I love love love the Olympics. The Olympic Games epitomize humankind’s best and highest physical achievement, our ability to live in peace with other countries, to ignore race and to play fair, if only for a time. Sitius, altius, fortius indeed!
Historically, because the International Olympic Committee has avoided entanglement in world politics, the Olympics have had a larger number of team participants than there are UN-recognized countries. Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Taiwan have been allowed to send teams to the Games despite their status as possessions of other nations. Even during the Cold War, athletic contests leading up to the Olympics took place behind the Iron Curtain. Talk to any Olympic athlete. They’ve been places that were off-limits to the rest of us. International sport transcends politics. And so it should.
This month the International Olympic Committee betrayed egalitarian tradition and denied the nation of Tibet a place at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Tibet, illegally-occupied by China since 1949, will not be allowed to field an Olympic team because China claims ownership of their land and their people. To add insult, China has plans to take the Olympic torch to the top of Mt. Everest, a mountain that rightfully belongs to Tibet and Nepal, to solidify its “ownership” of Tibet in the eyes of the world. China has already stepped up its presence at Everest, an easily identifiable landmark to Westerners, in anticipation of the propaganda campaign to come.
China should never have been chosen to host the Olympics in the first place. Countries with a history of egregious human rights violations have traditionally been disqualified as potential Olympic hosts. China bullshitted the IOC with progress and promises. We’re different now! Look how far we’ve come! And for whatever reason, monetary or political gain, good television potential, or maybe just plain old ignorance, the IOC bought the lie. And now they’ve become complicitous in Tibet’s oppression.
So when you see that beautiful Olympic torch, that symbol of good fellowship and unity, carried up Mt. Everest in May by the Chinese, remember that the Tibetan people have been denied their land, their identity, their religious and cultural practices, and a place at the Beijing games. You’ll have to count on memory, because you won’t see any protests during the climb. China has already warned foreigners about engaging in activities concerning the sovereignty and unity of China. Tibetans and Chinese won’t dare make a public spectacle; they know they’ll be shot on sight. Even now, four American citizens are being detained by the Chinese government for unfurling a banner calling for Tibet’s independence during a recent torch relay assessment.
I’m sure the worldwide media will honor the Chinese request for silence and make nary a peep about human rights violations in Tibet and elsewhere. And it’s going to make me sick sick sick.
The Tibetans are an ethnic minority inside China that consist of somewhere between 5-6 million people that speak Tibetan instead of Chinese. They are far from being the only ethnic minority in China, too.
Marie, what makes you think that China, a country with 5 times the population of the US, should be forced to give up about 1/5 of its national territory to found a new nation that would be supported militarily and economically mainly by Britain and the US? What makes you think that the Chinese should be forced by traditional occupiers and oppressors of their country to renounce part of its national territory?
The truth is, that the Chinese, Tibetans and many other ethnic groups live quite entangled together in Western regions of China. It is utterly reactionary to demand that a multinational region of China should be dismantled and incorporated into what? It would have to then become a satellite nation with a huge territory and tiny population controlled and run by the Anglo nations, would it not?
FYI, Marie, it was the British who took over Tibet and forced out their backward feudal rulers from power at the beginning of the 20th century, a time the British were forcing opium onto the population of China, and occupying part of that country alongside the French and Portuguese. The Chinese protested and claimed the region to be part of China. Why should it not be just that?
In India, another huge area occupied by the British, not every ethnic group living there has a nation that they claim, so why should Tibet be so different then in the eyes of Westerners? The people in the US who propagandize around this are merely supporting backward ideology developed in the ’50s to prepare the US public for the government to possibly nuke China. So why would any liberal today still be spouting this CIA orchestrated nonsense that demands independence for Tibet?
