Free Tibet!

My photo is a bit outdated but its sentiment stands this year as last.

March 10 is the fiftieth anniversary of a failed uprising against the Chinese who annexed Tibet. The Dalai Lama and some of his followers have been homeless since.

Tibet is part of a world not greatly populated but no doubt endowed with many natural resources which is why China stole it in the first place.

China’s anti-religion, anti-God, anti-anything-not-Chinese, anti-tolerance communist regime is at its most brutal and at its most honest when not shielded by the world press from its tyranny especially when it comes to TIBET.

This recent self immolation of a Tibetan Buddhist monk is perhaps the start of troubles in the region.

Tibetan monk 'shot' while on fire

The monk, named Tapey, is said to have shouted slogans and waved a Tibetan flag, then doused himself with petrol and set himself alight.

Campaign groups said witnesses then saw Chinese police shoot the man.

The monk collapsed and was taken away by the police.

China's official Xinhua news agency confirmed a man had set himself on fire, saying he was taken to a hospital and treated for burns injuries. It made no mention of any gunshot wounds.

The protest began after more than 1,000 Tibetan Buddhist monks gathered at a temple in the town to celebrate the third day of the Tibetan new year.

It reminds me of what brought down the Diem Regime in Vietnam before JFK’s assassination and the US being dragged into a no-win possible war/police-action. It was the lowly Buddhists setting themselves on fire that brought world attention to a corrupt regime just before a coup.

Killing one's self as protest is kinda out my league of understanding especially when Buddhism would seem to address more passive, gentle ways as part of its belief system. But as we have seen in recent years, the extreme ends of any religion are not pleasant or palletable.

In any case, religious intolerance and suppression are the hallmark of this Chinese regime.

Buddhism is something that is different from country to country throughout Asia over and above its basic tenets. I do not know if the Buddhists in the Tibet area will rise up in mass and be slaughtered like in Burma in 2007 against that junta police state and puppet regime of China.

China with all its glitzy consumerism and capitalism on its east coast, it is still Mao and Joe Stalin in its interior.

Another silent tentacle of China reaches into the disputed region of Kashimer with China being one of the players in disputed territory with Pakistan and India and on the Tibet border.

Kashimer

No doubt while America slept or hung out as potatoes on a couch during the recent prosperity paid for by credit, China has moved in everywhere it chooses to go.

While I do not know where all this ends, I would approach the Tibetan Buddhists under the Dali Lama in a respect for foreign culture mode. I would if I were China grant several hundred square miles around the ancient Tibetan capital of Lhasa and give it self autonomy not unlike the Vatican. It is unlikely that China will ever give up the rich prize of Tibet as a whole.

Tolerance and good sense and respect might go a lot further than guns and armies.