Voices against an Olympic boycott...

Two people I respect immensely, Fareed Zakaria and HH the Dalai Lama, on reasons NOT to boycott the Beijing Olympic games -- let me know what you think? Zakaria may be right that a boycott of the opening ceremonies, and not the Games overall, would be more effective. Others have pointed out this is unfair to the athletes, that punishing them does nothing constructive. I say Yes and No to that -- athletes are grossly over-paid, over-worshipped and over-congratulated in our society, so why do they need a multi-billion dollar celebrations of their accomplishments? It's the same way I feel about the Oscars, a bunch of overblown, self-congratulatory bullshit. There will just be more doping and corruption scandals anyways, so don't tell me it's about harmony between nations. Why don't teachers get an Olympics, people who actually help the world and deserve a parade? Sure, these world-class athletes have talent, dedication and drive, working on their craft; but so do all my friends in the arts, and for them, perfecting their craft is reward in itself. I went to one of the best universities on the planet, and none of my professors are being celebrated for their contributions to humanity. Why can't you just be an amazing long-jumper and go quietly about your business, why bring super duper ego into it?
Anyways, I am deeply contemplating what FZ and HHDL have to say, regarding my position about boycotting, so read the whole articles from the website, what do you think?

Don’t Feed China’s Nationalism
Public humiliation does not work nearly as well on the regime in Beijing as private pressure. Fareed Zakaria
“At first glance, China's recent crackdown in Tibet looks like a familiar storyline: a dictatorship represses its people. And of course that's part of the reality—as it often is in China. But on this issue, the communist regime is not in opposition to its people. The vast majority of Chinese have little sympathy for the Tibetan cause. To the extent that we can gauge public opinion in China and among its diaspora, ordinary Chinese are, if anything, critical of the Beijing government for being too easy on the Tibetans. The real struggle here is between a nationalist majority and an ethnic and religious minority looking to secure its rights.

In these circumstances, a boycott of the Olympics would have precisely the opposite effect that is intended. The regime in Beijing would become only more defensive and stubborn. The Chinese people would rally around the flag and see the West as trying to humiliate China in its first international moment of glory. (There are many suspicions that the United States cannot abide the prospect of a rising China.) For most Chinese, the Games are about the world's giving China respect, rather than bolstering the Communist Party's legitimacy…”


SEATTLE — The Dalai Lama said yesterday that he did not support a boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Asked on NBC "Nightly News" whether he wanted the world to boycott the Olympics this summer, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader replied, "No." When the network asked whether he wanted the leaders of the U.S. and other nations to boycott the opening ceremony in support of Tibet and as a statement against China's recent crackdown there, the Dalai Lama replied, "That's up to them."

"It is very important to make clear, not only just the Tibet case, but in China proper" also, he said, adding that the human-rights situation in China is "poor ... very poor." Asked what his message to China was, he said: "My main point is: We are not against you. And I'm not seeking separation."

Japanese temple refuses to host Olympic torch
Speculation is monks are sympathizing with protesters over Tibet situation
updated 1:06 a.m. ET April 18, 2008


Olympic torch update:

"TOKYO - A major Japanese Buddhist temple withdrew Friday from a plan to host the Beijing Olympics torch relay, citing safety concerns and sympathy among its monks and worshippers for Tibetan protesters facing a Chinese crackdown… An official at the temple’s secretariat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the temple and its worshippers were also concerned about the treatment of fellow Buddhists in Tibet.

'There have been a lot of talk about the Tibet issue and the public opinion is heightening,” she said. “We are Buddhists just like them. We hear words of concern from many people every day.'"

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/24192903/

HUGE delay in blogging, sorry

I have been posting notes pretty steadily the last few months on Facebook and MySpace, but have been totally remiss in laying them out here, on my public blog. So they are a bit out of order, but I have labeled each one with its original composition date. Enjoy!

Please help Tibet today!

(from 10 March 2008)

http://www.march10.org/

One World, One Dream: Free Tibet

March 10th 2008, marks the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising when tens of thousands of Tibetans rose up against China's illegal invasion and occupation of their country. Despite China's best attempts to destroy the Tibetan spirit, Tibetan resistance has continued for nearly half a century inside Tibet and in exile communities worldwide.

