Exploding Liberal Heads of Yesteryear

The world-wide uproar over Tibet seems, on the one hand, to constitute a kind of cleansing ritual for countries (like our own) that are starting to think the Chinese have been pulling a con job on everybody for the last few years -- culminating in being awarded the Olympics, surely a star in the crown of acceptance into the "international community". Tibet is, of course, China's most obvious and intractable Achilles heel. It's as if our treatment of the Indians and the Vietnam war were rolled into one -- a prominent boil that no amount of cosmetic surgery is going to efface. It's also one of the better contemporary examples of cultural genocide. Tibet has been turned into a kind of Indian reservation, with the natives skulking about among ruined temples while the Han Chinese clink champagne glasses and patronize discos. This is clearly an issue that could have been raised to the current level of awareness a bit earlier -- say, decades -- but for whatever reason it had to wait until now, when the damage has been done and the Chinese hold way too many cards -- military and economic -- to be trifled with. And so any U.S. official who goes to China these days -- regardless of the nature of their mission -- has to "raise concern", and make a token plea for "moderation" and "tolerance", when, in fact, the Chinese have a lot more to lose by being moderate and tolerant than they have to lose by doing what they're doing -- and they know it, and we know it, and they know we know, and we know they know, etc. So it's an exercise in futility.

Plus, where were these clowns back when the Red Guard was dynamiting temples and killing all the Tibetans they could get their hands on? Well, to begin with, they were hiding behind our convenient pose of "not enjoying diplomatic relations with China". This, in turn, was based on the Korea unpleasantness, in which it was revealed that China had taken the side of North Korea against our friends in South Korea. And that, in turn, was one very large chicken coming home to roost, namely that we had supported Mao Zedong against Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese civil war. (If that doesn't sound quite correct to you, I suggest you read "Mao" by Chang and Halliday. It's all there in black and white -- and red.)

But what they were also hiding behind was even more sinister, and that was the unspoken premise (or "fervent hope", depending on one's political convictions) that China, as a communist totalitarian state, might just be on the winning side of history. This was the same notion that kept the New Dealers in thrall to Russia -- the feeling that they (the Russians) were accomplishing something that we did not have quite the courage or fortitude to try. So, as the Cold War raged after World War II, a considerable subculture within the regime preferred that we pull our punches, or better yet not punch at all, because today's "atheist enemy" might be tomorrow's overseers. (Again I say -- want a reality check on this point? Please read "Blacklisted by History" by M. Stanton Evans.)

Thus, the ambivalences that have characterized our relations with the communist world, and specifically China, from the beginning. On the other hand, our dealings with traditionalist cultures -- and Tibet is nothing if not traditionalist -- have been ambivalent in a different way. While we are intrigued and charmed by their curious and old-fashioned ways -- in a kind of patronizing, National Geographic manner -- we also can never help pointing out that things like "royalty" and "theocracy" and "arranged marriages" and so on are simply not done any longer, at least not by people who want to be considered "civilized". And Tibet was a special case even then, because it was not some African outpost with mud huts and witch doctors, naked women hoeing yam fields, and the occasional spear-throwing encounters between villages. It was an advanced society in many ways -- artistically, philosophically, and theologically. Its culture was rich, it had a highly-developed system of traditional medicine, and even a considerable administrative bureaucracy (something that should have endeared it to liberals). But doggone it, there was that "lamaism" business, and "living deities", and having the head of the religion also being the head of state. It's a miracle, actually, that we didn't move right in and try to "modernize" the place. But the Brits had a go at that earlier on, and results were equivocal at best. For one thing, those blasted mountains get in the way of everything, and India was a much easier mark, and right next door to boot. So Tibet got left pretty much alone, until the Chinese not only took the same sort of offense we might have taken, but actually did something about it. And it's the fallout from their "final solution to the Tibetan problem" that has everyone wearing scratchy diplomatic underwear today.

