Riot Like A Tibetan!

[krtek a houby]

Sport is for the people to play and for the people to watch. It's got nothing really to do with governments.

Why let politics rule your life? Let sport happen.

And the US make china look like mini-killers.

Tell that to the Tibetans. Tell that to the thousands who "disappeared" after Tianamen Square. To Falun Gong worshippers. To the thousands of peasant famers who have had their land seized. To the children who work in perilous conditions. To the dissidents who are executed...

 

[purves grundy]

The whole "Boycott the Olympics" campaign is a sham. I bet many of the people proposing such are doing so on Chinese made computers whilst wearing Chinese manufactured clothing etc. China is central to globalised Capitalism. The reason why the Western economies have enjoyed historically low inflation over the past 15 years or so is because workers in places like Shenzen work for wages which are, to Western eyes, very low. Do you really think the Murdochs, Bush's and Brown's of this world are gonna risk all that to help out a backward, marginalised Asian minority who were shitting in the streets 30 years ago? No, me neither.

It's important not to get too misty eyed about the pre-1950 Tibetan regime. It wasn't this 'Hippy' Shangri-La where everybody sat around and laced Daisys through each other's hair that the 'Free Tibet' Campaign would want you to believe. It was content to leave the mass of it's population in abject poverty, it tolerated Slavery, Feudalism and permitted the practice of cannibalism for certain Buddhist cults. Buddhism has always enjoyed a remarkably good press in the West but certain strands of it are as nasty, violent and bigotted as any other religion.

I've been to China (including on one occasion, Tibet) many times and the Chinese Communist Party ain't going anywhere. Sure, the Chinese may complain about corruption but they are not going to risk the real gains they've made by opening the Pandora's box and removing the CCP. In fact, the rioting of a marginal minority may have the effect of binding the Han (90% of the Chinese population) to the government.

A lot of the orchestrated Hue and Cry over Tibet we are going to suffer over the next 6 months is going to take the form, I fear, of barely disguised Sino-Phobia. "Yellow Peril" nonsense which will actually have the effect of strengthening the grip of the CCP in the short to medium term.

No, I don't think Brown et al will do anything to risk the centrality of cheap Chinese products which western success is now predicated on, and I don't think they'd countenance for a moment boycotting the games. And, agreed, Buddhism can sometimes be as repressive as any other religion and a lot of the Tibetan allure is built on a certain amount of orientalism.

But none of this legitimises the brutal annexation of a region and the denial of a people's right to self-determination, the destruction of an entire way of life, systematic violation of basic human rights, executions of dissidents etc. This can't be explained away. I agree that the riots may be counter-productive, but that's not the point. The riots are clearly a symptom of the shocking situation in Tibet, not a calculated strategy to wrest power from the Chinese.

If debate over Chinese policy in Tibet and elsewhere in the world - which I'm happy the Olympics will bring to mass public scrutiny - takes on a yellow peril form, then that's utterly wrong and it's up to right-minded people to expose and oppose it. But that changes nothing about what the Chinese state is doing, and there are more neutral forms of discourse in which to discuss it.

 

[Jessiedog]

Anyway, China have indeed claimed to be 'such practitioners' through signing a number of human rights treaties, such as the International Covenent on Civil and Political Rights which, amongst other points, asserts that:

Well.

As a point of order, China has not ratified said agreement (it has ratified the one on "economic", etc. rights) and hence can say it is not bound by it.

No excuse, however, in my book.

When people speak out, they have the right to have this speech protected by the state, not quashed. If the state doesn't do this, people have the right to demand the state change its behaviour.

Quite!





Woof

 

[Jessiedog]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/22/tibet.china1

I think that's a very interesting read.

Some of the comments following the original post are intelligent and well written.




Woof

 

[purves grundy]

Well.

As a point of order, China has not ratified said agreement (it has ratified the one on "economic", etc. rights) and hence can say it is not bound by it.

Yeah I know it hasn't ratified it, but a signature is an implicit agreement that it will begin moves towards the provisions contained in the text. Besides, it's still bound by its Charter obligations, and ICESCR as you point out, and others. Anyway, I make the point to get over this persistent relativism which keeps cropping up here (unless it's to do with states that are fashionable to knock) - you can't criticise what goes on in country x cos you don't know or understand the traditions and specificities of country x, when in fact country x has already agreed that it can be criticised!

 

[fela fan]

Tell that to the Tibetans. Tell that to the thousands who "disappeared" after Tianamen Square. To Falun Gong worshippers. To the thousands of peasant famers who have had their land seized. To the children who work in perilous conditions. To the dissidents who are executed...

I wouldn't want you to even begin to comprehend the millions of citizens that have been slaughtered by decisions made by american politicians.

If you want to boycott the chinese olympic games, then by the same standards you had better want to boycott any single atom of anything produced in america.

Britain is nearly as bad.

Politics is nasty and divisive and murderous enough. Let it stew in its own cesspool, don't let it interfere with the people's pleasure.

 

[CharlieAddict]

If you want to boycott the chinese olympic games, then by the same standards you had better want to boycott any single atom of anything produced in america.

well i've ordered China's olympic sports top...
can't wait to wear it!