Tibetan Riots And Palestinian Riots: One 'Good', Other 'Evil'

March 14, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Whenever the foreign press pours into China, the people there take advantage and show their true feelings. In today's case, the Tibetans are on the firing line. The US and Europe love to split other people's countries apart but fight ferociously if anyone dares to separate from within the US/UK/EU empires. Ask the Irish about this! Or the Basques! A host of people who are crushed ruthlessly if they riot or even demonstrate. Then there are the Palestinians: they are slowly being chopped out of their homeland by the empires. No sympathy for them if they throw rocks, burn cars, etc. Nope. But we are reminded that people CAN resist their rulers AND it is OK to burn cars and throw rocks. Here, in the US, you get shot if you do that.

Tibet Protests Turn Violent, Shops Burn in Lhasa

Hundreds of protesters swarmed Tibet's capital Friday, clashing with police and setting fire to shops and cars in a spasm of violence worse than any there in nearly 20 years. Doctors reported dozens of wounded streaming into hospitals, and there were unconfirmed reports of several deaths as Lhasa descended into what one witness called "a state of siege."
*snip*
The crisis exposed the anger Tibetans have long felt but rarely expressed over Chinese domination. Although ethnic Chinese represent a tiny minority in Tibet, they are far better off economically. Tibetans also resent efforts by the central government in Beijing to bind their homeland to the rest of the country -- including the recent opening of a luxury train that funnels tourists to Lhasa.

The Chinese government must now confront a significant political challenge as it prepares to host the 2008 Olympic Games in August. Authorities have steadfastly attempted to project an image of harmony and stability in Tibet and elsewhere even as they have tightened their grip over the restive region.

I have actually been in riots. Usually, we are shocked when the police shoot people dead. Like the People's Park demonstrations. It was peaceful but the police and sheriffs blocked all access to the park [I used to play the cello there]. The police then attacked. People threw back the tear gas containers so the police simply began to shoot. This turned everything very violent. People died. Of course, the people who wanted this park to live were portrayed as evil and deserving of death. I wish I had the cartoons I drew back then. It was rather heartbreaking. One of the people shot in the face and blinded was an artist I knew.

There are creepy people who will condemn Americans fighting to stop murderous wars or to gain civil rights in ghettos but if people in communist nations do the exact same thing for the exact same reasons, they are heroes. And they are heroes! But so are our rioters. And rioters in Belfast, Ireland. Or in Oaxaca, Mexico. Or in Santiago, Chile. Or anywhere on earth! The rioters who stormed the US Embassy in Iran were the same! Of course, who is evil and who is good depends entirely on who the empire declares 'good' or 'evil'. So of course, since these latest rioters want to drive out 'foreigners' they are good since this is China and not....ISRAEL.

If the great empires want to invade a country and forcibly displace and destroy the natives, this is OK. And if the natives resist, riot or fight back, they are 'terrorists' and 'evil'. This slice and dice of evil and good is at the heart of the contradictions of modern diplomacy and war. The US and Britain cooly invade Iraq and launch a deadly ethnic/religious cleansing wave which we do virtually nothing to stop and then we blame the natives for this. If Saddam were in power, we applaud ethnic and religious riots and blame him for them. And accuse him of war crimes if he suppresses them like we do to people here when they riot. Shooting, gassing, etc. Once, the police tried to use what is now illegal vomit gas on us. Only the wind sprang up and swept it into the ranks of the police who began to gag and roll on the ground. I and several others came in with buckets of water and saved the poor officers by dousing them. I wrangled from the Tucson Chief of Police a promise to investigate this and condemn it.

Since it is obvious that the BBC and NYT and WP and all the other major media condemn China for acting like Ronald Reagan, we must go backwards in time to the intractable problem of the Palestinian people and how they have been much more grossly abused by the Great Powers than anyone in Tibet.

Balfour Declaration of 1917

Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.

Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely
Arthur James Balfour
*snip*
In a 1919 memorandum he wrote as a Cabinet Minister, Balfour wrote of these contradictory assurances as follows:

"The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant is even more flagrant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in that of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the American Commission has been going through the forms of asking what they are. The four great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder importance than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion, that is right."[5]

Because the Four Powers that were, incidentally, bankrupt, decided that the people in Palestine didn't matter one hoot, they simply STOLE everything openly. All the accords were kept secret between the Jews and the Empires using the Jews for money and other support. No one told the victims, their intended fate. Note how Barfour doesn't care if he is doing something evil. None of the parties cooking up this invasion gave a fig about morals. The Jews wanted something and the Empires were broke and needed whatever they could grab in the dying Ottoman Empire.

