On the Olympics

I have been keeping up with the Olympics events via the BBC news website, and as much as I do not support the Chinese government in most of its policies, I am beginning to notice a disturbing trend in the BBC which stinks of an anti-Chinese bias – not just against the government, but against the Chinese in general. If you have time, check out the BBC site. Look at the language they use. Look at the ratio between Chinese and pro-Tibetan perspectives. Check out their articles on government responses to the Olympics. I think you’ll notice something.

Now about the protests. A week ago I wrote a post about how I took some photos of my friend walking around with an ‘Autonomy for Tibet’ sign so he could use them to do whatever he needed to do with them (I think he is participating in an online petition that requires photos/proof of protest). This had NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL, to do with the Olympics. NEVER have I thought ‘I hope the Beijing Olympics screw up!’ What is the point in that? This is a great opportunity for my country and I would much rather have the Olympics in China than in England or America, socialist party or not. In all my writings against the government of China, the Olympics did not even cross my mind.

I’m afraid that the protesters of London, Paris and San Francisco are actually missing the point and damaging Tibet’s cause further. I felt a guilty pleasure in knowing that hundreds of people were disappointed after the published route of the Olympic torch was not followed through, and ended up taking a different way. Both protesters and sightseers were outraged and many were deprived of a once-in-a-lifetime chance (full article here). All because of, dare I say, those bratty protesters who cannot separate one issue from another.

Let me ask pro-Tibet protesters this (myself included, as I support autonomy for Tibet): how is chasing the torch going to help the Dalai Lama we so respect? Think long and hard on this. I think the only reasonable conclusion is that you are not helping his cause, you are needlessly pissing off many overseas and domestic Chinese (and many people in your own country), and making the Chinese government even more determined to make sure (haven’t you heard of ’saving face’? Surely you don’t think it doesn’t apply here?) things go ahead. The San Francisco incident was typical of this mindset. Learning of the protests in Paris and London, the organizers went ahead with the torch relay regardless – they just didn’t let anyone see them. What kind of a lose-lose situation is that? The Chinese are embarrassed, and local sightseers are dismayed and unhappy. And the protesters who actually know what they’re doing and don’t just parrot what the Western media squawks don’t get their point across.

Buddhism is not a big religion; the disruptive protesters in Paris/London/San Francisco could not possibly have been made up of Buddhists alone, let alone Tibetan Buddhists. There’s a fair bet that within those crowds are people who will not think for themselves regardless of any situation. Tell you what, pro-Tibetans – let us Buddhists do the work. You are literally getting in the way.

Most Westerners who protest in the name of Tibet are damaging the Dalai Lama’s cause. It seems like that they minimize their scope when they should have a holistic picture, and confuse an issue with something else when they should be exercising their discriminative faculties. Not to mention that I do not agree that Tibet was necessarily a Shangri-La utopia before the Chinese came. I do not have such naive, idealistic political opinions. Throughout history Westerners have tended to see things black and white (why else did it develop a supremacy complex during the colonial era? WE are better, THEY are inferior), and even now when they support a non-Western institution, they still take the same, tried-and-failed vision and apply it to two nations that most common laypeople do not understand (Tibet and China). I also happily confess ignorance on so many things here! Why dive into the deep waters when we can barely swim? Do we all want to drown in a whirlpool of idiocy or something?

In other words, protesters: ease off the Olympics. You’re causing trouble for everyone. Protest FOR Tibet, not AGAINST the Olympics. Let’s cause trouble for the Chinese government, not the Chinese people, who see the Olympics as a historic moment in their ancient and mighty nation’s history.