On the Cultural Revolution in Tibet

by Goldstein, Melvyn C.

• ISBN13: 9780520267909
• ISBN10: 0520267907
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-10-28
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Among the conflicts to break out during the Cultural Revolution in Tibet, the most famous took place in the summer of 1969 in Nyemo, a county to the south and west of Lhasa. In this incident, hundreds of villagers formed a mob led by a young nun who was said to be possessed by a deity associated with the famous warrior-king Gesar. In their rampage the mob attacked, mutilated, and killed county officials and local villagers as well as People's Liberation Army troops. This groundbreaking book, the first on the Cultural Revolution in Tibet, revisits the Nyemo Incident, which has long been romanticized as the epitome of Tibetan nationalist resistance against China. Melvyn C. Goldstein, Ben Jiao, and Tanzen Lhundrup demonstrate that far from being a spontaneous battle for independence, this violent event was actually part of a struggle between rival revolutionary groups and was not ethnically based.On the Cultural Revolution in Tibetproffers a sober assessment of human malleability and challenges the tendency to view every sign of unrest in Tibet in ethno-nationalist terms.

Author Biography

Melvyn C. Goldstein is John Reynolds Harkness Professor of Anthropology and the Codirector of the Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University. Ben Jiao is Deputy Director of the Contemporary Tibetan Research Institute at the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences, Lhasa. Tanzen Lhundrup is Deputy Director of the Social and Economic Institute at the Beijing Tibetology Center, Beijing.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Explanation of Romanization, Brackets, and Abbreviations	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
The Cultural Revolution in Tibet	p. 11
Gyenlo and Nyamdre in Nyemo County	p. 59
Gyenlo on the Attack	p. 86
Destroying the Demons and Ghosts	p. 107
The Attacks on Bagor District and Nyemo County	p. 122
The Capture of the Nun	p. 137
Conclusions	p. 162
Epilogue	p. 172
The Nun's Manifesto	p. 183
Leaflet Publishing the Text of a Speech Criticizing the Regional Party Committee	p. 185
The Truth about the Struggle to Seize the Power of the Tibet Daily Newspaper Office	p. 191
Notes	p. 197
Selected Glossary of Correct Tibetan Spellings	p. 213
References	p. 223
Index	p. 229
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