Tuesday, March 18, 2008
OLYMPIC BOYCOTT!
There is a world wide out cry getting louder by the minute as China brutally represses the protests in Tibet and several Chinese cities supporting cultural and political autonomy for Tibet.
The news is being controlled, internet access is being cut off and YouTube is being flooded with propaganda videos and people aggressively posting to support the Chinese hard line.
The video posted above was put on YouTube today and was clandestinely shot. If you go to YouTube there are many videos on line now and more every hour exposing the real brutality China is using to repress the protests.
Tibetan Culture has been systematically destroyed by the Chinese since the 1950's when the Dalai Lama was forced to flee to Nepal as a teenager. The Chinese try to show historically that Tibet was always a part of China, but Tibet has always had a unique cultural history. Tibetan Budhism is a direct link to a much older religion called Bon.
Budhism has had the unique ability to conform to the various cultures wher ever it spread. The very unique character of Tibetan Bon is very much a part of Tibetan Budhism.
Hundreds of temples have been destroyed with artifacts dating back to medieval times and before as well. Thousands of monks have been slaughtered and disappeared into prisons. The Chinese have been destroying Tibetan culture and identity by moving different groups into Tibet for 50 years to support the claim that Tibet is not made of a single ethnic group.
In spite of all of this, the Tibetan spirit and identity remains strong and intact.
We have seen a very deliberate and brutal disinformation campaign coming out of Beijing. We are told that this is plot that is being directed by the Dalai Lama and even that the Dalai Lama is a CIA operative. We are shown only Chinese victims of the violence and the numbers of Tibetans killed is denied and changes depending on which news release you hear.
If the nations of the world do not speak up, this brutal repression will continue and a virtual genocidial event will occur beyond the reach of television and the internet.
Here is a organization which has worked with other groups for Tibetan Liberation, they have an on line petition to sign.
I believe it is time to press for a general boycott of China's 2008 Olympics and the time to act is now. It is too bad that the United States has destroyed its moral high ground by its ongoing violations of human rights because any protest by Washington is being tossed off by the Chinese as hypocritical.
BOYCOTT THE 2008 CHINESE OLYMPICS! GRANT TIBET POLITICAL AND CULTURAL AUTONOMY NOW!
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6 comments:
I have to agree with you on this one, Microdot.
If I had tickets and reservations for hotel and travel to go to the Olympics I would burn them and be happy to take the loss.
From a friend who has been to China five times I have heard the regular Chinese people are the kindest in the world.
The oppressive government is one of the cruelest in the world.
I'm sure you mean for the athletes to boycott the Olympics too, but that was tried against Russia once and disappointed a lot of athletes who were at their peak that year and never got the chance to show what they could do.
Nevertheless, I won't even watch the Olympics on TV.
I reealize that China is a place that is in rapid transition. It has been violently jump started by Maoism to go from the Middle ages into the future.
The most amazing thing about China is that it is becoming able to change and do so rapidly.
Let us hope that it will drop its wall of arrogant pride and learn from the flexible bending of its Taoist/Buddhist heritage.
Let us hope that as China becomes more liberal, we don't become more repressive!
From Engineer of Knowledge
Hello Microdot,
What a timely post!! I had a coworker when I was working at a job designing transformers. He was born in the Sothern part of china and we the same age. In 1957-58 Mao’s influence had finely reach to his region of China. Ming’s father was a professor at the local university and taught law. His mother was a professor at the same university and taught Biology/Chemistry. When the troops arrived they arrested Ming’s father as an enemy of the state because he was one of the intellectuals teaching law. (You could compare as the Right Wing Conservative Radio and our own President mockingly call “The Intelligencia”) Ming’s father was sent to work on one of the prison slave farms for social retraining. That was the last Ming saw of his father and in 1964 Ming’s family received a post card saying his father had been released but would not be allowed to return to his family. He was to say and work on the farms. It was just a couple of months that Ming’s family got another post card saying that the father had died and was buried in the area of China that the slave farms are located.
During this time, Ming’s mother was not arrested but had to move in with her father with Ming and his brother. Ming’s grandfather was an Episcopal preacher so the troop would periodically come in unannounced ripping up furniture, blankets, etc, looking for bibles.
Because Ming’s father had been arrested, Ming and his brother were not allowed to attend school. Ming’s mother’s two brothers were a professor in electrical engineering and the other worked as an electrical engineer. The uncles took it upon themselves to make sure the boys got an education during the time they were not allowed to attend school. Then one day the authorities came to the home and asked Ming and his brother if they wanted to attend school and they said that they did. They could not start at the regular school year because that was reserved for children of good citizens of China. Next the children of convicted parents who were thieves go to arrive next, and then children of murders were next in line, and then the children of parents who were the worst criminals of all, the political prisoners. The school year starts in September and Ming got to start his school year in November. Now fast forwarding to now, Ming got out of China through Canada, came to the University of Maryland in College Park outside of Washington, D.C. and got his Electrical Engineering degree. Ming still will go to D.C. to protest a Chinese delegation every time they come to town. He wants people of this country to understand how his father was worked to death because his only crime was that he was educated and was teaching in his major of studies, LAW!!
Well this posting is getting long so I will conclude with the example of the Chinese people who are blogging now in China exposing the political conditions in China now. China forced Google to divulge the names and addresses of those people committing descent and they are now being arrested as we speak.
Now here is a point to ponder; armed with the “Patriot Act,” our own government is now performing what had once been illegal for our government. Illegal search and seizures on our phone conversations, e-mails, and even are allowed to open our personal mail. The question is, are we now that much different here in the U.S. as the blogging people getting out the truth, committing political crimes in China today?
I think that is an important point that I have been trying to make for quite a while now. China has had a turbulent violent history in the last 65 years under Maoism. Maoism tried to create a new society by destroying all vestiges of the past and rejecting Western and traditional ideologies. In doing so, the Chinese became guilty of some of the great attrocities regarding human rights of all time.
On the other hand, they did succeed in creating an entirely new social order, and as with all ideologies, what you think you are going to achieve usually resultes insomething completely different.
China is at a cross roads, the population is becoming too savvy to be ruled by ideological principals and too open not to want to be a part of the rest of the world.
There is a huge emerging middle class and wealthy elite.
The crux is, as long as the Chinese play the game and don't rock the boat, they can enjoy a life style quite like the affluent in the west, conversely, in the USA, it becomes more apparent that as long as you play the game and don't rock the boat, you can enjoy a lifestyle like the affluent Chinese.
From Engineer of Knowledge
Hello Microdot,
I agree, even Ming has been back to China to see his mother and brother and he said that it is 1000% better than what it used to be when we were growing up. I was telling how bad it use to be and this is what you and I grew up and this was one of the justifications on why we needed to be in Viet Nam. Mao was bad and we have to fight for Democratic Freedoms throughout the world. You know, “If we don’t fight the commies over there in Viet Nam we will have to fight the commies here in the U.S.” (Where have I heard something like that lately?!?)
What I can’t comprehend is how we here in the U.S. let our freedoms go so easily being like what China is getting away from. It is now legal for the government to open people’s mail without a warrant to see if anything subversive is going on!!! This is really not comprehendible to me. But it is justifiable to the Right Wing of my own political party as being OK.
Tell me; am I in the bazarro world? Candid Camera maybe?
Bush intends to go because, I think, it's his last opportunity to tour the world openly before his self-imposed exile in Paraguay after January.
After that, the World Court will be issuing indictments for war crimes.
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