TIBET

[dmuja]

 

Here's a a big FUCK YOU! to China..

Despite their best efforts at putting on a smiling face for the world for the upcoming Olympic games, the Chinese regime shows once again that it is nothing but a bunch of murderous thugs. Will anyone stand up for what's right, you know, the moral/principled thing? Probly not, there's money to be made after all.

 

Links:

 

Human Rights Watch Statement

 

'Phayul' Independent Tibetan News Site

 

Tibetan Students Website

 

Everest closed to climbing to Appease the Chinese

 

Google Stands Against Free Speech

[Hugh Conway]

I'm going to protest in my trendy cloths eating ginger listening to cool tunes on my iPod.

 

The battles lost; they've one.

[AlpineK]

I've witnessed first hand how some of the Chinese government officials that came with our climbing team treated the Tibetan locals.

 

I did meet a couple cool Chinese working as interpreters, but in general to the Chinese Government.

[tvashtarkatena]

The battle is far from lost. The Tibetans are finally saying "enough, you assholes" just when the Chinese can least afford it. Their timing couldn't be more perfect to get the message out about what the Chinese regime really stands for; totalitarianism.

[sexual_chocolate]

i think we should be trying to give back all Native American land before we spend all this energy on Tibet.

 

Same thing, really.

[tvashtarkatena]

Not the same, as the Tibetan struggle is still fresh and ongoing. You'll know when it's over when they start building casinos.

Edited March 15, 2008 by tvashtarkatena

[ivan]

the recent burma example would seem to be instructive - protest, we fucking kill you, you shut the fuck up, the rest of the world whines a bit, we return to business as usual

 

tibet will have to have very powerful and very motivated allies in order to gain indepedence

 

seems like what they realistically could best hope for would be some sorta semi-autonomy, like the kurds

[G-spotter]

Did the US economy notice when all those no blood for oil people in other countries stopped buying American to protest the Iraq war?

 

No?

 

Then will China notice if you stop buying Chinese over Tibet, or anything else?

[Hugh Conway]

the recent burma example would seem to be instructive - protest, we fucking kill you, you shut the fuck up, the rest of the world whines a bit, we return to business as usual

 

Thailand, China, India, and Singapore didn't do shit. Since they are the majority of the trading partners they count far more than us.

 

The Western world is China's biggest market; we matter. America doesn't export.

[sexual_chocolate]

i bet if we as americans joined together, we could get the first people (native americans, aborigines, turtle islanders; whatever the title of choice) back their land.

[tvashtarkatena]

One small difference: the Tibetans are still living on their land.

[Dechristo]

WTF!

 

If you're gonna start down that road we'll all end up at Mom's house in Central Africa.

[tvashtarkatena]

Can you try not to be a complete cynical dick for just one minute? Tibet is a recent, brutal, text book foreign occupation that the United States, if it chose to do so, could probably do something about.

 

Fuck you, I'm off to the Stuart Range.

Edited March 16, 2008 by tvashtarkatena

[sexual_chocolate]

One small difference: the Tibetans are still living on their land.

 

and native americans aren't? depends on what you mean by "their land", i suppose.

 

some would argue that the tibetans are living on chinese land, and always have.

[dmuja]

We just need to start referring to the Chinese occupation of Tibet as it really is TERRORISM.

So I wonder what happened to "Youre either with us, or your against us"?

What happened to the peoples right to self determination through a "democratic process" (read 'Iraq')?

 

What happened to the "War on Terror?"

 

 

 

tvash is correct, the timing is right for this, and according to reports some high level athletes are now talking about an Olympic boycott - maybe only an individual level though. The longer this goes on, the more coverage it gets, the bigger the problem becomes for the terrorist state China.

[sexual_chocolate]

tibet was a feudal society ruled by an elite "religious" class that enjoyed all priveledge and honor. from my (somewhat limited) understanding, they even had a death penalty: how "Buddhist" is that?

 

now i can't argue that the Dalai Lama isn't seemingly a pretty cool cat (the side we get to see?), but there are lots of other countries with plights worse than tibet's that get no attention, and i guess it kinda irks me that the west has seemingly deified and idealised this country, and how much do we really know about its history and its relationship to the land (and china)?

 

these are open questions by the way, ones that i have a limited grasp of. i have read enough though to question the common "feel good" assumptions.

[murraysovereign]

Can you try not to be a complete cynical dick for just one minute?

I do try, honest, but it just doesn't seem to be working.

Iraq is a recent, brutal, text book foreign occupation that the United States, if it chose to do so, could probably do something about.

See what I mean?

[Fairweather]

Gutsiest thing Clinton ever did was sending that carrier task force through the Taiwan Straits during Chinese missile "tests" aimed at our friends on Formosa. But getting tangled up in the affairs of Tibet is a whole different deal. Like it or not, The United States doesn't flex militarily unless there is an economic or strategic benefit, and meddling in Tibet is not in our interest any more than Rwanda/Burundi was. That said; I wish the people of Tibet well in their struggle against their communist oppressors.

