西藏发展道路的历史选择(一)

西藏发展道路的历史选择(一)

前言

中华人民共和国是中国各族人民共同缔造的统一的多民族国家。在长期的历史发展中，中国各民族形成了休戚与共的中华民族命运共同体。西藏自古是中国的一部分，藏族是中华民族命运共同体的一员。西藏的命运始终与伟大祖国和中华民族的命运紧密相连。

历史上，藏族人民创造了辉煌的历史和文化，为丰富和发展中国历史、中华文化作出了贡献。但是，直到20世纪中期，西藏仍处于政教合一的封建农奴制统治之下，生产力水平极其低下，社会保守封闭、衰败落后。

西藏真正步入现代文明始于1949年中华人民共和国成立后。历经和平解放、民主改革、自治区成立、改革开放等重要发展阶段，西藏不仅建立起全新的社会制度，而且实现了经济社会发展的历史性跨越，走上了中国特色社会主义道路。

西藏走上今天的发展道路，是现代文明发展的客观要求，顺应了人类社会进步潮流，符合中国国情和发展实际，符合西藏各族人民的根本利益。在这条道路上，西藏各族人民当家作主，成为国家、社会和自己命运的主人；西藏实现了由贫穷落后向富裕文明的跨越，以崭新姿态呈现在世人面前；西藏各族人民与全国人民和睦相处、和衷共济，共同创造幸福美好新生活；西藏以开放的姿态面向世界，积极吸纳人类文明优秀成果。

西藏发展进步所取得的巨大成就，充分说明西藏走上的发展道路是正确的。但是，长期流亡海外、代表封建农奴主阶级残余势力的十四世达赖集团，出于“西藏独立”的政治目的和对旧西藏政教合一的封建农奴制的眷恋，在长期推行暴力“藏独”路线遭受失败后，这些年又大肆鼓吹“中间道路”。“中间道路”貌似“妥协”、“折衷”、“和平”、“非暴力”，实则否定新中国成立以来西藏走上的正确发展道路，企图在中国领土上建立由十四世达赖集团统治的“国中之国”，分步达到实现“西藏独立”的目的。

一、旧制度必然退出西藏历史舞台

20世纪50年代，当奴隶制、农奴制、黑奴制已为现代文明所彻底唾弃之时，西藏社会依然处于政教合一的封建农奴制统治之下。政教合一的封建农奴制粗暴践踏人类尊严，严重侵犯基本人权，根本阻碍西藏社会发展，完全背离中国和世界进步潮流。

——政教合一，神权至上，神权政治的典型代表

在旧西藏，神权至上，政权庇护神权，神权控制政权，神权与政权融为一体，共同维护官家、贵族和寺院上层僧侣三大封建领主的统治。据统计，1959年民主改革前，西藏共有寺庙2676座，僧众114925人。僧众人数约占男性人口的四分之一，其比例远超欧洲中世纪神职人员，世所罕见。

在神权政治下，宗教被封建农奴制玷污，寺庙并非单纯的潜心礼佛的清净之地，而是集开展宗教活动、控制一方政权、实施经济剥削、囤积武装力量、进行司法审判等功能为一体的统治堡垒。有的寺庙内部私设公堂，不仅有手铐、脚镣、棍棒，还有用来剜目、抽筋的残酷刑具，惩罚农奴手段极其残忍。现存的20世纪50年代初西藏地方政府有关部门致热布典头目的一封信内记载，一次，为了给十四世达赖念经祝寿，下密院全体人员需要念忿怒十五施食回遮法，“为切实完成此次佛事，需于当日抛食，急需湿肠一副、头颅两个、多种血、人皮一整张，望立即送来”。寺庙领主在三大领主中放债最多，约占总额的80%。

