Nepal’s revolutionaries stand with China

While China gears up to host the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, U.S. imperialism and its allies have embarked on a concerted campaign to undermine China’s global image and its ability to peacefully host the Olympics.

As workers sit in front of their television sets and watch the nightly news they are faced with an Orwellian contradiction between the images that appear before their eyes and the commentary of the newscasters reporting on the story. The images clearly show rioters, many in monks’ robes, attacking motorcyclists and taxi drivers, while shops are being burned to the ground.

The image of a peaceful Tibetan liberation movement led by a benevolent spiritual leader—the Dalai Lama—has been seared into the consciousness of many of the world’s workers, particularly young workers and students. It is a carefully crafted image

It is also a lie. The image has helped spearhead a multimillion dollar industry that markets “Free Tibet” T-shirts and paraphernalia and selling Dalai’s books extolling his versions of “peace” and world “harmony.”

The feudal reality of Tibet was very different. Workers World’s Gary Wilson wrote a detailed history of Tibet:

“In the 1940s, Tibet was a feudal theocracy with a dual papacy—the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. By all accounts, the Dalai Lama was considered supreme in political matters.” (“It was no Shangri-la: Hollywood hides Tibet’s true history,” WW, Dec. 4, 1997)

“The vast majority of the people of Tibet were serfs. A small part of the population, about 5 percent, was slaves to the nobility.

“Women were considered inferior to men,” Wilson reports.

Capital punishment and the whip were common forms of punishment, according to Gorkar Mebon, the mayor of Lhasa in the 1950s.

“After the overthrow of Tibetan feudalism, in 1959 the serfs opened an exhibition of the torture instruments used against them,” Wilson says.

The Chinese Communist Party led a revolutionary struggle to help Tibetans liberate themselves from this barbaric feudal serfdom. Dalai and his allies have never forgiven the Chinese government for liberating the Tibetans.

Nepal’s revolutionaries stand in solidarity with China

The revolutionary movement in neighboring Nepal, led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), has waged a heroic struggle since 1996 against a brutal feudal monarchy similar to that of pre-revolutionary Tibet. The similarity of their struggles has given the CPN(M) a hands-on perspective of the lies, violations of sovereignty and violence that imperialism is willing to perpetuate against liberation movements.

With this in mind, the CPN(M) issued a statement of unequivocal support for China in the face of U.S.-sponsored violence in that country. The statement “strongly condemns the incident that put at risk the freedom and sovereignty of the Chinese people.”

The U.S. and its imperialist allies support a false “liberation” struggle in Tibet against the Chinese government while opposing an authentic revolutionary movement in Nepal against the remnants of an autocratic feudal monarchy.

In neither instance does imperialism genuinely care about democracy, freedom or human rights. In both instances the goal is to undermine China’s independence and influence in the region and to ensure that the revolutionary momentum in Nepal does not spread to India, Bangladesh or Bhutan so that private property and capitalist profits will be protected against the legitimate interests of the oppressed peoples.