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Evening Open Thread: The Blogs On Tibet |
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Tibet is back in the news in a big way, with China’s heavy-handed actions sparking protests around the world, driving world leaders to boycott the Olympics’ opening ceremonies, and driving wedges between China and its longtime allies. As usual, blogs are offering great analysis.
Matt Brownher-Hamlin notes that apparently, China is treating the largely peaceful protests as an all out war:
The Olympics are a battle? China is preparing for a war? Tell me - who’s making sure that the Olympics are a political event again? Indeed, by the looks of things, the Chinese government would be happiest if the Olympics became a pitched, violent conflict on the streets of Beijing.
Indeed, quotes from protesters in Tibet attest to this fact:
“We are like prisoners here. There are soldiers all over the place…It’s all lies. The worshippers are really government officials. They are lying. They are treating us very badly.â€
– Monks speaking out at the Jokhang temple, during the carefully orchestrated tour for the Western media
I’m glad the Olympics are bringing this issue back into the limelight. China may have opened up a can of worms it wasn’t prepared to deal with here.
Your thoughts?
I do not wanna say politics about China,but there is a custom that I would like you to pay attention to,these words like “Let’s win the battle of the Olympic ” doesn’t mean to prepare for a war.It’s a little mistake.It means come on or break your leg,in a word,encourage his friends or subordinates to do a good job.You can ask any Chinese to make sure.This kind of slogans are used quite often in China,for example, my school’s basketball team will have a match with another school’s,the leader of the team will say:Let’s win this battle. This means :everyone,please do our best to win the match! so the slogan you saw on Chinese paper truly means “let’s do a good job for the Olympic”,because we think to hold a perfect Olympic is a challenge for us ,it’s not easy,so we wanna conquer the difficulties like winning a battle,mabe this is not a good way to express our determination, but this is a slogan we have said for many years when we face some important things,every people are very familiar with these kinds of words just like your words as :Come on or Break your leg! the funny thing is that when I first heard somebody tell me break you leg,I thought he was cursing me.The situation is quite the same now.
I think you are supplying a platform for the Tibetans,that’s ok,I respect your view while I keep mine,but I really would like you to put this comment on the page, because this may lead to some misunderstandings between the people in the eastern and western world,its’the government’s faults ,not the ordinary people like us,right? so we don’t have to have a grudge against each other.
Thanks for the perspective, Nash! I may be wrong, but the quote from China seems a bit more ominous than you are saying. Here’s the full quote:
Now, this may very well be another one of those cultural misunderstandings. If it is, please come back and interpret that quote for me. I’m very interested to know its meaning.
That’s an English translation of a statement in Chinese. More likely than not, the article was translated by someone who does not speak English as a native, and thus the meaning you are attempting to inject may not be the intention of the author.
That is quite good,I can’t agree more,the original article quoted should be more likely written by a Chinese, in the Chinese language,we always compare something to something else,for example, the spring is compared to a beautiful young lady,and completing a difficult mission is always compared to winning a battle ,the mission could be anything,even winning a small school match,we always encourage eath other by these words:Let’s win this battle.
I think as Chinese ,the translators should do more to avoid such kind of translation that may lead to misunderstandings,or they should explain under the article, I guess this article maybe is from an English newspaper in China.
I’m very glad that we’ve got a nice conversation to exchange some cultural views,I think I’ve got what you mean,well,in China,%u201CThe drums of war are sounding, a decisive battle is at hand%u201D,these words are not just quoted for Olympic, we say exactly theses words when we preparing for every big event.”The drums of war are sounding” means the Olympic is coming nearer and nearer,the difficult situation is coming.just as I told you,the Chinese suppose that the holding of a perfect Olympic is a big challenge for us,we wanna do a great job like winning a battle.
Why the police have to prepare for an arduous time ensuring order and control before and during the Games? Maybe you have been in China or not,the first impression China will give you is this:Wa-oh,how could be so many people here! just remember that we have 1.3 billion people, what’s more,a lot of people are crowding into big cities like Beijing from rural areas and all over China,I am one of them,so you can imagine what a picture it will be if seas of people crowd on the streets,in the subway,I definitely can say that the amount of people in Beijing during the Olympic will be the largest in the history of the world,so the Chinese police are really facing a severe situation to ensure people’s safety and a good traffic control.
