Do you have any idea how Tibetans could make the news, how they could make their voice heard? We know that governments around the world cannot voice their opinion (if they have one) and take the risk to upset China. The dramatic situation in this country did not make the headlines for ages despite the recent violent repression of public protests. For weeks, China has deployed soldiers and never hesitates to kill protestors. From the little information that we can get, two protests erupted in two counties of North West China on the 9th February with 1000 people each.
The exiled government is asking for international help but nothing happens. Internet has been shot down and independent journalists are turned away by security forces.
We hear so much about the Middle East, about Iran, Syria, Israel, about all those countries which are so important to our interests. Anything happens in Baghdad and the world knows about it within a few minutes.
I have been raised in the idea that we all are equal in rights. Have you heard anything about the fact that 16 Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in less than a year? Isn’t it shocking to see that they did it in vain and that the occidental governments did not even protest? It is against their religion to commit suicide and they still did it, hoping that it would have an impact on the international community. What is the UN doing? In 2008, Louise Harbour, UN High Commissioner for Human rights voiced concerns about tensions in Tibet but what is happening now? Can we not do anything to protect a population against torture, repression and violence?
China wants to keep control on Tibet because despite the very difficult geographic situation, Tibet has lots of metal resources which are of great interest for China. They want to still underground wealth and they can do it with the blessing of the rest of the world. They installed a new rail link to Tibet in order to rate the underground more easily.
We have no problem invading foreign countries, telling countries what they can do or not, send militaries, take control, kill people but we cannot even prevent a cultural genocide in Tibet. Do we know how many people died in Tibet since the Chinese invasion? Some sources are saying that over a million people died as a direct result of the Chinese repression in Tibet.
Why don’t we want to save a part of Humanity which shows us the way to a better Humanity? Why are we not, as human kind, more interested in the specificities of a population which believes and lives under the principles of non violence? Are we not curious enough to try to understand what makes the difference between Tibetans and most of the rest of the world? Don’t you think that we have a lot to learn from them? Don’t you think that what we do to save animal species from extension could at least be done for Tibetans? Could we have enough respect for ourselves as Humanity to feel responsibility towards this unique part of Humanity?
