I'm going to be honest.
There's something about being at college (which entails doing crazy amounts of homework, or rushing around between meetings and classes and rehearsals, or going on rants about random things like Nietzsche with friends until the break of dawn, or a combination of all these things) that sort of discourages me from keeping up-to-date on world events.
I hardly watch television (it's too mind numbing for me), and even if I do, I definitely don't plop myself on my comfy black chair, wrap myself in my grandma's knitted blanket, and make a big bowl of popcorn just so that I can watch CNN. No. Definitely WAYYY too depressing.
But every now and again, someone sends me an email or makes a comment in class that shakes me out of my little world and makes me consider what's going on around the world.
And seriously? I'm scared.
So. I traveled over the North Pole in this spontaneous and out-of-character adventure to the other side of the world and spent two weeks in one of the most magical, mystical cultures EVER this past summer.
And now? There's chaos. Absolute chaos over there.
China wants to host the 2008 Olympics in Beijing this upcoming August. When I visited, I saw the huge buildings that were under construction in preparation for this event. Honestly, they were quite impressive. What's not so impressive is the fact that Tibetans are being slaughtered right now because they want freedom from the tyranny they've been facing since the Chinese take-over in the fifties and the rest of the world is simply asking the Chinese government to show "restraint" when dealing with these rebels.
I guess some people probably think that these rebels are asking for it. They are, after all, putting themselves in danger by taking to the streets and expressing their right to be free from Chinese rule. But many are doing so peacefully, and peaceful protests do not deserve violent reactions.
For those of you who haven't been following, it all started on March 10th on the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising of '59, an event during which peaceful protesters gathered in Lhasa (the would-be capital of Tibet) to protest the Communist take over. Naturally, they were unsuccessful. Hence the reason they're trying it again.
It all began with a speech by the Dalai Lama, who wished over one hundred Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, India luck on their journey for justice. Their goal was to walk through Tibet--to make it to the Olympic games in time for August. Their goal was to return to their home in one large mass to show the government their feelings about the Olympics, about the injustice, and to show the world their strength. Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that their march would show the world the kind of people they are, the kind of people that are being crushed right now by China, the kind of people the world is endorsing the destruction of by going to the Olympics in China.
And they were stopped. By the Indian government. Refugees were told NOT to return to their country. Instead, they were arrested and will be detained for at least the next two weeks. And why? Because they were disrupting the peace. 100 people walking down a road to their homeland was disrupting peace.
And now it's erupted. There are tons of reports coming out everyday about this monastery or that--about this town or that town--about thousands of Tibetans that are standing up for their natural human rights. And they are being crushed. More violently than ever before, they are being crushed. They are being shot at, they are being dragged through the streets, they are being tortured. And it's not just the rebels that are destroying Chinese vehicles or throwing rocks at government officials that are dealing with this kind of violence. These are ANY Tibetans that are making a stand. Any Tibetan that waves his country's flag, holds a candle vigil for peace, or carries a picture of the Dalai Lama around is likely to be hurt.
(The Dalai Lama is actually considered a terrorist by the Chinese government... carrying a picture of the current Dalai Lama is illegal. One of the consequences of doing this... is death. And you know what? I can't count how many people I saw with a picture of the Dalai Lama while I was over there. Their belief in peace, in compassion, in the "well-being of all sentient beings," as the Dalai Lama so aptly stated, is that strong. They are willing to face death for freedom and for love.)
I've been following all of this rather closely for the past week now. Everyday I read another article, and the articles just keep getting nastier. While in the beginning, there were reports of say... 500 monks walking into the holiest city of Tibet in front of the holiest Temple yelling "Free Tibet" and then being broken up by squad cars, by tear gas, by the sound of bullets shot in the air, now there are pictures. There are pictures of broken bodies (monks included) on the sidewalk, the dust just settling on their now lifeless limbs.
I get chills every time I read a new account, especially when I consider that many of these accounts are being smuggled out of China. Although China has finally acknowledged that there are protesters trying to make a statement throughout the country, they do not give any details. They simply state that they are taking care of the issues. That these rebels will be taken care of.
They do not indicate how.
They do not mention the fact that there's an unofficial martial law in Lhasa right now, that there are curfews, that there are raids being done in the middle of the night on people suspected of contributing toward this cause. They do not mention that there are hundreds of wounded people that refuse to go to a hospital to treat their wounds because they know they will be arrested immediately for being involved in the protests in the first place.
And to top it all off, they mention even LESS to their OWN people.
Yeah. Youtube has been officially banned in the country, to the great perplexity of many of the Chinese people. They don't even know what's going on. Their own people don't even know what their government is up to. In fact, public schools teach them that Tibet was never its own entity. In fact, we were advised not to mention the word "Tibet" while we were in Beijing because it would "confuse" the common people and "alert" the police officials.
This is seriously ridiculous. I just don't understand how things like this happen to begin with. I especially don't understand why a country so capable of these kinds of atrocities was chosen to host the Olympics. That really boggles my mind. Then again, there's politics and economics to consider. Guess what, folks-- China's our main trading partner. And we wouldn't want to stop the flow of material items into our capitalist society, now would we. That might slow things down a bit...
Boggles me. It's even harder to fathom because I've been there. I've walked those streets, I've been to those temples they're talking about. I've prayed with some of those monks. I've drank jasmine tea with some of those Tibetan people. I've danced with poverty-stricken five year olds at 17,000 feet to 1990's J.Lo hits and seen their smiles reflect pure innocent joy. And they are being hurt right now.
All they want is for the Chinese government to stop. To stop coming into their country, exploiting their sacred land for resources, polluting their water, and then leaving them to starve. To stop putting regulations on who can and cannot be a monk (there are spies in the temples now). To stop making laws about what pictures they can and cannot hang on their wall above their shrines. They want the Chinese to stop paving over holy land to put up strip malls, to stop encouraging Chinese people to move into these areas in an effort to assimilate their culture into the mainstream faster. They want the Chinese government to stop holding the Panchen Lama (the next spiritual leader below the Dalai Lama) as a political prisoner in an effort to control the people of Tibet through spirituality.
All they want is the freedom to be.
Is that too much to ask for?