由于大量人口不从事生育和生产，并且成为神权政治压榨的工具，导致社会资源严重匮乏，人口增长长期停滞。据19世纪中期成书的《圣武记·西藏后记》记载，清乾隆二年(1737年)理藩院汇造西藏达赖、班禅所辖地区，共有喇嘛31.62万人以上，而当时西藏(不含今昌都地区)共有人口约109万。到20世纪50年代初，西藏人口依然徘徊在100多万，200多年间几乎没有增长。

利用宗教加强对社会的控制，是神权政治的突出特点。原国民政府蒙藏委员会驻拉萨办事处官员、20世纪40年代在西藏工作的著名藏学家李有义在回忆文章《西藏，神秘的和不再神秘的》中感叹道：“西藏的农奴遭受着如此残酷的剥削和压迫，他们为什么不起来反抗呢？我也向农奴问过这个问题。不料他们的答复却是‘第，赖哉’，意为这是业果。他们相信今世受苦是前世造了孽，今世受苦才能洗净罪孽，下世就能转生到更好的境界。这就是喇嘛对他们的教导，而藏民是坚信不疑的。”在李有义看来，正是这种思想控制，使“农奴一生一世都是为未来积累功德，贵族用鞭子抽他们，他们还以为是在为他们洗罪呢”。

亲历西藏的英国人查尔斯·贝尔在《十三世达赖喇嘛传》中说：“你下一辈子是人还是猪，难道对你没什么关系吗？达赖喇嘛能保你投胎成人，当大官，或者更好一些——在一个佛教兴盛的国度里当大喇嘛。”他进而指出：“毫无疑问，喇嘛采用了精神恐怖手法以维持他们的影响和将政权继续控制在他们手中。”

——等级森严，践踏人权，封建农奴制在东方的最后堡垒

1959年以前的西藏，仍然保留着封建农奴制。法国旅行家亚历山大·大卫·妮尔1916-1924年间曾先后5次到西藏及其周边地区考察。1953年，她出版了《古老的西藏面对新生的中国》，对旧西藏的农奴制有过这样的描述：“在西藏，所有农民都是终身负债的农奴，在他们中间很难找到一个已经还清了债务的人。”“为了维系生活，农奴不得不借钱、借粮、借牲畜，支付高额利息。然而，来年的收获永远还不完膨胀的利息。”“在毫无办法的情况下，他们只好再借，借口粮，借种子。……如此下去，年复一年，永无完结，直到临死的时候也不能从债务中解脱出来，而这些债务就落到了他儿子的身上，可怜的儿子从刚一开始种田生涯起，就受到这些祖传的债务的压榨，而这些债的起源早已是遥远的过去的事了，他根本不知道这从什么时候说起。”“这些可怜的人们只能永远待在他们贫穷的土地上。他们完全失去了一切人的自由，一年更比一年穷。”

在封建农奴制下，人被划分为等级。在旧西藏通行了数百年的《十三法典》和《十六法典》，明确将人分成三等九级，将森严的等级制度法律化。法典规定：“人分上中下三等，每一等人又分上中下三级。此上中下三等，系就其血统贵贱职位高低而定”，“人有等级之分，因此命价也有高低”，“上等上级人命价为与尸体等重的黄金”，“下等下级人命价为一根草绳”。

落后的封建农奴制以及政教合一的神权政治，使旧西藏成为一个贫富分化极其悬殊的社会。至20世纪50年代末，占西藏人口不足5%的三大领主及其代理人几乎占有西藏全部耕地、牧场、森林、山川、河流、河滩以及大部分牲畜。据统计，1959年民主改革前，西藏有世袭贵族197家，大贵族25家，其中居前的七八家贵族，每家占有几十个庄园，几万克土地(15克相当于1公顷)。十四世达赖家族占有27座庄园、30个牧场，拥有农牧奴6000多人。十四世达赖本人手上有黄金16万两，白银9500万两，珍宝玉器2万多件，有各种绸缎、珍贵裘皮衣服1万多件。而占西藏人口95%的农奴和奴隶，则一无所有，处境悲惨，毫无人权可言。对这些人，西藏有民谚称：“生命虽由父母所生，身体却为官家占有。纵有生命和身体，却没有做主的权利。”

