Dalai Lama: “No One Can Tell Protestors To Shut Up”
April 10th, 2008
Forgive me, readers… for being so vocal about Tibet’s situation. But I confess that my heart is deeply embedded in this matter. In fact, if you’ve known me long I’ve always been an avid supporter for a “Free Tibet” and wish for their independence from China.
Dalai Lama: No one can tell protesters to ’shut up’
Kill Them With Kindness
I’ve also been an admirer of the Dalai Lama and his teachings of compassion, his call for world peace, and non-violence.
China is spreading propaganda and lies that the Dalai Lama has been the mastermind behind violent protests in Tibet and around the world. The fact is, he’s always promoted world peace and non-violent resolutions, and has even won the Noble Peace Prize for his efforts in promoting world peace.
It is understandably the Dalai Lama’s nature to speak of peace, compassion and good will toward others. And the freedom to express and protest when it is necessary. Any actions by any violent protestors are actions not supported by the Dalai Lama.
China’s Acts of Suppression, Propaganda and Oppression
Another fact is that China has been suppressing news of the protests from the outside world. They have been the ones “crushing” the protests in a violent way, and spreading lies that the opposite is actually happening.
Read: China Regime Implicated in Staging Violence in Tibet Protest (photo)
Given China’s reputation for censorship and suppression, it’s obvious that China is going out of its way and to great lengths to silence the protests and to post propaganda to confuse and/or steer people away from the truth.
Another problem is that Western countries and corporations have a LOT invested in the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing. Big companies like Sony, McDonalds Corporation, etc. have their hands economically tied behind their backs. On personal levels, the athletes themselves (who have trained to compete and to win gold) want to be a part of the Games and not have to back out because their country has decided to Boycott.
The Dalai Lama Has Always Supported The Olympics
The Dalai Lama has said that he supports the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
The Dalai Lama said he supports China’s hosting of the Summer Olympics on Thursday, but insisted that nobody had the right to tell protesters demanding freedom for Tibet “to shut up.”
“We are not anti-Chinese. Right from the beginning, we supported the Olympic games,” he told reporters outside Tokyo on a stopover on a trip to Seattle. “I really feel very sad the government demonizes me. I am just a human, I am not a demon.”
But it’s the protestors worldwide who are calling for a boycott of the Olympics in Beijing.
Remembering Tiananmen Square
The ruling Communist Party in China may have the power and military might to silence the protests, and to keep the media out of Tibet. They have tried to do something similar before with the Massacre at Tiananmen Square. But, as always happens, the truth always comes out.
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, widely known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, in China referred to as the June Fourth Incident to avoid confusion with the two other Tiananmen Square protests and as an act of official censorship, were a series of demonstrations led by labor activists, students, and intellectuals in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) between April 15 and June 4, 1989. While the protests lacked a unified cause or leadership, participants were generally against the authoritarianism and economic policies of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and voiced calls for democratic reform within the structure of the government. The demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, but large-scale protests also occurred in cities throughout China, including Shanghai, which stayed peaceful throughout the protests. In Beijing, the resulting military crackdown on the protesters by the PRC government left many civilians dead or injured. The reported tolls ranged from 200–300 (PRC government figures), to 400–800 (The New York Times), and to 2,000–3,000 (Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross).
