Your post is a bit too judgemental. I do not we have the right to judge other cultures. It is true that Tibet might not have been modern, but neither was their neighbor China - which would later invade Tibet and kill over 1.2 million people, which still practiced concubinage, feudalism or foot-binding, and regarded exotic animals and even human flesh as a rare delicacy (a practice which has continued well into the 21st century). Europe was not better off where in many countries not being a catholic or criticizing the King could get you beheaded, and neither was the Muslim world where barbaric Shariah ruled, allowing gender apartheid, child marriage, beheadings and holy wars.
The claims that you, or rather, the blogger is making don't do anything but to confirm the cruel and racist stereotypes that are perpetrated by the Chinese government, which they used to colonize Tibet. And belies a lack of understanding about the Tibetan culture. If the blogger does pretend to understand Tibetan culture, his information is quite euro-centric. People in the independent Tibet had a rather good life, in-spite of "poverty" as defined by whites. China might have "modernized" but they also implemented labor camps, rigged trials, torture, banned the Tibetan language, and created an apartheid system like South Africa, where certain areas of Lhasa are for Chinese only. They have robbed the Tibetans of the means of production to control their economy and the largest gold-mine in Tibet has been subcontracted out to a German company once owned by the Nazis.
I think the blogger whoever he is is being nothing but an apologist for the Chinese government. He needs to do better research and read, re-read, and re-read until he understands a fair and balanced view of history.
FACT ONE: Tibetans practiced a spiritual form of medicine. One of the more bizarre beliefs, were the mystical healing powers lamas possessed. Just being able to touch a holy person was enough to cure a raft of diseases. And for those unable to get close to a deity like the Dalai Lam, the god-man came to them, in the form of urine and excrement (the later was dried & made into a pill, for swallowing)Spittle from a lama was similarly treasured for its healing powers.
And in the past, whites believed that arsenic was medicine. People in the 18th century believed that leeches would cure you, and that the air during the night was poisonous. Arabs believed camel urine was medicine. And whites also venerated the relics of a bunch of dead catholic guys.
FACT TWO: Without basic sanitary conditions, hygiene, rubbish-collection, running water, modern medical care like hospitals & preventive medicines, pre-Chinese Tibet was beset with chronic health problems. Small pox was rife enough for the 13th Dalai Lama to suffer its rages. Cataracts, leprosy, tuberculosis were also prevalent. But, the most widespread affliction suffered by the general population was venereal disease.
This is not true, actually early explorers to Tibet remarked that it was clean and its people were healthy. While there were health problems as in any city, early industrial cities had the same problems with no plumbing and rampant cholera.
FACT THREE: Infant mortality was around 1 in 2 (one set of figures put it as high as 3 in 4)The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (born 1935) tells of his mother giving birth to 14 children, 6 of which died as babies.
FACT FOUR: The old Tibetan word for woman is Kiemen (or kye-mi) The literal translation of this is inferior birth of lower birth. Tibetan Buddhists believed only males could achieve nirvana. A Buddhist prayer commonly recited went along the lines may I reject a feminine body and be reborn a male one.
But actually there are many words in Tibetan for a woman and the Tibetans worshipped and respected the feminine. In contrast, up until the 1960's in the West, a woman was considered the property of her husband. Let's not even go to what other countries still do to women.
FACT FIVE: Prior to the Chinese invasion there were only two small schools operating in the whole of Tibet (using the term school in the modern secular interpretation of the word) These schools educated teenage boys starting at age 14. Eligibility was confined to nobility, families of high ranking monks and government officials.
And up until the American invasion of Afghanistan there were only madrassahs which taught you the Quran and taught you how to be a terrorist. In Old Europe, most of the education was biblical.
FACT SIX: At any one time 15 to 20 per cent of the male population were monks. Rendering a large percentage of the work-force effectively redundant was a large economic burden on an already fragile economy. Feeding and clothing this vast monastic empire fell to the serfs & peasants who were not only subservient & bound to the local monastery, the state, but also the aristocratic lord, whose lands it was, they were tenant-farming.
They had a spiritual society and there was nothing wrong with this.
FACT SEVEN: Serfs, who made-up around 80% of the population (again figures vary) were tied to their masters. Under the Tibetan feudal system, peasants were rendered virtually powerless. They couldnt travel, marry, trade etc, without permission or consent of their masters. About 500 families controlled 80% of the countries wealth.
Again, playing fast and loose with the numbers. Tibet's society was agricultural but they were not serfs. They were farmers who rented land from landowners and paid them rents, no different than how you or I might rent a storefront from a landlord and pay them a rent every month. But in addition to farmers, there were also scholars, artisans, professionals, tradesmen, and every imaginable profession.
FACT EIGHT: With so few jails operating, a more summary form of justices was employed, which may have been a blessing considering the Government Jail operating in Lhasa was part cesspit, part prison, from which inmates were released from their squalor for just two days a year. At the disposal of the law administrators (read; rich lords, religious fraternities and government officials) were a whole range of crude medieval type torture devices: manacles, red hot irons, implements to gouge eyes out, hanging by thumbs, crippling, sewing the guilty party into a sack and throwing them into a river, spikes under finger-nails, forcing pepper into the eyes were all a realities of the pre-invasion justice system for the docile Buddhist peoples of Tibet.
Above you claimed that Tibet was not modern, so how could they be expected to build a modern, comfortable jail? And while theoretically the death penalty existed, they were never used. Most of the stories of torture come from Chinese sources and may have been implemented by the Chinese themselves and can't be trusted as a result.
FACT NINE: An indication of how backward & uneducated Tibetans were in 1950 most people thought the world was flat.
And your point is? And apparently 20% of xtians think the sun revolves around the earth in the 21st century:
1 in 5 US citizens think the Sun revolves around the Earth - Rusty Lime
FACT TEN: Travellers & adventurers to Lhasa (translated as Place of the Gods) were not only overawed by the sight of the city and the magnificent Potala Palace, they were also overcome by its stench. In his time there, the current Dalai Lama made constant mention to his entourage about the ever-present smell & dirt caused by lack of proper sanitation, rubbish collection & absence of a sewage system. The National Geographic expedition of 1904 described the streets of Lhasa as narrow and filthy. A year earlier a Swedish explorers said of Lhasa everything from top to toe is filthy. Popular British Journalist, Edmond Candler, renowned for his literary depictions of his travels in the region, gave his readers this mental image of Lhasa in 1905 We found the city squalid and filthy beyond description, undrained and unpaved. Indeed descriptions of Tibet as a whole also mirrored these views. German traveller Theodore Illion going as far as telling his readers Tibet ranks amongst the most filthy countries in the world. We see similar depictions of pre-1950 Tibet amongst virtually all the writers. On the sides of the roads were heaps of rubbish. Revoltingly filthy. Dark and Ill-Smelling" etc etc.
Such a euro-centric account hardly makes sense in the context we are talking about and doesn't do anything to help your case.
