Protesters in London: express their feelings for the Party As the Chinese Communist Party attempts to shove its Olympic Flame down the world’s throat, it is encountering something it finds shocking: Resistance it cannot shoot. Protesters against the Party’s recent massacres in Tibet have hindered the Olympic Flame in London and Paris. Today the “Grab the Torch” game moves to San Francisco. Party hacks are responding to protesters with outrage and hubris. They have branded those who freely express their opinions through protest as “vile.”

“No force can stop the torch relay of the Olympic Games,” Sun Weide, spokesman for the Beijing organizing committee, said in Beijing on April 9. Oh, really? No force? Rather confident, are we? No surprise here: The Party does not respect the power of democracy; it does not recognize its legitimacy, thus it does not exist.

In fact, citizens of France and England did stop the torch relay in their countries through massive public protests. These protests are expressions of a growing tide of outrage that the Chinese Communist Party was invited to host the 2008 Olympics in the first place. There is a growing sense that if the Beijing Olympics must go forward at all, they should be used to expose the nature of the dictators in Beijing. The major issue for anyone who believes in democracy is simple: This is not about the games, it’s about democracy; the protests are not against the great nation of China, they are against the Chinese Communist Party. Now, in light of recent and continuing massacres in Tibet, the goals and methods of the Party have been exposed yet again.

But If You Go Carrying Pictures of Chairman Mao: you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow. Why are citizens of democracies allowing the largest mass murderer in human history to wrap itself in the Olympic Flag? You cannot blame the Party. The Party is simply doing what it has always done. It is currently mounting its largest propaganda effort ever. In the past, the Party mounted such campaigns only in China: Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, The Great Leap Forward, and so on. For those of us outside of China, there are two essential aspects to these campaigns:

1. They resulted in the death of at least 30 million Chinese, making the Party the largest mass murderer in history.
2. Their primary purpose was to strengthen the Party’s grip on power.

So, what's the Party’s Olympic propaganda campaign all about? The Party wants to convince its own people that it is the legitimate ruler of China. It wants them to forget Tiananmen. It wants to make them ignore what the Party is doing now (and has done for 50 years) in Tibet. It is using propaganda in China to convince Chinese that Tibetan thugs were murdering poor Chinese in Lhasa, and the party had to crack down on them. The Party wants Chinese—and supporters of democracy around the world—to recognize that it is the legitimate ruler of China, even though it has acquired its power by mass murder, and has never been freely supported by those whom it rules.

The Party's Answer to Student Protest: tiananmen square, 1989 Modern nations—a status to which China aspires—recognize that legitimacy cannot be conferred by force of arms. The founding principle of modern democracy is that a government acquires legitimacy from the will of the people, as expressed through free elections. There is no substitute for a popular mandate. It is the only currency of political legitimacy. Any régime that acquires and maintains political power through the barrel of a gun—as Chairman Mao so famously expressed it—is ipso facto illegitimate.

The sad fact that all athletes preparing to compete in Beijing must recognize is this: When you hold up your medal, you are pinning it onto the chest of the Chinese Communist Party. You are helping the Party convince its own people that it's rule has legitimacy. You are helping the Party hide the facts of history from its own people, and the people of the world.

The facts of history are plain to see. The Party executed up to 3 million small landlords in 1953. The rational was simple: You cannot make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. They could not establish communism in China, and they could not create economic equality amongst all classes, until the petty bourgeois were murdered. That was just one of many such propaganda campaigns, which went on for decades. At least 30 million (and perhaps as many as 70 million) people died to establish the ideals of communism in China. How has that worked out? Well, today the Communist Party has dropped Communism as a realistic ideal. State-managed capitalism and crony capitalism are now the driving engine of China’s march to super-power status. The Party serves as the slave master for foreign corporations: Our shoes are cheap in America because the Party forces Chinese to work without free unions.

Hitler at the Olympics: Berlin, 1936 Hosting the Olympics is the Chinese Communist Party’s conscious attempt to confer legitimacy to its rule, methods, and goals. It seeks legitimacy in China and around the world. Sound familiar? The Nazi Party tried this in 1936. Western athletes who claim we must not taint the Olympics with politics are speaking from ignorance or self-interest. Is that what they would have said to homosexuals and Gypsies who were already being rounded up by the Nazis, even as the world gathered to celebrate the 1936 Olympics in Berlin? Is that what they would have said to German Jews, in 1936, who though not yet being arrested, were already forbidden to enter stores or restaurants?

