A large group of monks and nuns of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition from Chenrezig Institute, north of Brisbane, joined about a hundred people last night in Brisbane's King George Square to hold a prayerful vigil in solidarity with the people of Tibet. The atmosphere at the gathering was very calm as the monks and nuns chanted prayers, followed by loud calls from all present for the Chinese to honour the human rights of the Tibetan people.
The numbers of people participating might be small, but China is being shown to the world very clearly to be an oppressor of human rights, and particularly the rights of the Tibetan people.
China of course promised that in the lead up to the Olympic Games it would improve its human rights record, but as expected, the opposite has happened. For too long the rest of the world has acquiesced, has been fearful to challenge China because of its economic and growing military strength. But world leaders obviously cannot ignore China's most recent killings in Tibet - deaths that are probably just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what China has done in the past, but the difference now is that the eyes of the world are on China as the Olympics come closer.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Happenings in Tibet
A comment from Dee in Adelaide on my post from last year when we met His Holiness in Dharamsala after our Trek for Tibet has reminded me of my poor neglected blog.
The recent events in Tibet are tragic, but totally understandable - if Tibetans don't act now when the eyes of all the world are on China, when will they have a chance again to get such wonderful publicity for their cause? And for the Chinese, if they allow unrest in Tibet to go unpunished, it will open the hugest can of worms for them. The authorities there seem terrified that large scale unrest could break out at any time, and therefore any hint of it must be ruthlessly put down.
And of course that is consistent with China's history; it was only when the ruling dynasty became weak and corrupt that the people were able to rise up and throw off their shackles. The Party apparatchiks know their history, and that history inevitably repeats itself - but how long will it take before the people are so fed up that they will risk everything to overthrow the government? Realistically it will only be when the Party loses the confidence of the armed forces that real change is likely to take place, but what could trigger such a change?
In this context, check out this article from The Statesman - I'm not sure of the credibility of the source, but it makes interesting reading.
The recent events in Tibet are tragic, but totally understandable - if Tibetans don't act now when the eyes of all the world are on China, when will they have a chance again to get such wonderful publicity for their cause? And for the Chinese, if they allow unrest in Tibet to go unpunished, it will open the hugest can of worms for them. The authorities there seem terrified that large scale unrest could break out at any time, and therefore any hint of it must be ruthlessly put down.
And of course that is consistent with China's history; it was only when the ruling dynasty became weak and corrupt that the people were able to rise up and throw off their shackles. The Party apparatchiks know their history, and that history inevitably repeats itself - but how long will it take before the people are so fed up that they will risk everything to overthrow the government? Realistically it will only be when the Party loses the confidence of the armed forces that real change is likely to take place, but what could trigger such a change?
In this context, check out this article from The Statesman - I'm not sure of the credibility of the source, but it makes interesting reading.
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