This year, with all eyes focused on the Olympics in China, Tibetans and supporters worldwide are protesting the Chinese government's use of the Olympics as a political tool to legitimize its illegal occupation of Tibet.

Join the Global Uprising for Tibet! Help us draw attention to the worsening human rights situation inside Tibet. Help us use the Olympics spotlight to shame and embarrass the Chinese government and show them that until Tibet is free, China will never be never be accepted as a leader on the world stage.

TIBET WILL BE FREE

Bring the sexy and the whisky, but leave the democracy!

(from 19 Feb. 2008)

one of my favorite quotes...
April 21, 2003, Newsweek     "How to Wage the Peace" By Fareed Zakaria

As American armies were sweeping through Iraq last week, the 101st Airborne Division went into the city of Najaf in the south, the heartland of Shiite Islam. A journalist from The New York Times stopped a waving bystander and asked him what he hoped the Americans would bring to Iraq. The man shouted out four words, one louder than the other. "Democracy," he cried. "Whisky. And sexy." Who says the American Dream has lost its appeal?

HH the Dalai Lama and nonviolence

(from March 28)

The Dalai Lama threatened Tuesday to step down as leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile if violence committed by Tibetans in his homeland spirals out of control.

Demonstrations in Tibet turned increasingly violent last week, and the Dalai Lama, speaking to reporters, urged his countrymen to show restraint.

He said that “if things become out of control” his “only option is to completely resign.” While much of the violence in Tibet has been directed against protesters, there have also been reports of Tibetan demonstrators attacking shops and burning cars.

Later, one of his top aides clarified the Dalai Lama’s comments. “If the Tibetans were to choose the path of violence he would have to resign because he is completely committed to nonviolence,” Tenzin Takhla said. “He would resign as the political leader and head of state, but not as the Dalai Lama. He will always be the Dalai Lama.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23686441

What you can do to help Tibet

(from March 22 2008)

Tibet update: from ICT president John Ackley;
“Dear Friend,
In the past 20 years, I have never had such an exhausting, heartbreaking, and exciting week. Exciting because the Tibet issue is exactly where it should be -- on the front pages of our newspapers and high on the agendas of politicians and human rights organizations everywhere. Heartbreaking because Tibetans have taken huge risks to make their voices heard and are experiencing the worst repression and crackdown since the earliest days of the Chinese occupation.

I am sure you have followed events in Tibet this week and have been equally affected. Since my last update, new demonstrations continue to happen daily in towns and villages across eastern Tibet. Please visit http://www.savetibet.org/ to see a map showing where demonstrations have occurred. You will also find in-depth updates that we are posting daily.

As of today, all tourists have been pressured to leave Lhasa and the only Western journalist there had to leave. Many journalists in Eastern Tibet were forced to leave as well. CNN has video of their reporters being forced to turn back on their way to the site of a Tibetan demonstration.

China now has an even freer hand to conduct house-to-house searches and arrests without witnesses. Despite all of this, Tibetans continue to send out images, call relatives, and even talk to reporters. Even these small communications are extremely dangerous and punishable by years in prison.

ICT is known by Tibetans as an organization they know will hear them and make their voice heard. We have received important calls from people in Tibet putting their faith in us and we have not let them down. We have been working overtime to expose the reality of this situation to the international media. And we also received calls filled with anguish. A Tibetan friend of mine received a call from a relative in Tibet so he could say “goodbye” as he expected to be arrested soon.

ICT’s staff have been working around the clock and around the world since last week to maximize this opportunity for the Tibetan people. Already this week, our work with your support has resulted in several extraordinary international efforts:

- U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is visiting Dharamsala today with a delegation of 10 members of Congress to meet with the Dalai Lama in a great show of support from the US government. Accompanied by ICT staff, she has spoken out, harshly condemning China’s recent actions and saying, "We insist the world know what the truth is inside Tibet."
- Two ICT staff traveled to Beijing for three days at the beginning of the week to meet with officials and diplomats at embassies there, and to brief them on the unrest and demonstrations in Tibet.