Here in Colorado Springs, do you really think that we should be denouncing the Chinese? I think it is sad that you are doing so, Marie, since it is merely part of a reactionary campaign in the US to blame China for everything. In short, it is simply reactionary nationalist rhetoric and not much else, to jump on board this bandwagon.
hello,
well said, tony logan.
hello marie, you are well intentioned but misguided i am afraid,
do you happen to know that there are actually TWO tibets ?
one is the tibet proper which had been under china’s sovereinty even before the whitemen’s brutal descence upon north armeria.
the brits recognised chinese soverienty even when they took a big chunk off tibet in 1903
http://www.workers.org/ww/tibet1204.html
the brits “bequeathed” their enormous booty to the indians when they left, thats the 2nd tibet, the tibet that no anglos wanna talk about, currenlty known as india’s north east.
the question is, why do the anglos whine about a modern railway into tibet
http://www.tew.org/development/rail.seminar.html
but the world’s longest hunger strike against state tyranny in the other tibet gets not even a peep from the humanrights champions…
http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-gatade171006.htm
funny my post broke into two parts !
Well, fellas, I do understand that borders between countries change over time. Even if China can rightfully claim “ownership” of Tibet, a claim millions of Tibetans would dispute, the suppression of Tibetan culture, tradition, and religious autonomy is inexcusable.
Let’s not pretend that the Chinese government is a warrior for human rights.
Nobody is ‘pretending that China is a warrior for human rights’, Marie. But we are not engaging in a propaganda campaign that targets another country for victimization by the US government either.
This whole campaign in the US about supposedly liberating Tibet from China is just that. Why would you, a person desiring an end to the many wars the US is currently engaging in, want to participate in making propaganda that could well be used to justify a future US war against China?
In fact, I think all this propaganda against China is even quite racist. ‘Damn Chinese!’
The ‘Free Tibet’ campaign that posits that Tibet is not legitimately part of Chinese territory merely gives humanitarian and liberal/Left guise to what is a constant US media campaign to project that China is a danger to the US. This campaign is a long standing one and is quite racist. Who wouldn’t be scared of ‘the hordes’ of evil Chinese, Marie?
**Nobody is ‘pretending that China is a warrior for human rights’, Marie.
tony logan**
hello tony, you beat me to it.
hello marie, china has many problems, including quite serious humanrights ones , nobody is claiming it as a paradise on earth.
but if humanrights is the issue here, why is china being singled out for spotlight by the msm 24×7, while some worse offenders get away scot free ? for example, why no mass campaign against the oppressor of the acehnese, west papuans etc. ?
“In fact, the State Department this week was putting out urgent queries around Washington that make it sound as if they are planning to openly aid Kopassus, the most notoriously sadistic army unit, and, historically, the most heavily US-trained one”
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/12/imposed-hunger-in-gaza-the-army-in-indonesia/
more to the point,
if china’s tibet proper is considered unacceptable
http://tinyurl.com/2ps3hu
then where’s the outcry over the OTHER tibet, the one no yanks wanna talk about ?
http://tinyurl.com/267dfq
and if its about legitimacy
why is chinese sovereinty over tibet which dates back to the days of the manchus, being constantly challenged, while the other tibet, the one robbed by the brits in 1903, where a bloody war of oppression has been going on since then, is accepted as a part of india matter of factly ?
an italian diplomat once wondered, “there are 1001 separatist movements in the world, why tibet ” ?
why indeed , especially when china’s tibet is the only minority region in the world that is exempted from tax, subsidised fully in education and economy, exempted from national policies like the one child rule [for the hans only] — some “genocide” eh ?
as i said, marie, you are well intentioned,
progressives like you are aware of the many deeds and bushits of the empire, such as the iraq scam. but when it comes to tibet, most yanks, whether its left, right or centre, have succumbed to the brainwashing of uncle sham.
I am shocked to see you two fellas “Beating the wrong bush”.
Tibet was occupied by a military force, infrastructure destroyed and a functioning goverment exhiled. Since 1949.
