Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

Beijing at an end. But it was first under the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (in the midsixties)
that China’s attitude towards Tibet shifted fundamentally. Within a tantric conception of
history the Chinese Cultural Revolution has to be understood as a period of chaos and anarchy. Mao
Zedong himself had– like a skilled Vajra master — deliberately evoked a general disorder so as to
establish a paradise on earth after the destruction of the old values: “A great chaos will lead to a new
order”, he wrote at the beginning of the youth revolt (Zhisui, 1994, p. 491). All over the country,
students, school pupils, and young workers took to the land to spread the ideas of Mao Zedong. The
“Red Guard” of Lhasa also understood itself to be the agent of its “Great Chairman”, as it published
the following statement in December 1966: “We a group of lawless revolutionary rebels will wield
the iron sweepers and swing the mighty cudgels to sweep the old world into a mess and bash people
into complete confusion. We fear no gales and storms, nor flying sands and moving rocks ... To rebel,
to rebel, and to rebel through to the end in order to create a brightly red new world of this
proletariat” (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 183).
Although it was the smashing of the Lamaist religion which lay at the heart of the red attacks in Tibet,
one must not forget that it was not just monks but also long-serving Chinese Party cadres in Lhasa
and the Tibetan provinces who fell victim to the brutal subversion. Even if it was triggered by Mao
Zedong, the Cultural Revolution was essentially a youth revolt and gave expression to a deep
intergenerational conflict. National interests did not play a significant role in these events. Hence,
many young Tibetans likewise participated in the rebellious demonstrations in Lhasa, something
which for reasons that are easy to understand is hushed up these days by Dharamsala.
Whether Mao Zedong approved of the radicality with which the Red Guard set to work remains
doubtful. To this day — as we have already reported — the Kundun believes that the Party Chairman
was not fully informed about the vandalistic attacks in Tibet and that Jiang Qing, his spouse, was the
evildoer. [3] Mao’s attitude can probably be best described by saying that in as far as the chaos served
to consolidate his position he would have approved of it, and in as far as it weakened his position he
would not. For Mao it was solely a matter of the accumulation of personal power, whereby it must be
kept in mind, however, that he saw himself as being totally within the tradition of the Chinese
Emperor as an energetic concentration of the country and its inhabitants. What strengthened him also
strengthened the nation and the people. To this extent he thought in micro/macrocosmic terms.
The “deification” of Mao Zedong
The people’s tribune was also not free of the temptations of his own “deification”: “The Mao cult”,
writes his personal physician, Zhisui, “spread in schools, factories, and communes — the Party
Chairman became a god” (Li Zhisui, 1994, p. 442). At heart, the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution must be regarded as a religious movement, and the “Marxist” from Beijing reveled in his
worship as a “higher being”.
Numerous reports of the “marvels of the thoughts of Mao Zedong”, the countless prayer-like letters
from readers in the Chinese newspapers, and the little “red book” with the sacrosanct words of the
great helmsman, known worldwide as the “ bible of Mao “, and much more make a religion of
Maoism. Objects which factory workers gave to the “Great Chairman” were put on display on altars
and revered like holy relics. After “men of the people” shook his hand, they didn’t wash theirs for
weeks and coursed through the country seizing the hands of passers by under the impression that they
could give them a little of Mao’s energy. In some Tibetan temples pictures of the Dalai Lama were
even replaced with icons of the Chinese Communist leader.