[轉載]中國是如何處理宗教的

少數能把話說穿的文章......中譯在後面。

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/opinion/...r=1&oref=slogin

How China Got Religion

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
Published: October 11, 2007

London



THE Western liberal media had a laugh in August when China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs announced Order No. 5, a law covering “the management measures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism.” This “important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation” basically prohibits Buddhist monks from returning from the dead without government permission: no one outside China can influence the reincarnation process; only monasteries in China can apply for permission.

Before we explode in rage that Chinese Communist totalitarianism now wants to control even the lives of its subjects after their deaths, we should remember that such measures are not unknown to European history. The Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the first step toward the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years’ War, declared the local prince’s religion to be the official faith of a region or country (“cuius regio, eius religio”). The goal was to end violence between German Catholics and Lutherans, but it also meant that when a new ruler of a different religion took power, large groups had to convert. Thus the first big institutional move toward religious tolerance in modern Europe involved a paradox of the same type as that of Order No. 5: your religious belief, a matter of your innermost spiritual experience, is regulated by the whims of your secular leader.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Chinese government is not antireligious. Its stated worry is social “harmony” — the political dimension of religion. In order to curb the excess of social disintegration caused by the capitalist explosion, officials now celebrate religions that sustain social stability, from Buddhism to Confucianism — the very ideologies that were the target of the Cultural Revolution. Last year, Ye Xiaowen, China’s top religious official, told Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, that “religion is one of the important forces from which China draws strength,” and he singled out Buddhism for its “unique role in promoting a harmonious society.”

What bothers Chinese authorities are sects like Falun Gong that insist on independence from state control. In the same vein, the problem with Tibetan Buddhism resides in an obvious fact that many Western enthusiasts conveniently forget: the traditional political structure of Tibet is theocracy, with the Dalai Lama at the center. He unites religious and secular power — so when we are talking about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, we are taking about choosing a head of state. It is strange to hear self-described democracy advocates who denounce Chinese persecution of followers of the Dalai Lama — a non-democratically elected leader if there ever was one.

In recent years, the Chinese have changed their strategy in Tibet: in addition to military coercion, they increasingly rely on ethnic and economic colonization. Lhasa is transforming into a Chinese version of the capitalist Wild West, with karaoke bars and Disney-like Buddhist theme parks.

In short, the media image of brutal Chinese soldiers terrorizing Buddhist monks conceals a much more effective American-style socioeconomic transformation: in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of the Native Americans in the United States. Beijing finally learned the lesson: what is the oppressive power of secret police forces, camps and Red Guards destroying ancient monuments compared to the power of unbridled capitalism to undermine all traditional social relations?

It is all too easy to laugh at the idea of an atheist power regulating something that, in its eyes, doesn’t exist. However, do we believe in it? When in 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, many Westerners were outraged — but how many of them actually believed in the divinity of the Buddha? Rather, we were angered because the Taliban did not show appropriate respect for the “cultural heritage” of their country. Unlike us sophisticates, they really believed in their own religion, and thus had no great respect for the cultural value of the monuments of other religions.

The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to “culture.” All human sciences are turning into a branch of cultural studies. While there are of course many religious believers in the West, especially in the United States, vast numbers of our societal elite follow (some of the) religious rituals and mores of our tradition only out of respect for the “lifestyle” of the community to which we belong: Christmas trees in shopping centers every December; neighborhood Easter egg hunts; Passover dinners celebrated by nonbelieving Jews.

“Culture” has commonly become the name for all those things we practice without really taking seriously. And this is why we dismiss fundamentalist believers as “barbarians” with a “medieval mindset”: they dare to take their beliefs seriously. Today, we seem to see the ultimate threat to culture as coming from those who live immediately in their culture, who lack the proper distance.

Perhaps we find China’s reincarnation laws so outrageous not because they are alien to our sensibility, but because they spill the secret of what we have done for so long: respectfully tolerating what we don’t take quite seriously, and trying to contain its political consequences through the law.

译：

今年八月，中国的国家宗教事务管理局发布了第五号令。这个法律是关于“藏传佛教活佛转世的管理措施” 的。西方的自由派媒体都对此感到可笑，因为从本质上讲，这一“重要的制度化(活佛)转世的举动”, 禁止了佛教僧侣们在没有获得政府同意的情况下从阴间归来：在中国之外的任何人都不能影响转世过程；只有在中国的寺院才能申请许可。

