Tibet and its troubles are much in the news again. When it comes to Tibet, the average Westerner, the one who still values being informed over being entertained at least, subscribes to a fallacy. Hollywood and corporate media have a vested interest in painting Old Tibet [“pre-Liberation Tibet”] as a Shangri-la, a land of benevolent theocracy. Cultural touchstones like Richard Gere would have us believe that its people were so in tune with Buddhist precepts that they were immune to the materialistic ills which plagued the rest of the world.

Although well-intended, such a view is patronizing and racist, much as the noble savage view of Native Americans. Both groups are as utterly and tragi-comically human as the rest of us - an obvious fact, but one that complicates the kind of clear-cut good versus evil stories we like to indulge in, even with current events.

The scent of irony tells the hunter of objectivity that he is close to his prey. Consider: the first Dalai Lama was installed by the Chinese Army. That’s right; Kublai Khan did the first Grand Lama decree. Hundreds of years later, the fifth Dalai Lama became the first to assume temporal control of Tibet, aided by Qing forces. In 1652, the new ruler even traveled to Beijing for an imperial audience with the Shunzhi Emperor, who insisted his visitor drink the ritual cup of tea before him. This summit established the Qing as the patrons of Tibetan Buddhism, a move calculated to pacify the ever restive Mongols, who looked to Tibet's holy men for guidance in great affairs.

It also cemented a feudal order that, characteristically, ensured wealth and ease for a privileged few at the price of disenfranchisement for the vast majority. Monasteries not belonging to the Yellow Hat sect were seized, and Buddhist writings contesting the Dalai Lama’s claim to divinity destroyed. The monastery-as-manor system expanded, to the point where one such monastery, Drepung, had 25,000 serfs, 300 huge pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen to tend them. High-ranking lamas, almost exclusively from aristocratic families, owned and enjoyed the wealth of these holdings, while the lower orders led lives as impoverished as the peasant families from which they came.

This inequality was hardly countenanced by the Tibetan masses, despite the popular myth of a humble peasantry, happy to obey the laws of Karma. A large percentage of serfs found themselves conscripted into monasteries in various domestic capacities, and outright slaves were common among the two hundred or so wealthy families that constituted Old Tibet’s elite. While there was a small middle-class of free farmers, the vast majority of peasants were granted a small plot of land from which to derive sustenance, but spent most of their time laboring for the monasteries and individual high-ranking lamas. The will of these lamas in the affairs of their subjects was absolute, down to consent for marriage and right to “give” a serf to another monastery. Torture and death were imposed on the chronically disobedient, and a secular army served as a police force to maintain this disparate order.

Hopefully, the foregoing won’t be construed as denying the right to self-determination. Rather, its purpose is to show that for the vast majority of mankind, self-determination has historically been out of reach, no matter who is in charge.