On Eve of the Olympics, China Rolls out new Tibet Propaganda

July 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Telegraph: Tibet is a better place

Yesterday, England’s newspaper The Telegraph (nicknamed the “Tory-graph” after the country’s conservative political party to which it caters) ran a piece of pure Chinese propaganda.

The piece (one could hardly call it an article) is by Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to Britain, and was featured just a day before the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony (tonight). Amazingly, Liu claims that:

Today, Tibetan people are masters of the Tibet Autonomous Region. They no longer have to worry about livelihood. They all have equal access to education of Tibetan language and culture. Much effort is going into further developing Tibetan culture and art.

Unfortunately, this couldn’t be much further from the truth. Monasteries are occupied by government troops, monks and laypeople disappear in government raids, others are shot and killed or simply starve or freeze to death on their attempts to leave Tibet. Nepal, once a safe haven en route to settlements in India, has become increasingly pro-China, arresting and returning (to who knows what fate) many of those who try to escape the horrible situation in China-occupied Tibet.

Of course, Liu’s claims are nothing new. In fact their is practically a factory for Chinese propaganda on Tibet, the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, which the NY Times describes as:

a socialist-style confection whose current exhibition, “50th Anniversary of Democratic Reforms in Tibet,” is getting rave reviews from the soldiers, schoolchildren and government officials who are bused in day after day.

With its display cases of gruesome torture devices, grainy film scenes of mutilated faces and the “liberation” shots of beaming Tibetans, the exhibit is a propagandist tour de force that reinforces the Communist Party’s unbending version of history during what is referred to here as a “sensitive time.”

In a sense it’s just sad. I avoid bringing up the topic of Tibet and the Dalai Lama around most of my Chinese friends. Most have been educated 1) to distrust Western media and views and 2) to especially distrust Western media and views on Tibet. So naturally any non-Chinese version of history, ancient or modern, is discounted. One friend, who has been in the UK for about a decade now, actually surprised me a few weeks ago, blurting out, “it’s all bullshit, everything that the Chinese government says is lies…”

But what is sadder, perhaps, is that Western media is now so desperate for …(?) that they are regurgitating Chinese propaganda word for word.

Here are some glimpses into recent atrocities in Tibet under Chines control as well as a petition to the UN to bring attention to the issue.

YouTube Preview Image

YouTube Preview Image

The FLAME OF TRUTH RELAY is a global event, beginning on July 6, 2012, the 77th birthday of HH the Dalai Lama, in northern India, will travel from there across hundreds of cities around the world. The relay will end on December 10, 2012, World Wide Human Rights Day. (see more and sign here)

And here are some other sites for information. Educate yourself, educate your friends and family.

Filed Under: Activism, China, Tibet, video Leave a Comment

Digital Dharma on Kickstarter

January 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

UPDATE, 3:30am EST Jan 22: With just over 8 hours to go, the goal of 30,000 has been reached. The project will be funded and the movie completed!

Update, 7pm EST Jan 21: Just 17 hours to go and now less than $3000 short of the goal.

Digital Dharma kickstarter campaign

Digital Dharma kickstarter campaign (click to contribute)

There are literally just hours left if you would like to help fund a movie about E. Gene Smith, the man devoted his life to the study of Buddhism and who brought us the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, an invaluable site for scholars and practitioners committed to the understanding and preservation of Tibetan texts.

About the Film

Digital Dharma uncovers E. Gene Smith’s 50-year journey with renowned scholars, lamas and laypeople as they struggle to find, preserve and digitize more than 20,000 volumes of ancient Tibetan text. Crossing multiple borders – geographic, political and philosophical – Digital Dharma is an epic story of a cultural rescue and how one man’s mission became the catalyst for an international movement to provide free access to the story of a people.

