The
Tibetans have shown wonderful resilience, patience and
dignity, in the face of the most horrifying human rights
abuses, genocide and cultural devastation in their home
land.
These pictures on the right are from the refugee camp in neighbouring
India and which the resilient and determined Tibetans have
transformed into a monastery. It is home to about 5,000
Monks.
First Photo - Two Tibetan Lamas
Second Photo - Great Circle of Tibetan lamas
Third Photo (in chairs from left to right) - me, my teacher,
my friend Tsering and some of the circle of refugee monks
that Tsering is sheltering.
ABOUT
THEIR SITUATION
There are still endless stories of suppression, abuse,
stealing of any Tibetan businesses that becomes successful by police, imprisonment and torture
of monks, their teachers and Tibetans in general that are
still filtering out of occupied Tibet at an alarming rate.
Though we may consider that
the living conditions of Tibetans prior to the invasion by
the Chinese Communists looked very basic because they had no electricity or
modern facilities that we consider necessities, the
Tibetans managed to live long, with a most sophisticated
system of education and medicine. Ironically Tibet had
no poverty prior to the Communist Chinese occupation.
They lived in complete harmony with the
fragile environment. This appears to have been very wise
when we consider the environmental problems facing the world
today.
The virtually untouched Tibetan plateau
which had the largest untouched forest reserve on earth has now
been devastated by unrestrained logging, uranium mining and
reckless pollution under the Communist Chinese dictatorship.
There is now only 40% of this forested area left
and all the wildlife has basically vanished and the rivers
are full of toxic pollutants. The Chinese seem to have
no sense of environmental responsibility and have had no
regulations in place to protect the environment.
The
Communist Chinese propaganda machine only allows for
education in the Chinese language which they use to
brainwash their own people about how they have liberated
Tibet and spent a fortune of hard earned Chinese money on improving
Tibet and reuniting it with the motherland!! Hence the Tibetans are perceived as being ungrateful
by the Chinese community!! The Communist Chinese party saturate the
the tightly
controlled media with propaganda against the Tibetans as the
Nazis did against the Jews. Tibetans are too scared even to
go to hospitals which are all run and controlled by
Chinese. Tibetans' will more likely get ill-treatment than help. A Geshe friend of mine recently
left Tibet and informed me that there are now so many
beggars in Tibet it was overwhelming and shocking. He
said even if one went with a million dollars to give away it
would not be nearly enough to give each of them a little something!
As the
Tibetans are pushed out into the outskirts of their own
homeland by wealthy Chinese taking over the flourishing
areas, the Tibetans are forced to display Chinese flags in
the front of their houses as a show of patriotism to their
occupiers. If they do not, they are fined huge amounts of
money which they do not have so their houses get taken away
from them as payment.
If the Tibetans try to flee their own country they are
captured, shot or left to die in the snow. The
nuns and women are raped by Chinese soldiers with high voltage cattle
prods as a standard practice the Tibetan monks and males are either killed or imprisoned and
tortured. These acts are almost treated as sport within the
prisons which have virtually no reporting procedures
accountability or guidelines other than to be merciless to any Tibetan perceived
as being an enemy of Communist China. Some even say
that the central government does not even know the extent of
what goes on in the provinces and prisons.
The prisoners are not given medical attention.
In numerous areas in order to profit out of their prisons, prisoners are tested for blood
types and then marked for human organ transplants. When a
wealthy person needs a transplant and good money is offered
the prisoner with a matching blood type has the organ
removed whilst they are still alive in order to ensure that
the organ is in the best possible condition. Then the
prisoner is tossed into the street to die or just left to die.
Dead bodies floating down Tibetan rivers is not an uncommon
sight. An invoice is then sent to relatives
of the Tibetan to pay for the disposal of the body and even
the cost of the bullet used to shoot the prisoner is
included if a rifle was used.
In other
instances as Tibetans try to escape the persecution in their
own homeland Chinese soldiers shoot the Sherpas who are the
guides that take them across the impossible and treacherous Himalayan
mountains into Nepal. By shooting the guides, who are
usually at the front and back of a a group of Tibetans
trying to escape they paralyzes the group who do not know the way back to a
shelter in Tibet or the way forward to Nepal. High in
the Himalayan alps and knee deep in snow, the innocent Tibetans trying to flee the genocide are left to flounder,
starve and freeze to death in the
to the amusement of the Chinese army
groups that patrol the areas.
Tibet is a
well disguised and massive concentration camp. Some
Tibetan shops, monasteries etc are allowed to function to
give an impression that all is well. When the free
media or even just tourists go into Tibet, they are followed and
photographed everywhere they go. They are
searched and films and recordings are confiscated if perceived to be talking to Tibetans
or gathering any information that may reveal the
truth about what is going on.
