Democratic Reform a historic stride for social system in Tibet: scholar

Source: Xinhua | 01-23-2009 08:01

BEIJING, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- Xinhua News Agency published an article by Hao Shiyuan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), on Thursday, to hail that the Democratic Reform is historic stride for social system in Tibet.

Hao, who is also director of the CASS center for the study of Tibetan history and culture, has contributed the article to the Beijing-based Guangming Daily as part of the newspaper's serial articles to mark the establishment of the "Serfs Emancipation Day" by the Tibetan legislature on Monday.

Before the launching in 1959 of the Democratic Reform in Tibet, the highland area was under a hierarchical rule by monks and aristocrats, says the article, citing a book by Edmund Candler, an India-based correspondent of the British newspaper "Daily Mail", who entered Tibet with British army in 1905.

According to the British reporter's "The Unveiling Lhasa", Tibet was then under a feudalist serfdom, where peasants were slaves of lamas. He even compared the Potala Palace, the residence of Tibetan Buddhist leaders, with the bloodiest medieval castles in Europe in the Middle Ages.

The British journalist was so surprised at what he saw in Tibet that he depicted the Tibetan serfdom as unprecedentedly stubborn and dark.

The Communist Party of China (CPC), which represents the fundamental interests of the Chinese of different ethnic groups, is the only power which can lead the one million Tibetan serfs to end the hierarchical serfdom in Tibet, says Hao.