Part of it also is rising expectations of China, and of what it's fair and reasonable to expect. Under Mao, China was about as approachable as a rabid wildebeest. We got up every morning thankful that they hadn't started World War III the previous night, just for the fun of it. Their teenagers -- always the most dangerous element of any society -- were running amok, destroying and sacking the entire country, all under the watchful eye and benign moon-shaped countenance of The Chairman. (Of course, eventually he decided to announce that the party was over by mowing a few hundred thousand of them down with machine guns -- but by then it was too late.) In the event, the "opening" of China was accomplished by -- to give the devils their due -- Henry the K and Richard Nixon, following hot on the heels of a ping-pong team we sent over to test the waters. Before long, Mao went to his reward and his wife Hillary [ed. -- do you mean Chiang Ching by any chance?] was walled into a niche in the Forbidden City, and China began its long march to the enlightened and broadminded regime we see in evidence today. So of course it is no longer unreasonable to expect China to behave in a civilized manner toward its "minorities" -- hence the disappointment when it shows few signs of doing so.

But there is another theme to be brought out here, that will explain the "exploding heads" reference. When I was in college, the cynosure of all the liberals, socialists, communists, fellow travels, and useful idiots was Russia, AKA the Soviet Union. Students would make a visit over there during the summer and come back raving about how friendly the people were (except for that creep in the black trench coat who kept following us around -- what was his deal, anyway?) -- and how "you could go anywhere" (well, anywhere the Intourist guide said was not "closed for maintenance", the way the entire country east of the Urals always seemed to be) -- and how fantastic the ice cream was. China, on the other hand, was just a bit too remote and too strange to play much of a part in youthful liberal fantasies -- until, that is, the Cultural Revolution came along, at which point the campuses bloomed with "Red Detachment of Women" wannabees in black braids, khaki shorts, boots, and toting the Little Red Book. (At least they didn't start playing accordions, like the actual Red Guard did.) Well, this was all well and good, at least for a while. But then, as indicated above, Mao and his co-president fell from grace, and a bunch of dullards took over, and the bloom was off the rose. So campus liberals moved on to bigger and better things -- like drugs and Eastern religions. And this, of course, is where Tibet comes in, since it was the exotic Asian country par excellence, it was in the mountains (always popular with liberals, for some reason), it was right next door to Nepal, where -- as everyone knew -- the weed was totally killer, dude, and, most of all, it was the wellspring of an ancient form of Buddhism. Now, Buddhism had captured the imaginations of the college and graduate school (humanities departments, at any rate) set like nothing since the Spanish Civil War. Traveling gurus sprang up like mushrooms... hippies gulped down those same mushrooms hoping for enlightenment... the ones with money actually traveled to India and Nepal... the ones with less money bought themselves a sitar and attempted to learn to play it... and the ones with no money got stoned. And for a while, no one cared about theocracy or anything else. Buddhism was cool, and Tibetan Buddhism was extra cool because it didn't involve celibacy -- au contraire!

So now we had two political/cultural trends on a collision course -- the love affair with China, the Red Guard, and Maoism -- i.e. "purity" if you're a dedicated communist -- and the love affair with Eastern mysticism of the Buddhist stripe, with all its appurtenances. Sooner or later it dawned on someone that these two equally-admired belief systems were at knife points -- or, let's say, the Tibetans were at the points of Chinese knives. And we started to see the spectacle of young pilgrims returning from the holy land, i.e. Tibet, sort of nervously having to admit that, well, yes, the Chinese occupation had been a bit harsh at times, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with communism, oh no... but there's nothing wrong with Tibetan culture either... well, maybe they could do without the lamas. But the Dalai Lama is a totally cool dude, and... well, I know the Chinese forced him to leave his homeland and all, but... [cue sound of liberal head exploding].

Now, I say we have passed the critical stage of this particular liberal dilemma. But the basic situation, and the prospects for additional exploding heads, have not disappeared entirely. American liberals are still chasing Asian will-o-the-wisps of all sorts, and their simplistic view of the world still keeps them from realizing that all in the East is not picture-postcard perfect. So, when two of their favorite ideas/causes/images/icons come into inevitable conflict, all they can do is wander around and mutter to themselves. The Tibetan issue is just the latest manifestation of that muttering.