Gilbert Harman (born 1938) is an American philosopher, teaching at Princeton University since 1963, who has published widely in linguistics, semantics, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, ethics, moral psychology, epistemology, statistical learning theory, and metaphysics.

Gilbert Harman in his defense of Moral Relativism makes a case for the relativity of the moral judgments that we can or cannot make about what someone should or should not do. In this paper I will elaborate on his idea of moral relativism based on his notion of “inner moral judgment”. I will then assess it in light of the possible objections and virtues. In particular I will show how this explains some of our intuitive moral preferences, for instance the preference for avoiding harm over providing help. I will then conclude that his defense does stand the tests of possible objections and is a plausible explanation of how such moral judgments are made.

Harman explains that some moral judgments are meaningful and appropriate only in relation to a set of understandings or implicit agreements that the person making the judgment shares with the agent, enacting an act, and his or her audience, in the same way that a statement about the size of an object makes sense only in comparison to something else.  He calls moral judgments of this form, “inner moral judgments”. However he does acknowledge the possibility of moral judgments made with disregard to such shared understanding or agreements, judgments that he calls “outer judgments”. Take for example a statement gauging how evil someone’s action might be. According to him, this is the only type of judgment we can make about someone with whom we do not share the kind of implicit agreement described above. He explains that he is only concerned with the relativity of the inner moral judgments.

One crucial assumption that he makes is that considering such inner moral judgments can be appropriately made only about agents who could be and are motivated by the relevant considerations the speaker shares with the agents, rationality alone is not sufficient for providing motivations for a certain action, other factors like desires, goals and intentions have to be taken into account as well. As he points out, he is essentially rejecting “a Kantian approach which sees a possible source of motivation in reason itself.” (p. 9) This provides the possibility that there might be no reason, independent of desires and goals, for an alien from outer space to avoid harm to us and based on which we can make inner moral judgments about the aliens’ actions. In fact, a stronger version of the thesis could be that the reason for an individual committing an action is the shared motivation to adhere to the implicit agreement (an agreement that binds a certain group of people and the individual). Although Harman does not argue this explicitly, his thesis still remains that an observer S can make an inner judgment about an agent A only with respect to the shared beliefs or motivational intentions they share with each other and the audience.

The more important assessment of Harman’s moral relativism would be to subject it to the objections that other form of moral relativism face. These range from objections about the inconsistency of “universalist relativist” theses to the implication that a group’s moral commitments cannot be criticized from within.

Let’s consider the following statements about two people A and B:

1. A is subject to certain moral demands D

2. B is not subject to D

3. B is subject to some other moral demands

4. There is no demand D’ to which A and B are both subject

This version of moral relativism is sometimes accused of being incoherent. Something must explain why A is subjected to D when B is not. It certainly cannot be arbitrary. If there is an underlying principle, such as, one should act in accordance with one’s own fundamental beliefs and principles, isn’t this then a more fundamental and universal principle D’ that accounts for the difference between A and B’s moral demands? This implies the incoherent nature of such a version of normative moral relativism. To begin with the assessment of Harman’s moral relativism, where moral judgments (inner) are made in relation to shared motivating attitudes, it might seem possible to make a similar argument and suggest a more fundamental principle. One might suggest that we are only subject to demands that reflect our motivations. And that one should act according to one’s motivations. This might seem to be a more fundamental principle. However I would argue that one can not make such a statement in accordance with Harman’s relativism simply because, to say that someone else (who does not share the same motivating attitudes as you do), should do something in relation to his/her motivations (the ones that you don’t share) is in violation with how inner moral judgments should be made. So it avoids this problem that other forms of moral relativism face.

Another objection moral relativist theories have faced is the violation of the law of non-contradiction. It appears on relativist grounds an action C could be both right and wrong at the same time. Let’s say according to A’s moral demands it is right to do C whereas according to B’s moral demands, it is wrong. This violates the law of non-contradiction that two contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time. I think Harman’s case of relativism does away with this objection. According to him, inner judgments about a person’s action can only be made in relation to the shared moral understanding or the implicit agreements. It does not make sense for an individual D who shares the same motivations as A to make an inner judgment about both A and B at the same time. In fact D cannot make an inner judgment about B’s actions. This avoids the two contradictory statements being true at the same time and seems to uphold the law of non-contradiction.

The next particular objection is the inability to criticize a group’s moral commitments from within the group.  Harman does away with this objection on the basis of incoherence and differences in the basic understanding of the implicit agreement. He explains how certain moral disputes are disputes about the differences in the basic understanding of the shared intentions. He lays down a framework for modifying these basic understandings based on internal assessment about it’s coherence, which has to be weighed (in most cases) against the conservatism or inertia (to change) and the satisfying of basic desires and needs. He sums it up as, “One tries to make the least change that will best satisfy one’s desires while maximizing the overall coherence of one’s attitudes.”(p. 20) A possible example is his case about a society with a tradition of slavery. In this society, slavery is a common and accepted practice. However there might be aspects of the basic moral agreements that might speak against the institution of slavery in terms of the equality of humans. This highlights the defect in the basic understanding. But it might be hidden by means of myths that presuppose the inequality of slaves to the owners. If these myths were exposed, the incoherence in the basic moral agreement would become obvious and prompt a modification of the agreements, abolishing this acceptance of slavery.  In fact this, he points out, is how the implicit agreements undergo modifications in the light of the balance between coherence and the factors of conservatism, desire and need satisfaction.

Given the objections that Harman’s account of moral relativism manages to avoid, it’s eligibility as an accurate assessment of moral judgments is further stressed by its’ ability to explain certain intuitive preferences we tend to have about moral actions. One such case is the preference for avoiding harm over providing help. It can be explained from his perspective that this distinction is based on the implicit agreement that as a result of moral bargaining between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the underprivileged, has reached the favorable compromise that avoiding harm would be in the best interest of both the parties. Providing help on the other hand places a burden only on the rich and the privileged members. A possible concern is, given the explanation that Harman provides, what leads to the conclusion that not doing harm is better than doing good, is the true moral belief and not to the contrary conclusion that we should abandon this belief altogether. A possible example illustrating this issue is to consider that a mad scientist has been playing a tape recording of the claim in my ear every night when I sleep. On finding out how I have acquired this belief I would most likely abandon it. However I argue that Harman’s explanation is of a different form. Unlike the mad scientist playing the tape, the compromise made between the different groups of people is a part of our social interactions. While we can do without the scientist playing the tape for us to acquire moral understandings of the world around us, these compromises seem inevitable in developing our moral understandings. Therefore Harman’s claim is based on a social practice that is part of our social interactions and abandoning it seems less likely than the case of the mad scientist.

It is quite clear through this assessment of Harman’s moral relativity, it not only stands the tests of the objections to other form of moral relativism but also manages to provide an account for the intuitive distinction between providing help and avoiding harm. Setting aside the question of inherent values of the different moral judgments, Harman’s moral relativism appears to be a plausible explanation about how such moral judgments can be made.

Reference:

1. Harman Gilbert, Moral Relativism Defended, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), Duke University Press

From October 19 to 25, 2010, thousands of Tibetan students from six schools in Qinghai Tibetan region (the only ethnic Tibetan region that still uses the Tibetan language medium beyond primary school) staged peaceful protests against the government plan to enforce Mandarin as the medium of instruction by 2015, bringing to the fore China’s problematic minority educational policy.  They have raised the issues of cultural autonomy and cultural assimilation in China, and demonstrate the role education plays in cultural reproduction.  China is a multiethnic nation with 56 officially recognized ethnic nationalities.  Of the total population, the dominant Han nationality comprises 91.59% and the remaining 55 ethnic minorities totaled around 108.46 million or 8.98% (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2001, p. 100).  In the last six decades of communist rule, the government’s linguistic policy has led to perhaps the greatest language shift and loss in the world (Zhou, 2000).  In larger discourse on the relationship between the Chinese government and minority groups, educational policy in general and language policy in particular is one of the core issues of conflict.  This paper critically examines the Chinese government’s rhetorical discourses on minority education by looking at the current state of education in Tibet, and focuses on school education in terms of the Tibetan language and cultural components of the curriculum against the backdrop of constitutional and legal provisions.

Tibetan students' protest, Amdo Tibet, October 2010.

Constitutional provisions for minority education:

China took control of Tibet in 1950, and initially followed a gradualist approach to transform Tibetan society.  The 17^th Point Agreement signed between the Tibetan and Chinese governments in May 1951 states that “the spoken and written language and school education of the Tibetan nationality shall be developed step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet” (Bass, 1998).  This agreement became the basis of China’s rule in Tibet.  More importantly, in the Common Program of the Constitution of the Peoples’ Republic of China promulgated in 1949, Article 50 recognized equality of all ethnic groups.  Similarly, Article 53 in particular states that every minority group has the freedom to use and develop its language and to maintain its customs and religion (Zhou, 2004).  In 1984, the Act of Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities became effective in which Articles 9 and 10 gave ethnic minorities the right to use and develop their own language and the freedom to believe in religion (Information Office of the State Council, 2005).  Likewise, to cater to the varying needs of a large number of ethnic groups in China, Article 12 of the Chinese Education law of 1995 also stipulates that the “schools and other educational institutions primarily for ‘minority’ nationalities may use the spoken or written language in common use among ethnic group or in the locality as the language of instruction” (National People’s Congress, 1995).

Tibet is the most backward region of China in terms of economic development and level of educational attainment.  In order to uplift the state of education, the government adopted many so-called preferential policies and spent a huge amount of money, especially after the 1980s. These policies included sanbao or the ‘three guarantees policy’ of providing free food, clothing and lodging for children at school starting from 1984; inland secondary classes and schools for Tibetan primary graduates called neidi xizang ban policy in 1985; bilingual education; ethnic minority teacher training, etc. There is no denying the fact that Tibet experienced substantial economic and educational development in the last few decades.  But the growth and development has seldom benefited the ethnic Tibetan people. Andrew M. Fischer (2005) calls it ‘exclusionary growth’, which has resulted in further alienation of the Tibetans in Tibet.  Opportunities presented by modernization in Tibet are being availed by millions of Chinese migrants, and Tibetans find themselves increasingly left out from the exploits.

