The independence of Tibet is such a huge thing right now. I was of the opinion that Tibet should be its' own country for the sake of keeping the peace, culture, and spirituality intact and separate from Chinese'.
I also thought it was basically a political movement because somehow the Chinese party sees the stark independence of Tibet as a political undermining.
However, there are claims that Tibet's feudal systems were very harsh and based on slavery. Obviously it still seems like a political movement, but I digress.
Did Tibet have such a feudal system of slavery and cruelty? Was the Dalai Lama (including prior reincarnations) someone who encouraged this? Or is this all just Chinese propaganda?
I've answered this before along with a couple other posters in this thread in what's probably way too much detail.
I'll post a short answer here for future reference:
Your question has some strict asterisks.
Tibetan society pre-1950 was not "feudal" nor did it contain "slavery" in the sense that we are familiar with the terms in modern or western history. (The other term that often accompanies this is "caste," which is also inaccurate for the same reasons.)
Tibet and the Himalayan world was (and still is) very hierarchical. Bhutan is, in my opinion, a good case study of Tibetan society with far lass political polarization with far less at stake ideologically. The Bhutanese draw most of their social institutions from the north as the majority of migration was north-south, the Ngalongs being descended of Tibetans and pre-Tibetans before, during, and after the seventeenth century.
Before 1952, Bhutan had a system of "Draps" and "Zaps." "Drap" is usually translated as "Serf" and "Zap" is usually translated as "Slave." This is more indicative of how many rights one had over the other. Draps had land provided for them and their children were born free taxpayers. Zaps didn't have land or shelter set aside for them, and their children were born zaps.
In 1952, the King of Bhutan dismantled this system (read the above link for more information).
Where these analogies fall apart is that the feudalism we're familiar with involves a lord who bestows land to others to maintain (though he still owns that land) and this isn't really what we saw in Tibet and the Himalayas. The slavery analogy falls apart in that there weren't slave markets or chattel slavery, which is more often than not the connotation.
Did Tibet have such a feudal system of slavery and cruelty? Was the Dalai Lama (including prior reincarnations) someone who encouraged this? Or is this all just Chinese propaganda?
To quote John Green: "Studying history isn't really about providing answers, it's about providing context."