Children forced to kill their Parents and the sterilization of men and women against their will...
Other horror stories include the dumping of nuclear waste on active farmland, enforced copulation between monks and nuns - to make them renounce their vows and the kidnap of a 6 six year old child (shortly after he was pronounced as the incarnation of a religious leader) that has lead to ten year long political imprisonment. There are countless other examples of torture, murder, false imprisonment and just about every other violation of human decency you can think of, all connected with an illegal invasion of a peaceful people.
The perpetrators of these atrocities aren't a regime from a country on the 'axis of evil' as you might think, instead they are hosting the next Olympic games and the keyboard I am typing on was made there, along with the mouse in my hand. If you're feeling a little disturbed by what you've just read it might be best to check whether anything you are touching or looking at was made in China.
Cutting through the craziness of the Chinese occupation of Tibet here are 3 issues that affect us all:
Google
In January 2006 Google announced it was bowing to pressure from the Chinese Ministry of Information to censor results from it's Beijing based search facility. Here are two excerpts from Google's mission statement:
" to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
"You can make money without doing evil."
Which, as they admit, is pretty different to what's happening with www.google.cn:
"In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn, in response to local law, regulation or policy."
"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.''
They didn't mention the murderous acts they would be suppressing the knowledge of; which includes those committed in Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen Square and the fact that 'freedom' and 'democracy' will be blocked, literally.
Beijing 2008
This is from the charter of the international Olympic committee:
"the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play"
Beijing and the Chinese Government will be hosting the Olympics in 2 years time; if you can see the contradiction between the committee’s charter and the practices of the Chinese military state and also recognise the power of the Olympics, as an embodiment of peace and a movement towards a better world, then do something: www.boycottbeijing2008.net
So we could all avoid Google (I tried it and it's not easy) and make a stand against the Beijing Olympics, but we shouldn't have to - there are already international bodies in place to right the wrongs of violent regimes. It does unfortunately take them a while to act, yet they should have our help, support and recognition, since the regimes they seek to correct are already part of our interconnected world. So, however much we may seem interested in the lure of fame and fortune, the benefits of peace and equal human rights for all shouldn't be passed over as worthless political nonsense. So...
United Nations Commission on Human Rights
www.ohchr.org/english/
After ten years of attempts, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture recently visited China and the region rightly or wrongly known as Tibet, his findings are to be delivered this month at the 62nd session of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. He reports that:
"that the practice of torture, though on the decline - particularly in urban areas - remains widespread in China" and there is a "consistent and systematic pattern of torture related to ethnic minorities, particularly Tibetans and Uighurs..." full report on the UN website, no less! The impact of the report and the knock on affects it should have is likely to be overshadowed by celebrity drug ‘shocks’ in the news media, but if you care it will be there, somewhere.
One of the saddest on going tales from the human-rights abuses in Tibet is that of The Panchen Lama, the worlds youngest political prisoner, held captive by the Chinese since the age of 6. May 2005 was the tenth anniversary of his disappearance, read more about him and protest his plight at the hands of the Chinese regime:
www.savetibet.org/campaigns/pl/index.php
For more general information on Tibet, with my hands tied by profit seeking corporations, it is with regret that I tell you to visit www.google.com and type in the words 'free Tibet'; the first four links should suffice. There's plenty of different ways you can protest and help, it's probably more useful than just avoiding Google, but don’t click any sponsored links – ever.
It’s worth being aware that in our globally reliant industrialized world, the development and advantage of modernisation and integration should not be based on economic factors alone, there needs to be political, social and human values taken into consideration too. China, through both culture and industry, plays an important role in our lives as worldly modern citizens, but that is not to say that the current Chinese regime meets the standards we expect from those governing our world. In the interests of everyone we ought to recognise this and support those attempting to correct the situation. At least that way if your mouse is made in China, you won't need to check your hand for the blood of innocents after using it.
Right, now I’ve got that off my chest…
The perpetrators of these atrocities aren't a regime from a country on the 'axis of evil' as you might think, instead they are hosting the next Olympic games and the keyboard I am typing on was made there, along with the mouse in my hand. If you're feeling a little disturbed by what you've just read it might be best to check whether anything you are touching or looking at was made in China.
Cutting through the craziness of the Chinese occupation of Tibet here are 3 issues that affect us all:
In January 2006 Google announced it was bowing to pressure from the Chinese Ministry of Information to censor results from it's Beijing based search facility. Here are two excerpts from Google's mission statement:
" to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
"You can make money without doing evil."
Which, as they admit, is pretty different to what's happening with www.google.cn:
"In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn, in response to local law, regulation or policy."
"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.''
They didn't mention the murderous acts they would be suppressing the knowledge of; which includes those committed in Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen Square and the fact that 'freedom' and 'democracy' will be blocked, literally.
Beijing 2008
This is from the charter of the international Olympic committee:
"the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play"
Beijing and the Chinese Government will be hosting the Olympics in 2 years time; if you can see the contradiction between the committee’s charter and the practices of the Chinese military state and also recognise the power of the Olympics, as an embodiment of peace and a movement towards a better world, then do something: www.boycottbeijing2008.net
So we could all avoid Google (I tried it and it's not easy) and make a stand against the Beijing Olympics, but we shouldn't have to - there are already international bodies in place to right the wrongs of violent regimes. It does unfortunately take them a while to act, yet they should have our help, support and recognition, since the regimes they seek to correct are already part of our interconnected world. So, however much we may seem interested in the lure of fame and fortune, the benefits of peace and equal human rights for all shouldn't be passed over as worthless political nonsense. So...
United Nations Commission on Human Rights
www.ohchr.org/english/
After ten years of attempts, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture recently visited China and the region rightly or wrongly known as Tibet, his findings are to be delivered this month at the 62nd session of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. He reports that:
"that the practice of torture, though on the decline - particularly in urban areas - remains widespread in China" and there is a "consistent and systematic pattern of torture related to ethnic minorities, particularly Tibetans and Uighurs..." full report on the UN website, no less! The impact of the report and the knock on affects it should have is likely to be overshadowed by celebrity drug ‘shocks’ in the news media, but if you care it will be there, somewhere.
One of the saddest on going tales from the human-rights abuses in Tibet is that of The Panchen Lama, the worlds youngest political prisoner, held captive by the Chinese since the age of 6. May 2005 was the tenth anniversary of his disappearance, read more about him and protest his plight at the hands of the Chinese regime:
www.savetibet.org/campaigns/pl/index.php
For more general information on Tibet, with my hands tied by profit seeking corporations, it is with regret that I tell you to visit www.google.com and type in the words 'free Tibet'; the first four links should suffice. There's plenty of different ways you can protest and help, it's probably more useful than just avoiding Google, but don’t click any sponsored links – ever.
It’s worth being aware that in our globally reliant industrialized world, the development and advantage of modernisation and integration should not be based on economic factors alone, there needs to be political, social and human values taken into consideration too. China, through both culture and industry, plays an important role in our lives as worldly modern citizens, but that is not to say that the current Chinese regime meets the standards we expect from those governing our world. In the interests of everyone we ought to recognise this and support those attempting to correct the situation. At least that way if your mouse is made in China, you won't need to check your hand for the blood of innocents after using it.
Right, now I’ve got that off my chest…
posted by Marcus Woodrow at 13:39
2 Comments:
Generally I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so! really nice post.
Hello Guru, what entice you to post an article. This article was extremely interesting, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this subject last Thursday.
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