One of the
conditions that China agree to in order to gain the
privilege of hosting the 2008 Olympic games was to allow
media access to anywhere in China during the build up and
running of the games. A few weeks before the flame relay was
to be run around the world. Some nonviolent protests
started within Tibet. A well trained unit of the
Chinese army dressed up as Tibetans and started violent and
destructive riots. They used this as and excuse to
throw all the mediate out! There is no free media in
Tibet at all.
With the
coming of the Olympic Games in Beijing, unthinkable
and alarming similarities to the pre World War II, 1936
Berlin Olympics are being witnessed. Chinese army
personal dress up as Tibetans and Tibetan monks and attack
Chinese civilians and Chinese private shops. These incidents
are filmed and broadcasted on the government controlled
television and published in the news papers in order to
generate hatred and anger in the 1.2 Billion strong Chinese
community toward the defenseless Tibetans. Adolph Hitler's
Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic
character while hosting the Summer Olympics. For over
fifty years the Communist Chinese Government has been
running propaganda campaigns via state controlled television
and news paper against the Tibetans. If you are
found with a picture of the Noble Peace prize winning Dalai Lama you are imprisoned
and re educated with round the clock torture.
The
lessons of the holocaust and those who sacrificed their
lives in World War II for humanities freedom against
dictatorship and genocide are not forgotten. However,
as we all put our hands on our hearts and say 'lest we
forget' it's hard to understand how we can remain silent
and feel there is little we can do about what has been
blatantly going on for over 50 years to the peaceful and
beautiful people of Tibet. It's an unfathomably sad tragedy when you look
into what the Tibetan way of life was like before the Chinese
Communist occupation.
Tibet was an unparallel,
wonderful and most positive country. The nearest thing
to Plato's republic that even surpassed even Plato's
visionary work. Tibet was governed by compassion and
human kindness as the philosophy out of which laws were
carved. Like any society it had trouble makers and
difficulties as is the nature of any group in this world.
Yet this system was arguably the best example of a
harmonious prosperous and meaningful way of living that the
world has ever seen. Especially when you consider the lack
of industrialization and complete harmony with the
environment. The Tibetan Culture also has the richest
most sophisticated education system. Their culture is
full of divine imagery, sounds practices and systems of
thought all geared to promote harmony and happiness.
It is a jewel in the crown of humanity that was peaceful,
well educated, without poverty and
positive. It is now
perilously close to extinction at the hands of the brutal
unconscionable Communist
Chinese occupation.
It is such a sad and unimaginably
harrowing situation which is left virtually ignored by the
rest of the world. The world is preoccupied with
profiteering and seems keen to take advantage of China's cheap labor whilst turning a blind
eye to the legions of human rights abuses. All for the sake
of securing
good trade relations with the communist dictatorship.
A new railway has been setup primarily to flood Tibet with Haun Chinese who
now outnumber Tibetans in their own
homeland. The railway was also set up to
transport the mountains of rich uranium and mineral
deposits from the Tibetan plateau back to China. There
is plenty of global money now being invested in China for
this purpose.
I wonder
if those that died for the sake of our freedom in the World
Wars would be happy with our level of concern at this time?
Would they feel their sacrifice was worth it for what we are
now accepting with little conscience and virtually no
objection?
There
really are small things that require little courage that
each of us can do to make a difference. Even just
telling others about the holocaust like activities of China
in Tibet by bringing it up in conversations
is very helpful to generate humane concern and awareness.
When thinking about
the words
- human and
humanity - it becomes obvious that actions of inhumanity are completely
against the grain of peace and happiness that are the
deepest aspirations of the human race. Why would any
human take the direction of inhumanity? Even on a very basic level we can see that we
never look back admirably at characters in history who were
cruel and murderous. We don't see giant pictures of
Adolph Hitler hanging proudly in German city squares!
In places like Germany there is only embarrassment at
the memory of people like Hitler. We see them as ugly monsters
lacking the courage and foresight to rise above their
self obsessed and miserable political aspirations.
It's insanity of the worst kind.
Mao Tse-Tung is responsible for what is estimated to be 20
million deaths and even more torture and devastation of his
own people during his reign in China. He was also
responsible for the 1.2 million Tibetans murdered during his
invasion and cultural revolution of Tibet . Mao
implemented policies of 'killing by quota' in all Chinese
provinces just to keep the people fearful enough of the
Government so as not to rebel. The current Chinese
communists sport a huge photo of Mao Tse-Tung in
Tiananmen Square and have given pride of place to a huge
memorial hall and
tomb with Mao in it in the center of Beijing as if it
is something to be proud of! The Chinese Communists
see it as tactfully useful to keep the shadow of Mao hanging over the culture
with
much of his propaganda still in place to secure their
continuing brutal reign. They grossly distort the memory of
Mao's cruel and insane domination over Tibet and the Chinese
people . If there were a gold medal for the worst
performance of a human life, it's hard to think of a person
who would or even could stand higher than China's Mao.
