Special report: Tibet: Its Past and Present

    BEIJING, June 5 (Xinhua) -- During a European tour last month, the Dalai Lama said he really felt helpless because his "middle way policy" has failed to win support from his own people.

    The Dalai Lama made the remarks when asked by the British daily Financial Times if he felt frustrated as he was losing support and influence.

    "We've got a sense that, and the worlds have got a sense that you are frustrated, that your middle way policy or approach is now so far going nowhere," the newspaper said in an interview with him.

    Why is he going nowhere? Why did he acknowledge that he felt helpless? The real reason is that he has been trying to return to feudal serfdom, a social system that has long been discarded by the times even at the expense of splitting China. Such a move goes totally against the historical trend.

    The era which the Dalai Lama is reluctant to part with is one of the darkest periods in the Tibetan history, when serfs and slaves, who accounted for more than 95 percent of the population, could not enjoy the basic personal freedom and political rights under clerical or secular serf owners' ruthless economic exploitation, political oppression and spiritual control. They were even denied their right to life.

    Some Westerners, who laurelled the Dalai Lama as a guardian of human rights and freedom, are not unfamiliar with feudal autocracy and the integration of church and state, as there were similar social systems in the Middle Ages.

    In some European nations, feudal regimes, in collusion with autocratic theocracies, exploited people of all classes, suppressed their thoughts and spirits, and thwarted the development of science, which put the European history at an standstill.

    It was a "dark age" when human nature was suppressed and civilization trampled on.

    Feudal regimes, which integrate church with state, were a tool for the few to grab wealth and power in the name of the majority, said Thomas More, the author of Utopia.

    In the 1600s and 1700s, the emerging capitalist class in Europe launched a revolution to fight against feudal autocracy and reactionary forces in church.

    The Bill of Right, as well as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, fully embodied the spirit of the European people who opposed feudal monarchs and autocratic theocracies.

    In Tibet, the ruthless serfdom, which integrated church with state, lasted to the middle of the 20th century.

    The democratic reform in the 1950s ushered in a bright future for Tibet, bringing new life to millions of serfs and lifting them from backwardness to progress and from poverty to prosperity.

    However, the Dalai clique, still nostalgic about its lost paradise, has never ceased separatist activities since its rebellion in 1959. As separatism was unpopular in the world, the Dalai clique turned to a so-called "middle way" approach in the 1980s.

    It called for "high degree of autonomy for Tibet" to negate the existing political system in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, while covering up its real purpose for separatism by preaching a concept of "Greater Tibet," which has never existed in history. Behind the theory is the Dalai clique's stubborn pursuit of the dark feudal serf society.

    Anyone acquainted with the Dark Ages in medieval Europe and the history of old Tibet could see the reactionary nature of the old feudal serfdom. The cruel and dark system will never be allowed to return.

    Those who back Dalai's political stand are in fact offering their support to restoring the old feudal serfdom in Tibet. Those who echo Dalai's "high degree of autonomy" are virtually helping to bring Tibet back to the dark age.

    Until today, a handful of people hostile to China are still trying to push Dalai to the front stage and treat him as "a guardian of human rights" in total disregard of the miserable life of the Tibetan people under his rule and.

    They see Dalai as a "symbol of the Tibetan culture," ignoring the cultural plight under his rule. They labeled him a benevolent religious leader, while turning a blind eye to his inciting and plotting the March 14 riots in Lhasa in defiance of the fundamental religious concepts. Without the support of these anti-China forces, Dalai and his followers are unlikely to continue their separatist activities.

    The feudal serfdom that integrated church with state is gone forever. It is futile for Dalai to tour everywhere and preach "human rights" and "high degree of autonomy," as his attempts go against the current of the world. That's why Dalai could only deplore his helplessness in his separatist endeavor.