Several accidents happened when a lot of people crowded together in the past few years, for example,during the Spring Festival in Feburary 2004,in Beijing’s suburbs distract,37 people died because there were too many tourists crowding on a bridge,one people fell down ,then one by one,a lot of them fell to the ground, the crowd lost control, some of those people were stamped on and killed,37 lives,what a sad thing.
Since we are the host of the 2008 Olympics,we must give our guests enough safety,must have a good control of the situation,including facing terrorists,if the Chinese police fail to win this”battle”,all the Chinese people will never forgive them,because it’s their duty,if they fail,it will be a slap on Chinese people’s face and they will lost their honor.
%u201CFor the sake of the Chinese nation%u2019s image and for the honor of the xxx, let us never forget our duty.%u201Dthis is a typical slogan we use when we join some international sports matches or when we do something that determines the fate of the nation,the honor of the Chinese people.
Why many Chinese hope to have a strong country and show us to the world so eagerly? The fact is that from 1846 to 1945,China has suffered a lot from being invaded. We have to be strong and we long for peace as you do the same,the Olympic Games will give us a good chance to express our minds,to show our enthusiasm and friendship.
I really would like you to understand the Chinese, after all,we are all pround of our own nations.
Thanks for the clarification! While I’m not sure I’m fully with you on your explanation, it is possible. We’ll have to see how Chinese forces treat Tibetan protesters in the days and weeks to come.
if you’ve watched the news lately, the protesters have disrupted the torch run in multiple cities (london, paris) and as a result many of them were arrested (at lest 32 in london) these protests were considered mild (just a bunch of sheep trying to steal the torch and snuff out the flame).
yet china gets dissed badly by the media when the chinese police try to arrest the protesters in tibet. I mean, all those protesters in tibet did was burn a couple of people to death when they set fire to a store building, and stab people on the street. surely they shouldn’t be arrested because they were only “protesting”.
just a different perspective from an australian that lived in china for a short while.
Hi Nash and others participating in this debate,
I’ve read all your comments with interest and would like to add my own.
Xav, what of the murdered innocents whose corpses have been photographed with Chinese bullets lodged in them? What of the tortured monks? What of the peace-loving lamas who have been locked away for ‘re-education’?
Give me a break.
The facts are that between 1912 and 1950 China and Tibet got along fine. The only thing Tibet did wrong was not come to the united nations table and begin to forge its own identity as a nation. All it wanted was to be left alone.
The Chinese invaded in 1950 because Mao and Communist doctrine is vehemently opposed to any religion.
The Chinese view Tibetans as inferior beings.
We conveniently forget that before the Communists took over, China’s main religion was Buddhism and The Emporers paid great respect to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Monks.
Let’s get some historical perspective on this issue and stop trying to argue point to point against a Chinese Government that lies and murders to get its own way.
Blessings to you and yours.
Hi,Jason ,dave and XAV, thank you for all your views about Olympics ,the different cultures and Tibet issue,I believe the Chinese and the Chinese government will listen to the different voices ,at the same time,welcome the friends all over the world to come to China to feel China.
XAV said he had been in China for some time,so maybe his feeling in China is more authentic than your imagination, my view is: the human rights in China is definitely not as good as those in Western countries,but not as bad as you think. The Chinese government hid a lot of things in the past, for example,at first,the DaLai Lama support the Chinese government, but later,for a lot of reasons,he left Tibet,then the Chinese government never told the public that at first DaiLai Lama had once supported the Chinese government, untill recently, the government told us the truth,and broadcasted on TV the video tape of 1950’s, showing that DaiLai Lama had got nice conversation with the central government officials then. After the Dailai left China and sought for independence,of course the government would tell the Tibetans not to see Dailai as one of their spiritual leaders,but they can still believe in their religion,just pay attention that there are two spiritual leaders in Tibet’s religion,DaiLai is an important one of them.
Hiding the truth should pay the price,now a lot of things happen,the Chinese government has to open the original real history book, I’m interested in history,World history and domestic history,so I wish you guys can get some useful information from me.
Maybe you guys think Communist Party as an evil,however,when this Party came out,it had gained a lot of support from most of the poor people,from 1928 to 1949,they confiscated the properties of the rich,for example,the landlords,the capitalists.These money and fortunes were possessed by the country,every citizen shared the fortunes equally(these things never happebed after1978).