Wikipedia:

The Arabs sensed danger in November 1918 at the parade marking the first anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The Muslim-Christian Association protested the carrying of new 'white and blue banners with two inverted triangles in the middle'. They drew the attention of the authorities to the serious consequences of any political implications in raising the banners.[8]

Later that month, on the first anniversary of the occupation of Jaffa by the British, the Muslim-Christian Association sent a lengthy memorandum and petition to the military governor protesting once more the Zionist intrusion.[9]

Both the Christians and Muslims in Palestine realized they were being invaded and tried repeatedly to warn away the invaders. But the empires, like the Chinese empire, didn't listen to them. They rioted repeatedly but WWII meant more money was needed by Britain and since the British seized Palestine after WWI, they decided to sell it in the end. After the Jews did a number of terrorist attacks on both the British and the natives of Palestine.

Due to the utter evil of Hitler and his murderous crew, sympathy for the Jewish European invaders was high in 1948. They invaded and took over and instituted not the 'equal rules and one state' gambit of the first Barfour Declaration but rather, they launched a hideous discriminatory state that has virtually no civil rights for anyone who can't prove their mother, grandmother and great grandmother are 'Jews'. This noxious rule means a grinding battle for existence for the non-humans who suffer this odious rule.

The Tibetans want the Chinese invaders to leave. And the Palestinians want their invaders to leave. If the US supports one, they MUST support the other. But try getting the Hollywood fanatics to do that! Quite impossible.

Good and evil depends on who you are. Good is when we destroy someone else's empire. Evil is when our own imperial power is questioned by rioters. Have a happy St. Patrick's Day! Remember the Troubles!

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Comments

[Al]

Great column Elaine. You are the voice of conscience, keep it up. there's some good demonstrations going on right down the block from Peoples Park, trying to stop Marine recruiters in Berkeley. And Nancy "never met a zionist I didn't like" Pelosi is trying her best to stop them, trying to cut state funds to Berkeley. Gonna be a big demonstration near the Mission in San Francisco next week. there are always groups of jews there, surrounded by pigs to protect them, waving jew flags and Bush Was Right signs. the Chronicle takes pictures of both sides, of the 20 or so jews and the 20,000 or so demonstrators - to be Fair and Balanced I guess. they make it look like equal numbers. fuck the chronicle and the zionists too.

[blues]

If you want to know more about the dark side of Tibet, here are some links for you. Note —

— begin quote —

Wikipedia (Anyone can work for free, everyone gets fired.)™

Michael Parenti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Parenti

Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University and has taught at several universities, colleges, and other institutions. He is the author of twenty books and many more articles. His works have been translated into at least eighteen languages.[1] Parenti lectures frequently throughout the United States and abroad. His book, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, A People's History of Ancient Rome,[2] was selected as a Book of the Year for 2004[3] by Online Review of Books and Current Affairs.[4]

— end quote —

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth
by Michael Parenti —

http://www.swans.com/library/art9/mparen01.html

— begin quote —

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they became bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common practice for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated childhood rape not long after he was taken into the monastery at age nine. (12) The monastic estates also conscripted peasant children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

— end quote —

The New York Times

World News Briefs; Dalai Lama Group Says It Got Money From C.I.A. —

((----- Copy & Paste - W/O The Line Breaks -----))

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res

=9C0CEFD61538F931A35753C1A96E958260

— begin quote —

The Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged today that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960's from the Central Intelligence Agency, but denied reports that the Tibetan leader benefited personally from an annual subsidy of $180,000.

The money allocated for the resistance movement was spent on training volunteers and paying for guerrilla operations against the Chinese, the Tibetan government-in-exile said in a statement. It added that the subsidy earmarked for the Dalai Lama was spent on setting up offices in Geneva and New York and on international lobbying.

— end quote —

[JSmith]

People are always going fight other people, and power relations will never be equal. This is a large part of what it is to be human.