——封闭落后，远离现代文明，绝非想象中的“香格里拉”

20世纪30年代，英国作家詹姆斯·希尔顿在《消失的地平线》一书中，描绘了梦幻般美妙绝伦的人间乐土——“香格里拉”。此后，追寻“香格里拉”成为许多人的梦想，有人甚至把西藏视为“香格里拉”的原生地。然而，这只是人们的善良愿望，旧西藏根本不存在“香格里拉”。

旧西藏的落后从以下情况可略窥一斑：直至1951年和平解放时，西藏没有一所近代意义上的学校，青壮年文盲率高达95%；没有现代医疗，求神拜佛是大部分人医治疾病的主要办法，人均寿命只有35.5岁；没有一条正规公路，货物运输、邮件传递全靠人背畜驮；仅有一座125千瓦的小电站，且只供十四世达赖及少数特权者使用。

亲历旧西藏的中外人士无不被其落后的社会场景所触动，并留下许多身临其境的描述。1945年，李有义在西藏实地考察数月后观察道：“在沿着雅鲁藏布江中下游约1700多英里的旅程中，我所看到的是一派衰败的景象。在每天的旅程中都能看到几处人去楼空的废墟，垄亩痕迹依稀可辨，人烟却已杳杳。我所经过的这种‘鬼镇’何止百处……我出发考察时正是秋收季节。这个季节就是在内地比较落后的农村里，你也可以在农民的脸上看到收获的喜悦。但是在1945年的西藏农村，我却不曾看到一副喜悦的面孔。我所看到的是贵族和‘差领巴’(收租人)对农奴的怒吼和鞭打，我所听到的是农奴的哭泣和叹息声。”

原英国《每日邮报》驻印度记者埃德蒙·坎德勒在1905年出版的《拉萨真面目》中也写道：拉萨“这座城市脏得无法形容，没有下水道，路面也没有铺砌石块。没有一栋房子清洁干净或经常有人打扫。下雨之后，街道就成了一洼洼的死水塘，猪狗则跑到这些地方来寻找废物渣滓”。

曾任西藏自治区广电厅厅长的杜泰(藏族)回忆说：“当1951年我来到拉萨的时候，这座城市的贫困和破败确实也出乎我的意料。那时候，拉萨除了大昭寺周围的八廓街，几乎没有一条像样的街道，也没有任何公共服务设施，没有路灯，没有供水和排水设备。街头经常看到冻饿而死的人的尸体，还有乞丐、囚犯和成群的狗。大昭寺西面是叫‘鲁布邦仓’的乞丐村，小昭寺周围也是乞丐聚合地。当时乞丐竟有三四千之多，占城市人口的十分之一强。”

1950年，原西藏地方政府噶伦、后来担任过中国全国人大常委会副委员长的阿沛·阿旺晋美向噶厦发电反映昌都地区情况时说：“因时世混浊，民不堪命，这里有的宗(相当县)内仅有七、八户还有糌粑，其余全以食元根(即蔓菁)为生，乞丐成群，景象凄凉。”

大量事实证明，到20世纪中叶，西藏的旧制度已经走到了尽头。阿沛·阿旺晋美曾回忆说：“记得在40年代，我同一些知心朋友曾多次交谈过西藏旧社会(制度)的危机，大家均认为照老样子下去，用不了多久，农奴死光了，贵族也活不成，整个社会就将毁灭。”

