tibet

[miriam_e]

There is a small window of opportunity to help stop the crisis in Tibet. Kevin Rudd (Australia's new prime minister) is visiting China soon to speak with their president and prime minister. Kevin Rudd speaks Chinese and China is Australia's biggest trading partner, and China is seeking validation as a part of the international community just now. This puts us in a special position to influence the bloodshed in Tibet.

It takes just a few seconds to add your voice to the around 25,000 people (in just a single day!!!) who've already signed this petition that Kevin Rudd will receive before he visits China:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/StandUpForTibet

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And here is an international one that has got more than half a million signatures in just 48 hours!
http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/

Comments

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. :)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

No worries. :)

You might also be interested in a fascinating recent talk about some of the difficulties in Tibet, from a language perspective. The problems are harder to solve than you might expect, and I don't mean those of violence, but culture, alienation, learning, and so on. I can't see an easy solution even if we have immediate, total peace. There will be the disruption (partly good, partly bad) that always results when cultures collide.
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/current/audioonly/lin_20080322.mp3

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. I'll look at it.

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

Been there and signed the international petition. Thanks for the info.

Being my usual disagreeable self, I might want to suggest we be careful what we wish for.

This is a theocracy we're talking about, but I don't see any history of hordes of Tibetans fleeing oppression under the iron boot of the Dalai Lama.

I did get who invaded who here.


So even if the Dalai Lama turns out to be a bad guy i's not rocket science to figure out that the Chinese government are worse guys, at least for now and the forseeable future.

So having just said all that, maybe we should keep an eye open for other people saying bad stuff about the Dalai Lama and that system of government. China didn't become everybody's trading parther without some money being slipped to our politicians. So we haven't just got random people like me with opinions, we've got interests.

Sure, the lesser of two evils is still evil, but it's still lesser. "Better " and "worse" arer ideas that seldom occrur to ideologues and people under the influence of powerful interests.

I think a little suspicion all around is sound. While I'm certainly attracted to restoring the government of Tibet to Tibetans and resisting Chinese hegemony extending throughout Asia, I'm content to express my support something that's merely the better alternative, just so long as it isn't the worse alternative.

Didn't I tell you I was going to be disagreeable? I didn't need to tell you I was going to be long-winded.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Can't remember where, but some time ago I read a short piece about a struggle of Tibetan people against the religious rule. It of a time in the past when the religious leaders were apparently not the benign ones they are now. Leaving aside the fact that Buddhism is not actually supposed to be a religion, your point about the danger of any theocracy is valid. It is unfortunate that people have turned nice Buddhist philosophy into a religion. Siddhartha would be so very disappointed.