在我们对中国的共产主义极权现在甚至想要控制它的臣民死后的生活而感到怒不可遏之前，我们应该记得类似的措施在欧洲历史上也有发生。1555年的奥格斯堡和平协定( the Peace of Augsburg) 是迈向1648年的威斯特法利亚和平协定( the Peace of Westphalia) 的第一步。威斯特法利亚和平协定结束了三十年战争(译者注：三十年战争是欧洲历史上著名的宗教战争，以战况惨烈著称。德意志诸邦因此人口剧减。) ，并宣告了地方领主们信仰的宗教即是当地或该国的官方信仰(“cuius regio, eius religio”) 。这个协定的目的是为了终结德国天主教徒和路德教徒的暴力冲突，但它也意味着当一个信仰不同宗教的新统治者继位的时候，大量的人群必须改变信仰。这样，作为迈向现代欧洲宗教宽容的第一个大的制度化举措，它也包含着和第五号令一样的矛盾：你的宗教信仰，一个关于你内心深处的精神经历的事情，是被你的世俗统治者的一时兴起所规定的。

和通常所认为的相反，中国政府并不反对宗教。它公开的关心是社会“和谐”-- 这是宗教的政治方面。为了控制住因为资本主义的爆炸性增长而引起的社会崩解，官员们现在支持能够维持社会稳定的宗教，从佛教到儒教--这些意识形态都是文革的目标。去年，叶小文(音译) ，中国在宗教方面的高官，告诉新华社，“宗教是中国能够获取力量的重要源泉之一，” 他还单独列出佛教“在提升社会和谐上的独特角色。”

真正让中国政府担忧的是那些如[***]功那样坚持脱离国家控制而独立行事的宗教。同样道理，藏传佛教的问题也在于一个西方的积极支持者们视而不见的特点：西藏的传统政治结构是政教合一的，以达赖喇嘛为中心的神权统治。达赖集宗教和世俗的权力于一身--所以当我们谈论达赖喇嘛的转世的时候，我们也是在谈论挑选一个国家领导人。听到那些自封的民主拥护者们谴责中国政府迫害达赖喇嘛的追随者是一件很让人奇怪的事情--如果达赖曾经一度是西藏的领袖的话，他可从来不是民主选举产生的。

近年来，中国人已经改变了他们在西藏的策略：除了军事压迫，他们还日益依赖于种族和经济殖民。拉萨正在被转化成中国版本的资本主义西部边疆(the capitalist Wild West), 正如拉萨的卡拉OK房和模仿迪斯尼的佛教主题公园所表明的那样。

简略概括之，被媒体所展现的，中国士兵恫吓佛教僧侣的形象,掩盖了一个更有效的，美式的社会经济转变：在一二十年之内，西藏人就会变得象在美国的土著印第安人。北京终于学到了这个经验教训：秘密警察，集中营和破坏古代建筑的红卫兵们所产生的压迫力量又怎么比得上无所不至的资本主义更能破坏所有的传统社会关系呢？

我们很容易嘲笑一个无神论的政府试图规范在它眼里根本不存在的东西。但是，难道我们就相信这些东西吗？当塔利班在2001年摧毁巴米扬古代佛像时，许多西方人非常愤怒--但是他们中的多少人又是真正相信佛祖的神性的呢？事实上，我们愤怒是因为塔利班没有对他们国家的“文化遗产” 显示恰当的尊敬。与我们这些饱经世故的人不同，他们是真的相信他们自己的宗教，从而对其它宗教建筑的文化价值缺乏敬意。

在这里，对西方来说很重要的事情不是佛祖和喇嘛，而是我们所说的“文化” 到底指什么？所有的人文科学都可以变成文化研究的一个分支。尽管在西方，尤其是美国，有许多的宗教信仰者，我们的社会精英的大多数服从(某些) 宗教仪式和更多的传统，仅仅是为了对我们所属团体的“生活方式” 显示尊敬：每年十二月在商场里的圣诞树；邻里间的寻找复活节彩蛋；不信仰宗教的犹太人庆祝安息日的晚餐。

“文化” 已经成为所有那些我们并不真信但仍然施行的所有事情的共同名字。这也是为什么我们把原教旨主义者们称为带有“中世纪头脑” 的“野蛮人” 的原因：他们居然真的严肃地相信他们的信仰。在今天，看起来我们正见证到如下现象：对文化的最终威胁来自于那些完全生活在他们的文化中而缺乏恰当距离的人。

也许，我们觉得中国的转世法律令人愤怒，不是因为这些法律违反了我们的理性，而是因为他们吐露了我们施行如此之久的一个秘密：带有敬意地容忍我们并不真正相信的东西，并试图通过法律来控制它的政治后果。

這篇文章主要想說的是中共對西藏佛教的控制

這是：「敬鬼神而遠之」?



不過那些禁止喇嘛胡亂轉世的法令, 聽上去的確挺搞笑的, 有點想看看原文

当达懒喇嘛带着他的人搞分裂的时候,我想很多人会愤怒.
谁又能保证下一个活佛不去搞分裂,令全国人民愤怒呢.但是我们又要给于他们适当的自由.所以这个法律就产生了。