20世纪50年代，世界上大多数国家和地区已实现了政教分离，此时的西藏仍然实行着这种落后的制度，严重阻碍着西藏社会的发展进步，使西藏与现代文明渐行渐远。19世纪后，世界许多国家和地区掀起废奴运动，英国、俄国、美国等国纷纷废除奴隶制度。1807年，英国议会通过法令禁止本国船只参与奴隶贩运交易。1861年，俄国皇帝亚历山大二世正式批准了废除农奴制度的“法令”和“宣言”。1862年，美国总统林肯发表《解放黑人奴隶宣言》；1865年，美国国会通过《宪法第13条修正案》，正式废除奴隶制。1948年，联合国大会通过的《世界人权宣言》规定：任何人不得使用奴隶或奴役；一切形式的奴隶制度和奴隶买卖，均应予以禁止。在农奴制近乎绝迹的20世纪中叶，世界上最大的农奴制堡垒依然盘踞在中国的西藏，这不仅阻碍着中国社会发展进步，也是对人类文明、良知和尊严的羞辱。

随着新中国的建立及中国社会的发展进步，在20世纪50年代末60年代初，西藏旧制度被彻底废除。然而，十四世达赖集团却逆历史潮流而动，非但不反思旧西藏政教合一制度的黑暗残暴，反而留恋不舍，梦想着有朝一

日把这种制度重新搬回西藏。对此，十四世达赖集团的有关文件有着清楚的记载。1963年制定的《西藏未来民主宪法(草案)》中称：“西藏以佛祖所教诲之佛法精神为基础，建立一个民主统一的国家。” 1991年制定的《流亡藏人宪法》规定：“未来西藏的政治是在坚持非暴力原则的基础上建立一个政教合一、自由安定的民主联邦共和国。”1992年制定的《西藏未来政体及宪法要旨》将“政教相辅”规定为未来西藏的政治性质。2011年修订后的《流亡藏人宪法》规定：未来西藏政治是“政教结合”。(待续)

Tibet’s Path of Development Is Driven by an Irresistible Historical Tide(Ⅰ)

Foreword

The People’s Republic of China is a united multiethnic country created through the joined efforts of the peoples of all the ethnic groups in China.Over the long course of history,these ethnic groups have grown into a single community that responds to each and every challenge under the single name of the Chinese nation. Tibet has been a part of China’s territory since ancient times,and the Tibetans have been one communal member of the Chinese nation.The destiny of Tibet has always been closely connected with the destiny of the great motherland and the Chinese nation.

Down through the ages,the Tibetan people have created a brilliant history and culture,and contributed to the enrichment and development of Chinese overall history and culture.However,the social system of Tibet remained one of theocratic feudal serfdom until the mid-20th century,with an economy that was extremely underdeveloped,and a society that was conservative,closed and backward.

Tibet fi rst began to embrace modern civilization only after the People’s Republic was founded in 1949. Having going through such important phases as peaceful liberation,democratic reform,establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region,and introduction of reform and opening up,Tibet has not only established a new social system,but also witnessed great historical leap forward in its economy and embarked on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Tibet’s continual progress on its present path of development is one of the objective requirements of modern civilization.It accords with the progressive trend of human society,the prevailing conditions and the current reality in China,and the fundamental interests of all ethnic groups in Tibet.While following this path,the people of the numerous ethnic groups in Tibet have become masters of their country and their society,and critically,masters of their own destiny. Along the way,Tibet has been transformed from a poor and backward society to one that is advanced in botheconomy and culture.Along the way,the people of Tibet have found harmony and the means of working together with the people of other parts of China to create a better and happier life.And along the way,Tibet has opened to the rest of the world and begun to absorb the outstanding achievements of human civilization.

Tibet’s tremendous progress in its development serves as eloquent evidence that the path it is now following is the correct one.However,there is a party who cluster around the 14th Dalai Lama,representatives of the remnants of the feudal serf owners who have long lived in exile,driven by a political goal of “Tibetan independence” and a sentimental attachment to the old theocratic feudal serfdom.In recent years,having seen the failure of their attempts to instigate violence in support of their cause,they have turned to preaching a “middle way”. This “middle way” purports to advocate “compro mise”,“concession”,“peace” and “non-violence”;in reality it negates the sound path of development that Tibet has followed since the founding of the People’s Republic,and attempts to create a “state within a state”on Chinese territory,to be ruled by the 14th Dalai Lama and his supporters,as an interim step towards the ultimate goal of full independence.