Current practices

Status of Tibetan language: Tibetan language is the medium of communication of Tibetan culture, and thus, assumes outmost significance in terms of cultural reproduction and continuation of the ethnicity.  However, despite constitutional provisions, the teaching of the Tibetan language has been neglected in varying degrees.  During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the Tibetan language was categorized among the “Four Olds” and became a target of attack and was simply “outlawed for several years” (Tournadre, 2003b).  In 1980s, however, there was considerable cultural revival as result of support from General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Hu Yaobang and the Party Secretary Wu Jinhua. With the insistence of Panchen Lama and Ngapo, two leading Tibetan cadres, plans were drawn to make Tibetan the language of administration and education.  However, this trend was quickly reversed in mid-1990s following Tibetan uprisings and Chinese pro-democracy movements in the late 1980s, and with the breakup of the former Soviet Union.  The Communist Party felt that its power was directly under threat, and it heralded the return to hardline policies. In Tibet, the Chinese government made deliberate attempts to link Tibetan language and culture with ethnic nationalism.  Thus, Tibetan language and culture came under severe attack under the leadership of hardliners such as TAR Party Secretary Chen Kuiyuan (1992-2000).  This resulted in a creation of an atmosphere where it has made it difficult for Tibetans to assert their linguistic and cultural rights as enshrined in the constitution.  Tibetans live in perpetual fear of being accused as ‘splittist’, the highest political crime, if they advocate for Tibetan language education (Woeser, 2010).

However, it is difficult to generalize about a region as wide as Tibet covering almost one-fourth of China.  But in general, except in the Qinghai Tibetan region, the Tibetan language medium is used only up to the primary level. Almost all the secondary schools use Mandarin Chinese as the medium of instruction and Tibetan language is either dropped or retained as an elective subject.  In Qinghai Tibetan regions, some Tibetan secondary schools still use the Tibetan medium to a varying degrees – some secondary schools teach Tibetan, history, geography and math in Tibetan language, but teach physics, chemistry and biology in Chinese medium. This generalization is only representative and not exhaustive.

Negative representation of Tibetan culture and religion: Tibetan schools also follow the Chinese national curriculum developed in far-away Beijing and thus, cultural exclusion is acutely felt in all regions of Tibet.  The treatment of the Tibetan culture and religion in the school curriculum reflects the prevailing political mood of the government.  However, except for a short period from the early 1980s to early 1990s, Tibetan culture and religion has been denigrated to varying degrees. The civilizing mission of state education often described ethnic minority culture as backward (Ch. luolou).  The very conception of ‘minority education’ (Ch. minzu jiaoyu) as different from ‘regular education’ (Ch. zhenggui jiaoyu), is based on the idea of fostering allegiance towards the state and ensuring stability as the primary goal of education for minorities.  This means that minorities need to unlearn aspects of their culture that the government describes as ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘elitist’ (Bass, 1998).  Hence, the Tibetan culture, language and religion often fall into these categories.  These attempts by the Chinese government correspond to what Cruikshank (1999) called as the need to create and arm the ‘enemy’ so as to engage in conflict and justify the system that is meant to exercise social control and governance.

Ideological and patriotic education: Ideological and patriotic education is an important component of the Chinese state’s discourse on education for minorities, and is meant to supplement the exclusion of Tibetan culture in the school curriculum.   As such, elements of patriotic education have made significant inroads into the school curriculum. In the case of Tibet, patriotic education assumes the role of legitimizing communist rule and negating pre-1950 Tibet. Ideological and political correctness became an important yardstick for selection of students for educational opportunities. One of the pre-conditions for getting the three guarantees of free food, clothing and housing is “good ideological and moral character” (Zhiyong, 2008, p. 45). Likewise for the selection of Tibetan students for inland secondary classes and schools, the fourth condition is maintenance of “state ideology and morality” (Zhiyong, 2007, p. 76). Not surprisingly then, school subjects like history and language carry strong undercurrents of ideological messages.  Even in seemingly apolitical subjects like math, Dawa Norbu (1997) wrote that the Chinese teacher would give a word problem example such as: “I have five eggs. I offer three to the People’s Liberation Army. How many have I left?”

Moreover, under Chen Kuiyuan, patriotic education was started in Tibetan schools in 1992 and later extended to the society at large. It has involved raising the Chinese national flag, singing the Chinese national anthem, and studying books and films approved by the authorities (Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, 2004).  As a part of the patriotic education campaign, Tibetan students had to answer questions like these in the test: “How can Tibet become a powerful and wealthy nation? And the options given were a) continuation of the leadership of the Communist Party, b) Independence (Bass, 1998, p. 58).” Failure to exhibit required patriotic and ideological brand would mean punishment and even imprisonment (Bass, 2005). After the 2008 Tibetan uprisings, patriotic education was further stepped up in schools and monasteries.

Analysis of the discourses on education in Tibet

Discourse versus reality: In the government discourses such as the White Paper (Information Office of the State Council, 2008), statistical data about education in Tibet gave highly inflated figures such as a literacy rate of 95% and an enrollment rate for school age children as 98.2%.  But the reality speaks quite a different story.  According to Baden Nima (2008), around 40-60% of Tibetan children do not attend school at all and the literacy rate by the turn of the last century stood woefully low at about 50%.  In the Tibet Autonomous Region, less than 25% of Tibetan children graduate to secondary school (Postiglione, 2004), and in rural areas where 80% of Tibetans live, the primary schools at best provide only three years of schooling (Bass, 2008).  Therefore, scholars generally tend to question the credibility of government data and treat them as more of propaganda.

Perspectives from government discourse mainly attribute the low school enrollment and high dropout rates in Tibet as result of the backwardness and illiteracy of parents in rural and nomadic Tibet (Bass, 2005).  This is deceptive, although it is quite understandable that in rural and nomadic Tibet, illiterate parents might want to keep their children at home for work.  John U. Ogbu (1978) has postulated the theory of ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary minority’.  According to him, ‘voluntary minorities’ are those people who became minority as they migrated out of choice, and hence they are more receptive to mainstream culture. Whereas ‘involuntary minorities’ are indigenous people who have become a minority in their own land due to the migration of other groups., They tend to develop an‘oppositional identity’ in the face of pressure from a dominant culture.  The author’s theory could offer another perspective to the low attendance, as many parents in Tibet have not and still do not see any meaning in the state school education due to its cultural irrelevance.  Values transmitted by state schooling are seen as alien or even anathema to the cultural values of the Tibetans (Bangsbo, 2008).  Zhu Zhiyong (2008, p. 49) conducted a survey in the Nagchu district of Tibet and found that “the school in its current state has a negative effect on the herdsmen’s families’ conception of education”.  The mere fact that many rural and nomadic families send their children to India buttresses Ogbu’s theory.  Due to a lack of educational opportunities and cultural irrelevance of whatever is available, many parents in Tibet had to seek an alternative source of education for their children by taking the risk of sending them to India.  According to the Tibetan Refugee Reception Centre in Dharamsala, of 43,634 Tibetans who fled Tibet and came to India between 1991 to June 2004, 60% are below the age of 25 (cited in Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democarcy, 2004).  Tibetan Children’s Village schools in India alone received around 14,000 Tibetan children from 1980 to 2010 (Yeshi, 2010).  Lack of culturally relevant education and religious freedom are the two primary reasons for this massive exodus of Tibetans for the last four decades.  It is also clearly evident that the Chinese medium of instruction in the secondary schools has put ethnic minorities at a great disadvantage, and adversely affects their educational enrollment and attainment (Hong, 2010).

Inland secondary schools for Tibetans: In 1985, Chinese government started the practice of sending a large number of Tibetan primary school graduates to inland secondary schools (Ch. neidi xizang ban policy) in 19 provinces outside Tibetan regions under the banner of an ‘intellectual aid scheme’ (Ch. zhili yuanzang).  From 1985 to 2001, around 23,560 Tibetan primary school graduates attended these inland schools (Postiglione et al., 2004).  Around one third of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) students who enter secondary education attend these inland classes and schools (Bass, 2005), and one can assume that they comprise a high percentage of Tibet’s top ranking primary graduates (Postiglione, 2008).  Government discourses dwell heavily on the success of this policy and commend the benevolence of the Central government and the inland provinces (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000: China Tibet Information Center, 2010).  This practice was later extended to Uyghur Muslims also. It is indeed quite spectacular that the inland provinces would provide such educational aids to Tibetan students. However, this policy must be seen in the light of what Cruikshank (1999) called as “technologies of citizenship” that seeks to constitute and regulate citizens, and entail power relations that are both voluntary and coercive.

Tibet’s remoteness, lack of infrastructure, and difficulties in getting qualified teachers are important factors in justifying inland secondary schools for Tibetan, but a closer look at the kind of education that Tibetan students are receiving in these dislocated secondary classes and schools reveal well-intended attempts at assimilation.  For example, in a week, out of 34-43 periods they attend depending upon their grade level, only 4-5 periods cover Tibetan language and rest of the curriculum is identical to mainstream Chinese schools (Zhu, 2007).  These students are also subjected to ideological and moral education classes.  Similarly, by rule these students, aged between 12-14 years at the time of selection, cannot return to Tibet even during vacation until they complete four-years of junior secondary school.  By virtue of their isolation, they cannot attend any religious activities or pray at monasteries (Postiglione et al., 2004). The overall effect on identity formation is difficult to say, as in many cases, dislocation often heightens ethnic consciousness. However, by the time they return to Tibet after seven years of isolation, these secondary graduates are generally bereft of their culture. Around half of them become teachers (Postiglione, 2009), and thus perpetuate the current state of education that gives primacy to the Mandarin Chinese and Han culture.

Linguistic and cultural education – Discourses and realities: The Chinese government discourses on minority languages are ambiguous and present a conflicting dichotomy between what is being written and what is being done.  The themes of protection and preservation of Tibetan language are persistent in all major government publications on Tibetan education (Aiming, 2004; Information Office of the State Council, 2000 & 2008).  However, since the late 1990s the promotion of Mandarin became an important national agenda and as a result, the Tibetan language has become increasingly marginalized.  Apart from the cultural capital theory, another reason advanced in the government discourse on language issue is the preeminence of economic determinism.  As recent as September 2010, Qinghai provincial secretary Qiang Wei (2010) spoke at a conference of education and maintained that promotion of the common speech (Mandarin Chinese) is important from an economic point of view.  But the economic primacy of Mandarin Chinese is due largely to the political factor of denying political and socio-economic expanse for minority languages to operate.

Another issue of disagreement is over the inclusion of minority culture in the school education.  The government publications and discourses are also somewhat pretentious (Aiming, 2004; Information Office of the State Council, 2008).  These publications extol Tibet’s ‘splendid culture’ and ‘long history’, and discuss in length about government’s effort to preserve and protect them.  But on the practical level many aspects of Tibetan culture are being denigrated as backward and unpatriotic (Bass, 2005).  As such cultural education for Tibetan is substituted by ideological and patriotic education that endorses Han Chinese culture.  Tibetan Buddhism is neglected from the school curriculum.  References to Tibetan history mostly emphasize the alleged benevolence that China has shown to Tibet throughout history and how Tibet is an inalienable part of China.  Even stories in the Tibetan language textbooks are mostly translation of stories about communist heroes and seldom reflect socio-cultural and environmental milieu of the child (Bass, 2008).  This has led to what Harrel (cited in Bass, 2005) called ‘stigmatized identity’.  Even the Han Chinese students are being taught that Tibet is a backward and barbaric region.  As a result, according to the famous Chinese writer Wang Lixiong, many Han Chinese possess negative attitudes towards Tibetans, and always look down upon them from a position of superiority (as cited in Sarin & Sonam, 2009).