[sexual_chocolate]

That said; I wish the people of Tibet well in their struggle against their communist oppressors.

 

do you wish the native american well in their struggle against the capitalist oppressors?

[sexual_chocolate]

Can you try not to be a complete cynical dick for just one minute?

I do try, honest, but it just doesn't seem to be working.

 

hey, know who the target was: I'M the cynical dick around here. Get it straight!

[mattp]

I saw Orville Schell lecture about Tibet five or six years ago. I think he told a pretty clear tale about how we've romanticized Tibet and the "Free Tibet" movement is a little naive, but it IS sad what the Chinese have done. He also pointed out that among Tibetans there has been little in the way of any strident widespread call for autonomy, and, for a host of practical reasons, he suggested that there is little prospect for a Tibet free of Chinese control.

 

Here's an old interview: frontline

Edited March 16, 2008 by mattp

[sexual_chocolate]

He also pointed out that among Tibetans there has been little in the way of any strident call for autonomy

 

meaning amongst the "commoner" tibetans? that the strident calls for autonomy come from the monk and lama classes?

 

if true, cuba comes to mind. the ones stridently anti-castro are the monied, the ones who lost the mostest. makes sense....

[Fairweather]

That said; I wish the people of Tibet well in their struggle against their communist oppressors.

 

do you wish the native american well in their struggle against the capitalist oppressors?

 

In a sense, I do. They were clearly fucked over even worse than the Tibetans. The only argument I would make is that the morality norms of 1607-1830 were even less evolved than they are today. (An admittedly weak position, I know.) The surviving tribes seem to be making a go of it these past ten or twenty years, but I would not be opposed to a reparations scheme. The (so-called) natives then living in the Americas didn't hold the same notions of private property that their western European conquerors did. There was a clash of civilizations and, frankly, raw power won out. I think its sad that it manifested itself in such an ugly way, but does that mean I'm going to move back to my ancestral home and relinquish my property here? No.

Edited March 16, 2008 by Fairweather

[dmuja]

tibet was a feudal society ruled by an elite "religious" class that enjoyed all priveledge and honor. from my (somewhat limited) understanding, they even had a death penalty: how "Buddhist" is that?

 

Tibet was a multi-cultural and multi-religion society that - like every other society run by humans - had very human problems and occasional conflicts. It is as "Buddhist" as Buddhist gets when translated by "imperfected" humans.

 

The Dalai Lama has conceded many times that Tibet needed modernization and that China actually had contributed some positive aspects to the effort. But at what cost? I think he (DL) used the term "genocide".

 

now i can't argue that the Dalai Lama isn't seemingly a pretty cool cat (the side we get to see?),

 

What you get with most Tibetans I have known is exactly what you see, in general a very honest and straight forward bunch.

 

 

but there are lots of other countries with plights worse than tibet's that get no attention, and i guess it kinda irks me that the west has seemingly deified and idealised this country, and how much do we really know about its history and its relationship to the land (and china)? ...

 

There are any number of places on the web that can point out the atrocities conducted by the Chinese against Tibetans and their culture - it's pretty bad if you want to look - and it's not a zero some game. We do have the ability to point out hypocrisies, inconsistencies, when and wherever they become obvious and right now (thanks to some brave people in Tibet) they have. Just because its happening else where is no excuse for tolerating it or even condoning it in Tibet. And just BECAUSE the Tibetans are largely non-violent it (the oppression and loss of theor culture) has been a long and painfully drawn out process. The younger generation is more "western" influenced now and they are less into religion, non-violent philosophy, and following the example of the west, they are more practical minded.

 

I don't "idealize" the Tibetans or the situation there, but what has happened to them is grossly unfair and injust. I will not allow myself to become to cynical about these things either though.

 

[mattp]

meaning amongst the "commoner" tibetans? that the strident calls for autonomy come from the monk and lama classes?

 

Yes, that is what I heard him to say. I've changed my post above to try to correct the apparent misstatement you note. He spoke about how, in his travels and interviews, he found NOBODY in Tibet who wanted to wage a resistance movement or who thought there was any real prospect of success in such an effort. In a nutshell, he said, the Chinese say they aren't leaving, the Tibetans seem resigned to this, and the Dalai Lama isn't even calling for China to leave.

 

This doesn't make it right in some ultimate moral sense, but the fact is that the whole idea is largely fueled by Western yuppies who drive volvo's and imagine Tibet as the mystical kingdom featured in the film Shangri La. Why aren't we campaigning over East Timor? Or ... And as Sovereign points out: you probably see as many free tibet bumper stickers in Seattle as you do free Iraq. What's up with that?