I.The End of the Old System Was a Historical Inevitability

In the 1950s,when slavery and serfdom had long since been abandoned by modern civilization,Tibet still remained a society of theocratic feudal serfdom.This system trampled on human dignity,infringed upon human rights,and impeded development in Tibet,all of which went completely against the progressive trend in China and the rest of the world.

——Political and religious powers combined,with absolute supremacy held by religious power—a typical manifestation of theocracy

In old Tibet,religious power enjoyed absolute supremacy.Religious power prevailed over political power while the latter protected the former.The two combined to defend the interests of the three major stakeholders:local officials,aristocrats and higherranking lamas in the monasteries.Before Democratic Reform in 1959,there were 2,676 monasteries and almost 115,000 Buddhist monks and their acolytes in Tibet.Active monks accounted for one quarter of the local male population,a total that far exceeded the proportion of clergy in Medieval Europe,and was highly unusual throughout the world.

In this theocratic society religion had been distorted by feudal serfdom,and monasteries were no longer places of purity to study Buddhism and worship the Buddha,but fortresses from which the local rulers organized religious activities,exercised administration and exploitation,built up their armed forces,and passed judicial adjudication.Some monasteries even had private jails,with instruments of torture used for eye gouging and hamstringing,in addition to handcuffs,chains and clubs.A letter from the Tibetan local government department to the head of a Rabden(a theocratic and administrative organization at a lower level) in the early 1950s contains instructions in relation to the celebration of the 14th Dalai Lama’s birthday,which said that all the staff of Lower Tantric College would chant the sutra on the occasion,and “during the service,food will be offered to the hungry ghosts,for which a corpus of fresh intestines,two skulls,some mixed blood and a whole human skin are urgently needed.Please have these delivered without delay”.Among the three major stakeholders,the upper-ranking lamas were the biggest money-lenders,controlling 80 percent of all loans.

Since a large proportion of the population were not engaged in economic activity and reproduction,but were used as tools of oppression by the religious power,there was an acute shortage of social resources,and demographic growth had remained stagnant for a long period of time.According to“Tibet” from Annals of Military Events in Qing Dynasty written by Wei Yuan(1794-1851) in the mid-19th century,the Department of Minorities Affairs in 1737(the second year of Qing Emperor Qianlong’s reign) produced a report on the areas under the jurisdiction of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Erdeni,which found that there were more than 316,200 lamas in Tibet,from a regional population(excluding present-day Qamdo) of only 1.09 million.By the early 1950s,the local population still stood around 1 million,having seen hardly any increase in 200 years.

Using religion to maintain a tight control over society was a prominent feature of theocracy. Li Youyi,an official stationed in Lhasa by the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs of the Nationalist Government,and a Tibetologist who worked in Tibet in the 1940s,lamented the fact in his essay “Tibet,the mysterious and the unmysterious”:“Why didn’t the serfs rise up and rebel against such cruel oppression and exploitation in Tibet?I asked them this question,and was shocked by their answer.They said,‘This is the result of karma’. They believed they had done evil in a previous life,and had to suffer in this life in order to wash away their previous sins and reincarnate into a better next life. This was what the lamas preached to them,and what they fi rmly believed.”In the words of Li Youyi,it was such thought control that made the serfs “willing to toil all their life to accumulate merits for the future,and when the aristocrats whipped them,they thought it was helping them wash away their sins”.

Charles Bell,a Briton who lived in Tibet,wrote in his book Portrait of a Dalai Lama:The Life and Times of the Great Thirteenth,“Does it not matter to you whether you are reborn as a human being or as a pig?The Dalai Lama can help to ensure that you will be reborn as a human being in a high position,or,better still,as a monk or nun in a country where Buddhism fl ourishes”.He fi rmly believed that the lamas had used spiritual terrorism to maintain their influence and to hold the power in their hands.