The Chinese government uses education as a powerful “technology of citizenship” that  legitimizes communist rule and produces loyal citizens. However, the Government’s ‘benevolent’ attempts at acculturating ‘backward’ minorities through education is itself a relation of powers, as the government cannot speak in the voice of the voiceless minorities without first constituting their inability to speak for themselves (Cruikshank, 1999).

"I am a child of China, I like to speak Mandarin". A school gate in Tibet. Courtesy: Woeser (2010)

What led to the non-implementation of the constitutional provisions?: The tremendous gap between educational rights and policies enshrined in the constitutional legislation and the actual practice is perceptible to a most casual observer.  There is no doubt that the economic poverty and geographical isolation and remoteness of Tibet is a major factor hindering the realization of the constitutional provisions.  Lack of bilingual teachers is also another factor.  However, the main reason is lack of political will on the side of Chinese government to genuinely pursue a culturally and linguistically relevant education in minority areas including Tibet.  The government’s interest is served by merely including these provisions in the constitution as it helps the government look modern and can lessen international criticisms on fundamental theoretical level.

Minglang Zhou (2004) proffers three main reasons for this apparent gap between China’s minority educational policy and practice.  First, most of the communist states always promise more than what they are willing to deliver.  Second, in Leninist-Stalinist theory the accommodation of ethnic and linguistic diversity is only a means to ultimate integration.  Third, Han chauvinism always makes implementation of minority constitutional rights difficult.  Baden Nima (2008) and Woeser (2010) also wrote that local Han cadres often belittle effort to educate Tibetan in their own language.  However, this has not done any good to the national integration either.  Events of 2008 and 2009 in Tibet and Uyghur minority areas have sufficiently shown the growing social gap between Han and minority groups.

Conclusion

Genuine bilingual education rooted in minority culture: In The Will to Empower, Cruikshank (1999) questions and analyzes power relationships and asserts that in spite of the emancipatory claim of those who seek to empower others, the relations of empowerment are themselves relations of power.  This seems to be case with China’s attempts to empower its minorities, although here the government’s intention is dubious.  In Chinese government discourse, education to the minorities in Mandarin and Han Chinese culture represents an attempt to empower the minorities and bring economic and educational development to ethnic minority regions.  Yet, from the minorities’ perspective, it has clear disempowering effects, as the educational displacement causes low school enrollment and erosion of their language and culture.

One of the central issues in the discourse on minority education is national unity and stability. In the case of Tibet, the government establishes a link between Tibetan Buddhism and language with local ethnic nationalism. Thus, deliberate attempts were made to exclude Tibetan culture, including religion and language from education. However, government efforts have not diminished ethnic nationalism, but rather increased alienation and created sense of exclusion. It is quite evident from the Tibetan and Uyghur experiences that the cultural exclusion, ideological education and mainstreaming seldom results in national integration. On the contrary, it has led to protests and unrest that threaten national unity. Uprisings in Tibet and Uyghur area in 2008 and 2009 respectively, and Tibetan students’ protests in 2010 are cases in point.  A more culturally oriented education could in fact bring the minorities closer to the Chinese nation and promote unity in diversity.  Beijing must recognize that the child’s community and local milieu form the primary social context in which learning takes place, and in which knowledge acquires its meaning.

Thus, a genuine bilingual education rooted in minority culture could be the true panacea for China’s minority educational problem.  In the case of Tibet, Tibetan language should be promoted as the first language. Along with that, it is important to create economic and political expanse for Tibetan language to gain functional utility. This entails making Tibetan language the language of administration and commerce. Without the prospect of political and socio-economic gains and opportunities, even the choice for an education in Tibetan language would be a ‘false choice’ (Zhou & Ross, 2004).  The current version of bilingual education can at best be described as ‘subtractive bilingualism’ (Fillmore, 1991) when learning a second language means losing the first.  At the same time, there is ample evidence to show that the ethnic minorities fully recognize the importance of learning Mandarin Chinese (Anaytulla, 2008, Nima, 2008, Ojijed, 2010).  Julkunen (2001) explained three main motivations for learning a second language, namely integrative, instrumental, and cognitive. Minorities in China possessed strong instrumental motivation for learning Mandarin Chinese such as prospects for getting good job, educational opportunities and so on. Thus even in a system of a bilingual education rooted primarily in minority language, the Mandarin Chinese will naturally gain a high place, almost at par with the first language due to economic and demographic reasons.  So, the fears of minority groups not being conversant in Mandarin Chinese can be kept at bay.  Consequently, a bilingual education rooted in minority language and more culturally relevant education seems the best option for both Beijing and its ethnic minorities.

Therefore, adequate protection and promotion of Tibetan language and culture through education is crucial to enhancing educational achievements of Tibetan students, reducing the current level of unemployment, promoting social development, and achieving national unity and stability. It would be pertinent to sum up this paper in the words of eminent linguist Nicolas Tournadre who wrote that the “Tibetan is one of the four oldest and greatest in volume and most original literatures of Asia, along with Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese literatures. So, that is a very good reason for the heritage of humanity to keep this culture” (2003a, p. 2).  Even in the most democratic and well-intentioned will to empower others, in this case through education for minorities, Cruikshank (1999) calls to our attention that there is the possibility of both freedom and domination.

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Tibetan Centre for Human Rights & Democracy, (2004).  State of education in Tibet: A human rights perspective.  Dharamshala: TCHRD.

Tournadre, N. (2003a).  Teaching and learning of Tibetan: The role of Tibetan language in Tibet’s future. Retrieved from http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/teachtibet.pdf

Tournadre, N. (2003b).  The dynamics of Tibetan-Chinese bilingualism.  China Perspectives, 45(1), 2-9.

Wang, C. & Zhou, Q. (2003).  Minority education in China: From state’s preferential policies to dislocated Tibetan schools.  Educational Studies, 29(1), 85-104.

Wei, Q. (2010, September 30).  The bilingual education as a livelihood project. People’s Daily, p. 3.

Woeser, T. (2010).  Are ‘minority’ languages safe? Retrieved September 29, 2010, from http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/languages-09222010105909.html

Yeshi, T. (2010).  TCV 50 years anniversary. Speech delivered at TCV Dharamshala, October 30, 2010.

Zhiyong, Z. (2008).  Reflections on basic education under the “three guarantees” policy in Tibet’s pastoral districts.  Chinese Education and Society, 41(1), 44-50.

Zhou, M. (2000).  Language attitudes of two contrasting ethnic minority nationalities in China: the “model” Koreans and the “rebellious” Tibetans.  International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 146(1), 1-20.

Zhou, M. (2004).  Minority language policy in China.  In M. Zhou (Ed.).  Language policy in the People’s Republic of China. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Zhou, M. & Ross H. A. (2004).  The context of the theory and practice of China’s language policy.  In M. Zhou (Ed.).   Language policy in the People’s Republic of China. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Zhu, Z. (2007).  State schooling and ethnic identity: The politics of a Tibetan neidi secondary school in China.  Lanham: Lexington Books.

Central European University is pleased to announce the Tibet Scholarsip Program which will fund up to two talented scholars of Tibetan origin for their graduate studies at Central European University in a one-year or two-year MA or MS degree program.

The scholarship includes:

• Tuition waiver
• Housing in the CEU Residence Center
• Stipend for living expenses

Selection criteria will include:

• Prior academic achievement
• Potential for academic success in graduate studies
• Potential for service to the Tibetan Community
• English language proficiency
• Clearly defined academic and career goals
• Preference for candidates with a good knowledge of spoken and written Tibetan

Tibetan women are especially encouraged to apply. For further details about eligible degree programs and the application process, please visit our web site at  http://www.ceu.hu/academics/degrees .

How to Apply for the Tibet Scholarship Program

1. Submit a completed online CEU Application Form for admission on or by January 25, 2012.
2. Complete the Tibet Scholarship Application Form – type or print neatly.
3. Submit the Tibet Scholarship application via as a “Miscellaneous attachment” in the CEU Online Application Form.

Only applicants who are offered admission to CEU will be considered for Tibet Scholarship. Applicants will also be considered for other financial assistance and scholarship programs offered by the University.   All Tibet Scholarship applications will be reviewed by the Tibet Scholarship Advisory Committee consisting of three external Tibet Scholars, the Director of Financial Aid, and the Vice President for Student Services.  Finalists will be asked to interview and to take a brief oral and written Tibetan language proficiency exam.  Scholarship decisions will be announced in early April, 2012.

The question of what is it for a person to be the ‘same’ person is misleading as nothing remains exactly the same over time. Therefore properties, physical or mental, are qualitatively similar or numerically identical can be considered. Compare a man at adulthood to the early years of his life. Natural growth and the development of a personality mean the grown up man is qualitatively dissimilar and numerically not identical. This leads us back to the question of what exactly it is that constitutes a person? What is it that counts as criteria for judging personal identity? Let’s look at the Lockean view of the self; Locke’s notion of memory is founded on the Cartesian view of the person as distinct from other sentient beings. Locke argues in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Volume 1, “a person stands for; — which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places” (Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ). He famously puts it being impossible for anyone to perceive without perceiving that he does perceive and therefore it is this consciousness that is inseparable from thinking (Locke). Apparently, Locke’s criterion for judging personal identity is the continuity of consciousness, or memory of a person over different times and places. A person is a rational thinking thing whose identity over time is preserved by the continuity of consciousness as mediated by memory (Locke).

However, there is a serious problem with the notion of consciousness as the defining characteristic of personal identity. Thomas Reid argues how this might lead to some strange consequences. The consciousness of person A can be transferred to person B through brain transplantation. The question, then, is that who is this person who has person B’s memory and vice-versa? This implies that bodily continuity is essential in retain personal identity. A quintessential example of this problem is presented in Franz Kafka’s novel The Metamorphosis, in which the main protagonist, the salesman Mr. Gregor, wakes up one day to find himself transformed into a giant bug. Kafka tries to express the relationship between bodily integrity and personhood, by displaying the deficiency of consciousness as the criterion for personal identity.

If neither the body nor the consciousness is a valid condition for judging the persistence of personal identity, what is there for a person to relate to himself as himself over different times and places? Then, is the notion of self just an illusion? This question brings us to the Scottish philosopher, David Hume’s notion of self from the illusion theory. The illusion theorists of personal identity hold that there is no self that persists through time and space. Our personal identity is in a constant flux. To think that we persist through time is an illusion (Rauhut: 109). Hume argues in his A Treatise on Human Nature; “…when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. This provides an objection to Locke’s consciousness theory and also refutes all attempts of philosophers to present a fixed self. Hume’s argument makes the case that there is nothing that exits as a constant or persists through time but a continuous fluctuation of perceptions that we encounter if we immerse ourselves in deep contemplation about the self. To put is more precisely, Hume argues that the “mind is a theatre, where perceptions successively make their appearances; pass, repass, glide away and mingle in an infinite variety of posture and situations (Hume)” and it is those successive perceptions what constitute the mind. Thus, a person is nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which are in a perpetual flux and movement. Hume denies the existence of self by claiming it as a mere illusion.

