Greg Palast: Het kauwen van Boedha Bush bij Olympics
Lhasa, Tibet - is de geheime politie van China enkel vreselijk bij het houden van geheim.
De detective, gekleed in haar pak en pompen aangewezen aan stedelijke Lhasa, verwachtte niet om mijn vrouw en me omhoog de steile helling aan een klooster te slepen 15.000 voet omhoog een ijs-vastgeroeste rand. Zelfs bij 200 yards achter ons, kon ik haar zien rillend in de dunne, bevroren lucht, die absurd, als enkel een andere wandelaar op de onvruchtbare helling probeert te kijken.
Maar toen, probeerde zij werkelijk niet te verbergen. Haar aanwezigheid moest een bericht van vrees en intimidatie verzenden. Ik kreeg het punt vroeger toen een fotograaf die wij in Tibet hadden helpen heimelijk nemen werd gearresteerd, greep haar film van protesterende Tibetans en haar gebroken camera aangezien zij op het eerste vliegtuig verlatend het land door elkaar werd gegooid.
Toen mijn politieschaduw weg eruit zag, brak ik een foto van de lange dozen onder me, daken van de complexe gevangenis. Het huisvestte meer Boeddhistische monniken dan om het even welk klooster.
Bij hermitage die in de toprots ik wordt gesneden met de benen over elkaar mijn gastheerzitting onder een oud tapijtwerk afschilderend een monster klaar vond om stille zielen te verslinden.
De heilige man had vragen voor ons:
Heeft het Christendom een god? (Antwoord: „Soms. “)
Wat is een Voorzitter `'?
Het was 1993. Ik vertelde de monnik de nieuwe Voorzitter, Bill Clinton, Lama Dalai had ontmoet
Dit Clinton moet een zeer heilige en zeer goede mens zijn, ja? (“ Soms. “)
Het is niet dat de priester worldly kranten vermeed, maar hij enkel geworden uit gevangenis na 27 jaar en hij werd daar veel nieuws niet. dat u geen echt nieuws in Tibet kon krijgen. Geen journalisten worden daar toegestaan. (Niet om aan hun Chinese minders impolite te zijn - of hun winstgevende Olympics verliezen behandelt - de New York Times en de NBC- dekking Tibet van Peking en Delhi. Controleer enkel de door-lijnen.)
Ik verzekerde hem dat Clinton, hoewel niet helemaal heilig, bij de minst, Tibetans zou helpen.
Dat geschenen gemakkelijk genoeg aangezien zij niet, deze bergmensen zeer wilden. Zij eisten geen onafhankelijkheid van China maar ironisch, enkel het tegengestelde: een kans Chinees te worden, namelijk volledige toegang te hebben tot het scholen, universitaire posities veroorloofde zich hun etnische kameraden Han; and to have a share of the jobs and wealth created by the uranium and other resources of their plateau nation.
And maybe something a little un-Chinese: freedom of expression, of movement, of culture, of religion. I assured the monk that this new President would help them obtain just a bit of autonomy in the “Tibetan Autonomous Region,” as China calls it.
The lama smiled. It was not cynicism but a friendly disbelief in change happening in this coming year. He measured change in lifetimes.
He asked a student monk to pull down a small painted statue of the Buddha - which the elder man then chopped apart with a knife. He then gestured to his acolyte to give us each a piece of the icon - to eat.
Swallowing the body of his Lord was not meant to make us holy but to solve a more immediate problem - lunch. The painted god, I discovered with relief, was made out of barley, beer, rancid butter and honey.
I could see that my Tibetan translator was chomping at the bit to show the old man messages we’d brought from the Dalai Lama’s Secretariat in India. But that would have been suicide. The young translator’s brother (I certainly won’t use their names), a cook at a nearby temple, joined a demonstration of monks against Chinese rule and was shot dead. I admonished our translator that his mother couldn’t afford to lose her last remaining child.
Instead, we gave the lama a postcard printed with the image of the multi-armed god Chenrezig. The priest would know, but the Chinese wouldn’t, that Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama, is a reincarnation of this god.
“Ta la’i bla ma tshur log pa,” I said in my ridiculous Tibetan. The Dalai Lama will return.
We all return, he indicated, though not necessarily in this body.
The shivering “tourist” policewoman waited for us to leave before she entered the sanctuary. I can only imagine the questions she’d asked.