China should not host the olympics. Period. They treat their own people like dogs, torture of people that have opened their mouth on small petty subjects.
The legitimacy of a free Tibet Nation with it´s own Government is actually not being challenged by anyone, it´s being denied by the Chinese, and China is leveraging it´s economic power to keep it that way.
I can´t see where the article goes wrong, good research. Well written.
Thank you, Stingweed.
It’s interesting that neither Tony nor Denk addresses the suppression of Tibetan culture and the exile of the Dali Lama and other leaders. They don’t mention the millions of Tibetans who have been killed or been forced to flee their homeland to escape persecution. They simply assert and re-assert that China has a right to be there, and to question is to be a racist and a war-provoker.
If the same thing was happening in Mexico I imagine Tony would be singing a different tune. Yes, Tony?
**
stingweed–
i can´t see where the article goes wrong, good research**
seems you can differentiate between research and bushit,
well,
THIS is research….
“This is not rocket science. It is indisputable that the US arose from the mother of all genocides and ethnic cleansings — that perpetrated against the native peoples of the New World. The European settlers knew well that territory could be acquired through barbarity. The next great genocide was the enslavement of Africans to enrich the European masters. The expansion rolled southward and militarily annexed much of Mexico’s landmass. It was naked imperialism as revealed by the Monroe Doctrine; the Americas were slated to be the US’ unchallenged hemisphere of influence. With the increase in power, the insatiable lust for greater power and wealth was loosened. Since the end of WWII the US has been engaged in near perpetual war, as documented by William Blum in Rogue Nation. ”
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May2004/Petersen0524.htm
while this is , er, bushit
“marie sez
They don’t mention the millions of Tibetans who have been killed or been forced to flee their homeland to escape persecution”
what kind of “research” is this, marie is just parroting one of the greatest bushit perpetrated by uncle sham, hence proving my point that she is just as brainwashed as the rest of yanks.
the above hoax has long been debunked by serious researchers including noted professor tom grunfeld [a yank, no less]
http://rwor.org/a/firstvol/tibet/mao4.htm
now THIS is research,
while yours sound more like incoherent rants, stingweed
Denk, I read the articles you provided. First, I do NOT disagree in the slightest that the Americas were settled by naked imperialism. All world borders have changed over human history because of imperialism and war. But unless we go back to Eden, much of the current world order can’t be changed.
The article on Mao and Tibet was an interesting one. I do know that untruths perpetuated over time have a way of becoming undisputed truth. I do not want to be one of the deceived, spouting the rhetoric I’ve unknowingly digested.
I thank you for providing oppositional discussion and links to back it up. I will research the Tibetan thing more and, if I find that I’ve been misled, I will remove myself from the roster of Team Tibet!
Stay tuned and thanks for participating. To me interesting discussion makes for a good blog!
For one thing, Marie, ‘millions’ of Tibetans have not been killed off by the Chinese as you posit. I think that using inflated figures of casualties that come from groups with an anti-Chinese agenda inside the European countries and the US is the real racism here.
There are many intellectuals inside the traditional imperialist powers that never help publicize how many Chinese were killed off by Europeans when they tried to dismember the country. They never publicize the efforts at genocide of their own cultures against the Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Bengalis. Instead, they become highly adept at inflating figures to use against their own government’s perceived enemies and challengers, as in this case China. Then they become great human rights advocates all of a sudden! Sad.
The danger is simply that so many good hearted Western Libertarians and liberals often want to make themselves generals in the US army. They are always on some campaign or other to intervene to save somebody, whether it be Albanians, Darfurians, or Tibetans. And they want to call out the liberal troops, so to speak. Usually to be a platoon in NATO, etc.
True, they cannot mobilize the liberal troops that well to oppose their own government’s activities, so they cruise around looking for some ‘humanitarian’ campaign that can be IN with the home powers in D.C. or London. ‘Tibet’ fits that bill perfectly.
