Beijing knows how to needle the Dalai Lama. That is what all totalitarian regimes excel at. The Chinese government has declared March 28 as the 'Serf Emancipation Day' and a permanent public holiday in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). It is likely to be one of the many preemptive moves against exiled Tibetans and their leader the Dalai Lama reminding the world that 2009 is the 50th year of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. It was in 1959 that Tibetans rose in a major uprising against the Chinese government that eventually caused the Dalai Lama to go into exile as a 24-year-old leader.
The China Daily has written a stinging editorial against the Dalai Lama, apparently in preparations for the “Serf Emancipation Day.”
"Tibet under the Dalai Lama was never the Shangri-la of popular romantic fantasies. Unless you want to call a place where 95 percent of the local people were serfs and household slaves, who could be sold, bought and bequeathed like commodities, paradise on earth anyway. Next time when the Dalai Lama talks of human rights in Tibet, ask him what it was like being a serf under his reign,” the daily said.
"Next time when he preaches for 'freedom', ask him what freedom the serfs and slaves enjoyed in the 'good old days' he has been so passionate about... But now, Dharamsala accuses Beijing of enslaving Tibetans,” the paper said.
It is fact that serfdom was prevalent in Tibet of the early 20th century and before. But then it was equally true of the China of those days. Not that two wrongs make one right but it is important to put such claims in perspective. Slaves were an intrinsic part of the American life as well. To the extent that slavery and serfdom in some form was a near global phenomenon, it would be disingenuous to just slam Tibet in general and the Dalai Lama in particular.
It is to the current Dalai Lama’s credit that he introduced sweeping democratic reform within the exile Tibetan community in India. He left Tibet at an age and under circumstances which would not have allowed him perpetuate some of the past practices of the ruling Tibetan clergy. Even his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama had a strong record of democratic reform within the closed system of Tibet in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
There is something so manifestly dishonest about the claim that China freed up 95% of serfs and slaves because it conveniently disregards that as a whole Tibet's and Tibetans’ destinies were made subservient to the Chinese wishes after 1959.
This is a long and complex debate that cannot be dealt with in a blog post but I hope you get some perspective on the historical forces operating then.