A possible objection to Hume’s bundle theory is the lack of exposition on the relation of the perceptions and how these are bundled together. This seems to be a major loophole in Hume’s argument for nonexistence of the self. However, Buddhism gets around this problem for it also makes an argument for no-self. Buddha, in the first sermon, dhammacakkappavattana sutta, explains that the individual is nothing beyond a composite of ‘five aggregates’ or ‘five heaps’: form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. None of these five heaps can be seen as eternally substantial (Rauhut: 144). However, it is important to note that Buddha’s notion of no-self (anatman) is rooted in the ontological doctrine of the Middle Path which rejects both views of existence and nonexistence by pursuing a mean between the two extremes. The most celebrated paradox in Buddhist philosophy argues that “emptiness is form, form is emptiness (Bigview)”. It means that there is nothing that exists inherently on its own aside from mere mental projections and the forms that we ourselves project. It is a relational phenomenon. This is same with the notion of self as it is composed of the ‘five heaps’, which are mere forms and the form is emptiness; whatever is a form, that is emptiness, the same is true with feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness (Bigview). Along this reductionist argument, the Indian Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna illustrates the concept of impermanence with the analogy of fire. This raises the question of self and how it is consistent with the concept of change. He asks about a burning log, where does the wood end and the flame begin? He argues that it is in a constant state of change and this applies to all ‘things’ including the ‘self’ which are in this constant state of flux (Rauhut: 2010, 151).

However, the Prasangika Madhyamaka tradition of Buddhism objects to this reductionism of the Buddhist essentialists who posit the aggregates as the mind or the self. It argues that the reduction of a person into aggregates is tantamount to the denial of a person’s conventional existence (Jinpa, 112). The Tibetan philosopher, Tsongkapa argues that the notion of self-identity cannot be conceived of as an autonomous entity nor can it be considered as the aggregates alone. He postulates the self or the I-consciousness as a mere construct, albeit one based on our conception of the physical and mental constituents that together constitute our existence (Jinpa, 116).

Though the reductionist standpoint is attractive, it is counter-intuitive and the argument is based on the fundamental metaphysical view of the emptiness, which is problematic to see it refuting both existence and nonexistence of all phenomena. The Prasangika Madhyamaka tradition posits self-identity as a ‘mere I’ in the name and form based on the supposition of conventional and ultimate reality of Madhyamaka metaphysis (Jinpa, 117). The conclusion seems similar to what the illusion theorists of personal identity might argue, as it holds self-identity as a mere construct, however the arguments leading to this conclusion differ from the illusion theory.

Works Cited

Hume, David (2011). A Treatise of Human Nature, Kindle Locations 1-2). Kindle Edition.

Jinpa, Thupten
2002 Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy: Tsongkhapa’s Quest for The Middle Way, New York RoutledgeCurzon, Taylor & Francis Group.

Locke, John (2004). An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 (Kindle Locations 1-2). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Kafka, Franz (2008). The Metamorphosis (Kindle Locations 4-8). LeClue 22. Kindle Edition.

Rauhut, Nils CH.
2001 Ultimate Questions: Thinking About Philosophy, Library of Congress, Cataloging-in-Publications Date, New Jersey.

Rauhut, Nils CH.
2010 Readings on the Ultimate Questions, An Introduction to Philosophy, Library of Congress, Cataloging-in-Publications Date, New Jersey.

Internet references
The Big View:
http://thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html (accessed: 11/8/2011)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reid-memory-identity/ (accessed 12/28/2011)

Thou gave warmth to the snow
And height to the everest.
But when thy soaring wings
Reached the sky and touched the stars,
Thou confront a party…a people
Who hold back thy’s breath
In the pain of eternal silence.

O!! Dhondup Gyal
Death hath not done to you,
For thy’s verses are full of life,
And transcend the earthly bound
Of time and space.
Snow bore thy’s indelible marks,
Even winds call thy’s name.
Youth of Tibet are on feet
To move mountains
And march towards Freedom.

Thou shall now rest in complete peace
On the cozy lap of the eternal king.
Woke sometime and watch
The gallant forward march
Of the doughty youth of Tibet.

In October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed establishment of the Peoples’ Republic of China, and a year later Peoples’ Liberation Army occupied Tibet.  Since then, Tibetans became a part of China’s 55 ethnic minorities.  In Tibet, mass modern education started after the Chinese takeover.  However, education in Tibet suffered tremendous setbacks during 1960s and 1970s due to the continued Tibetan resistance against China’s rule and the excesses during Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).  For example, Tibetan language was put into the category of what was being conceived as ‘four olds’, and was temporarily banned in schools (Tournadre, 2003).  Even after the post-1980 revival, education in Tibet continues to problematic as reflected in the October 2010 Tibetan students’ protests against the Chinese government plan to change medium of instruction into Mandarin in Qinghai Tibetan areas where instruction is being carried out in Tibetan language in some of the secondary schools.  Against these backdrops, this paper analyzes and unpacks one of the least studied aspects of education in Tibet – the establishment of secondary classes and schools for Tibetan students in Han-majority provinces since 1985, and its impact on Tibetan students from a social justice education perspective.

Education in Tibet and nation-building project

Tibet is one of the most backward regions of China in terms of economic condition and level of educational attainment.  In order to uplift the state of education and more so with the aim to legitimize it rule (Wang & Zhou, 2003), the Chinese government adopted many affirmative actions called as preferential policies (Ch. Youhui zhengce) and spent a huge amount of money, especially after the 1980s.  These ‘preferential’ policies included sanbao or the ‘three guarantees policy’ of providing free food, clothing and lodging for children at school starting from 1984; inland secondary classes and schools for Tibetan primary graduates called neidi xizang ban policy in 1985; bilingual education (although it remain largely rhetorical); ethnic minority teacher training, etc.  There is no denying the fact that Tibet experienced substantial economic and educational developments in the last few decades.  But the growth and development has seldom benefited the ethnic Tibetan people.  Andrew M. Fischer (2005) calls it ‘exclusionary growth’, and resulted in further alienation of the Tibetans in Tibet.  Opportunities presented by the modernization in Tibet are being availed by millions of Chinese migrants, and Tibetans found themselves increasingly left out from the exploits.

Due to historical conflict between the Chinese state and Tibetan since takeover in 1950s, and the perceived threat of separation, Catriona Bass (2005) argues that the primary goal of education for Tibetans, as for all China’s ‘minority nationalities’, has been to encourage patriotism towards China and to foster a sense of nationhood.  Thus the Chinese government uses school curriculum to create and recreate Tibetan ethnicity through a highly selective rendering of elements of Tibetan culture, history and religion to reposition it in the Chinese national context (Bass, 2005).  Despite the constitutional provisions, there is a lack of political will to pursue genuine bilingual education rooted in Tibetan language and a more culturally relevant curriculum.  While in the Han provinces, due to the recent economic upsurge and the loss of CCP’s ideological fervor, the ideological content of the curriculum may have diminished; but in troubled ethnic regions like Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, because of historical conflicts and distinct cultural forces, a particular blend of patriotic and ideological education is likely to continue in the future.  Thus the dislocated Tibetan secondary education should be seen largely in the context of nation building project.

Making Tibetans in China – dislocated secondary education

One of the important elements of nation-building project in Tibetan education has been the sending of Tibetan students to Han-dominated provinces.  In 1985, the Chinese government started a practice of sending a large number of Tibetan primary school graduates to inland secondary classes and schools (Ch. neidi xizang ban) in 19 provinces outside Tibetan regions under the banner of ‘intellectual aid scheme’ (Ch. zhili yuanzang).  From 1985 to 2001, around 23,560 Tibetan primary school graduates attended these inland schools (Postiglione et al., 2004).  It is estimated that around one third of Tibet Autonomous Region’s students who enter secondary education attend these inland classes and schools (Bass, 2005), and one can assume that it comprises a high percentage of Tibet’s top ranking primary graduates.  The government discourses dwell heavily on the success of this policy and commend the benevolence of the Central government and the inland provinces (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000; China Tibet Information Center, 2010).  As a result, this practice was later extended to other ethnic minority like Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang in 2000.  It is indeed quite a spectacle that the inland provinces would be brought in to provide educational aids to Tibetan students.

Student cohorts who are selected for the inland Tibetan schools generally attend seven years of secondary schooling comprising one year of preparatory class to brush up their Chinese language, three years of junior secondary education, and three years of senior secondary education (Postiglione, 2009).  Expenses are borne jointly by the TAR and the respective provinces, and facilities in these schools are much better than those in Tibet.  But the prospect of availing free and better educational facilities comes at a heavy cost – erosion of native language and culture.

Analysis

Tibet’s remoteness, lack of infrastructure, and difficulties in getting qualified teachers are important factors in justifying inland secondary schools for Tibetan.  However, the official documents rather explicitly state that the establishment of inland secondary schools for Tibetan is not only a political task but also a strategic decision.  Documents like “Rules for the implementation of inland Tibet classes/schools management” issued in 1994 stipulated that the inland Tibetan secondary schools:

“should develop qualified secondary graduates for Tibet, who are supposed to support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, love socialism, persevere in state unification, persist in ethnic unity, dedicate themselves to the socialist cause…” (as cited in Zhu, 2007. p. 98).

Thus the physical dislocation is itself an important aspect for achieving this political objective of education.  Attempt at assimilation, if not indoctrination, is by and large clear from the curriculum of the inland Tibetan secondary schools.  The presence of Tibetan culture in inland schools’ both manifest and hidden curriculum is rather symbolic.  For example, in a week, out of 34-43 periods Tibetan students attend depending upon their grade level, only 4-5 periods cover Tibetan language and rest of the curriculum is identical to mainstream Chinese schools (Zhu, 2007).  These students are also subjected to ideological or moral education classes and co-curricular activities which comprises of themes relating to unification of the state, loving the Communist Party, and emphasis that Tibet is inseparable part of China.  Similarly, by rule these students, aged between 12-14 years at the time of selection, are not allowed to return to Tibet even during summer or winter vacation until they complete four-years of junior secondary school and three years of senior secondary school.  By virtue of their isolation, they cannot attend any religious activities or pray at monasteries (Postiglione et al., 2004).  The overall effect on identity formation is difficult to say, as in many cases dislocation often heightens ethnic consciousness.  However, by the time they return to Tibet after seven years of isolation, these secondary graduates are generally bereft of their culture.  Around half of them become teachers in Tibet (Postiglione, 2009), and thus possibly help in perpetuating the current state of education that gives primacy to the Mandarin Chinese and Han culture.