To view the trailer and to find out more information on the film please visit our website: www.digitaldharma.com

To become a fan of the film on Facebook, please visit:http://www.facebook.com/DigitalDharma

About the Mission

In 1959, Tibetan villages were attacked and hundreds of monasteries were destroyed, causing irreplaceable ancient Sanskrit and Tibetan writings to disappear.  This tumultuous time put the history of the entire Tibetan culture in peril – and called a man from Ogden, Utah to his destiny.

E. Gene Smith became the unlikely leader in an effort to rescue, preserve and share the riches of a 1,500-year-old seemingly lost Tibetan literary culture.  Smith’s mission crossed geographical, political and philosophical borders to rescue this chronicle of mankind’s advancements—from the medical to the mystical.

With the Buddhist thought at its core, his goal was to digitize the more than 20,000 volumes he rescued in order to provide free access to the story of a people. With technological advancement speeding forward, Gene’s vision was to make these texts accessible to everyone, even in the most remote monasteries and villages, and preserve the knowledge they contain for humanity.

(read more and see photos of Gene in the field and at work here)

Filed Under: Academia, Buddhism, Tibet Leave a Comment

Tibetan Buddhism: Two more immolations, two more museums

January 7, 2012 By 2 Comments
Tibetan Monks at the Bodhi Tree, Bodh Gaya, India

Tibetan Monks at the Bodhi Tree, Bodhgaya, India.

“As long as they aren’t waging war, the rest of the world just ignores what’s  going on in post-occupied Tibet.”

These were the sentiments of one scholar who recently posted yet another link to a news story discussing self-immolations in Tibet.

Robert Thurman last month passed on the news that the self-immolation of Tibetan Monks reached the top of TIME magazine’s list of underreported stories of 2011. The image below, from the Telegraph, provides just a tiny glimpse into the conditions that monks (and no doubt others) must endure in Tibet.

Having lived in Bodhgaya and knowing many Tibetans in my life, I can tell you this is painful to see. The Tibetans I’ve known have almost all been amongst the most joyful, kind,  intelligent, and humorous people I have ever met. I recall that a student from a previous year in the Antioch program where I taught had been so touched by the humor of the Tibetans she met in India that she wrote her Independent Study essay on the humor of Tibetans. And of course for most readers I don’t even need to begin to write about the amazing art, architecture, festivals, philosophy, and practices of Tibetan Buddhists.

What is being lost in Tibet is a human treasure that can never be reclaimed.

And as Tibetan life and culture is destroyed in its native land, it is finding new vehicles for preservation outside it. Two new museums are reported to have opened recently in Bodhgaya, both dedicated to Tibetan causes:

Both the Tibetan museums were inaugurated by Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister on 29th and 30th December. While one museum will be completely dedicated to [the] Dalai Lama and his life along with compilation of pictures and documents showcasing Tibet during various stages of history, the other museum will showcase and commemorate 50 years of the Tibetan medical and Astrological Institute of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Tibetan man with a prayer wheel, Bodhgaya, India

Tibetan man with a prayer wheel, Bodhgaya, India (Dec 2010)

Let us hope that trend of destruction and museumification does not continue unimpeded.

update: I wanted to add two excellent articles for further reading. The first is by George Heymont, titled “Can the Culture of Tibet be Saved?” The second is a few years old, but it is by a Tibet scholar I have recently had the pleasure of meeting and talking with, Alexander Studholme. Alex is teaching now at Bristol University and was previously a lecturer at Cambridge. He writes, “The spirituality of Tibet is a lesson to China – and to us.” I appreciated not only his overview of the China-Tibet situation, but also his reminding us of Rudolf Steiner’s discussion of Ahriman and this notion’s relevance to all of our lives:

“Ahriman,” Steiner explained, “is the power that makes man dry, prosaic, philistine – ossifies him and brings him to the superstition of materialism.”

Nevertheless, Ahriman also has his good side: he is responsible for intellectual advancement and technological progress.

Filed Under: Academia, Tibet 2 Comments
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