For those who haven’t heard of the politics surrounding the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese government is dealing with Tibetan monks who are protesting the Chinese occupation and control of Tibet. In the early 1950s, the People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet and has maintained a strong military occupation there since. Tens of thousands of Tibetans have lost their lives under the brutal and unjustified rule of the Chinese army.

Anyway, the Buddhist monks are protesting the fact that China represses and unjustly controls Tibet and they hope that other nations around the world will pressure China to leave Tibet. A few days ago, a number of Chinese people and Tibetans were killed by rioters, and the Dalai Lama saw that tensions were rising. The Dalai Lama said that he would step down if the protestors continued to riot in a violent manner. However, the Chinese government claimed that the Dalai Lama was provoking riots and called him a liar when he mentioned he had nothing to do with the riots.

Maybe it’s just me, but I could never think of calling the Dalai Lama a liar, especially when it comes to provoking violence. Buddhists follow the concept of Ahimsa, or non-violence, very closely and the Dalai Lama is the embodiment of that ideal. It seems to me that the Chinese government is hastily calling people names due to a guilty conscience.

With the Olympics drawing near and other countless problems piling up-such as pollution, crime and lack of space-the violation of human rights is the newest addition to the long list. Human rights groups around the world are beginning to take notice of the protests and are also attempting to get the attention of national lawmakers to reprimand the Chinese government.

Over the past few years, China has been growing enormously and has been vying to become another major industrial power. Many developed nations, including the United States, have looked the other way regarding gross violations of human rights in China because they purchase cheap goods in large quantities. Recently, the developed nations buying from China have had to reprimand the country due to problems with products, and slowly people are taking notice of other issues. The lead poisoning in children’s toys is a drastic example of how much damage was done until people saw the lack of quality in cheap goods. Similarly, the Olympics brought the spotlight on the occupation of Tibet, and now the Chinese government is facing criticism throughout the world.

Of course, whether or not the United States will do anything about the actions of the Chinese government is questionable, but at least more attention has been paid to violation of human rights. Hopefully, some groups will succeed in freeing the people of Tibet, and perhaps the Chinese government can let go of Tibet peacefully.

Aditya is a freshman in Arts & Sciences and a forum editor. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Popularity: 1% [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Forum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.