Marie, you ask why I do not address the question of Chinese oppression of Tibet culture? It is simply because as an American citizen I am too damn busy opposing my own society’s crimes to run around bleating about the crimes of a people that the US elites would hardly blink an eye over nuking.
Denk, getting warm under the collar?
We are talking about Tibet that was and still is occupied by communist China, not alien invasions or some other far fetched stories.
And yes there might have been other forced occupations in history, but we are still trying to discuss the occupation of Tibet by communist China in 1949.
Thousands of cultural tempels, scriptures etc.. have been destroyed by the Chinese.
Your comment shows me that you actually have nothing against Marie´s article or comments, you even disrespect me, Marie and the readers by using foul language with typo´s.
You are welcome to research using Google and reading up on Tibet, it´s history, and rich culture that does not have Chinese elements, it´s own language etc..
And it is not a hoax that Tibetians have and are being killed, September 30th 2007 a 17 year old nun was killed while fleeing Tibet, under eyewitness acounts. A group of 70 woman and children.
The Tibet issue is not a U.S thing, France, Germany, England, Italy etc.. all have people helping out.
Stingweed, just FYI, China is no longer a ‘communist country’ at all. But you thinking that it still is kind of brings up the historical beginnings of this Lets Take Tibet back away from China campaign. It was begun as part of the propaganda effort of our anti-communism Cold War, where the US spent hundreds of billions of dollars in an arms race against Russia and China.
Hi Tony,
I cannot take back Tibet from China, I´m not Tibetian! I just think that a oppressive regime like China should not host a festival of Sport and the connotations connected to sport.
I still think you are on the wrong track here Tony, you are so focused on your own Goverment hoodwinking you, that in my opinion you´ve missed the plot! (Not meant to insult)
The “Peoples republic of China” is run by a single party system since 1949. Now guess what: It´s the communist party of China!
And the constitution guarantees that the communist party stays in Goverment.
I still think Marie has made a real good effort of informing about China and Tibet.
Tony never met a socialist he didn’t like……
Good grief, You Guys. China is not a socialist or communist country any more. I thought that was rather obvious to everybody by now?
marie,
thats good of you, all i ask is an open mind.
you might discover that a lot of matters arent what “they” made it out to be,
and dont forget, uncle sham is a proven serial liar,
http://tinyurl.com/cyptm
this is just for starter….
**The Tibet issue is not a U.S thing, France, Germany, England, italy etc.. all have people helping out.
stingwee
**
surprises surprise, the usual suspects are “helping out” to lecture china, isnt this the same gang who ganged up to burn down the yuan ming palace — after cleaning up all the treasures . http://tinyurl.com/2zjgzk
right after the brits sold tons of opium to the chinese — at gun point, guess why the chinese were derided as the “sick men of east asia”? http://tinyurl.com/srlxo
then the brits went on to carve out a large chunk off tibet, mind you, even then they recognised chinese soverienty over tibet and billed china for their trouble, http://tinyurl.com/3anqdz
followed by — i am sure yanks “know” this very well, the “chinese invasion of india in 1962” http://tinyurl.com/27fm9u
now this same gang is taking up the cudgel for the poor tibetans, oh i am so touched. china’s tibet is doing alright thank you very much, http://tinyurl.com/24pmcs
may be its high time they start cleaning up some of their own shits — nagaland would be a good start, you know, the booty that was “bequeathed” to india by the brits…
http://www.newint.org/issue256/keynote.htm [no gaurantee you will get a visa though]
ever heard of “charity starts at home” ?
mind you, on the day of reckoning, god wont hold you responsible for what allegedly happen in china’s tibet, otoh, i bet you would have to answer some tough questions on the other tibet, the one that for reasons best known to themslves, no yanks wanna talk about.