Thus inland Tibetan schools policy must be seen in the light of what Foucault (cited in Abu-Lughod, 2002) called as “technologies of citizenship” that seeks to constitute and regulate citizens by rendering life governable, and entail power relations that are both voluntary and coercive.  For the Chinese communist state, this Han-hegemonic education for minorities is an important apparatus for engendering new modes of subjectivity and a sinicized Tibetan self.  An interesting parallel to this can be seen other colonial conditions. When British first introduced modern education in India in 1830s, Lord Macaulay in his famous Minute declared that the education system is intended to produce “a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect”, and that this class will assist the English in ruling over the vast tract of the Indian sub-continent.

The segregated inland secondary schools for Tibetans can be understood from the perspective of reproduction theory.  Writing from a Marxist perspective, Michael W. Apple (2004) argues in his book Ideology and Curriculum that education is a political act, and to highlight latent ideological and political nature of education, he rephrased Spencer’s famous question of ‘what’ into ‘whose knowledge is of most worth?’ (p. xix).  He stressed the relationality between knowledge and power in the society.  In a similar vein, Bourdieu (1990) developed the concept of ‘cultural capital’ – that is the prior linguistic and social competencies over ‘middle class culture’ – and argues that the school education is all about cultural reproduction of the existing social order.  Schools play a primary role in the selection, distribution and perpetuation of the cultural capital of the dominant groups, and the reproduction is achieved through formal corpus of school knowledge compiled in both manifest and hidden curriculum.  According to Apple (2004), schools create and recreate forms of consciousness or commonsense that enables social control without dominant groups having resort to overt mechanisms of domination.  The cultural capital of the dominant group and the internalization of hegemony by both oppressor and the oppressed result in the employment of categories which blame the victim, the child, rather than the school or society which has laid the conditions for failure.

Conclusion

Despite the good facilities, increase in literacy rate and greater scope for high-status employment after graduation, the state’s hyper-political agenda and the oversight of ethnic language and culture has put the Tibetan students in general and inland Tibetan secondary school students in particular at receiving end.  It can be argued that there is a burden of acting-Chinese on Tibetan students, as they have to learn everything Chinese to be qualified as good citizens of the country and avail social and economic success. John Ogbu (2004), in his seminal studies on education of African-American students, has described this burden as “Acting white”. In the case of inland Tibetan secondary school students, ethnic segregation and impact integration has resulted in loss of native language and heritage (Postiglione, 2009).  The cultural, political and economic discourses surrounding contemporary China played significant role in constructing minority education as means of teaching primarily about national integration, citizenship, and values.  However, mainstream approaches to teaching about citizenship have served to reproduce a stratified and inequitable racial and language hierarchy and a narrow mono-cultural model of what it means to be ‘Chinese’ (Hong, 2010).

Educators have recognized the importance of native language and culturally relevant curriculum on the academic achievements of the student. Furthering socio-cultural perspectives on curriculum and learning, Oakes and Lipton (2007) postulated that the knowledge is constructed in a multiple ways, and that knowledge becomes meaningful in context of child’s life.  They argue that students are not blank slates and come to school with ‘funds of knowledge’ and ‘cultural competencies’ (p.198).  The child’s community and local milieu form the primary social context in which learning takes place, and in which knowledge acquires its meaning.  Neito (2010) also argues that there is a complimentary relationship between culture, language and learning, and suggests that culturally responsive education, based on using students’ cultures can serve as anathema to cultural discontinuities. Thus there is a dire need to reorient the curriculum of Tibetan schools, including inland Tibetan secondary schools to make it more meaningful to the Tibetan students.

One of the central issues in the government discourse on minority education (and particularly about inland Tibetan schools) is national unity and stability.  Chinese educational policies and practices in Tibet are deeply influenced by the circumstances of historical conflict between the two parties since the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950.  Education is the state’s primary apparatus for fostering national integration, and therefore to counter ethnic Tibetan nationalism, the Chinese government slams down hard on unique Tibetan identities such as its language and religion.  This has resulted in exclusion and marginalization of Tibetan culture (such as religion and language) and even maligning them in the school curriculum as backward. Bass (2005) wrote, “in contrast to the veneration given to Chinese historical figures in the textbooks, Tibetan cultural and historical figures are largely ridiculed, condemned or presented as quasi-folkloric characters” (pp. 440-441).   Yet to the government’s dismay, it hasn’t diminished the ethnic nationalism, but rather increased alienation and sense of exclusion.  It is quite evident from the Tibetan and Uyghur experiences that the segregation, cultural exclusion, ideological education and mainstreaming seldom results in national integration.  On the contrary, it has led to protest and unrest that threaten the national unity. Massive uprisings in Tibet and Uyghur regions in 2008 and 2009 respectively, and Tibetan students’ protests in 2010 are cases in point. The current version of bilingual education can at best be described as subtractive bilingualism when learning a second language means losing the first (Nieto, 2010).  In the long run, a more culturally relevant education could in fact bring the minorities closer to the Chinese nation and promote unity in diversity.

Thus, a genuine bilingual education rooted in minority language and culture could be the true panacea for China’s minority educational problem.  The success story of Chungba School in Lithang county (eastern Tibet), established by a Tibetan NGO based in United States, shows this possibility.  The Chungba School became one of the first schools in the county to adopt Tibetan language as the main medium of instruction while teaching Chinese and English as second and third languages and also adopted community-based approach to education.  The school topped Lithang county exam, even outdoing Chinese students in Chinese language exam (Machik, 2008).  This shows that China’s ethnic groups can preserve their culture and language while at the same time acquire equivalent proficiency in the national language – Mandarin Chinese.  There are ample evidences to show that the ethnic minorities fully recognize the importance of learning Mandarin Chinese (Anaytulla, 2008; Nima, 2008; Ojijed, 2010).  Thus even in a system of a bilingual education rooted primarily in minority language, the Mandarin Chinese will naturally gain high place, almost at par with the first language due to economic and demographic reasons.  So, the fears of minority groups not being conversant in Mandarin Chinese can be kept at bay.  Consequently, a bilingual education rooted in minority language and more culturally relevant education seems the best option for both the government and its ethnic minorities.  The inland Tibetan secondary schools can truly serve Tibetan students as well as the state only if the facility provided by the state is complimented by more a culturally relevant curriculum.

References

Abu-Lughod, L. (2002). Egyptian melodrama: Technology of the modern subject? In F. D. Ginsburg, L. Abu-lughod, & B. Larkin (Eds). Media worlds: Anthropology on new terrain (115-133). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Anaytulla, G. (2008).  Present state and prospects of bilingual education in Xinjiang.  Chinese Education and Society, 41(6), 37-49.

Apple, M. W. (2004).  Ideology and curriculum (3rd ed.). New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Bass, C. (1998).  Education in Tibet – policy and practice since 1950.  London: Tin/Zed Books.

Bass, C. (2005). Learning to love the motherland: Educating Tibetans in China. Journal of Moral Education, 34(4), 433-449.

Bourdieu, P. P., & Passeron, J. C. (1990).  Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage Publication Ltd.

China Tibet Information Center. (June 22, 2010).  Inland high schools to enroll more Tibetan students.  Retrieved from http://chinatibet.people.com.cn/7035313.html

Fischer, A. M. (2009). Educating for exclusion in western China. Retrieved from             http://www.crise.ox.ac.uk/pubs/workingpaper69.pdf

Hong, Y. (2010).  Home language and educational attainments of ethic minorities in western China.  Chinese Education and Society, 43(1), 24-35.

Machik. (2008).  Graduating Chungba kids placed first. Retrieved from             http://www.machik.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=73

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People’s Republic of China. (2000).  Tibetan education

yesterday and today.  Retrieved from http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/ljzg/3585/3586/3588/

Nieto, S. (2010). Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Nima, B. (2008).  The choice of languages in Tibetan school education revisited.  Chinese Education and Society, 41(6), 50-60.

Oakes, J., & Lipton, M. (2007). Teaching to change the world (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.

Ogbu, J. U. (2004). Collective identity and the burden of ‘‘Acting White’’ in Black history, community, and education. Urban Review, 36(1), 1-35.

Ojijed, W. (2010).  Language competition in an ethnic autonomous region: A case of ethnic Mongol students in Inner Mongolia.  Chinese Education and Society, 43(1), 58-69.

Postiglione, G, Zhu, Z. & Jiao, B. (2004).  From ethnic segregation to impact integration: State schooling and identity construction for rural Tibetans.  Asian Ethnicity, 5(2), 195-217.

Postiglione, G. Jiao, B. & Gyatso, S. (2006).  Household perspectives on school attendance in rural Tibet.  Educational Review, 58(3), 317-337.

Postiglione, G. (2008). Making Tibetans in China: The educational challenges of harmonious multiculturalism. Educational Review, 60(1), 1-20.

Postiglione, G. (2009).  Dislocated education: The case of Tibet. Comparative Education Review, 53(4), 483-512.

Tournadre, N. (2003).  The dynamics of Tibetan-Chinese bilingualism.  China Perspectives, 45(1), 2-9.

Wang, C. & Zhou, Q. (2003). Minority education in China: from state’s preferential policies to dislocated Tibetan schools. Educational Studies, 29(1), 85-104.

Zhu, Z. (2007).  State schooling and ethnic identity: The politics of a Tibetan neidi secondary school in China.  Lanham: Lexington Books.

Tibet’s Forgotten War: Cursed by the Cold War

How and why did CIA suddenly withdraw its covert military assistance to Tibetan Resistance Movement in 1969?

Introduction

This historical investigation scrutinizes how CIA provided military assistance to Tibetan resistance guerrillas from 1957 to 1969 and examines why the US government stopped the CIA covert mission into Tibet and its assistance all of a sudden. The investigation will also study the US diplomatic relations and the change in its foreign policies at the height of Cold War in relation to its covert operational strategies in Tibet. Notwithstanding this chapter of history being one of the darkest historical events of modern Tibetan history, it has not been disclosed in the two major Hollywood films about Tibet, lately some former diplomats and military special operations personnel were willing to tell the real story of CIA’s war in Tibet through interviews, books and documentaries which became accessible.  Memoirs, documented interviews and face-to-face interviews to the veterans will be used in this investigation. However, it uses Tears of the Lotus by Roger E. McCarthy, one of the former CIA operation personnel who trained the Tibetan recruits at Camp Hale, Colorado and The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet by Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison for evaluation of their origins, purposes and limitations in the third section as source analysis.

The Investigation will not include any facts about Tibet’s de facto independence though it might become self-evident, nor will the investigation focus on Chinese policies and the repressions in Thamzing.

