China designated March 28 as an annual Serfs Emancipation Day
On March 28, 1959, the State Council issued a decree to announce the dissolution of the former Tibetan local government. Ex-Tibetan serfs have since terminated their dark, miserable life. With the clarion call for a democratic life, the vast land on the heavenly Tibetan Plateau ushered in a new era when Tibetans became masters of their own destiny. So, March 28 is not only a watershed for a renewed lease of Tibetan life but a milestone in the history of the world's human rights.
Tibet has long been in a feudal serfdom which integrated theocracy, the dictatorship of monks, nobles, serf-owners and local governments monopolized by serf-owners, while the masses of serfs did not have the slightest political right at all. Serf-owners, who made up merely five percent of the Tibetan population, however, occupied all the farming land and most of the livestock while the one million serfs with nearly nothings left then to strive to survive in the "hell on earth".
The serf owners then could subject their serfs to such ruthless penalties, as those of gouging out eyes, cutting off noses, hands and feet, or bringing them to cramping and drowning, and all the punishments were so inhuman and shocking. On top of this, serfs could be arbitrarily sold, transferred or offered as gifts, bonded or put up for exchange as goods or beasts of burden.
Old Tibet over half a century ago was by no means the splendid, wonderful "Shangri-La" but instead was much darker, and more cruel, barbarous and backward than the feudal serfdom under the theocracy of the Middle Ages in Europe...
It is indeed an event of great importance in the political life of Tibetans to define March 28th as an annual Serfs Emancipation Day. Thanks to the counter-emergency campaign and the ensuing democratic reform, a great historic turn occurred in the nature of political power, the ownership of means of production, personal status, economic status and legal status, religious belief, the right to education and other aspects in Tibetan society then. This great turn has put an end to the history, in which the Tibetan serfs and slaves, who made up 95 percent of local population then but did not have any human rights, and were emancipated fully to be masters of their own destiny
The Dalai Clique and a few Western nations, nevertheless, took the opportunity of this historic memorial day to smear the Chinese government; Meanwhile, American media have, with an "abnormal enthusiasm", accused the Chinese central government of destroying the Tibetan local culture, civilization and language and prosecuting those loyal to the Dalai Lama with mandatory measures. Any people with the slightest historical knowledge, however, can see they have turned the truth upside down.
Moreover, it is known to all that feudal serfdom under theocracy has hindered the development of social productivity seriously. People in Western Europe have already contemned or discarded this very system in few hundred years ago. Today, the Tibetan people in the economic reform and opening-up have access to progress and social well-beings, and attained extraordinary, fruit-ladden socio-economic attainments and effected a fundamental change in their life, which is obvious to all.
Dalai Lama's objection to institutionalizing the Serfs Emancipation Day in Tibet is precisely because the democratic reform has deprived him and his ilk of their dominating position and they nevertheless still have much illusion today and are sentimentally attached to their old serfdom.
"Tibetan independence" forces have collided and worked hand in gloves with the anti-China forces overseas in an attempt to create chaos and turmoil in Tibet. The entire Chinese people, including all Tibetans as well as compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and Chinese compatriots residing worldwide, who belong to all but one Chinese nation. Linking by heart to heart and hand in hand, they take joint responsibilities and the glorious mission for China's great rejuvenation.
As part of an effort to mark the first anniversary of the Serf Emancipation Day, the first group of overseas Chinese and Chinese Europeans has planned to come to their motherland on a study tour in June or July this year, which will enable them to take a look at a "dreamlike Tibet", a Tibet with a wonderful scene and a Tibet, where there is a plenty of the nature-endowed products and people are living in much contentment.
"We very much want to see, hear and experience things indigenous to Tibet personally, and take our reminiscence of all these things we have collected during the trip to Tibet back to Europe and proceed to spread them across the world." And people should really cherish and treasure "the hard-won peace and stability in Tiber, and the hard-won prosperity and development in Tibet.