[blues]

I have belonged to many cults, and intentional communities. Some people require a strong leader, lest they feel completely insecure. Others require equality, else they feel oppressed.

Some strong leaders are kindly and generous. Some are corrupt and exploitative.

Some egalitarian communities are genuine and open. Some are deceitful, and support a tacit hierarchy of despots.

You need to determine what you are. There is no weakness in needing to be strongly led. And needing to be free and equal is not asking for the impossible. Admit what you are, and seek the best niche for yourself.

[observer]

I just wanted to mention the case of Circassians and the 2014 Russia Olympics in Sochi. The stadium is being built on the grounds of mass genocide Russia committed against this Caucasus nation ( Chechnya is another. ). Already there is a campaign of protest starting.

http://www.olympicgenocide.org/

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Many places on earth are sites where genocide happened. Genocide has been going on since we left the jungles of Africa.

But especially all empires do this! And to have empires scold other empires over this is just amazingly stupid and annoying as hell.

[blues]

While we're on the subject of "annoying as hell," take a gander at this thread! The end times are surely upon us now:

http://www.rawstory.com/comments/46360.html

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Yes, the push to smash the Olympics continues. The Olympics were supposed to happen in peace time. But it seems everyone wants wars.

The Tibetan people are like the Irish or a lot of other people like the Palestinians. They don't like being invaded. But the US has very bloody hands when it comes to all this.

Not that we ever are allowed to mention this. Note how Obama had to denounce his minister who openly talked about obvious truths. Amazing. And this depresses me much more than the money stuff I write about. That amuses me. This disgusts me.

[JKeyes]

Well, the Arabs acquired Palestine by conquest, and they lost it by conquest.

Does anyone think the Phillistines or Moabites would be sympathetic?

[JKeyes]

Oops, should have thrown this in to:

Most of the Irish are descended from invaders as well. Not to mention that Scotland is named after an Irish tribe.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Yup. So, what BARBARIANS did is OK? This logic means what Nazis did was OK. Can you see, Keyes, where your darker parts of your brain are going?

Hey, my own ancestors were ruling elites. Where ever we went, we killed people and enslaved them! But I don't LIE about this. I also don't justify this and claim it gives me the right to CONTINUE doing this?

Can Jews figure this out before it is too late?

[JKeyes]

The Arabs weren't barbarians when they conquered Palestine, but an aggressive, expanding civilization and empire.

It doesn't really matter who your ancestors were, at some point they were conquerors and at others they were conquered. The Cherokee were driven out of the southeast by Jackson, but they'd claimed their territory there by driving out older tribes. The Cherokee were pushed there by other tribes (driven out of their homeland to forge a new one).

It's less a question of right than of where you want to draw the line. Is the Arab conquest more acceptable because it was far in the past? Does that make the rockets Hamas and Hezbollah rain down on Israeli citizens more acceptable?

Do the Irish really have room to complain about poor treatment by the English when they were raided and enslaved Britons for centuries?

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

All criminals have a desperate need to justify their crimes. So I expect this to be operative no matter who is the criminal.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

By the way, anyone who thinks past injustices justify present viciousness should remember: we could, using this scale, justify and legalize human sacrifices and other horrors.

Liberal Jews in particular should at all costs, avoid this path to hell. This is the whole problem: the path of liberalism means more and more human rights and fewer and fewer crimes against helpless people in the PRESENT.

If we do a historical tit for tat, we get WWIII. Only cockroaches will applaud that.

[RaM]

Wonderful article! You make an excellent point about the popular media image of the Tibetans versus the negative image of the Palestinians. It's the old story of "terrorists" versus "freedom fighters." In 1775, a group of patriotic freedom fighters, who for years had been forced to endure a foreign military occupation, decided to stockpile weapons to be used to defend themselves and perhaps organize a militia to free themselves of occupation. Their "shot heard round the world" starting the Revolution that founded the USA. According to the British, these men were terrorists, but we all know that they were freedom fighters. Now fast forward 225 years into the future, another group of patriots are stockpiling weapons to defend their country from a foreign power which has invaded them six times. Of course, these people are freedom fighters, right? WRONG! They are terrorists! Don't you know Hezbollah is a terrorist organization?

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Correct, RaM.

[m]

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