Summary of Evidence

United States strengthened its support for Tibet and asked the Dalai Lama to remain outside Tibet and gather International support during his visit to India in 1956 (Knaus, 1999: 135). However, the Dalai Lama went back to Tibet after Nehru’s advice with the hope of negotiations with the young Communist China. Tibetans in Kham revolted after the Chinese attacks on monasteries when the underground rebel group led by Adruk Gompo Tashi sent a representative to India to seek support from outside and especially from United States since there was a promise before. Gyalo Dhondup, the Dalai Lama’s elder brother in India was the person who connected CIA to Tibet and played crucial role later on.

The CIA’s first agent to sit at the Tibet Desk was John Reagan who he flew to India and met Gyalo to infiltrate six Tibetans in 1957 (Dunham, 2004: 194). A pilot group of six Tibetan Khampas was infiltrated from India and flown to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to Saipan and where they were selected and trained by CIA officers for four and a half month on the island (McCarthy, 1997: 240).

The CIA headquarters had given the cryptonym ST CIRCUS to the emerging Tibet Task Force, this aerial portion of the project retained the same theme and was code-named ST BARNUM (Conboy & Morrison, 2002: 55). In October, after the training, the first six Tibetans as a test group they decided to drop the six into Tibet in two groups with radio gears, extra crystals and personal weapons. The group consisted of two persons as Athar and Lotse successfully landed and were able to work efficiently as a medium of communication between the rebel group, Kashag and CIA from the beginning. However, the other group faced a serious ambush by the Chinese army in which two of them died before they could contact CIA for arms drop (Knaus, 1999: 148) but Wangdu managed to escape to Lhasa later. CIA made its first arms drop to the rebel group and it was the first C-118 drop near the Drigu Tso in Southern Tibet. C 118 aircraft, which has lift capability up to 12000 pounds was used for the first seven airdrops; however it was changed to C-130 that doubled the amount to 25000 pounds under request due to limited arms (Knaus, 1999: 150). And moreover there were also some improvements in arms and ammunitions as they replaced British 303 rifles by U.S. M-1 rifles by late 1958 (McCarthy, 1997: 243). As the CIA training was shifted to the United States in July 1958 and over the next three years, eight teams of CIA-trained soldiers were parachuted into Tibet (McGranahan, 2010: 104).

After the failed resistance inside Tibet, the Tibetan resistance fighters and ‘Chushe Gangdruk’ regrouped at Mustang to form the new force where it operated resistance for the next nine years with CIA military assistance. Unlike the first test group that was trained on Saipan, the subsequent training was relocated to camp Hale, in the rocky mountains of Colorado where Tibetan resistance training was conducted for the next six years (Knaus, 1999: 150). In Nov 1960, U.S. administrations changes as Kennedy becomes the president, but despite passionate opposition from his ambassador Galbraith (India) he takes up the cause and approves the first arms drop to Mustang that was made on March 15, 1961 (Knaus, 1999: 246-248).

CIA demanded results of their operations time and again and was rebuked of for achieving nothing concrete. However, a ‘jeep ambush’ in 1961 was a huge success as they were able to get a bunch of secret official documents of China and that was given to CIA, which reinforced the support to some extent (Conboy & Morrison, 2002: 231). The CIA covert military assistance was maintained right from Eisenhower through Kennedy to Johnson administration despite Kennedy’s hesitance raised by his Indian Ambassador, John Kenneth Galbraith.

However, when Washington saw a rift emerging in Sino-Soviet relationship following the so-called ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’, which was worsened by its military intervention in Czechoslovakia in early 1969, Nixon realizes the opportunity of playing one communist power against the other which led to his rapprochement with China (LaFeber, 2008: 273). A sudden change in U.S. foreign policy toward China followed CIA’s military assistance to end that devastated the Tibetan Resistance Movement in Mustang (The Shadow Circus).

Evaluation of sources

The book Tears of the Lotus by Roger E. McCarthy, former CIA operation personnel who trained and taught guerrilla tactics to the Tibetan recruits at Camp Hale, was the first book that was ever published on this historical account though there are now several books and a documentary that came later. Another CIA official, John Kenneth Knaus published Orphans of the Cold War in April1999 but it was two years after Tears of Lotus was published. It is an ‘in-depth record’ of every details of the event from 1950 to 1962 in which the writer himself was involved to the extent as an officer of the CIA Tibet Task. It is a valuable source as it supplies a vivid picture of every detail of the events right from the beginning of the covert mission to the end. Unlike other written sources, McCarthy has included many details of the accounts that were reported at the time in Chinese newspapers and also from other sources by giving different perspectives in a comparative presentation of the account that makes it convincing to the readers. For instance, China reported that the Dalai Lama was taken to exile under duress and the separatist rebel group is being funded by Taiwan, when it was in fact the Dalai Lama confirmed publicly that the decision was his own, not even Kashag and also the fact that they were funded by the CIA. McCarthy’s purpose of writing the book is to unveil this historical fact to the world as it was a crucial yet a hidden part of Tibetan history due to CIA’s involvement but his aim was never to justify CIA’s assistance to Tibet to any extent for he acknowledges that it was a failed operation (The Shadow Circus, time: 00:41:40). However, this source can be subjective and biased due to the writer’s direct involvement and his heart-felt sympathy for the Tibetan freedom struggle.

The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet by Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison was published three years later, in 2002 and it greatly expands on the memoirs of CIA officials including Tears of Lotus. However, Conboy as a policy analyst and Morrison as a former CIA officer, one can marvel that the book is a critically analyzed account; scrutinizing all previously written narratives with in-depth probe into the intricacies of the events. The inclusion of several interviews of the camp Hale trainees and Mustang veterans has an immense value no matter how subjective it could be as they were several of them interviewed over the same question and examined to draw an objective picture to the best of sources available. Therefore, their purpose of the book is to critically analyze the event by judging from a neutral point of view, as there were no personal involvements. However, its only weakness could be its too much reliance on the previous memoirs of the CIA officials and interviews to the veterans whose sense of failure and betrayal by the CIA could hardly preserve a dispassionate position.

Analysis

Washington’s view of Tibet as void of geopolitical significance changed after the Pearl Harbor and later in 1949; President Truman chose Mongolia, Sinkiang and Tibet to operate covert actions in USSR and later Communist China (Laird, 2002: 120). Korean Conflict from early 1950’s has in fact helped Tibet as it increased the region’s geopolitical significance with the direction US foreign policy & its crusade against communism and the containment strategy (Dunham, 2004: 61). The Tibet and CIA connection and its covert mission were started in 1956 through Gyalo as the liaison between the two throughout the mission.

The CIA covert mission in Tibet was started during Eisenhower administration and the president even confirmed that the mission would continue if Nixon won in the election in 1960. However, when Kennedy became the president, the CIA director Allen Dulles approached him and was approved by the president to continue backing Tibet its paramilitary assistance. President Kennedy was strongly opposed by the U.S. ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith to terminate CIA Tibet program that somehow might have weakened Kennedy’s commitment as the former CIA officers asserts. However, Kennedy was more involved in communist takeover of Laos and South Vietnam (Knaus, 1999: 246).  The shadow casted by Kennedy-Galbraith-Nehru fraternity was very long indeed; there was even talk of shutting the Tibet task force, (Dunham, 2004: 356) however, it was continued throughout Kennedy administration by Lyndon Johnson.

To look at the actual military assistance, Americans didn’t want the assistance attributable; they did not supply US manufactured equipment but British rifles that were used in World War II in order not to be traced (McCarthy, 1997: 237).  And the military supply of arms and ammunitions were never enough as it was dropped by C-113 in the early air-drops in Tibet in the crucial times. In addition to the limited supply, the two drops in Tibet in July 1958 & February 1959 contained only 20 machine guns and 60 hand grenades, were mostly Lee Enfield rifles (Knaus, 1999: 153). The help was strengthened after CIA changed its plan to assist the Mustang military base of two thousand strong men and from there onward it was entirely financed by CIA.

However, the effort to support Tibet was far too late, and none of it had been requested by the Government in Lhasa which hindered widespread political support for Tibet in the U.S. President Eisenhower was extraordinarily supportive, but the unfortunate drowning of U-2 on May 1960 and capture of the pilot made Eisenhower to suspend the help for a time (McCarthy, 1997: 244). The Soviet military intervention in Eastern Europe worsened the rift between the two great communist powers that gave Nixon and Henry Kissinger an opportunity to play one against another. U.S. foreign policy objectives changed as he sought friendship with China and embraced the so-called ‘rapprochement’ with Mao. The issue of immediate withdrawal of CIA’s military assistance became a historical dispute for there are several versions of it. The CIA officers simply claimed that the ‘operational utility’ of the mission was no longer there and instead it impeded U.S. national interest of seeking friendship with China as it approaches to. On the contrary, the CIA and Nixon government told Gyalo that it was a condition made by China to end any military or financial assistance to Tibetans in Mustang (Conboy & Morrison, 2002).

Conclusion

U.S. started pulling back from Vietnam following its rapprochement with China as now the detente was for all three powers and Tibet’s geopolitical significance for the U.S. was no longer there (Sewell, 2002: 102). Therefore, in that sense, the CIA military assistance was never genuine but was doing it for its own national security interest. The Dalai Lama said on December 1 1994, that U.S. had ‘no courage’ to help and it was not a genuine assistance (Laird, 2002: 131). The objective of the operation was based on this opportunistic utility, which was oblivious to the Tibetans and their political naivety, and hence the sudden call for cut in all assistance in 1969 was a huge shock and an unacceptable moment for the Tibetan guerrillas in Mustang. Moreover, Nixon urged to relocate and withdraw the Tibetan resistance from Mustang when the Chinese government pressurized the Nepalese King, it confirms that it was a sheer betrayal by U.S. as Mustang military bases had to surrender to Nepalese government in the long run.

Bibliography

Goldstein, Melvyn C. The snow lion and the dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalia Lama, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison The CIA’s secret war in Tibet, The University Press of Kansas, 2002.

John Kenneth Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War [American and the struggle for survival], Library of Congress cataloging-in-Publication data, [April 1999].

McGranahan, Carole, Arrested Histories – Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War, Duke University Press, Durham, 2010.

Roger E. McCarthy  Tears of the Lotus [Accounts of the Tibetan resistance to the Chinese invasion, 1950-1962] 1997.

Mikel Dunham Buddha’s warriors [the story of the CIA-backed Tibetan freedom fighters, the Chinese invasion and the ultimate fall of Tibet] 2004.

Mike Sewell, The Cold War, Cambridge University Press, U.K. 2002.

Thomas Laird, Into Tibet [The CIA’s first atomic spy and his secret expedition to Lhasa], Grove Press, 2002.

Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2006, published by McGraw-Hill, NY 2008.

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet (1998, 50 Mins, Beta SP), a White Crane Films Production for BBC Television.