Thank you, Denk . Some of your links are quite interesting. One of the more interesting political issues in the US is how liberal minded people here are constantly willing to jump in and pronounce verdicts regarding national disputes in other parts of the world. This, despite the fact that these same Americans are some of the most ignorant, misinformed, and unknowledgeable people in the world when it comes to questions of national, cultural, and ethnic divides.
Put quite simply, the US is entirely lacking in having the ethnic diversity that many countries in the world have to deal with. We have a Walmart culture that unifies most of our nation in one plastic whole. So when the country butts into the affairs of multi ethnic nations like Yugoslavia, Indonesia, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc., our entire US population is absolutely clueless to what’s going on.
That is quite fine for our imperial leaders since they feed off this generalized American ignorance. But when American liberals themselves jump in and play little generals it is really quite sad. They become quite adamant to thinking that they have the full dope on what’s really going on, when in fact they live in an entirely different universe from those they sit in judgment of.
Maybe it comes from watching too many courtroom shows on TV? What would Judge Mathis do? Judge Judy? Judge Bleeding Heart American liberal?
Despite our differences in basic philosophy, I have to agree with Tony on the original message of this thread: Tibet/China relations are their own problem, and we have no business interfering with what goes on in other sovereign nations, unless it directly impacts us as a nation. Same goes for Darfur, and all the other liberal pet causes. The Kennedys had no business injecting us into that quagmire of Vietnam, no matter what their flawed Domino theory said; reality has show that socialism will fall on its own, without any interference from us. Just as Islam will fall on its own; all we have to do is let them know that Harleys and Big Macs and iPods are available, their kids will se the light.
hello tony,
your analysis on darfur and burma are spot on, the only difference betwen iraq and burma is that,
in iraq,
“The US, a draft-free country, asking foreign-language speaking, impoverished peasants and workers to be drafted and then sacrificed to spare Bush and other mainly white US politicians the political upset of too many US casualties is worse than bad. It’s truly obscene”
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Hamilton_Foreign-Fodder.htm
in burma, its even worse, the empire is using unarmed monks and civilians as cannon fodders , this is downright despicable…
http://www.uli-schmetzer.com/burma.html
Denk, Burma does offer plenty of terrain for the US government to begin a Western media offensive about supposedly supporting ‘human rights’ by pushing for more US intervention! It might be led off by Elaine’s boss (in the sit-com Seinfeld) who is an ‘expert’ in all affairs relating to Burma. Then we bring in some prominent actors (especially the Buddhists amongst the Hollywood set), the Carter Center, and PRESTO!
And of course, we’ll need some concerned young women (maybe students from elite colleges) who can add a sprinkling of tears to the formula, some think tank money spread out to the professor set, and a few pop articles in pop papers for the ‘uninformed’ amongst us to read while sitting on the toilet.
What do you think, Denk?
Oh, all of the above will be followed then by a concerned US President briefing the nation on TV about just what he reluctantly has decided must be done to stop the violence…
hello tony and every body,’
this is a great site, i learn a lot from you folks,
thank you for posting my 2 cents.
Denk, we are happy to have you. Keep reading and commenting. We all learn when the discussions get a bit hot!
thank you marie,
i know you are all decent folks.
i will stay around,
good nite,
oh its good day for you.
thanks
Gentlemen, Wow! a very interesting intellectual conversation and that’s exactly just that. You have had no direct experience in what you are intellectualizing. I’m a Tibetan American, born in Tibet and raised in the States. As a child I had to flee my country due to the Chinese Communist invasion. Tibet has never been a Chinese ethnic minority, y’all been bushwhacked,bamboozled & hoodwinked by Google & the Chinese Communist propaganda, you heard? Yes, I’m aware of the Uncle sham and its propaganda in this country as well but the truth must be told never the less.
Temp, it is going to be much harder for the Chinese gov to keep Tibetan voices quiet with the whole world watching. It is kind of like breaking up with someone at a public restaurant so they have no choice but to BEHAVE.
Let’s hope the Tibetans are heard! Go Team Tibet!