Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
W. C. Fields
The image was seared into the national consciousness: a Chinese solder hunts down and beats a Tibetan monk. This is raw power. That is who we are dealing with now. That is the conundrum that now afflicts the West, how to respond? Do we go about the Olympics as if nothing has happened. Do we bleat human rights and hide our heads in the sand? Do we laud our country's close relationship with the Chinese leadership? Or do we protest about the human rights abuses in another country? Do we condone the brutal repression of a peaceful people, the ruthless crackdown on "splittists". Or do we sigh at the moral confusions; look into our own souls, repress our own people.
Hunting down the stragglers and shooting them was the analogy used for the government's abolition of the much hated Work Choices. How could the conservatives have been so stupid? The headlines this week recorded the shadow minister's cries for more money, after losing more than $100,000 in income as they changed from the government to the opposition benches. Hypocrisy, cried the victors. These are the same people who introduced Work Choices, which was supposed to introduce flexibility by allowing the employers and employees to somehow amicably reach an agreement on wages.
This was so far from the reality of most employer employee relationships that it was laughable. But there they are, defending the indefensible over the very issue that lost them power. From his spiritual homeland in America former PM Howard condemns the Rudd government for having overturned his workplace "reforms"; declaring it was the first time in 25 years a government had taken such action. The gaps in reality are breathtaking. The survivors shake their heads. This was the government that was denying that mortgage stress existed; right up to the last minutes of the election campaign which saw the conservatives out of power from coast to coast.
Valedictory dinners. Looking to history for validation and applause. Well may you look to history, for the present, for the people you were paid to serve in the here and now, abandoned them in droves. Their advocates continue to champion dead forces; but in reality it has been a complete rout. They deserve to be where they are, people say. Out of power from coast to coast, on the nose in the electorate, ashamed and disgusted by the totality of the betrayal. They had lived in precious, protected worlds, surrounded by captains of industry and grotesquely well paid public servants, rarely if every coming in contact with anyone on an ordinary working wage.
"We have all of us prospered over the last 11 years, our share portfolios have increased massively in value, our houses have increased in value and indeed in number, and to protect our wealth we need a stable economy. That is why you must vote for John Howard," said the head of the NSW Liberals, harking back to the greed is good ethos of the 1980s. No one said the obvious: you're living in a privileged bubble. Most people don't have share portfolios. Most people don't have trust funds or more than one property. Most people are struggling to make ends meet in an era when the average wage came to mean nothing; when the term "the working poor" became a reality.
And it was Howard who forged the nation's close relationship with China; as we sell billions of dollars worth of resources, iron, coal. Despite the infrastructure bottlenecks; the land is still being pillaged. We compromise in our hearts. Is this a totalitarian regime or just a different form of government to the west. If we went to war in Iraq to bring democracy to the Middle East, why do we trade with such undemocratic regimes. Why do we watch impassionately the crackdown in Tibet? Why do we express no outrage? Why do we not concern ourselves with the fate of the Falun Gong?
Perhaps it is because of our own deeply conflicted hypocrisies, our own embarrassments over the state of aboriginal Australia, the brutal hypocrisies that inflict our own culture. Why didn't the conservatives use public education to raise up the masses; to provide opportunity for all? Why were taxpayers expected to pay taxes to support private health insurance, private schools, first home buyers grants, an ever expanding welfare system, when many of these same taxpayers couldn't afford private schools, private health, their own home. When had the logic of the system gone so deeply awry?
In one world the people are subdued at the end of a gun, protest and dissent are quelled with brutal force, no argument is tolerated, in the high beautiful plateaus of the Himalayas, in remote gorges and medieval villages, in crisp cold mountain air and flat mountain faces, all can be seen; while the world does nothing, the wringing of hands worse than any Anglican priest in a crisis of faith. In the west the repression is more subtle, more enveloping, more educated, more intellectual, the closing down of channels of debate a cruel force, the tyranny of diversity, the co-option of argument into defined parameters; all this closing down of dissent was in their respective ways equally effective. Once the courage of the individual was celebrated, now we have sacrificed all for the theoretical notion of the common good. And our culture has become flat and homogeneous, true diversity and true inquiry kicked in by an academic's boot as effective as any solder; the power of the state never far off. You have been warned. Bow your head, hide your face. There is no other way to remain safe.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/22/stories/2008032255020100.htm
NEW DELHI: A group of Tibetan protesters forcibly entered the compound of the Chinese embassy on Friday evening hours after ambassador Zhang Yan appreciated India for providing adequate security to Beijing’s missions and staff here.
