Tibet & the Beijing Games

From Malaysiakini - Malaysian hypocrisy over Tibet.

Leading Malaysian neocon Scott Thong Yu Yuen, a reincarnation of R Rajan ;-) screamed at our Malaysian leader’s hypocrisy in warning Malaysians against the holding of protests against the Beijing Olympics.

He provided scenarios to prove that Malaysia might have acted differently if our nation has been the victim that Tibet was. Unfortunately he didn’t take his ‘liberal’ views all the way to include the tragedy of the Palestinians, which indicated his lamentable but known political proclivity ke ke ke.

He concluded his letter to Malaysiakini Vox Populi by stating: Just don't act as if you yourself are completely just, righteous and fair-minded. Be honest and admit your highly political biases. I looked at my nation in the mirror, and saw only hypocrisy.

Hey Scott buddy, re last sentence, can you replace the phrase ‘nation’ with ‘self’ – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Anyway, on a more serious note, my matey, renown blogger Susan Loone was amazed at the passion of her visitors with her post Let the Olympic torch pass, but remember the violence against Tibetans.

One had even appealed to her 'honour' (I spell it here with a 'u' in defiance ha ha ha) to ... whatever. Was that honour associated with her being a Chinese? I sure hope not ;-) Don't you all forget we are Malaysians, except for overseas visitors who visited her post.

Why should the Olympic Games, or for that matter any Olympics Games be involved with politics or war? But then trust the Yanks to galvanise a political boycott of the Moscow Games which saw an inevitable tit for tat boycott of the Los Angelos Games.

Yes, maybe many have forgotten what the modern Games were for. In the late 19th Century, Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France sought a way to bring nations closer together, to have the youth of the world compete in sports, rather than fight in war.

I left a couple of comments at Susan's but didn’t have the patience to plough through the post’s 200+ comments. My last comment was:

Too much emotion here.

Tibet is a strategic region for China, and of course a concern for the Tibetans - two legitimate parties arguing over history, politics, legality etc, admittedly uneven handedly.

However, the USA wants Tibet free (independent, not just more autonomous) for its own strategy against China. In other words, big (US) politics is lending a self-interested and hence hypocritical hand (of support in many forms) to Tibetans in the same manner as it had in Afghanistan, initially to the Talibans, then subsequently to the other side, the Northern Alliance warlords.

One sees American interference of such nature all over the world even in former Eastern Europe (now in Georgia, Ukraine, Romania, Albania, Czech, Poland) and the Middle East, as it is now supporting Fatah against Hamas when it once attempted to suppress Fatah. India (and even Vietnam) is one of its newly embraced in its strategic containment of China. A rightwing Sakorzy government in France has also lent that nation’s support to the anti Games movement.

The Chinese have pissed poor PR and whilst the arguments may be that some Tibetans could have started the killings in downtown Lhasa (to kick start the Free-Tibet-anti-Beijing campaign?) with the Chinese authority clamping down in its usual ham-fisted way, Beijing now looks bad to the people of the Western world. By contrast the Dalai Lama is one smart politician who knows lots about PR in the West. He is exploiting that to the hilt.

The Tibetans (and perhaps even the Dalai Lama) are ensuring they get max publicity in this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity, making China look so bad that even a few countries (hopefully more) may look towards boycotting the Games, or better force China to talk to the Dalai Lama, allowing him to put one foot in the door.

Whilst the Dalai Lama talks about Tibet being an intrinsic part of China and that he only ‘appeals’ for greater autonomy for Tibet, his supporters are screaming for full independence. The Tibetans know the Chinese will react badly so the more violent they behave, the better would be the PR outcome for them. Even harsh Nepalese police control of their violent protests has resulted in bad publicity, not for Nepal, but for Beijing.

Violence gets better publicity than calm peaceful protests - which has been why there has been complete inconsistency between the peaceful public image of the Dalai Lama and the extremely violent Tibetan protestors. He only needs to say one calming word to his protestors … alas …he has avoided that thus far in the interviews I have seen him in.

It’ll be a shame because nothing that the Tibetan do or nations boycotting the Games will change China, as in the ultimate national strategic consideration China would prefer to lose the Games (and reputation) rather than Tibet, so vital to its defence.

If the protests badly affect the Games, even to its eventual cancellation, I fear the subsequent outcome, the retribution of Beijing’s resentment on the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama can now kiss his hopes of even returning to Lhasa. The reality is … for China, regardless, Tibet is non-negotiable. The losers will be both China and Tibetans.

Indeed the passion has not been limited to Susan’s post as the two warring parties, Tibetans and Chinese nationals throughout the world, combat each other over the Games (physically, intellectually, historically, politically and emotionally). I won’t go into details other than to say there exist highly charged emotions and antagonisms between the two sides.

It’s worse than the tribalism exhibited shamefully by European supporters of a football match.