Thorn Tree travel forum
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There is no Tibet-news thread here anymore, is there?316
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The invasion of Tibet didn't cause a very large number of Tibetan lives brutally being killed?
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I forwarded the whole thing to the US, assuming they wouldn't closely follow the activities of any Belgian weblogger (in Dutch).... Let them go through the credibility, and the way the former head of Free Tibet is quoted in that weblog. I don't know of the numbers of victims; I just loathe anything that starts with "My holocaust is bigger than yours", and then wants to question the credibility of "genocides".Quote
And yes, denying the holocaust, while vile, should not be a crime.
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and the way the former head of Free Tibet is quoted in that weblog
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According to Patrick French, the estimate of 1.2 million in Tibet is not reliable because Tibetans were not able to process the data well enough to produce a credible total. There were, however, many casualties, with a figure of 400,000 extrapolated from a calculation Warren W. Smith made from census reports of Tibet which show 200,000 "missing" from Tibet. Even The Black Book of Communism expresses doubt at the 1.2 million figure, but does note that according to the Chinese census the total population of ethnic Tibetans in the PRC was 2.8 million in 1953citation needed, but only 2.5 million in 1964. It puts forward a figure of 800,000 deaths and alleges that as many as 10% of Tibetans were interned, with few survivors. Chinese demographers have estimated that 90,000 of the 300,000 "missing" Tibetans fled the region.
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Why, while vile, shouldn't it be a crime these days to actively deny the Holocaust?
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I should add that my comments about freedom of speech are further reinforced after having read up about Koenraad Elst, author of that piece on Brussels Journal. Particularly this piece, which you might want to read: Paki Come Home!. He is a repulsive piece of racist shit but he has a right to exercise his freedom of speech, even though I don't agree with him.320
Speaking of Belgium.....321
Early this morning I heard it in the radionews over here; they were decent enough to add a few words as 'background info' about China attempting to gain ever more influence, worldwide, on what is basically an internal affair in countries. (Such as last year with the World Museum in Rotterdam and its The 14 Dalai Lamas exhibition, and how the Chinese Embassy in the very early stages of preparation already tried to muzzle the museum). But it didn't sound as if our national newsradio needed to consult any Tibetan activists before they made their point in the news today...322
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However, it gets much worse if you consider what an utterly controversial and low respected and often publicly ridiculed person the Belgian crown prince is, throughout the years. And it's not getting any better with the Belgian royals. Which makes this news about the Dalai Lama even a whole lot more embarrassing, imo. I mean, who to bow for? What "Belgian interests" that should prevail when a majority of the Belgians are uncomfortable with their royals nowadays? Why have him officially visit China at all?
It's easy to mislead a Dalai Lama nowadays, I guess...
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I have in mind to reply re. genocides, the Holocaust, freedom of speech a little later.
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China on Thursday warned other countries against developing close ties with the Dalai Lama, one day after the exiled leader of Tibet cancelled a trip to Belgium.
"We hope relevant parties and countries can keep on high alert for attempts by the Dalai Lama to undermine their relations with China and keep alert to his words and actions to split the motherland," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said at a regular news conference.
...
"The Dalai Lama's words and actions in the past decades have fully proved that he is by no means a purely religious figure, but a political exile who has conducted motherland-splitting activities under the camouflage of religion for years," Jiang said.
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A. "Reminiscent of the Dalai Lama visiting ....."325
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Yet analysing the official statement from Dharamsala, in my humble opinion you can also read it as a deliberate misleading of the Dalai Lama (re. the political situation in Belgium).
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re. # 325 - True, and at the same time unbelievable.QuoteBtw"(313):
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.
-- Chief Seattle (well over a 150 years ago)
QuoteCare to explain, pls.?
Dance monkey, dance!!!!
QuoteYes it should.
(# 316)
And yes, denying the holocaust, while vile, should not be a crime.
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Pretty much the point I was making in post #295 is made by a journalist in today's Independent, only far more eloquently....Quote
And that is where the Chinese have presented the Tibetans with a grave dilemma. The Dalai Lama is number one in the Tibetan religious hierarchy; number two is the Panchen Lama. It is the Dalai Lama's job to help identify, with the help of dreams and visions, the newly reincarnated Panchen Lama; and vice versa, so the hierarchy of reincarnated religious leaders leapfrogs down the ages. By abducting the newly identified Panchen Lama in 1995, and keeping his whereabouts secret ever since, the Chinese attempted to hijack this process; the puppet Panchen Lama they appointed in his place is duly expected to name a puppet Dalai Lama, once Tenzin Gyatso dies, and the People's Republic will then have the whole arcane system in its pocket.
Things might not go so smoothly for them, however. The Dalai Lama himself has said clearly that, owing to the oppressive conditions prevalent in Tibet, he expects his own reincarnation to appear outside, among the exiles. There remains of course the problem of who will identify him. "The absence of the Panchen Lama is one of the areas of anxiety in the Tibetan community," conceded Yael Weisz-Rind. "The Chinese are aware of this, and that's probably why the Panchen Lama was abducted."
But all is not lost. Another high lama is coming to ripeness just as the Dalai Lama prepares to leave the stage. Third in the hierarchy after the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, the 17th Karmapa Lama is unique in that he is recognised by the Chinese and the Dalai Lama. And, although he was believed by many in the Tibetan community to have come unhealthily under Chinese influence in his childhood, he redeemed himself dramatically in 1999 when he fled as a young teenager with a few companions from Tsurphu monastery and travelled hundreds of miles along unmarked tracks to avoid detection before turning up in Dharamsala.
This "Black Hat Lama", Ogyen Trinley Dorje, has not established a reputation in the West because Delhi has not yet allowed him to leave India. But his supporters in Dharamsala believe it won't be long before that happens. "He turns 22 next month, he now speaks six languages, and he's becoming more and more of a magnet here," said Jane Perkins, author of Tibet in Exile, from Dharamsala. "Even mainland Chinese are coming over to hear him speak, 90 came to his last appearance in southern India. There's absolutely no doubt that he is the new star: dynamic, powerful, full of young energy but with tremendous discipline and dignity, enormously sage for his age. We hope he will be free to go overseas soon. In which case he could take some of the load off His Holiness's shoulders."
She added as an afterthought: "Every teenage girl is in love with him..." And that's something not even Tenzin Gyatso can claim.
Life after the Dalai Lama
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I'm disappointed no nation called for a boycott of the official Olympic Games (yet).
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