A hurried farewell to Lhasa,
Where the fear is in your breathing, in the beating of your heart,
In the silence when you want to speak but don’t,
In the catch in your throat.
A Celebration of Lies
As the Beijing Olympics comes to a close there are probably not many people on this planet who have not heard, read about, or witnessed the series of lies, deceptions, scams, manipulations, control-operations….
Acme of Obscenity
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.
Discussing Tibet, Without the BS
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…
Black Annals: Goldstein & the Negation of Tibetan History (Part II)
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…
Black Annals: Goldstein & the Negation of Tibetan History (Part I)
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.
The Fear in Lhasa as Felt in Beijing (Part 1) – Woeser
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.
Lhasa, Making Sound in Fear (Part 2) – by Woeser
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”.
Running-Dog Propagandists
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…
It’s Not the Economy, Stupid!
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.