Just what part of “Never Again” do those in Europe and America, who accept the Party’s Olympic propaganda campaign, not understand? Samantha Power has quoted author David Rieff's suggestion that, "'Never again' might best be defined as 'Never again will Germans kill Jews in Europe in the 1940's.'” I suggest that “never again” means we cannot allow the Party—already guilty of mass murder in Tibet and China—to host the Olympics even as it supports genocide in Sudan and Burma.

That’s the Party that is just dying to meet you in Beijing: A Party that is even now massacring Tibetans, once again, while our governments do nothing. The Party is doing the same thing it has been doing for the last 50 years, and with the Olympics on the horizon, the situation bears an increasingly eerie resemblance to Berlin in 1936.

Time to stand up and be counted.

What You Can Do
Start A Conversation: When you buy a pair of shoes, explain to the clerk that you need them to help you find a pair that were not made in China. They will ask why, and you can explain that the Chinese shoes are cheap because the Chinese Communist Party:

• Prevents its laborers from forming unions
  
• Does not enforce China’s EPA regulations (which American manufacturers are required to do)

If You Had to Walk a Mile in Tibetan Shoes: you'd definitely boycott the Party This education process can work in any store. Educate yourself about why Chinese goods are so cheap. When you go to Whole Foods, and cannot find frozen edamame except from China, ask to see the Manager. Explain to them why you will not buy the edamame from China, and ask why Whole Foods is not supporting American farmers.

Whenever you have time, every purchase, in every store, can be a moment to spread the facts about the Party. The real strength of a democracy is educated citizens.

Protest: If you're in San Francisco, you can protest against the Olympic Torch.

Get involved with Students for a Free Tibet and join in some of their actions.

The Story of Tibet: the first-ever history of Tibet written with a Dalai Lama Educate Yourself: Thomas Laird worked with the Dalai Lama over the past ten years to write a popular history of Tibet. The Story of Tibet: Conversations with The Dalai Lama is the first-ever history of Tibet written with a Dalai Lama. This is required reading if you want to know what’s happening in Tibet and China during this Olympic year. You can read reviews of the book and a sample chapter here.

Laird contributed interviews to this interesting Australian radio piece on Chinese and Tibetan History.

You can also hear him n the Paula Gordon show, and on WHYY, Philly.

Watch this chilling, detailed, covertly-made documentary about what the Party is doing in Tibet.

One of the most amazing video reports about the recent protests in Tibet is here.

China Tibet War on Youtube:
See The Party version of history and recent events here.
Watch a rebuttal here.

Keep abreast of Tibetan news here.

Here is a story to start with: The Party thugs who are providing security to the running of the Olympic Flame through the streets of San Francisco were selected from a special unit of the People’s Liberation Army. This same unit is used to suppress Tibetans in Tibet. Imagine that Nazi Party Brown Shirts were running an Olympic Flame through a US City in 1936. That’s what’s happening as we sit and watch. See the facts, here.

Ask yourself: Who made the decision that it was okay for these thugs be on the ground in a US city? Find out, and protest directly to them. What message does that send to the Party? That their actions in Tibet are legitimate?

Links to Follow:

Tibet Justice Center
Students for a Free Tibet
International Campaign for Tibet
International Tibet Support Network
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy
Human Rights in China

Die Laughing: the Suharto wayFormer Indonesian dictator Suharto is finally dead, leaving behind a legacy of ethnic and political persecution and genocide. Estimates on the number of Communists, activists, political opponents, and ethnic Chinese killed under his rule range from hundreds of thousands to millions, and Suharto died accused of embezzling more than any other world leader in history: An estimated $15-$35 billion over three decades. The Economist says that in death, Suharto cheated justice.

Coincidentally, Suharto died on the UK's Holocaust Memorial Day, which marks the anniversary of the liberation in 1945 of Auschwitz-Birkenau and aims to prompt British action on behalf of all persecuted peoples.

