Rhywun’s World

Will the Olympic torch’s path through San Francisco be a three-peat after the protesters in London and Paris got more attention than the torch itself? It’s getting a posse of protection normally reserved for world leaders, but travelling through America’s most protest-happy city practically guarantees mayhem will ensue. I say, bring it on. If there’s anything worth protesting, it’s the world giving China’s despicable totalitarian regime the acceptance it so desperately craves and so clearly does not deserve. China’s leaders will continue to spread vicious lies about the “splittists” who continue to demand some sort of freedom from their tyranny, while continuing to practice the same kind of “manifest destiny” tactics that the US and other countries got away with 150 years ago but doesn’t fly in today’s globalized, democracy-conscious community. Sorry, China, if you want to participate in today’s world affairs, expect to have your dirty laundry aired in public, and DON’T expect the same old torture and repression to make it go away.

Anyone who has any lingering doubts over the utterly contemptible, mind-boggling evil of the Chinese Communist regime ought to be convinced by looking a little deeper at some of the details behind China’s recent crackdown in Tibet:

China’s long-term strategy, which the violence may have only reinforced, has been to wait for the Dalai Lama to die on the theory that it can control his successor as Tibet’s spiritual leader. A new Dalai Lama would likely have little of the same prestige, inside China or abroad.

In 1995, China arrested the Panchen Lama, the No. 2 in Tibetan Buddhism, a 6-year-old at the time. He has not been seen since. China then anointed another Tibetan youth as a replacement, and it has tightly controlled his education and public duties since. Under Tibetan Buddhism, traditionally the Panchen Lama names a new Dalai Lama, theoretically giving the Chinese government control over the present Dalai Lama’s succession.

Countries around the world have been grabbing adjacent territory throughout history, eliminating or “assimilating” the existing populations in the process–my own included. However, in the early 21st century, no country that expects to be taken seriously on the world stage ought to believe that it can get away with such barbarity. A government that “disappears” a six-year-old child in hopes of controlling its conquered territory has no legitimacy whatsoever.

Björk has gotten into a spot of trouble in China:

… singer Bjork caused controversy by shouting “Tibet, Tibet” at a Shanghai concert. … China’s culture ministry said the outburst “broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people’s feelings” and pledged to “further tighten controls”.

“Hurt Chinese people’s feelings”? Hold on while I vomit…. There, back now. One would think Chinese people’s “feelings” are hurt more by their illegitimate government’s detainment and torture of their countrymen who do things like… advocate freedom for Tibet. Foreigners get off with a warning and perhaps banishment; natives disappear.