——Rigid hierarchy and trampling on human rights—the last fortress of feudal serfdom in the East

Feudal serfdom dominated Tibet until 1959. The French traveler Alexandra David Neel visited Tibet and its surrounding areas five times between 1916 and 1924.In 1953,she published Le vieux Tibet face a la Chine nouvelle,in which she described Tibet’s serfdom as follows:In Tibet,all the peasants spent their whole lives as debt-laden serfs,and hardly any one of them could be found to have paid off their debts...To survive,the serfs had to borrow money,grain and cattle,and pay high rates of interest. But their harvests were never enough to cover their swelling interest...They had no other option but to borrow again,borrow grains and seeds...So on and so forth,year in and year out,the cycle continued on and on.They would be burdened with debts until the day they died,debts which would be passed on to their sons.From the day they started to toil in the fi elds,the poor boys would be oppressed by these ancestral debts,of whose origins he knew nothing...The poor could do nothing but toil indefinitely on the barren land,deprived of all freedom as human beings,and becoming poorer with every year that passed.

Under the feudal serfdom,there was a rigid hierarchy.The 13-Article Code and the 16-Article Code,which had been practiced for centuries in Tibet,divided people into three classes and nine ranks,enshrining the rigid hierarchy in law.According to these documents,there were three classes by blood and position,each class was further divided into three ranks...As people were divided into different classes and ranks,the value of a life correspondingly differed...The bodies of people of the highest rank of the upper class were literally worth their weight in gold,while the lives of people of the lowest rank of the lower class were only worth a straw rope.

This backward social structure led to a chasm of wealth in old Tibet.By the late 1950s,the three major stakeholders and their agents,who made up less than 5 percent of the population,owned almost all of the land,pastures,forests,mountains,rivers and flood plains,and most of the livestock.Before Democratic Reform in 1959,there were 197 hereditary aristocratic families,including 25 major ones,the top seven or eight of whom each possessed dozens of manors and over 1,000 hectares of land.The family of the 14th Dalai Lama owned 27 manors,30 pastures,and over 6,000 serfs.The Dalai Lama alone had 160,000 taels(one tael = 30 grams) of gold,95 million taels of silver,over 20,000 pieces of jewelry and jade ware,and more than 10,000 pieces of silk clothing and rare furs. Meanwhile the serfs and slaves,who accounted for 95 percent of the population,had nothing and lived a miserable life with no human rights at all.As a Tibetan proverb goes,“Life given by parents,body controlled by officials.Though they have life and body,they are not masters of their own”.

——Closed,backward and isolated from modern civilization—bearing no resemblance to the“Shangri-la” fantasy

In the 1930s,British novelist James Hilton in his Lost Horizon depicted an earthly paradise,which he called “Shangri-la”.Since then,many have dreamed of searching for this fictional place,and some have even taken Tibet as the prototype.But “Shangri-la” was no more than a fantasy,and there was nothing at all in old Tibet that corresponded to the Utopian images of“Shangri-la”.

The backwardness of old Tibet can be seen from the following facts:Until its peaceful liberation in 1951,Tibet did not have a single school in the modern sense;its illiteracy rate was as high as 95 percent among the young and the middle-aged;there was no modern medical service,and praying to the Buddha for succor was the main resort for most people if they fell ill;their average life expectancy was 35.5 years;there was not a single standard highway,and all goods and mail had to be delivered by man and beast of burden;and the region’s single hydropower station,with a generating capacity of 125 kw,served only the 14th Dalai Lama and a few other privileged people.

Those who had visited Tibet in person,whether Chinese or foreign,were all struck by how backward the place was,and many of them have left factual records.Li Youyi recalled,after a field survey of a couple of months in Tibet in 1945,“What I saw on my 1,700-mile journey along the mid-lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo was a state of complete decay. Every day I would pass by a number of abandoned houses,and expanses of barren fields with no one tending to them.I saw more than 100 such ‘ghost towns’...I set out in the season of autumn harvest.At this time of the year,you would expect to see the joy of harvest on the faces of peasants,even in backward inland areas.But in rural Tibet in 1945,I saw no sign of any happy face.What I saw was the nobility and their rent collectors whipping and yelling at the serfs;what I heard was the weeping and moaning of their victims”.

