An exile Tibetan displays a portrait of Tsewang Norbu, 29, a Buddhist monk who died after setting himself on fire in China's Sichuan province.
Cruise into any Hollywood studio parking lot and you'll see lots of Obama stickers. Also wildly popular are various "green power" stickers. I recently saw one of these dopey stickers slapped on 12 cylinder Bentley. Totally LOL.
You'll also find one or two "Free Tibet" stickers. Peeling and faded, these bumper stickers are kind of sad, a pathetic echo of a righteous cause that was never quite sexy enough for the liberal elite.
China is a ruthless totalitarian state hence NY Times lefties Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman are inspired by its social and economic model. The progressive left (liberals no longer exist, they passed away with Scoop Jackson and Daniel Moynihan) is basically an anti-Democratic, anti-Constitutional, facist movement that adores big government--they hate big corporations; go figure--but holds ordinary citizens in contempt.
The Chinese have raped, looted and pillaged Tibet. They ruthlessly suppress Tibetan Buddhism and nationalism.
Now, the Chinese authorities are determined to choose the next Dalai Lama.
This is a bit like Hamas choosing the next chief rabbi of Israel.
Thus, Buddhist monks and nuns have been burning themselves to death in protest.
You would think that all the free Gaza fanatics would support the people of Tibet. You would think that the Europeans who constantly agitate on behalf of the "occupied " Palestinians would also express outrage on behalf of the people of Tibet.
But of course, that will never happen.
The reasons are simple:
1. The Tibetans are pacifists. Hence, their message bears no real weight. It's just not sexy. If they slaughtered innocent women and children or dispatched suicide bombers, the social justice mob would be convinced that their cause is righteous. But since they only kill themselves, well, it's just not terribly convincing.
2. No Jews involved. If the Chinese were, y'know, named Arik or David and wore the Star of David instead of the sickle and hammer, you can bet your bottom dollar that the international left would be out of their so-called minds in outrage.
The Wall Street Journal ran this editorial:
The Dalai Lama observed a fast Wednesday to mourn Tibetans who have set fire to themselves to protest the Chinese government's tight control over Buddhist monasteries.
The most recent case of self-immolation came on Monday with 20-year-old nun Tenzin Wangmo. She is the ninth Tibetan since March to commit ritual suicide.
The suicide of monks and nuns has the potential to ignite unrest among the wider population.
It also draws the attention of the outside world to the dissatisfaction felt among Tibetans at Beijing's ongoing attempt to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama.A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said yesterday that the authorities would take tough measures to maintain "normal social order." Monks and nuns are being forced to attend "patriotic re-education" sessions.
More troops are heading for the most troublesome areas--the Tibetan parts of Sichuan Province, such as Ganzi and Aba prefectures.What effect this will have is another question. Public security expenditures in Ganzi and Aba have been abnormally high since 2002, rising again in 2006 and 2007, according to a report from Human Rights Watch. After the first immolation in March, "armed personnel surrounded [Kirti] monastery and cut off its access to food and water for several days. New security officials dispatched to the monastery on March 21 imposed a new compulsory 'patriotic education' campaign." So it is unsurprising that seven of the recent self-immolation protestors are connected to Kirti.
More far-sighted policy makers in Beijing might learn something from studying the recent suicides and their causes. The harsh policies of Wang Lequan and Zhang Qingli, until recently the Party secretaries of Xinjiang and Tibet respectively, have only succeeded in increasing underground resistance to Chinese rule.
Now the same methods are spreading unrest to Tibetan areas outside of Tibet proper. If the government does not rethink its strong-arm tactics, the cost in lives lost will continue to rise.
