Jamyang Norbu's blog
In a recent piece (Running Dog Propagandists) I made a reference to an old review essay of mine of Tom Grunfeld’s Making of Modern Tibet. A couple of readers emailed in to say they could not locate the piece. I discovered I had not posted it on Phayul.com and that it was impossible to find on WTN or Tibetwrites.org. So I am reissuing it here to round off our “running dog” discussion on this blog.
For a book dealing with Sino-Tibetan relations Warren Smith’s new work takes an unusual stance. It refuses to take the currently fashionable “a plague on both your houses” attitude…
In Marxist inspired narratives of feudal (or capitalist) states collapsing of their inherent contradictions, there should fittingly be a role for a revolutionary movement and perhaps even a revolutionary hero. Goldstein provides us a detailed account…
What made many in the Tibetan world stand up and pay attention to Goldstein’s A History of Modern Tibet, when it appeared in 1989 was the unmistakable impression the book gave that here was a radical reinterpretation of Tibetan history.
Earlier, I had heard from JM that there was a Tibetan like this who had come from Lhasa and seldom went out of the house. He also hadn’t gone to parties held by fellow Tibetans. The reason is that his very typical Tibetan looks caught everyone’s attention in present-day Beijing.
When I was in Lhasa during Losar (Tibetan New Year) last year, my friend said that now we should not use “Tashi Delek” ) to greet each other because we are neither “tashi” (auspicious) nor delek (fortunate), so what we should use to admonish others is “zab zab je”.
In response to my recent piece Barefoot Experts some readers wrote in to say that Tibetans should not fritter away their energy picking on experts and journalists in the West but should focus on countering propaganda from China. A reasonable request, on the face of it, but…
What is really interesting is the fact that there was, on the whole, no looting or pilfering. The protesters did not steal from the Chinese stores. They just piled the stuff in the streets and burned them.
Among the marchers is an ex-paratrooper who has received a medal of valour from the prime minister of India for single-handedly wiping out two Pakistani bunkers at Kargil. Right now these Tibetans are marching peacefully for freedom. One day these same people could be marching with rifles. What happens will in large part be dictated by how China deals with its Tibet problem. But the March will go on.
Among the many half-cocked (and often disastrous) schemes dreamed up during the Cultural Revolution, the institution of “barefoot doctors” was one much admired by Western Maoists and celebrity pilgrims to the middle kingdom as Shirley MacLaine.
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