and so i do not then get your points, because a lot of folks of all sorts defined however you would live in the geography known as tibet
Yes, a lot of people have previously dictated how residents of Tibet should live but the current rulers seem have caused an inordinate amount of death, suffering and misery to the residents of that part of the world.
there are instigators against the status quo
there are law enforcement actions
what was before was awful cult-serfdom
good for the few
what is now is better for the many
and that is all there is to it
My replies to these comments:
<there are instigators against the status quo>
I’m sure you won’t disagree with the fact that there are certainly some “status quos” that need to be instigated against. Two examples - Nelson Mandela in S. Africa and Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. In the opinion of many good, honorable people around the world (without nefarious political agendas), Tibet belongs in this group as well.
<what is now is better for the many>
In some ways they might be and in some ways they might not be. However, the Tibetans themselves (working within the realities of the current political & geographic realities) should be the ones who determine what is best for them.
<what was before was awful cult-serfdom, good for the few>
The cult-serfdom you refer to certainly was a awful system for the average Tibetan to live under.
Here’s a comment I found on about.com that best sums up my response:
“Among what pockets of Marxism exist in the West’s far Left is a popular notion that China was correct to invade Tibet and that the Tibetans are better off for it; .......it is a fact that before 1950, Tibet’s was a feudalist society in which most people were kept in the status of serfs. Many westerners have romantic notions of old Tibet as a place where everyone was peaceful and happy, when in reality there was the same sectarian enmity, corruption, and exploitation of the weak by the strong one finds just about everywhere else. China apologists go off the rails, however, when they ignore the atrocities and oppression to which Tibetans are subjected by the government of China. Two wrongs do not make a right. Tibet could have been reformed without mass slaughter”.
and should there be a discussion about "was it worth it" about something that has happened already, then that would engender other questions, none of which we are likely to have answers for, as in, for example, "is it worth it to allow the self-exiles to return and do anything they may want to do
No, but as I said above, working within the realities of the current political & geographic situation, the oppression, torture, excessive imprisonment, re-education, cultural destruction and other harsh elements of the communist modus operandi should be altered. As to what the self-exiles say they want to do, their leader says:
"A Tibetan should be a citizen of the People's Republic of China. I mean, a happy citizen of the People's Republic of China. I always feel remaining separate, weak, poor. Instead of that, join thousands of millions of people. Prosperity, dignity. Much better." (Dalai Lama, Seattle,4/13/08)
"We are willing to be part of the People's Republic of China," the Dalai Lama told the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, "to have it govern and guarantee to preserve our Tibetan
culture, spirituality and environment." (Dalai Lama, South China Morning Post, 2005)
whatever the doubtful merit of their tenuous claim? i.e is anything advocated once by britain and then the cia good for the folks of tibet?"
You prefer to not talk about things in Tibet that have happened already so with the British being there in 1904 and the CIA 30+ years ago, we’ll skip this.
However, of more more recent vintage is this - In Tibet, where Zhang Qingli, the Tibet Party Secretary was sent there two years [in 2006] ago by President Hu Jintao, he declared on his arrival a “fight to the death struggle” against the Dalai Lama.
I’m sure whatever Zhang inflicts on the Tibetans will be a hell of a lot worse than what Britain or the CIA ever would have.
"should the precedent be set, however set, then where else might the act be applied to? globally? why not the 50 states of USA, Gaza, Israel, wherever else? chosen by whom? hhollywood flakes? when 80% of China's water comes from Tibet? Be real."
You lost me there.
"what are the dalai lama's global advocates doing about the invasion of iraq? oh, nothing. no questions about "is it worth it?" - how unusual. ignore them, for are they not h.y.p.o.c.r.i.t.e.s?"
Desmond Tutu is a global advocate for Tibet. On Iraq he says:
Former archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel peace prize winner Desmond Tutu says the "immoral" war in Iraq has left the world a much more unsafe place. Desmond Tutu urged US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to admit they had made a mistake. The archbishop also demanded to know whether it had been right to attack Iraq in defiance of international law. Archbishop Tutu's severest criticism of the war yet came in a lecture to the Prison Reform Trust in London. (BBC, 2/16/04)
A hypocrite - I don’t think so.
This Hollywood flake has voiced his opposition to Iraq as well:
Actor Richard Gere has spoken out in strong opposition to President George W. Bush's policy toward Iraq, saying at the 53rd Berlin Film Festival that the administration's "plans for war are a bizarre bad dream." (WorldNetDaily, 2/10/2003)
Back to Desmond Tutu - listen now to what he says about Tibet:
I wish to express my solidarity with the people of Tibet during this critical time in their history. To my dear friend His Holiness the Dalai Lama, let me say: I stand with you. You define non-violence and compassion and goodness. I was in an Easter retreat when the recent tragic events unfolded in Tibet. I learned that China has stated you caused violence. Clearly China does not know you, but they should. I call on China's government to know His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as so many have come to know, during these long decades years in exile. Listen to His Holiness' pleas for restraint and calm and no further violence against this civilian population of monastics and lay people............Killing, imprisonment and torture are not a sport: the innocents must be released and given free and fair trials.............Finally, China must stop naming, blaming and verbally abusing one whose life has been devoted to non violence, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace laureate. (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Washington Post, 3/25/08)
And another of Tibet’s global activists, Vaclav Havel on Tibet:
The reaction of the Chinese authorities to the Tibetan protests evokes echoes of the totalitarian practices that many of us remember from the days before communism in Central and Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989: harsh censorship of the domestic media, blackouts of reporting by foreign media from China, refusal of visas to foreign journalists, and blaming the unrest on the "Dalai Lama's conspiratorial clique" and other unspecified dark forces supposedly manipulated from abroad. Indeed, the language used by some Chinese government representatives and the official Chinese media is a reminder of the worst of times during the Stalinist and Maoist eras................. Even as we write, it is clear that China's rulers are trying to reassure the world that peace, quiet, and "harmony" have again prevailed in Tibet. We all know this kind of peace from what has happened in the past in Burma, Cuba, Belarus and a few other countries - it is called the peace of the graveyard. (Vaclav Havel, 3/20/08)
And when it comes to communism, Havel knows of what he speaks.
TD |