The Tibetans overwhelmed the elaborate Delhi Police cordon around the embassy just at the time their “spiritual leader” landed here for a “pre-arranged” meditation programme.
The Dalai Lama had left the seat of the “government-in-exile” in Dharamsala for the national capital after meeting the powerful Democrat Party leader and Speaker of the U.S. House of Congress, Nancy Pelosi who issued a strong statement on his behalf.
Ms. Pelosi also returned to the capital with a group of U.S. Congressmen who had accompanied her on her interaction with the Dalai Lama.
Highly placed intelligence sources said there was information about an attack on the Chinese embassy after disturbances broke in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on March 14-15. But the focus of the security forces was on averting a potential terrorist strike and they could not anticipate this transgression.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/china-admits-to-shooting-protesters/2008/03/21/1205602660907.html
CHINA has admitted for the first time that security forces shot at Tibetan protesters, as the military pushed on with a crackdown on volatile areas amid fears of mass arrests.
State media, after saying for days that no lethal force had been used in quashing the biggest Tibetan protests against Chinese rule in nearly 20 years, said yesterday that police had shot four people in "self-defence" in China's south-western Sichuan province.
The admission came as Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States' House of Representatives, met the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala yesterday and, in a speech likely to anger China, emphasised her country's "great relationship" with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, while praising the courage of the Tibetan people.
Tibetan activist groups had previously reported that eight people were confirmed killed in the Sichuan incident on Sunday in the Tibetan-populated county of Aba, and possibly 30. They released photos they said were of the bodies of eight victims.
Beijing's Communist rulers are eager to put the country's best face forward in the run-up to the Olympic Games in August.
They have repeatedly insisted that the only people to have died in the various protests were 13 "innocent civilians" killed by Tibetan rioters last Friday in Tibet's capital, Lhasa.
Tibet's government-in-exile, based in Dharamsala, India, said this week it had confirmed 99 deaths in the Chinese crackdown.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23413386-5000117,00.html
AS what the Dalai Lama has called cultural genocide goes on in Tibet, it is wholly unacceptable that Jacques Rogge, the head of the International Olympic Committee, refuses - completely at odds with the spirit of the Olympics - to take a stand against the Beijing Government's crackdown on Tibetan protesters.
Far more than Steven Spielberg, who quit his advisory role for the Olympic celebration because of the Chinese Government's unwillingness to pressure the Sudanese Government on genocide in Darfur, the IOC has a special obligation to act.
Since promised improvements in China's human rights were a quid pro quo for granting the games to Beijing, how can it proceed as if nothing happened when blood is flowing in the streets of Lhasa?
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h5Z6bJwtN_roGSIUQiQnfbf2NkhgD8VHP8RO0
ZHONGDIAN, China (AP) — The government stepped up its manhunt Friday for protesters in last week's riots in the capital of Tibet, as thousands of troops converged on foot, trucks and helicopters to Tibetan areas of western China.
The violence in Lhasa — a stunning show of defiance against 57 years of Chinese rule — has sparked sympathy demonstrations in neighboring provinces, prompting Beijing to blanket a huge area with troops and warn tourists and foreign journalists to stay away.
China's communist leadership, embarrassed by the chaos and international criticism of its response, has blamed the unrest on the Dalai Lama and his supporters and vigorously defended its reputation as a suitable host for the Beijing Olympics.
On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with the Dalai Lama in India and called on the world to denounce China's crackdown in Tibet.
Photos of 21 men wanted in connection with the Lhasa riots were posted on major Chinese Internet sites.
A resident in Qinghai province said about 300 troops were in the town of Zeku after monks protested Thursday outside the county government office. The woman, who did not want to give her name for fear authorities would harass her, said she did not dare leave her home and could not provide details of the demonstration.
Telephones at Zeku's government and public security bureau rang unanswered.
In the largely Tibetan town of Zhongdian, in the far north of Yunnan province, some 30 armed police with batons marched in the main square as residents went about their daily life. Overnight, another two dozen trucks of riot police had arrived, adding to a presence of about 400 troops.
Patrols had also been set up in other nearby towns, including the tourist attraction of Tiger Leaping Gorge.
In Xiahe, a city in Gansu province where there were two days of protests last week, the 50-room Xilin Hotel was "completely occupied by police with guns and batons," said a man who answered the telephone and did not want to give his name.
"No tourists are allowed here and we do not feel safe going outside," the man said. He said things had calmed down but vehicles had been patrolling the streets asking Tibetans who had participated in last week's demonstrations to turn themselves in.
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