Soon we will send you detailed information about our upcoming rally in San Francisco on April 8, the day before the Olympic Torch passes through city. In the meantime, please visit http://www.racefortibet.org/ to learn more. In the weeks and months ahead, it is essential we continue to stand together and do everything we can for those inside Tibet risking their lives by peacefully demonstrating.

I hope I can also call on you to take more targeted actions as events unfold in the weeks ahead. We are now gathering names of those arrested in Tibet. Once we have confirmed names, we will begin doing action alerts to demand humane treatment and releases. We know that these actions can often improve conditions and reduce torture.

If you live in the United States, there are two actions you can take today:

1. Call on President Bush not to attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in August. From Steven Spielberg to parlimentarians, many leaders are rethinking their involvement. We call on our leaders to stay away from the opening ceremonies in the wake of the bloody and continuing crackdown in Tibet. You may reach the U.S. President at 202-456-1111 or by email at comments@whitehouse.gov.

2. Urge your Congressional representatives to insist China not take the Olympic torch through Tibet in mid-June. ICT fears on humanitarian grounds that taking the torch through Lhasa will be seen as a provocation to Tibetans and lead to more unrest, arrests and repression. Please click here to find your legislators.

If you can, please make a donation to support ICT’s response during this critical time so we will continue to have the emergency resources we need to react quickly and effectively.”

Protests and Petitions CAN make a difference in Tibet!

(from 09 Apr 2008)

Protests and Petitions CAN make a difference in Tibet! Updates:

I. "Paris protests force cancellation of torch relay:
Security officials call off final section after huge pro-Tibet demonstrations.

PARIS - Paris’ Olympic torch relay descended into chaos Monday, with protesters scaling the Eiffel Tower, grabbing for the flame and forcing security officials to repeatedly snuff out the torch and transport it by bus past demonstrators yelling "Free Tibet!" The relentless anti-Chinese demonstrations ignited across the capital with unexpected power and ingenuity, foiling 3,000 police officers deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and even inline skates. Chinese organizers finally gave up on the relay, canceling the last third of what China had hoped would be a joyous jog by torch-bearing VIPs past some of Paris’ most famous landmarks…"

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/23978408/

II. - Obama urges Bush to consider Beijing boycott
Candidate falls short of Clinton position, but says keep option 'on the table'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24039876

- Torch kept from demonstrators, rushed away
Original route shortened; flame taken to airplane, skips closing ceremony
Gere joins Olympic Torch protests
April 9: At a protest in San Francisco, actor Richard Gere says he believes China will one day regret their actions toward Tibet.
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/24024416/
 
III. from John Ackerly, President of International Campaign for Tibet:

"Nearly everyday a new story of brutality in Tibet surfaces as the Tibetan people of Tibet stand up for their rights. Chinese soldiers and police continue to arrest, interrogate and torture Tibetans, including Buddhist monks and nuns. We know just last week eight Tibetans were killed in eastern Tibet after police fired into a crowd of several hundreds monks and laypeople protesting the "patriotic education" by the Chinese government as they visit Buddhist monasteries and demand monks to denounce the Dalai Lama. We are asking President Bush to take a stand for the Tibetan people and not attend the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics.

For more than 50 years the Tibetans have suffered at the hands of the Chinese government. Today a climate of fear pervades Tibet. As the Tibetans stand up to China, the Chinese authorities have stepped of their campaign demanding the Tibetans denounce the Dalai Lama leading to increased resentment creating a viscous cycle. It’s time the violence and intimidations tactics stop. The Chinese government must resolve this conflict peacefully and begins a dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
Your voice is essential. We must keep the pressure on world leaders and ensure we know the truth inside Tibet. Tourists have been asked to leave. Journalists have been forced out of Tibet leaving China without witnesses to their strong-armed and deadly tactics."

IV. What YOU can do:

- if the Olympic torch is coming to your city, go down and join the protests.
Here is a map and itinerary of its progress: http://torchrelay.beijing2008.cn/en/journey/map

- many cities are having pro-Tibet or anti-China rallies on their own. Find yours and join in.

