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  • Tibet: dream and reality - Le Monde diplomatique - English edition

    Tibet: dream and reality in Le Monde Diplomatique by Slavoj Zizek philosopher at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and author most recently of Violence, Big Ideas/Small Books The West is projecting not only its own spiritual fantasies upon Tibet, but its own economic fears upon China,... more

    Reviewed by laodan May 10 2008, 01:40pm ( 7 reviews ) • mondediplo.com

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  • Rated by BurningSensation on Aug 18, 9:45am

    From the page: "8. A main reason why so many in the West have taken part in the protests against China is ideological: Tibetan Buddhism, deftly spun by the Dalai Lama, is a major point of reference of the New Age hedonist spirituality which is becoming the predominant form of ideology today. Our fascination with Tibet makes it into a mythic place upon which we project our dreams. When people mourn the loss of the authentic Tibetan way of life, they donâ€t care about real Tibetans: they want Tibetans to be authentically spiritual on behalf of us so we can continue with our crazy consumerism."

  • Rated by johnwatchtower on Jun 14 2008, 8:09pm

    From the page: "All the media reports impose an image which goes like this: the Peopleâ€s Republic of China, which illegally occupied Tibet in 1950, engaged for decades in brutal and systematic destruction not only of the Tibetan religion, but of the identity of Tibetans as a free people."

  • Rated by tolstoyevski on May 11 2008, 2:29pm

    Zizek wrote on the recent conflicts on Tibet and questions the situation of Tibet. Is Tibet society a really egalitarian society before the Chinise intervention during the Maoist era? zizek says: "Before 1950 Tibet was no Shangri-la, but a country of harsh feudalism, poverty (life expectancy was barely 30), corruption and civil wars (the last, between two monastic factions, was in 1948 when the Red Army was already knocking at the door)." However, Zizek mentions the contemporary Chinese government as a "communist" government. Did he forget, by accident, the fundamentals of communism: No private property and companies... türkçesi ise urada: http://www.bianet.org/bianet/kategori/bianet/106851/tibet-shangri-la-degil

  • Rated by laodan on May 10 2008, 1:40pm

    Tibet: dream and reality in Le Monde Diplomatique by Slavoj Zizek philosopher at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and author most recently of Violence, Big Ideas/Small Books The West is projecting not only its own spiritual fantasies upon Tibet, but its own economic fears upon China, imagining a power struggle quite different from that which has actually happened in Tibet. We have to learn to look at Tibet as it is - and China too. Tibet: dream and reality This simple "good guys versus bad guys" story that we are being fed about the relationship between China and Tibet is indeed troubling, for, it is such a far cry from reality. The nine points offerered by Slavoj Zizek are a useful reminder of some hard facts that debunk this simple "good guys versus bad guys" story. What happens in Tibet is indeed no more than the imposition of modernity on a "pre-modern society". The same has been going on since centuries at the hand of the West while this time around the operation is conducted by China. We should thus be asking why the tyranny of modernity is never questioned instead of accusing the Chinese to commit a cultural genocide. China enters modernity so abruptly and with such devastating consequences for the West that it is tempting to refer to it as "the bad guy" but we ought to remember that it is the West that initially bullied China on the road to modernity. The entry of nearly 25% of the world population into a game that for centuries has been played exclusively by less than 10% of the world population is world-changing, no doubt about it. Without the knowledge that China acquired along its millennial experience in management of a huge bureaucracy the country could simply not have succeeded the rapid economic boom that we all are witnessing. Unfortunately the knowledge of this reality is not part of the Western analytical toolbox. Slavoj Zizek provocatively sketches this Western ignorance in the following question " What if the 'vicious combination of the Asian knout and the European stock market' proves economically more efficient than our liberal capitalism? Might it signal that democracy, as we understand it, is no longer a condition and motor of economic development, but an obstacle?"

  • Rated by thegipples on May 10 2008, 12:22pm

    From the page: "It seems the Chinese Communists finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments, compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations? The Chinese are doing what the West has always done, as Brazil did in the Amazon or Russia in Siberia, and the US on its own western frontiers. 8. A main reason why so many in the West have taken part in the protests against China is ideological: Tibetan Buddhism, deftly spun by the Dalai Lama, is a major point of reference of the New Age hedonist spirituality which is becoming the predominant form of ideology today. Our fascination with Tibet makes it into a mythic place upon which we project our dreams. When people mourn the loss of the authentic Tibetan way of life, they donâ€t care about real Tibetans: they want Tibetans to be authentically spiritual on behalf of us so we can continue with our crazy consumerism. The philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote: â€oeIf you are snagged in anotherâ€s dream, you are lost.” The protesters against China are right to counter the Beijing Olympics motto of â€oeone world, one dream” with â€oeone world, many dreams”. But they should be aware that they are imprisoning Tibetans in their own dream. It is not the only dream."