“There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature…^[1]” – Niels Bohr

As Niels Bohr, one of the greatest physicists to have lived in the twentieth century, puts it, the relation between the observer and the observed lies at the heart of quantum mechanics. The uncertainty principle as formulated by Werner Heisenberg, puts a fundamental limit to the certainty with which we can ‘know’ about certain aspects of a system. For example, if we ‘know’ the momentum of a particle very precisely, the measurement of the particles’ position will be greatly compromised. This is not because of the lack of a better technology, but it arises by the virtue of the fact that when we quantitatively measure any aspect of the particle (could be momentum, position or energy), we interact with the particle. The act of observation changes the state that the particle was initially in. This is not so obvious on the scale of the ‘ordinary world’ (the quotation marks imply that scales are relative^[2]). The scale of the ordinary world refers to the world in which Newtonian mechanics accurately provides us with an understanding of the physical world around us, a very deterministic picture of the world. When we see an object, the light bounces off the object, enters our eyes and forms an image on our retina, which we identify as an object with a certain shape and color. On this scale of events we neglect the interaction of light with the object being observed. Light as shown by Albert Einstein in his paper on the Photoelectric Effect and experimentally verified by R.A. Millikan, can be described as composed of massless particles now known as ‘photons’. These particles have momentum as by the virtue of their frequencies and hence are able to interact with other particles. Photoelectric Effect shows how it interacts with electrons in the metallic plates, knocking them out of their orbitals. This effect is negligible on the classical scales. However on the ‘quantum scales’ of the molecular and the atomic and even the subatomic levels, this effect cannot be neglected. If we use a form of radiation to measure the particles’ position, we are essentially shooting photons at it and observing where the photons bounce off from and where they pass through untouched. That gives us a sense of the particles’ locality. However, throwing a photon at it, imparts momentum on it, like hitting a billiard ball with another. Therefore the more precise our measurement of the particles’ position, our measurement of the particles’ momentum is bound to be greatly imprecise. All along this discussion it should be kept in mind that these arguments deal with the work of physicists, as Bohr expounds, as not to describe how nature is but what they can say about it.

Having elaborated on the quote at the beginning of this page, the mood should have been set for further discussion about the need for a new picture of the physical world. Till the late nineteenth century, Newtonian mechanics enjoyed dominance in the physics community as an accurate model of predicting not only the motions of the objects around us in the immediate surrounding but also of the planets in the heavens above. It was shortly after Einstein’s papers on Special and General Relativity that the Newtonian assumption of an absolute time and space were disposed. This had tremendous ramifications on the laws of physics that govern the motion of the planets and motions at speeds close to the absolute limit of the speed of light.

Fig 1. Atom

Alongside these developments, physicists were doing researches on the fundamental structure of the matter around us. J.J. Thomson in 1897 showed that there exists, negatively charged elementary particles in matter (assumed to be made up of indivisible building blocks called atoms). Followed by the discovery of a heavy, positively charged nucleus by Ernest Rutherford, the planetary model of the atom as seen in Fig 1. was developed. This model depicts atoms as made up of a heavy, positively charged and very highly compact nucleus with electrons orbiting around it. However classical mechanics and electrodynamics does not allow such an atom to exist. Such an atom with electrons revolving the nucleus in orbits predicts emission of energy in the form of radiations. This means the electron will slowly spiral into the nucleus and cause the atom to collapse according to the principle of energy conservation.

In addition to his groundbreaking work on the theories of relativity, Einstein also produced the paper on the Photoelectric Effect in 1905 and R.A. Millikan’s experiment showed exactly the kind of effects Einstein predicted. Light in the classical picture, is described as a wave. The experimental findings of the Photoelectric Effect are inconsistent with this description. They comply with Einstein’s depiction of light as composed of massless photons that carry energy by the virtue of their frequency. This suggests that the energy carried by light is quantized or discrete and not continuous. It comes in packets of these photons unlike the continuous picture that classical physics paints.

Another experimental result that had bizarre implications for the atomic models was the discrete energy levels of the electrons in the atoms. When a gas of atoms is heated to very high temperatures, every element emits a characteristic set of lines of color at different wavelengths. This discreteness observed in the emissions suggests that the electrons in the atoms can only jump from certain energy levels to others^[3]. This means that the electrons can only be in certain energy levels. This cannot be explained by classical mechanics, which allows for the existence of continuous energy levels.

All these experimental findings shook the very foundations of Classical physics. It called for a reevaluation of assumptions, formulation of new models and a new way of describing the phenomena that were being observed. This led to the development of Quantum Mechanics. It builds upon the idea of indeterminacy of our measurements. It paints a random and probabilistic picture of the natural phenomena. Which many of the physicists including Einstein found very difficult to reconcile with, as is expressed by his famous quotation ‘Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing,’ Einstein said. ‘The theory says a lot, but it does not really bring us any closer to the secrets of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not play dice^[4]’. This probabilistic model of the atomic world astounded many great thinkers in the early twentieth century and still continues to do so.

As in Bohr’s own words, ‘Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.^[5]’ To illustrate the non-intuitiveness and the bizarreness of this theory, let’s assume we have a simple set up for a double slit interference experiment. We shine light through these slits and observe interference patterns, which are characteristic of waves. However now let’s imagine we make the light very feeble such that only one photon is emitted at a time. The immediate question one might ask is through which slit did the photon pass. From the screen we see that the interference patterns, however vague they might be, indicate that the photon passed through both the slits. However if we block one of the slits with a detector, we observe that the photon passes through only one of them. Hence the photon doesn’t travel through both of the slits according to this observation. Therefore to sum up this experiment, the photon neither passes through only one of the slits, nor through both of them, nor through none of them. Considering all of these as four distinct states (passing through either one of them, passing through both at the same time, and not passing through at all), quantum mechanics explains that the photon is in a superposition of all these states. In other words, all these are equally viable states for the photon to be in with certain probabilities. When we measure the system, we force this superposition to collapse into one to the four states, which means, it is now in one of the four states and not in any of the other three states. This is one of the non-intuitive implications of quantum mechanics and lies at the heart of its’ explanation of the physical phenomena as a superposition of such states.

To further muddle up the boundaries between particles and waves, Louis de Broglie in his doctoral thesis in 1924, introduced this idea of matter waves. Drawing from Einstein’s work on the Photoelectric Effect, he showed that electrons have waves associated with their momentum. This has been generalized to incorporate all forms of matter and experimentally confirmed by the electron diffraction experiments done by Davisson and Germer^[6]. Matter waves imply that what are normally considered to be particles (electrons, molecules, any form of matter) can exhibit wave like behavior, in this case, interference patterns.

Quantum mechanics considers these bizarre ideas and attempts to build a model of the subatomic world that explains the phenomena as we observe them. It is as many physicist find it, difficult to reconcile with, chiefly because it depicts the phenomena not as the deterministic dynamic of forces at play as Classical physics did, but as a probabilistic system with uncertainties and surprises. However it has been experimentally established to be the correct description of the phenomena that we observe at these levels.

References:

1. P.A.M Dirac, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.

2. Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2008.

3. Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick, Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles. John Wiley & Sons, 1985.

“…Darwin was way ahead of his time in understanding the magnitude of the problem of our existence, as well as in tumbling to its solutions. He was ahead of his time, too, in appreciating the mutual dependencies of animals and plants and all other creatures, in relationships whose intricacy staggers the imagination (Dawkins, 2009: 426)”, Richard Dawkins closes the book with remarks that elevate Darwin to the heights of his intellectual legacy that has secured a defining moment in the history of natural science. However, in doing so, Dawkins embarks on performing a spectacular show on the evidence of evolution. In his preface to the book, Dawkins makes it clear what the book is for and how it is different from his other works like The Selfish Gene or The God Delusion, acknowledges that his previous works lacked an explicit demonstration of evidence for evolution. Therefore, presumably, the book is not aimed for as another contribution to the evolution lobby (though it does indirectly) nor is an attack on creationism. But inevitably, the book couldn’t possibly maintain a complete silence on creationism as the author often with his extraordinarily seasoned explanatory skills deploys rather humourous ironies to present his argument. It sort of makes a reader skeptical of his primary objective of the book as purely a presentation of scientific evidence to evolution rather than poking creationists with mockery and rhetorical queries. However, it could be that unlike his previous works as mentioned above which endure no tolerance to creationists The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution is perhaps a different technique to educate people who are sitting on the fence of evolution-creationism debate. Dawkins’s intermittent nudges to the creationists in this book can be considered simply a sign of his impatience against ignorance and irrationality. All in all, this book is a summary of the vast array of evidence supporting the theory of evolution. It includes researches done in paleontology, embryology, anatomy, genetics, artificial breeding and geography that are standing as pillars of the evolution edifice.

This paper will closely look at some of key chapters in which Dawkins presents his evidence for evolution in the most convincing manner on topics such as difficulties of education in evolution, only a theory rhetoric of the creationists, how species are born and the missing link in the fossil records, while it also assesses the presentation of the book for the general public and its effectiveness as he purports to be written not just for the scientific community but for public education in understanding natural sciences.

