[The Random Factor #36] India, Tibet, & China

Hey everybody, I hope you had a wonderful week.

My friend Nick, who bought me the ticket to see
the Dalai Lama in Germany, is currently in India.

He has been sharing his experience over email
with friends and he provides an important
perspective that I'd like to share with you
today.

Ladies and gentlemen, Nick Harris

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Today (July 6) is His Holiness' birthday
which involves long life pujas (rituals) for
Him at the temple with dances and celebrations
around the city.

The Tibetans love Him so much that all Tibetan
shops and businesses just close when there is
anything going on regarding him whatsoever.
We have been told to expect stampede's in the
temple... quite literally.

I feel that I must do my part to raise the
awareness and report the current situation
in Tibet. Newcomers (as they are called)
arrive here daily having escaped Chinese
occupation in their country. I have spoken
to many now.

The Chinese make it illegal for them to :

1. Practice any form of their religion (the
penalty for possessing a photo of the Dalai
Lama is now 4 YEARS IN PRISON undergoing FULL
TORTURE).
2. Possess the Tibetan flag (the penalty is
having your hands cut off).
3. In some cases to keep your own house.
Tibetans are being forced to destroy their
homes and borrow money from the Chinese
government in order to build new Chinese style
homes in preparation for the Olympic games.
4. Teach their children in the Tibetan language.
All Tibetan children must take school in Chinese.
5. To leave Tibet. Anyone caught trying to leave
is shot and killed. If they are unlucky enough
to survive they are kept in a prison cell with
no access to light and daily torture for the rest
of their lives.

Furthermore monasteries are burnt to the ground,
nuns raped on a daily basis and any sign of
resistance to this cultural genocide are met
with immediate death through close range bullets.

The journey from Tibet (if you escape the
bullets) takes around 1 month over the Himalaya.
I have spoken to many who have done it. They
talk of water and food running out, arriving
with clothes that are little more than rags
and having to escape from dangerous wild
animals that kill many on the way. Of a group
of 50 to run, around 15 will make it alive
over the border to Nepal and then into India.

Parents too weak to make the journey are sending
their children out with groups running from as
young as 8. They know that they will never see
their children again but feel that it is more
important that they have to chance to live as
Tibetans and follow the Dharma (Buddhist teachings)
than stay to live a life of torture, oppression
and persecution.

The Newcomers are put up in the welcome center.
Their they put up the drawings that the newly
arrived Tibetan children draw in their first
days here overcoming the trauma they have all
been through... I have not seen them myself
yet, I think I will go tomorrow, but I have
heard dark stories....

I met a Tibetan man of 22 years old who left
knowing that he would never see his parents
again. He spoke of his undying wish to just
see his mother one more time but that if he
ever enters Tibet again he will be killed.

All Newcomers are granted a private audience
with His Holiness the Dalai Lama who hears
their stories and consoles them when they
arrive. My friend wanted nothing more than
to just see him - he had never even been
allowed to see a picture. He told me how he
met him and just wept and wept and, even
though he knows he will never see his family
again, knew that he had done the right thing
just by looking into the eyes of true
compassion...

THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW. Our governments
let this happen so that we can buy cheap Chinese
goods and they can keep their trade relations
with a regime which is far from being human.
They would rather remain in silence as one of
the most beautiful people's on the planet are
systematically destroyed in a modern holocaust.
Economic interests seem to have replaced basic
humanity in this world and it is up to us to one
by one stand up and say NOT IN MY NAME!

The Chinese are planning to march the Olympic
flame through Tibet on the way to the 2008
Beijing Olympics. The symbol of freedom marched
through a land with has not tasted that basic
right for the last 40 years. This can not be
allowed to happen.

The Tibetans are using the Olympics as a new
wave of raising global awareness of their plight.
They are asking for all beings concerned with
what is happening in their land to BOYCOTT THE
OLYMPICS. They are asking for westerners to
protest and by any means possible to place more
and more pressure on the Chinese oppressors.

Please see what you can do to help by going to
the website:

www.2008-freetibet.org and www.supportteamtibet.org

and please pass on the information in this email.

I hope this email finds everyone well and happy!

Love and blessings to all,

Namaste,

NICK

PS Like the US, China is actually said to be a
wonderful country - it is just the government
that sucks :)


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This text published originally in the newsletter
The Random Factor at www.some-guy.com

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