So the rich people were afraid of the Communist Party,but the poor loved it.
Before 1959,after Tibet had came back to China(at least at that time Dailai did not refuse joining into PRC ,so just permit me to use the word come back,while you can keep your own view),the central government allowed to keep the existence of the different social system in Tibet.
However,the problem is :the society in Tibet was in some way like the middle aged European,the religion lords and the temples owned most of the land,accommondating a large number of monks, those monks and the landlords did not need to work, while on the other hand,tremendous poor Tibetans had no land,they had no choice but to work for the religion lords and the temple,they wanted to uprise,or call for help from the Chinese central government to change the situation. You know that the Communist Party had confiscated the wealth of the rich,its goal is to help the poor,so this scenery happened again:
The poor rebelled with the help of the central government,they burnt the contract of debt,claiming a equally-shared land, this scenery can be seen on the vedio tape broadcasted by the Chinese National Secret Profile Bureau. I can make sure that the delightful faces of those “slavers” are definitely true,they were singing,dancing and smiling. Because the the budget can not afford such a big amount of monks, some monks were sent back to be ordinary people,but still a lot left in the temple.
so after that ,DaiLai Lama chose to escape from Tibet and search for independent.
According to all of those materials, the Tibetan issue in my view,is not only a history problem,but also a conflict between the religion beliefs and the economic development,the Tibetans are loyal to their religion,a lot of them still see Dailai Lama as religional leader,but the Chinese government spent tremendous money developing the economy,improving their daily lives,that’s why you see only part of the Tibetans joined in the riot,even some Tibetans help save the ethnic Chinese during the riot.I think it’s a paradox for the Tibetans to make a choice.
I can not say who’s right or who’s wrong,the Chinese people and the government think the kind western people have been cheated by the western media,because they ignore the voices from China,maybe you r cheated,maybe me,maybe both.Who can tell?
DAVE,I think maybe I can help you explain your questiones:
1 The re-education is to make the monks deny Dailai Lama,I don’t think it’s a good way to solve the problem. so of course the monks wanna protest,but the protesters were not only composed of monks,but also some extremely violent youth ,and
the peace loving monks might not as peacful as you thought,maybe you have seen the video of some monks who led the riot in Lahsa on 14th,March,the monks destoried stores,schools,crushed cars,burned banks,threw stones to the police,but the Chinese government has its own duty,too,recently,it’s a natural act to the re-education.but the riot led to 18 death,including 5 girls about 20 years old burnt to death.Another thing is that a photo on the westernmedia,saying that the Chinese troops pretended to be monks and joined that riot,but that picture was took in 2003 when they were preparing to act in a movie,their uniforms are old style,the new uniforms the Chinese troops and police using now have changed,what’s more, if they wanna pretend to be monks,why could they do it on the street?
Now even if you think with your toes,you could know it’s fake.(This is another typical Chinese expression,it means it’s so easy that you need only a second to conclude ,without using your brain to think.That’s funny,right?)
2 The Chinese police fired at some protesters,I think it’s true,the domestic news have proved that,because the policemen had searched out a lot of guns and bombs in these areas,and it seems to be that those protesters had agreesive tools and attacked the police.
3 there are 2 foreign journalists in Lahsa that day,what they said was almost the same as XAV described,but I doubt that the government may have fired at some protesters.
4 Mao and the Communist Party do not intend to annihilate the religion,the Communist Party member can not join any religion, but the ordinary Chinese minority people can join whatever religion they want,but some religions illegal excluded, for now,even if you are Party member,you can also join in a religion without prevention now,but this kind of behavior is not encouraged,neither.but I have to admit that Mao made a lot of mistakes after 1949.
I really wanna say thank u for your blessing,the human rights here is not that bad now,when you come to China ,you will see and feel China in every perspectives,it’s much more better than you thought, I assure you of that.Welcome your arrival!
God bless those people who pursue freedom and happiness, and who’s helping us get more freedom and happiness,best wishes for you kindhearted guys.
Hello.I Have a project that i need to do and i was wondering if y you could help me please? what the main reason for the disruptions between tibet and china?
oh and is there a website that you know of which is not favouring too much to one side?