modes.
- aww_dang 5y agoJudging the past by the standards of the present is problematic at best and regressive in the worst case. The best examples of the human condition represent a desire to improve on our mistakes. Because we are imperfect, those with the will to do so must always be striving for improvement. If we appeal to this erroneous view of history, what will future generations be able say of us under the same logic? If we subscribe to this flawed logic, which past atrocities are not justified to be repeated today?
- 5y ago
- vkazanov 5y agoRecent discoveries of cultural genocide of natives in Canada also tells quite a story: children taken from families, school graveyards... We, Europeans, are a cynical crowd.
- allemagne 5y agoYes, what was done to native Americans was wrong and should not be done to Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, or any other ethnicity in China.
- ssijak 5y agoWhat was done to Vietnamese, Syrians, Libyans, Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, Serbians, etc is also wrong.
- queuebert 5y agoI believe the CCP is encouraging Han to move there until the Tibetans are no longer the majority. They may have already accomplished this, as an accurate census is hard to find.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoIt is difficult, only 8.17% were Han in Tibet according to the 2010 census (probably higher now, but far from 50%), not including military stationed there. Even with the subsidies they are providing, life is fairly hard in Tibet due to the high altitude. Even the high altitude areas of adjacent provinces (which were formerly part of Tibet) don't have many Han in them.
- blahblahblogger 5y agoAnd that's crazy to me. I would have figured that with the CCP having ~1.5 billion people to choose from, that they could move a few million Han into Tibet (current pop. according to google: 3,648,100). Even just 1-2 mil could potentially accomplish the CCP's goals?
- chrchang523 5y agoThis is made more difficult by the fact that Tibetans tend to have biological adaptations to life at that altitude which Han Chinese lack.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoChina isn't that socialist, there is no strong social safety net waiting to bail you out if you move to Tibet. If they can't make a life for themselves in Tibet, they would simply be left to die, so why take the chance?
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoYes in contrast to Xinjiang you can't economically develop Tibet. Even the CCP can't move mountains. Tibet is only good for tourism.
- hosh 5y agoIt gets even more complex when you look at the history. The Yuan dynasty were ruled by the Mongolians. The Mongolians were devout Buddhists and revered the Tibetan Buddhists. The search for reincarnated Tulkas by the Tibetan Buddhists would extend into the Mongolian regions. The imperial family gave a lot of autonomy to Tibet. The last Imperial dynasty, Qing, was ruled by Manchurians. The Manchurians were a foreign, non-Han ethnic minority, and the imperial family were also devout Buddhists. The Qin emperors gave the Tibetan region autonomy, though they asserted state power by changing the selection process of the lamas back in the late 1800s. My point is that, even if I disagree with how the CCP is wiping out the Tibetan heritage, this is a outgrowth of centuries of interactions, religion, and politics in that region. I could also talk about the many ethnic groups in Napal and Himalayan regions, from which the Tibetan Buddhists assimilated many of the shamanic traditions of the region. From those Himalayan shamans perspective, the "lamaists" ganked their traditions and practiced them for the betterment of themselves rather than the betterment of the community. (From the Tibetan Buddhist perspective, those practices were reified within the View of Mahayana, for the betterment of all sentient beings).
- actuator 5y ago> I could also talk about the many ethnic groups in Napal and Himalayan regions, from which the Tibetan Buddhists assimilated many of the shamanic traditions of the region. From those Himalayan shamans perspective, the "lamaists" ganked their traditions and practiced them for the betterment of themselves rather than the betterment of the community. Even if this is true, it doesn't make what CCP is doing there right. Change can happen from within without a need of a foreign invading force forcing their own philosophy on these people.
- kuraudo 5y agoUltimately, it will be less about what is 'right' and more about 'well it happened so long ago in the past and there is nothing we can do about it now' See the current plight of the Native Americans for what I fear will be the template for decades to come with other minorities.
- justicezyx 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- usaar333 5y ago> Imagine being called a minority in a place you are the majority and have lived for centuries before occupation. There's lots of criticism I'd have for Chinese policy, but this terminology isn't one of them. It's very common to use the term "minority" to refer to a group that is a minority at the national level, but could still be a majority in some local level. This is true in the American context as well (Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Mexicans, etc.)
- smt88 5y agoTibet was a sovereign country foe hundreds of years until it was invaded. It is currently occupied against its will. If someone believes Tibet to still be an occupied country rather than a part of China, it wouldn't be accurate to call Tibetans a minority.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- thereare5lights 5y ago> Tibet was a sovereign country foe hundreds of years until it was invaded. It is currently occupied against its will. So's Hawaii, but you don't see anyone giving a damn about that.
- kccqzy 5y agoSomeone else in the thread has already made the comparison to native Americans but I'll paraphrase your comment in light of that: The Native Americans were sovereign countries for hundreds of years until they were invaded. Their land is currently occupied against their will. If someone believes Native American land to still be an occupied country rather than a part of United States it wouldn't be accurate to call native Americans a minority. The timing matches too: the Chinese ended Tibetan independence in around 1720, around the same time European settlers conquered Native Americans.
- ChemSpider 5y agoYeah, but they call them a "minority" within their very own country (Tibet, occupied since 1950).
- gunfighthacksaw 5y agoI don’t think it’s any different from the West considering non-Europeans minorities, or the completely bizarre turn of phrase “majority-minority”. The hegemon gets to choose the semantics I suppose.
- superflit 5y ago"Imagine being called a minority in a place you are the majority and have lived for centuries before occupation. " Errrrr like White people in near future US? And there goes my karma.. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/08/12/census-data-race-ethnicity-neighborhoods/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/08/12/census-da...
- thereare5lights 5y ago> Imagine being called a minority in a place you are the majority and have lived for centuries before occupation. Native Hawaiians: Am I a joke to you? Native Americans: First time?