When you look at history it is also obvious that people
who are genuinely admired and considered courageous and great are those who sacrifice themselves for
others, serve others and are able to overcome grave
injustices and terrifying brutality whilst amazingly, at the
same time, remaining non violent and even displaying love,
kindness and compassion for their tormenters whilst still
doing all they could to help people and leave the world a better place.
As a human
being I would like to think that if the holocaust was
happening now then I would try to do what ever I could to
stop it. Even if it meant just joining a non violent
protest, signing a petition or offering a few dollars to
those who are good at organizing useful non violent
opposition to inhumanity. I would also like to think
that the rest of us in the world would learn from the
past and do what ever we could to stop a monstrous and
murderous regime from torturing killing and committing overt
genocide against millions of innocent people in their
own homeland .
The Chinese communists are human just like us. Somehow
they have completely lost their way so tremendously that
they have come to be creating such unimaginable misery for
others and ultimately much worse for themselves. They
are victims of the most short sighted confusion that has
lead them to feel so insecure that they act in completely
inhumane ways. What could be more pitiful than that?
I don't feel that our silence and inactivity is supportive
of our own sense of well being or our future. Many wise people feel that our current
environmental crisis is a result of our collective attitude
of neglect and that a positive change in that is necessary
for us to find solutions to what our fragile world is
reflecting back to us at this time. To continue our
evolvement as a species on this planet positive and
deliberate action seems to be required more than ever
at this time. With the Beijing Olympics just around
the corner and all the publicity surrounding the flame and
this regime we can no longer claim we did not know about the
holocaust like genocide going on in Tibet NOW.
It is said that giving to those in need and to ordained
monks devoting their lives to peace, happiness and service
of others is very
meritorious and results in great prosperity for oneself.
It's like joining in the energy of bliss happiness and
higher evolvement. It’s
nice to know that when helping others in desperate need it
is not only helpful and comforting to them but it fulfils
ones own aspirations as well. This is the true secret to
abundance, fulfillment and a successful and meaningful life.
In fact all positive energy and feelings that we experience
are a result of cherishing, working for and benefiting
others. We know this deep in our hearts and it
is reflected in the natural tendency of people to admire
historical figures who who have helped and served others in
selfless ways. We can catch a further glimpse of
this truth in our own lives by thinking about
parents. They work tirelessly and selflessly for their
children in extraordinary ways yet rather than consider this
a terrible burden parents generally say that being a parent
is the most important, rewarding and meaningful part of
their life!
If we managed to extend this parenting attitude toward all
beings the happiness and rewards of living become
unimaginably beautiful and wondrous! When such an
attitude starts to govern all our actions naturally, it's as
if we a filled with magical heavenly energy that
transports us from happiness to happiness without end. Even
that energy is felt by others and is why saints are depicted
with bubbles of energy and hallows around their heads.
These represent that special energy that you can feel when
around such great beings. In fact this energy is said
to be our very own inner nature that is accessible to
all of us if we would only take the steps to harness it's
power.
Most of us
need to start small however
any help you can offer to assist
the Tibetans who have no voice or protection inside Tibet
is most appreciated. Help is best given by supporting
the refugee monks, people who manage to escape Tibet
and organizations set up in free countries to raise
awareness and provide some support for the victims of this unimaginably insane and cruel occupation.
It
is so desperately needed at this time.
It seems to me
like humanity itself is at stake, the humanity in our hearts
and humanity as a collective. Please help to
preserve a most beautiful, humane and beneficial culture
that we have much to gain from and that only brings peace
and benefit.
It also seems
that the time for dramatically underestimating our own worth
and power has quickly come to an end. We stand at a
universal crossroad where we are being
challenged on every level from environmental, social and
spiritual to step up to the plate without hesitation
and "be the change we want to see in the world" or
suffer the consequences.
My own teacher who was there
at the time China invaded Tibet told me that the Chinese
felt that once they had Tibet they would then be in a strong
position to take over the world. The Chinese Communists try
not to appear expansionist yet they have the worlds biggest
army, nuclear bombs and are building a huge arsenal of
military machines. They also seem to be without conscience.
"If you
think one person can make no difference, try sleeping with a
mosquito." - His Holiness The Dalai Lama
At the
very least you can always pray with a strong aspiration -
"May I
urgently find a way to make a difference that is beneficial and
useful to myself and all other living beings."
