Addicted to Applause

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The od chimneys of the brick kiln, Sydney Park.

"Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied."
Francis Bacon.

"Names are but noise and smoke,
Obscuring heavenly light."
Goethe.

The most shocking news, the one that has had everyone shaking their head in wonderment, is that former Prime Minister John Howard is being paid tens of thousands of dollars an appearance on a speaking tour of the United States, while his former colleagues flounder in disarray back home. Is there no admission of embarrassment, of wrong doing? No humility? Of course not, what did you expect? people ask. But for him, he remained shocked. How could it be? Looking to history to validate himself, looking to history for the applause he was so cruelly, and apparently so wrongly, denied at home.

How is it that anyone could be so immune to the vitriol, the scorn, being poured out on his memory since Howard so comprehensively lost the election last November, leaving the conservatives out of power and in a shambles from coast to coast. The highest office holding Liberal in the country is now Campbell Newman, mayor of Brisbane. And this rout of the conservatives is hardly because Labor are doing so magnificently, being completely on the nose in NSW, this here state, and in quite a number of other jurisdictions.

None of it matters to Howard, who has dined with George Bush, lectured at Harvard, been awarded some medal for conservatives to a packed crowd. The television clips from an hour plus speech, I bet the audience was rooted to their boots, the television clips show Howard pounding on about Iraq, sneering that the press coverage had declined because there was now good news, the numbers of dead was down, the surge, apparently, was working. Thousands of American soldiers have died, hitting nearly four thousand now, tens of thousands of civilians, America's standing in the world has been severely eroded, Blair went out essentially in disgrace because of the war, Bush is one of the most unpopular Presidents in history, all because of the war.

But not a glimmer of doubt; at least not in public. How can it be? Treated like a puffed up little provincial governor, acting in a so-called democracy against the will of the people, Howard has gone, his critics say, to his spiritual home, a group of far right conservatives in the U S of A. We can hear the applause in obligatory auditoriums, packed with students who have to be there to pass their classes, the wrinkled, worried, profoundly un-cool eyes glimming out of an un-cool face; did the bullies kick sand munchkins, what a terrible thing, come to papa.

And you see everywhere, the yellow flesh decaying off old bones. Ken Moroney retired as Police Commissioner recently, advocating more control, the use of modern technology to crack down further on the population. I've got nothing to hide, he said, why should anyone else? Someone else might like their freedom, but everywhere the control gets worse. Touch the forelock. These people, Howard most of all, have benefited not just from the status quo but from their constant obeiance to the powers that be, conservative in every sense of the word, whatever the existing power, he would back it; the family court, the child support agency, the federal police, the institutions of our once great nation.

He shook his head and squirrelled in disgust. He wasn't meeting any presidents, or mixing with company directors. Life was full of daily humiliations. That ancient yellow flesh, pity their wives waking up to that, the ancient flesh knew no remorse, no regret. Not only had nothing ever gone wrong for them; not only had they never been outsiders; but they had been amply rewarded for their conservatism, for obeying the rules, for never stepping a foot out into the dark chaos, the dance of death, not even to get drunk and inappropriate at some hopeless late night party.

It was all there; the reasons for it he didn't understand. Their flesh was creeping off their bones and he could see the dark shapes mustering, the stale smell of aging flesh, the unrepentant, undoubting eyes. Things were not that bad, some people thought outside the square, someone said. In the rat pack of people supposedly thinking outside the square, the tyranny of diversity, the range of triumphs and failures where no one spoke the truth, he couldn't believe they were standing up in front of crowds and crowing about their achievements. It will be many years, perhaps even decades, before the conservatives are back in power. Yet already there are signs of the lunatic left holding sway, shutting down debate, promoting victimhood and welfareism; and all he could do was shake his head and think: what a wonderful opportunity this country lost.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7302956.stm

The man the Chinese government claims has masterminded the current unrest in Tibet was born in a poor village deep in the mountains of Qinghai Province.

Tenzin Gyatso, better known as the 14th Dalai Lama, came from an ordinary Tibetan family that grew barley, buckwheat and potatoes in the village of Taktser.

That village, which lies along a pot-holed road, has now been blocked off by Chinese police following the wave of protests across Tibetan areas.

When the BBC tried to visit, we were turned back by police who had set up a temporary roadblock just a few miles outside the village.

China presumably fears Taktser, called Hongya in Chinese, could become the focus of fresh protests against Beijing's rule in Tibet.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23398353-663,00.html

THE Chinese Army has driven through the streets of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, parading dozens of Tibetan prisoners in handcuffs, their heads bowed.

The crackdown in Tibet continued as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating riots in which dozens may have died and said his followers were trying to "incite sabotage" of Beijing's August Olympics.

On Monday the Government of Tibet declared a midnight deadline for rioters to turn themselves and others in or face severe punishment.

Shortly before midnight, four trucks in convoy made a slow progress along main roads, with about 40 people, mostly young Tibetan men and women, standing with their wrists handcuffed behind their backs, witnesses told The Times.

A soldier stood behind each prisoner, hands on the back of their necks to ensure their heads were bowed. Troops stepped up the hunt for rioters in house-to-house searches.

Premier Wen yesterday laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Dalai Lama.

"Are all these activities having nothing to do with the Dalai?" said Mr Wen.

"So I think when we watch the Dalai Lama, we should not only listen to what he says but also watch what he does."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/18/opinion/edgreenway.php

Fires rising from burning shops, red-robed monks beaten, the dead lying in the streets, and burned-out cars in the stone square outside the Jokhang, Tibet's most sacred shrine; thus did unrest come to Lhasa, not as a stranger. In other decades, violence has flowed as a protest against Chinese rule following China's brutal invasion of more than half a century ago - a takeover to which Tibetans remain unreconciled.

What an embarrassment for China, trying so hard to organize an Olympic Games intended to symbolize China's emergence as a modern, great power among nations. What an embarrassment for President Hu Jintao, who, while boss of Tibet, wet his hands in repression.

Recently I visited the Jokhang, the circulation of which - always clockwise - is obligatory for many devout Tibetans. As folk from the countryside poured into Lhasa, and to other shrines in the post-harvest pilgrimage season, one sensed that all China's attempts to crush Tibet's Tantric-Buddhist traditions, the destruction of its monasteries, the dispersal and imprisonment of its monks, the exile of its Dalai Lama, had failed. Buddhism remains undaunted in Tibet, and with it, as the Chinese always feared, the seeds of a resistance.


The od chimneys of the brick kiln, Sydney Park.