Ta la’i bla ma tshur log pa. The point of our heading deep into Tibet’s wastelands was to spread the word that the Dalai Lama hadn’t abandoned his people as the Chinese propagandists told them on radio, on loudspeakers, and through their local quislings. (My favorite notice was a warning by Chinese authorities that they must “approve all re-incarnations.” That was meant to avoid the Dalai Lama locating the new child containing the soul of the Panchen Lama, the Dalai Lama’s missing, and obviously murdered, number two man.)
On to another monastery with the postcard and the message. The old nuns would put the postcard over their eyes and forehead and turn to bow into the sun’s rays, the symbol of Free Tibet.
One monastery was quiet. In a land where you see the clouds below you, not above, sunlight is brutally harsh. Every image stands out in painful, unforgettable clarity. This emptied place had been smashed into ruins by the Red Guards. They’d arrested all the monks they hadn’t gunned down, some of the 200,000 Tibetans killed by the Chinese in their ethnic “re-education” campaign.
But the troops had left standing a wall of painted Buddhas, dozens and dozens of them. The Chinese cadres were certain the magic powers of these religious images were bunkum. Nevertheless, just in case, they’d put a bullet hole in each Buddha’s forehead.
Back down in the city, another plainclothesman, a grinning Chinese man, greeted me in the parking lot of the Lhasa Sheraton - in English, “Glad to see you again!”
Again?
“Oh, don’t you remember me? I was standing outside the Dalai Lama’s in Delhi.”
“Um, I was there to, you know, get some maps and, uh, some postcards.”
O.K. This is my warning. Say something, Palast. I tried this:
“That’s nice!” He stepped closer and grinned harder. “I have some books for you about Tibet” - some propaganda about Tibetans as cannibals (really). He paused, grinned even harder, then added, “I left them in your room.”
In my room? Another warning.
I wasn’t worried about the bed search. The envelope the Dalai Lama’s Secretariat had given us had already been delivered to persons whose identities we made certain not to know.
*
In his fleeting moment as President, Bill Clinton didn’t have time to remember Tibet. More pressing to him was free trade - with Mexico via NAFTA - and free trade with China, to which he granted Most Favored Nation status.
*
That May, we left just as the streets were filling with Tibetans demonstrating for freedom. They would never be seen on US TV. Not then, not now. NBC will interrupt the Beijing Summer Olympics only to broadcast its millionth ad for McDonald’s.
George Bush is there; says he was thrilled that the Chinese dictator, Hu Jintao, invited him and Laura and the kids to lunch. I doubt if they dined on a barley Buddha.
In the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Berlin, Americans knew that the competition was as much over our national souls as our physical prowess. When Jesse Owens, a Black man, left Hitler’s Aryan runners eating his dust, America jumped to its feet and cheered - not just for what he did, but for who we are: for liberty and justice for all.
Now, our Olympic Committee cravenly demands our athletes remain silent about Tibet. But they shouldn’t bother: Bush has already won the gold medal in the Cowardly Silence competition.
*
On the way to the Lhasa airport, leaving those occupied territories, I thought I could see, looking into the harsh glare, the Buddhist hermitage just below the Himalayan crest. I asked my guide if he’d heard from the old monk. I was told that, days after our visit, he raised the Tibetan sun-flag and was arrested.
The foolish Chinese undoubtedly would have sentenced him to only one life in prison.
He would return.
Have Your Say: Greg Palast: Chewing the Buddha Bush at the Olympics
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report here.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 11:50 am and is filed under Contributions & Guests . 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.
Translations
Loading ...Related News
- Dalai Lama accuses China of cultural genocide
- China premier attacks Dalai Lama
- Nepal police detain 100 Tibetan protestors
- Brown promises to meet Dalai Lama
- Dalai Lama threatens to quit over Tibet violence
Email This Page To A Friend
Latest Headlines
- McCain Office Mailed Threat, White Powder
- Wasted Food Is Also Wasted Water
- Man Selling Anti-War Shirts Wins Ruling
- UK court rules against gov’t in key Guantanamo case
- Planning to E-Vote? Read This First
- At JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office
- L.A. City Council Decides to Outlaw New Fast Food Restaurants
- A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom
- US oil pipeline politics and the Russia-Georgia conflict
- Pentagon can’t find $2.3 trillion, wasting trillions on ‘national defense’
More Breaking News
Archive