- Go to the ICT website http://www.savetibet.org/ and click on Take Action!
You can donate your time or money, and sign a petition to your national leader.
Protests and Petitions CAN make a difference in Tibet!

BOYCOTT THE 2008 OLYMPICS!!!

(from 18 Mar 2008)

BOYCOTT THE 2008 OLYMPICS!!!

When China was awarded the 2008 Olympics in the early part of our new century, I was very skeptical. As a long-time advocate for Tibetan freedom and close watcher of Chinese policy towards the ethnic minorities within its border, I did not feel China should be rewarded for bad behavior. And please understand when I say ’China,’ I mean the Communist oligarchy currently ruling the nation, NOT individuals of Chinese nationality or origin.

Their human rights abuses, throughout the 20th century but especially since the ’Cultural Revolution’ of the 60s, is utterly reprehensible. They have systematically oppressed freedoms of religion, speech, privacy, and security while also maintaining ugly misogynism and xenophobias. As you may know, China illegally invaded, occupied and brutalized the sovereign nation of Tibet in the 1950s, claiming that Tibet had always been part of China proper and it was only proper to return it to the "Motherland." They argue the same about Taiwan, Manchuria, and Mongolia -- just look at the disgusting symbolism in the Chinese flag. The one large star represents mainland China, and the small stars around it articulate their ideology about bringing back the lost sheep to the fold, as it were.

However, this is a gross misrepresentation of historical fact. Ethnically and linguistically, Tibet is far more connected to India and the Subcontinent than to China and eastern Asia. The Tibetan language is a separate branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages and the alphabet directly derives from the Sanskrit of India. Tibet for most of its history has been sovereign and, indeed, it once ruled China!!!

My friends in the Tibet advocacy community countered me, that modernizing for the Olympics would force China to clean up its act, and it would force the attention of the world on China’s human rights abuses, which it levels against its own people. Open religious worship is restricted and peaceful movements like Falun Gong are demonized. I was very skeptical indeed, but now I am starting to think my friends are right.

Sure, I have no love for the Chinese government and their policies -- I was proud to march on both the Chinese Embassy and the World Bank in Washington, DC during International Tibet Day, chanting "Shame, shame - China, Shame!" along with Richard Gere and other members of ICT -- but the onus is on the Chinese people themselves to wade through the bullshit force-fed to them by the government-controlled media. As free as the capitalist sector of China might be becoming, there is still a disgusting amount of state censorship of the media; radio, TV, newspapers, magazine and even the Internet (as the recent fiascos with Google and Yahoo have shown). The line fed to the average Chinese citizen is that Tibetans gleefully welcomed the People’s Liberation Army so their country could be "reformed."

At my college, there were many Chinese students studying in the Conservatory, some of whom had been in the West before, while others had not been out of their home country prior to that. I had an Indian composition professor who was shocked at the ignorance of these students, who would parrot the Chinese policy on Tibet, totally ignorant of the genocide, torture, murder, imprisonment, oppression and flat-out evil perpetrated by their own government. But if the government controls all your information, how are you to know differently?

Why, I ask over and over again, does the US need to "liberate" Kuwait (an oil-rich nation) when Saddam Hussein breathed on it funny in 1991, but we totally ignore the fact that millions of people have been murdered (ONE-THIRD of the Tibetan population!!!) and a sovereign country has been occupied for 50 years?!?! Tibet was never a perfect country and HH the Dalai Lama himself always maintained that the feudal system of Tibet prior to 1950 was deeply flawed and in need of reform. But no country or people deserve that. I am all for Socialism and Marxism, but the branch of Maoist-Communism practiced in China is truly evil to its core.

 So I ask you to boycott in whatever way you can, the 2008 Beijing Olympics. If not for Tibet, than for the Chinese support of the murderous regime of Burma (which I refuse to call Myanmar), of for their refusal to provide aid in Darfur. Or for human rights abuses in East Turkestan. The list goes on... One of the main reasons Beijing was awarded the Olympics was because they promised to improve their human rights record. They have not.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/17/2191400.htm?section=sport
http://www.boycott2008olympics.org/
http://boycott2008games.blogspot.com/