“Battleground Tibet: History, Background, and Perspectives of An International Conflict”, “Is China an Enemy Fabricated through Propaganda?” and “Free Tibet? Power, Society, and Ideology in Old Tibet”……There are lot of “question marks” in Luxembourg Tibetologist Albert Ettinger’s books, which also show his questions to the Western society he lives in.
As a retired teacher, Albert Ettinger began delving into research on topics such as Xizang’s history in 2008 and started publishing a series of works in 2014. In addition to his research, he has consistently voiced support for China on Tibet-related issues by participating in book fairs, giving media interviews, and publishing opinion columns.
On March 28, the occasion of the Serfs Emancipation Day, Albert Ettinger gave an exclusive interview to CNS’s “W.E. Talk” to discuss related topics.
Here are the excerpts of the interview:
CNS: As shown in your books, you describe a very different picture of Xizang from western society. What myth Western society has fabricated about Xizang and what reality you have found about Xizang? Why does Western society continuously embrace more myth than reality about Xizang?
Albert Ettinger: The geographical distance and remoteness of Xizang led at an early stage to myths being formed in the West about the people, the religion and the living conditions there. In the process, Western longings were projected onto that distant region. In the course of increasing de-Christianization from the 18th century onwards, some people in the West were inclined to seek new forms of spirituality in foreign cultures. There were, for example, English author James Hilton, who, in 1930s, published Lost Horizon, a novel in which he describes a utopian “Tibetan” lamasery called Shangri-La.
After the founding of the New China, the Tibet myth was politically exploited. Some books glorified the conditions in ancient Tibet but added a fiercely anti-Communist note. If one reads, instead of this kind of bestsellers, the travelogues of early explorers of Tibet, one sees a very different picture of Tibetan reality. These authors describe a cruel and highly unequal society that displayed all of the most important characteristics of feudalism: on one hand, a very small aristocratic upper class whose status was based on the ownership of large estates, plus a high clergy that emerged from it and enjoyed the same feudal privileges; and on the other hand, a servile mass of farmers and shepherds, slaves and “untouchables”. They often lived in misery because they were highly indebted. If they were unable to pay their debts, they were forced to give one of their children to their aristocratic creditors as slaves.
The Western public is completely unaware of all this, and our media do everything they can to prevent the truth about old Tibet and the great transformations that followed its peaceful liberation from being known and seen.
CNS: China’s “Serfs Emancipation Day” arrived on March 28. What do you think of serfs and slaves in old Xizang and their emancipation?
Albert Ettinger: With the abolition of serfdom and the liberation of the serfs, Tibet was catapulted into the modern era. This opened the way to a development that impresses anyone who is aware of the enormous obstacles that had to be overcome.
The living conditions of the vast majority of Tibetans were still terrible in old Xizang. The serfs lived in fear of their lords, they were at the mercy of the authorities and were treated worse than beasts of burden.
As Kawaguchi Ekai notes, the “lord of the manor” was “the absolute master of his subjects, with regard to their rights and even their lives”.
Life expectancy was barely over 30 years, due to malnutrition, recurrent epidemics such as smallpox, widespread venereal diseases, complete lack of hygiene, and the absence of any knowledge of obstetrics. Only after liberation did the former serfs get access to modern healthcare and education.
CNS: You have been to Xizang for several times. What’s your observation about Xizang, especially its development in the present day?
Albert Ettinger: The most impressive thing for me was the enormous progress in infrastructure and in the material well-being of the population. The railroad tracks, the Lhasa train station, the airports, the highways, the tunnels, the bridges, the spacious and comfortable traditional-style houses, the agricultural cooperatives and modern businesses, the greenhouses that provide Lhasa with fresh fruits and vegetables that were previously unknown. I had the pleasure of visiting many well-equipped schools, care homes for the elderly, and hospitals that often combine modern Western medicine and traditional methods of care.
It must be remembered that ancient Tibet had no public schools, nor roads suitable for wheeled traffic, nor hospitals. Nowadays, Lhasa has become a beautiful and modern city.
CNS: Your new book is titled “China, is it an Enemy Fabricated by Propaganda?”, Could you elaborate about it and your findings in the book?
Albert Ettinger: In my latest book, I discuss how the media and Western politicians describe China. I dispute that China is an enemy of European countries. I focus on the topics that have been most used to denigrate China in the eyes of the Western public: the Tibetan issue, the lies about Chinese policy in Xinjiang, the events in Hong Kong during 2019 and 2020, and the Taiwan issue.
I show that the allegations we have read and heard in the West do not conform to reality and that all the anti-Chinese disinformation campaigns have the same aim: to hinder the peaceful rise of China in order to maintain Western hegemony.
CNS: In Luxemburg or In Europe, you have been a very strong, although a little lonely, voice to tell the truth about Xizang. What’s your suggestion for letting western people know more about Xizang and embrace more reality than myth about Xizang?
Albert Ettinger: I hope that in the future, more and more people will be able to visit Xizang/Tibet and see with their own eyes that the reality there is very different from what they have been told. But anyway, I am determined to continue spreading knowledge and truth about Xizang among the people I can reach.
About the Interviewee:
Albert Ettinger is a Luxembourg Tibetologist. Since 2014, he has published books such as “Battleground Tibet: History, Background, and Perspectives of An International Conflict”, “Is China an Enemy Fabricated through Propaganda?”, and “Free Tibet? Power, Society, and Ideology in Old Tibet”, striving to restore the truth of Xizang and correct the Western society’s misunderstanding of Xizang.