(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

I'm always amazed at the flexibility of the human mind. When we brought the blessings of civilisation to India and bits of Africa and so on we were nasty rotten bad imperialists and we're still working off that guilt. China does it now, today, and people wince a bit at the methods, but raise hardly a peep about the mere fact that one nation has annexed another, and continues to hold it as a possession.

I say it's wrong in both cases. If we're going to be morally disgusted by the invasion and subjugation of another culture, then it doesn't matter what the other culture's like. They should be left to find their own way to enlightenment. Prime Directive and all that. Or, conversely, if it's right in both cases (and sometimes the Prime Directive was, let's face it, a huge cop-out), can we have our Empire back please, so we can e.g. stop all those Indian girl babies being quietly disposed of?

One way or the other, but not both. Schrödinger's cake is either there or it's not. Military conquest and annexation is either right or it's not.

(Note to keep the waters unmuddied: I am not talking about the establishment of Israel here, which is a very different case. They went (to oversimplify more than somewhat) from having no land of their own to having some. This is not the same as taking land off someone else against their manifest will to add to the land you've already got.)

Comments

[qs15.livejournal.com]

But the difference is, Tibet practically fell into the Chinese arms with little resistance, it couldn't be said same for us.

Maybe you should do some detailed background check and visit the link I suggested before critisizing the article as if it was Chinese propaganda. The sources cited in the article are all non-Chinese sources and the author is a published Italian-American author. It's not as if the article doesn't critisize things about China as well. If you still believe the same thing after reading it then I have nothing to tell you, you have your opinion I have mine but at least give it a chance.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

You seem to be reading a different post. I don't believe I've even mentioned an article, though I admit to having seen a post relating to the one you mentioned. I'm certainly not criticising it: to do that without having read it would be imbecilic. I'm making a general point about what happens when one nation grabs its guns and appropriates another nation by force. How vastly outnumbered, and how ill-prepared, the defending forces may be, is quite irrelevant to the morality of the act. Tibet declared its independence in 1911, and had that independence taken away by military coercion in 1949.

My opinion is simply that conquest is wrong. It is only an opinion, of course, and I'm open to suggestions as to how it might be justified. I haven't heard any convincing ones yet. EDIT: I have now read the article, and see no reason to change my general opinion. If China's purpose was to free and enlighten the oppressed peoples of Tibet, there were other avenues open to them. They simply wanted it, and took it. Whatever the realities of Tibet's history (not unlike ours as it turns out) I can't support that.

[cleverthylacine]

I am not comfortable with reducing things to that simplistic level, but then, I don't believe in the Prime Directive or in conquest motivated by greed.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I don't necessarily believe in the PD either. As I said above, not entirely in jest, it was often merely a cop-out or a plot speedbump. Some things are simply wrong (in my opinion) and if a culture is practising them then (in my opinion) they ought to be persuaded to stop, PD or no PD. But that again could be seen as oversimplifying: maybe the things I think are wrong are only wrong as seen through my cultural worldview. As the writer of the article says, culture is not neutral. And round we go again.

Reductionism is bad, yes. But so is getting so wound up in qualifications and contingencies that no action or thought is possible. I start from the admittedly simplistic idea that I wouldn't want a bunch of strangers moving into our house and conscripting me and the Countess at gunpoint as servants, even if the house ended up cleaner and less cluttered as a result, and reason upwards and outwards from that, on the basis that we haven't yet encountered a branch of humanity that wants to be conquered.

I'm glad some Tibetans are better off under the Chinese. It would still (in my opinion) be a better outcome if they could have been better off without being under someone else. The Russians and the Chinese both dragged themselves out of the Middle Ages within the last century or two: we won't ever know, now, if the Tibetans would have done the same.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I did start writing a screed, but decided to delete it and just say that I agree with you and like your house analogy.

[qs15.livejournal.com]

I was actually infering to that different post but I didn't post there because I saw this post instead.

I agree that conquest is wrong and I hate it as well but nothing is as simple as just conquest. So many factors weigh into that one concept and each factor determines a different outcome thats why I suggested you read the link I provided above. I had some of the same feelings as you concerning the Tibet issue but that article really got me thinking about a different view and thats why I hoped you would give it a chance, it's just food for thought. And I would like to hear others opinion on it after reading it. =)

[qs15.livejournal.com]

Lol ok I respect that but at least now you can say you were informed.

I agree China did want Tibet, but at the same time the majority of Tibet (made up of serfs and forced monks) did welcome the change and that's the difference.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

As several people have said, it's more complex than that. For instance, in northern India we replaced one set of foreign rulers with another. In Africa, what isn't often mentioned is the huge migrations from the North in the Middle Ages which displaced the smaller, lighter-coloured people who now remain only in small pockets, such as the Kalahari. Now, two wrongs don't make a right, naturally, and I'm not condoning Imperialism, but "nations" are unnatural entities (the social unit in humanity is the extended family which amounts to the tribe) and many cultural changes (indeed, much so called cultural imperialism) stems not from imposition, but from people's natural urge to want the same advantages as others. (See Roberts The Triumph of the West.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

It's wrong in both cases. What one does about it is the question. Without some convincing reason to believe that my sounding off about Tibet is going to get China to stop, I'm not going to consider myself obliged to do so. I don't sound off about British Empire imperialism either... I'll comment if asked, in both cases. Mostly, I try to save my political energy for stuff I can affect.

I also think there is a significant value to having an international event at which countries which don't like each other all show up and get along politely anyway. To use that event instead as an opportunity to tell them how much you don't like them, even if you've got good reason for not liking them, defeats that purpose. Again, if boycotting the Olympics would get China out of Tibet I'd probably reluctantly decide it was worth it, but without any prospect of that happening, it's damaging to a good thing without doing anything useful about a bad one. That doesn't seem worth it to me.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Agreed on all counts. Unfortunately, both because it will probably have no effect and because people will do it anyway. I am fairly sure there must be a peaceful and constructive way to resolve these problems, but I don't know what it is. Yet. (You never know, something might come to me...)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

If there is a peaceful and constructive way to stop groups of people from going after their neighbors' land, we haven't seen it in six thousand years of history. The *relatively* peaceful way a given population usually gets rid of the people who have previously taken them over is to stop listening to them -- trying to govern a people who simply ignore what you tell them to do is invariably far more expensive than it is worth, and the dominant country eventually figures this out. But a fair number of individuals do get killed in the process, just not as many as in open warfare... and it takes a *huge* en masse refusal to obey for it to work. A minority of the population won't do, no matter how dedicated. It helps if they're organized enough to set up a "shadow government" as well.. something that they *will* listen to, even if it's technically got no legal powers yet. Ireland did that fairly effectively, as did Israel and the United States.

[howeird]

It's a troubling dilemma. In the US of A, there's the guilt about having killed off most of the natives and rounded up the rest, putting them in camps and stealing their land. And the slave trade which treated some people as property.

It irks me more than most because while all that was happening, my people were being hunted down and killed by cossacks, I feel I'm under no obligation to feel guilty about sins committed by my neighbors' fathers.
--
Israel is not quite as you say - they had land -- about 2,000 years ago they were kicked out of it. Their neighbors/cousins moved in eventually. After way too long, the deposed returned and cried to get their land back. Even though those are my family, I think it's pretty rude of them to claim ownership after being away for so long.