Dawkins opens the book with a hypothetical situation of a history teacher; some of the students refuse to believe that the Roman Empire ever existed or Latin to be the origin of several Romance languages evolved. More realistically, he gives the example of Holocaust deniers as representational of the frustrations that natural science and in particular theory of evolution shares in school education systems (Dawkins, 2009: 4). There are labeled as ‘teaching the controversy’ or not having ‘respect’ for their religious beliefs engraved in stone. In the opening pages Dawkins reproduces a letter to Tony Blair (the then Prime Minister) written in concert with the Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries in which they urge for giving equal weight in science and religious studies in school curricula and argue for the need for both disciplines to be equally respected. Dawkins seems to recognize where the problem is arising. Firstly, no matter how irrational, religion provides some sort of a ready-made philosophy for life which doesn’t demand much mental work to be done once one enters into the realm of collective consciousness of divine creation and his benevolence. Secondly, he realizes the deficiency of human imagination to ponder over such a time scale that the scientists are talking about as there is almost a democratic conscience that the God created the world 10,000 years ago. Humans are accustomed to thinking in a time-scale of thousands and hundreds and when scientists think and talk in terms of a geological time-scale, it is simply beyond imagination of the multitude (Dawkins 2009). Dawkins uses the term ‘history-deniers’ for those who deny evolution as he argues that evolution is a fact. But Dawkins doesn’t make it clear as though what he means by fact; he simply asserts that it is beyond reasonable, sane, informed and intelligent doubt. Because evolution is regarded as a theory by the scientific community rather than a fact which may support a theory along with multiple scientific laws and facts, therefore evolution is not a scientific fact but can be argued as a historical fact. This difference is perhaps implied but the assumption that all readers could decipher such details can be reckoned as where the just a theory hassles are stemming from.
Dawkins makes, categorically, a convincing case against how the scientists and creationists use the word ‘theory’ differently. To the scientists it is ‘a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation and experiment’ whereas to the creationists it is ‘a mere hypothesis, speculation and conjecture’ (pg.10).  Certainly, the usage of the word ‘theory’ in everyday language has done much greater damage to the concept of evolution theory than what might the creationists employ their definition in the academic or non-academic debates. Much to the dismay of scientists, people use the phrase ‘just a theory’ to mean a hypothesis or speculation. He walks a step ahead and examines what does it mean to say when people claim that evolution has never been ‘proven’. Unlike the ‘proof’ of mathematical theorems which can be demonstrated logically, Dawkins argues what scientists can do is to establish a theory or a scientific truth to the point of failure to disprove. Even though it is an undisputed theory that the moon is smaller than the sun, we cannot prove it in the way mathematical theorems are proved or what some abstract philosophers might demand for their satisfaction. As a result, a scientific theorem is supported by massive quantities of evidence, accepted by all informed observers, undisputed facts in the ordinary sense of the word (pg.13). “The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for Holocaust, even allowing for eye-witness to the Holocaust (Dawkins, 8)”.  In making this claim, Dawkins presents several scientific facts as evidence for evolution for which this paper treats on two issues in the following.
Dawkins presents a uniformitarian view of the theory of evolution that evolution can be studied by observing the present. In other words, by definition evolution is a perpetual process, not a product of a past historical accident of some kind as he argues to have evidence of evolution happening right ‘before our very eyes’. Here, he gives the study done on lizards of Pod Mrcaru, where Belgian scientists transported a population of Mediterranean lizards, Podarcis sicula that eats insects from Pod Kopiste, Croatia about thirty years ago. After three decades the scientists went back to study the very species and found how it has changed from its ancestral lizards. The population ‘evolved’ in such a short time that shocked the scientists to observe that while the original population on Pod Kopiste had longer, wider and taller heads while the evolved population has significantly larger heads (Dawkins, 2009: 114). These differences translate into a markedly greater bite force due to adaptation to habitats and food. More significantly, the evolved population largely survives on vegetarian diet unlike its ancestral type on Pod Kopiste. Undoubtedly, this is an irrefutable knowledge claim and is what Dawkins calls a fact about the evolution. In addition, Dawkins argues that the average generation turnover of these lizards is about two years which meant that the lizards on the island of Pod Mrcaru represents only eight generations (pg. 116). Dawkins accounts few pages on researches done by bacteriologist Lenski and appreciates what he calls the Lenski experiments for beautifully demonstrating the evolution which inflicts inescapable distress to the creationists.
Moreover, in the chapter The Ark of the Continents, presumably Dawkins titles the chapter as such in order to make a point against (satirically) Noah’s ark which he does on the sidelines. But here, Dawkins tackles the geographical distribution of the same species in fossils by bringing the theory of continental drift, first championed by the German climatologist Alfred Wegener. Updated by the modern theory of plate tectonics, it serves for evolutionary biologists a firm ground for observing how species evolve over time in different climatic conditions. For instance, kangaroos are the Australian equivalent of antelopes, but they are specialized in hopping rather than galloping (Dawkins, picture: 22). Dawkins asks these rhetorical questions against the creationists that why did the creator put lemurs in Madagascar and not elsewhere? Why no mammals in New Zealand excerpt bats who could fly there? Incontestably, it is no intelligent design nor is it a sudden accident, but gradual movement of tectonic plates in different directions over geological time plus evolution of species with adaptation to the changing environments.

As a direct response to the creationists to whose absurd demand for a chimpanzee to give birth to human baby or in other words what they calls the missing link in fossil records, rhetorically, Dawkins asks ‘what do you mean, missing?’. Dawkins accepts the fact that there are ‘gaps’ in the fossil records when creationists demand for ‘intermediates’ as they imagine these gaps as an embarrassment to evolutionists. Notwithstanding, here again Dawkins brings his metaphorical crime scene investigation to justify the case. He argues ‘the fossil record, like a spy camera in the murder story, is a bonus, something that we had no right to expect as a matter of entitlement. There is already enough evidence to convict the butler without the spy camera’ (pg. 146), by which he means that evolutionists in fact do not need fossil record to prove evolution, it is a bonus. But Dawkins goes on appreciating the consistency of fossil records in the geological stratum; he argues that no authentically anachronistic fossils of any kind have ever been found (pg. 147). The so-called missing link or the alleged intermediates contested by creationists are a link between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom, Dawkins calls them transitional forms but he argues that there is no such thing as intermediates as every one of them is an intermediate between something and something (pg.151). Therefore, it is a mistake to answer the creationists that Archaeopteryx is an intermediate between reptiles and birds. Dawkins cites from Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True several times through the book, but in making this case he reproduces a diagram, showing the evolution of whales from land creatures. But Dawkins argues that nobody could say for certain that one is evolved from the other as indicated in the diagram, we could only say that they are not that distant in terms of cousinship (pg. 171).

As indicated in the last sentence above, scientific truths are not truths in its literal sense but it is a measure of degree of accuracy backed up by multiple factual evidences and laws. In other words, science as a discipline is humble to the degree of debunking or deconstructing any theory before reasonable demonstration of evidence. It is under constant observation and scrutiny. Under this light, The Greatest Show is no different as it simply presents itself as a stage where a great number of actors narrate the story of evolution but with no conclusive statements. However, perhaps the only unscientific phrase employed by Dawkins was that ‘evolution is a fact’. As argued above scientifically evolution is a theory, but historically it is a fact. Hence, it can be said that evolution is a fact in its historical sense but this shouldn’t neglect the fact that evolution is a continuous process. Evolution is happening right now.

 
Work Cited
Dawkins, Richard

2009, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Free Press, New York.

Earlham College, Indiana

The Tibetan exiles’ third general election of Kalon Tripa (Prime Minster) and Dalai Lama’s subsequent decision to relinquish centuries old Tibetan traditional practice of politics raised concerns among Tibetan people in and outside Tibet about the future trend of Tibetan political movement. The level of anxiety is particularly high in Tibet with growing repressions and continuous crack-downs on people opposing the Beijing’s policies on Tibet. The concern of Tibetan people reflects not only Tibetan people’s growing frustration under China’s military rule but it is also the ultimate symbol of our national unity. Beijing is known for its ingenuity and censorship of the information flow. Such censorship isolates the repressed people from seeing the world beyond the wall of propaganda that covers the shaky legitimacy of the communist party’s rule in China. Unfortunately, the post-Tiananmen Square world no longer provides the same platform that the communist party used to silence the voices of people. Tibetan people inside Tibet closely monitor the election process and offer prayers for a successful political transition. This is a clear indication that while Tibetan people inside Tibet remain under Beijing’s iron fist, their hearts and minds are still with Dalai Lama and Tibetans outside Tibet. Beijing should rethink its Tibet policies and must wake up from the illusion that the Tibetan issue will just fade away someday.

China’s reaction to Dalai Lama’s decision to transfer his political power to the elected leaders is nothing more than the same old hardliner rhetoric; dismissing the existence of Tibetan people rights to self-determination. Ironically, Beijing starts to question the legitimacy of democratically elected new leaders and the legality of the Central Tibetan Administration. Recently hardliners in Beijing issued a statement about the political development in the exiled Tibetan community. Some of them even rejected talks with new leaders on the deflated claim that the CTA is an illegal organization. If Beijing is seriously concerned about the rule of law, they should ask this question to themselves first – what is the current status of Tibet under China’s occupation? Tibet had been a de facto independent country for centuries before China’s annexation and international law perspective; Tibet is a nation with a right to self-determination.

After the tragic incident of 9/11, China vowed to support American Global War on Terrorism. Although Beijing did not contribute militarily, it extended both vocal and financial support behind the scenes. The intention of Beijing’s political move to support American global war on terrorism is becoming clear. The Beijing’s primary intention is to suppress political movements in Tibet and Xinjiang in the name of terrorism. China’s definition of terrorism based on the doctrine of three evils, namely, extremism, separatism and unofficial religious groups. This bleak definition of terrorism lacks legal standard. By 2003, China officially declared Xinjiang based East Turkistan Islamic Movement as a terrorist organization. More recently, China started labeling Tibetan Youth Congress as a terrorist organization. In March 22, the communist regime’s forefront mouth piece daily newspaper so called “People’s Daily” published an article under the name “Terrorist poised to rule “Tibetan government in-exile”? Written by Li Hongmei even called the youngest candidate and Harvard trained Tibetan legal scholar Lobsang Sangay as a terrorist. This kind of hardline approach to Tibet only distorts the realities at ground, thus hindering the creation of a congenial atmosphere for a dialogue based on mutual trust. Until today, Beijing lacks the confidence to move forward to resolve the issue that shares concerns of both parties.

For more than five decades, His Holiness the Dalai Lama placed trust in communist leaders for a successful dialogue to resolve Tibetan issue based on mutual interests, benefits and respect. However, communist leaders failed to bring any concrete outcome and negotiation has almost reached a point of deadlock. Beijing continues to blame Tibet for the failure. If we carefully read the history of negotiation between Beijing and Dharamsala objectively, communist leaders should rethink about their hardliner approach. From the Tibetan side, we made the biggest concession in history; the surrender of our sovereignty in search of mutually satisfactory solution.

Tibetan exile government led by Dalai Lama has been boldly pursuing the “Middle Way” as reasonable political approach with regard to China. The Middle Way policy seeks a solution to Tibet within the political and legal framework of People’s Republic of China. This means that the Tibetans government, which is the most legitimate representative or the voice of Tibetan people, does not seek separation but rather seeks an autonomy which is a constitutional right within the legal framework of China as well as a right that China agreed to in the so called “Seventeen Points Agreement” of 1951. China has been using this document as a legal justification for its continued occupation of Tibet. China is not willing to talk with the new Tibetan leaders, which means it’s not obligated by terms of the Seventeen Points Agreement, under which the status of Tibet is autonomy. If this is the case, the so called “Seventeen Points Agreement” has no legal weight which has been the case from Tibetan side but China has repeatedly insisted on using it as a legitimate legal document.

Today, China is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the birth of “Seventeen Point Agreement” under its coercion and military force. If China does not comply with the terms of this document, the celebration does not amount to more than window dressing propaganda. In reality all these shows only fool their own people and make them prisoners of ignorance, blind to the changing reality of the world outside China. Communist leaders must be careful in handling these issues, the black and white legacy of communism will be recorded in the history even if communist party itself is buried in the sands of time. The inevitable fact is that both Tibet and China will remain and what we do today will have an impact on the lives of generations yet to come. Therefore, hardliners in China must rethink their policy on Tibet before it is too late.

Note: Pema Norbu was a founding member of this project. We regret that merabsarpa couldn’t hit the web before his tragic demise. This article is taken from facebook notes to fulfill his presence in the group.