In his 1905 book The Unveiling of Lhasa,Edmund Candler,the former British journalist in India working for Daily Mail,recorded details of the old Tibetan society:Lhasa was “squalid and fi lthy beyond description,undrained and unpaved.Not a single house looked clean or cared for.The streets after rain are nothing but pools of stagnant water frequented by pigs and dogs searching for refuse”.

In the memory of Dortar,who once served as director of the Radio and Television Department of Tibet Autonomous Region,“When I came to Lhasa in 1951,I was shocked at the shabby and poor conditions. With the exception of the Barkhor near the Jokhang Temple,there was hardly a decent street in town.No public facilities,no streetlights,no water supply and no drainage.What I often did see were the corpses of thosefrozen to death,in addition to beggars,prisoners and packs of dogs.To the west of the Jokhang was a colony of beggars,and there was another near the Romache. The beggars numbered as many as three to four thousand,or one-tenth of Lhasa’s total population”.

In a telegraph to the Gaxag(Tibetan name of the local government of Tibet) in 1950,Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme,then a local government Galoin(minister) and later vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China,reported on the conditions in Qamdo:“The people live in dire poverty in this time of turmoil.In some counties roasted barley is to be found in only seven or eight households,and all the rest have to rely on turnips.It is terribly bleak,with hordes of beggars.”

Extensive documentation confirms that the old system in Tibet was doomed by the mid-1950s.Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme recalled:“In the 1940s,I talked more than once with close friends about the crisis of the old society(system) in Tibet.Everyone believed that,if Tibet continued like this,the serfs would all die out in no time,and the nobles would fi nd no escape.Then the whole of Tibet would perish.”

By the 1950s,political and religious powers had been separated in most countries and regions throughout the world.But a backward system of theocracy was still practiced in Tibet,hindering the progress of Tibetan society and isolating the region from modern civilization.

Starting in the 19th century,a worldwide campaign to eliminate slavery had spread over many countries and regions.Britain,Russia and the United States were among them.In 1807,the British Parliament adopted an act that forbade British ships to engage in the slave trade.In 1861,the Russian tsar Alexander II formally approved a decree and announcement to eliminate slavery.The following year,US President Lincoln published his Emancipation Proclamation,and in 1865 the US Congress adopted the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution,formally marking the end of slavery.In 1948,the UN Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,which stipulates that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude;slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

However,in the mid-20th century,when serfdom had nearly disappeared throughout the world,the largest fortress of serfdom was still deep-rooted in China’s Tibet.This not only hindered China’s social progress,but also represented an affront to human civilization,conscience and dignity.

After the People’s Republic of China was founded and along with the progress in Chinese society,the old systems in Tibet were completely eradicated around the late 1950s and early 1960s.However,the 14th Dalai Lama and his followers have acted against this historical trend.Instead of acknowledging the ruthlessness and cruelty of theocratic rule,they pine for the old system and dream of resurrecting it in Tibet one day.Relevant statements can be found in their documents.

For instance,their Draft Democratic Constitution for Future Tibet,promulgated in 1963,stated,“Tibet shall be a unitary democratic State founded upon the principles laid down by the Lord Buddha”.The Charter of the Tibetans-in-Exile,adopted in 1991,stated,“The future Tibetan polity shall uphold the principle of non-violence and shall endeavor to promote the freedom of the individual and the welfare of the society through the dual system of government based on a Federal Democratic Republic”.The Guidelines for Future Tibet’s Polity and Basic Features of Its Constitution,promulgated in 1992,defined the nature of future Tibet’s polity as being “founded on spiritual values”.The Charter of the Tibetans-in-Exile,amended in 2011,stipulated that the future polity of Tibet would be “a combination of political and religious power”. (To be continued)