One Briton who has been prompted into action is Prince Charles himself. More news out of England has the press throwing a royal fit over Prince Charles' decision not to attend the Beijing Olympics. Though no reason was officially cited, it's safe to assume that the Prince's longstanding support of Tibet and the Dalai Lama has something to do with it.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Kenya is soaring as the country's ethnic and political crisis continues to worsen. Atrocities being perpetrated in the mob violence include forced circumcisions on Luos by Kikuyus. A New York Times article quoted one Kenyan woman as saying, "God made all of us. We need his help."

Finally, a Sikh couple in France are founding their own school to skirt the pesky turban ban, which went into effect in French state schools in 2004. Gurdial Singh says, "It would be a huge campus with schools, colleges and a university, imparting both professional and general education without any ban on anybody's religious dress or something that exhibits one's religious affiliation." Sounds idyllic to me.

Previous: Germany supports Chinese oppression of Tibet

Tibet and Germany: so close, yet so very far awayDashing hopes that were raised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's controversial visit with the Dalai Lama last year, Germany seems to have decided that trade relations trump human rights.

Germany has now agreed "not to support or encourage any attempt to seek Tibet's independence," despite Merkel's assurance to the Dalai Lama that she supported "his efforts to maintain the cultural identity of Tibet" and "his policy of non-violent striving toward religious and cultural autonomy." Oh, and also despite all that talk that's been going on about China's occupation and oppression of Tibet since, oh, about 1951.

This news is a bit of a letdown for those who were hopeful about Merkel's influence.

Previous: Bad News For Christians

Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that the Chinese have once again moved to crush any hint of dissent or independent-minded political activity in Tibet. The good news is that it’s now politically correct to support beauty pageants. Who knew?

Miss Tibet 2006, Tsering Chungtak, has been forced to withdraw from the Miss Tourism Pageant in Malaysia after the Chinese authorities put pressure on the pageant organizers to bar Tibet from the event. China demanded that Chungtak, an ethnic Tibetan who lives in exile in India, wear a sash labeled “Miss Tibet-China” or pull out. To her eternal credit, Miss Tibet told the authorities to go and fuck themselves, but pressure from the Chinese consulate in Sarawak, where the pageant is being held this Friday, has seen her pulled from competition.

Tsering Chungtak is a million miles away from the archetypal beauty pageant airheads of YouTube legend. On her return to Delhi yesterday, she gave a press conference in which she expressed her disgust with the politicking that led to her expulsion from the competition:

"I felt that this was not acceptable to me at all. The Tibetan issue is still the same as ever. China is in control of Tibet, and there is no freedom in Tibet. China constantly violates human rights, and threatens the environment in Tibet, causing concern about the very survival of the Tibetan people," Chungtak said after returning from Malaysia.

Miss Chungtak went on to say:

"They gave me just two options and it was a nightmare," Chungtak said, adding the organisers told her they were under Chinese pressure to force her to take off her "Miss Tibet" sash while participating. "I did not go to Malaysia with a political agenda. I was there to spread friendship"

She’s being a wee bit disingenuous here, mind you. Your correspondent spent a couple of arduous hours on the Miss Tibet website this afternoon in the interests of nailing down the facts, and it’s pretty clear that this is not your usual talent show. The Miss Tibet organisation was set up in 2002 with the specific aim of drawing attention to the plight of occupied Tibet and providing educational chances for exiled Tibetans, of whom there are well over 120,000. Many of these live in India, where opportunities for young Tibetan women are often fairly bleak. When the new Miss Tibet was crowned in October her first order of business was to renew calls for freedom for the occupied nation.

Clearly, therefore, this is a beauty contest that every liberal should get behind. Put aside any thought that these pageants are demeaning to women; that’s just your cultural imperialism talking. By watching these girls parade around in swimsuits you are, in effect, getting into the trenches alongside them, and striking a blow for self-determination, women’s rights, and the aspirations of an embattled people in exile – and all without having to put down your beer, too.

I’m really struck by this idea that if something miraculous, really kind of movielike, could happen here, where we could all kind of send love and truth and a kind of sanity to Hu Jintao right now in Beijing, that he will take his troops and take the Chinese away from Tibet and allow people to live as free independent people again. So, thought… We send this thought - we send this thought out. Send this thought.

Alternatively, if the Richard Gere route doesn't appeal, there’s a contact page right there on the website.