Tibet: Do It Now

OK, it's not just the Chinese who have spies. I got my own, see? And they tell me that out of the 100 or so people who read the last post, exactly three bothered to click the link to send a letter to the International Olympic Committee to urge that Tibet be removed from the Olympic Torch Relay route. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. You don't have to write the letter; it's written for you! You can personalize the text if you wish, but really you just have to type your name and a couple of other things and click. That's it. Five seconds of your time. OK? Please do this? Let me remind you why:

Peacefully protesting Buddhist monks getting their skulls cracked open. This photo was taken in Kathmandu, where the police have been especially nasty, and allegedly Chinese-paid thugs are getting in on the act. We find this out and more from Mikel Dunham's on-site, up-to-the-minute blog.

Enough is enough, is it not?

Much of this comes via the indispensable Philip Ryan at the Tricycle Blog, who apparently only sleeps for five minutes at a time while remaining seated in front of his computer, snapping back awake to gather the means for us to put pressure on those who would otherwise continue to insult our basic humanity. Like the Chinese government in Tibet.

He points us to two other simple, quick things we can do:

The first is for all of us, and will take three seconds of your time. Please go sign the online petition, to be delivered to Chinese President Hu Jintao, over at Avaaz. Help them get to a million (or, shoot, 100 million, 1 billion) before the week is out.

The second is for my American brothers and sisters, and might take thirty seconds of your time. Please contact your congresspeople and senators (here's how to find the contact info for yours), asking for a much stronger condemnation of China's ongoing brutality in Tibet than the faint grimace and shrug offered by Condoleeza Rice. Again, a sample letter and form is all loaded up for you, if you're stumped what to write.

Now, please take a few more seconds and urge your friends in your email contacts to do the same. Why? Here's why:

Comments

[Leamur]

There's something about burning incense becoming an act of civil disobedience that deeply chills me. (I don't mean in a good way, y'know?) And if the reporter's statement was true that the shop owners closed up when they saw the incense smoke over the monastery, that seems to speak to a level of fear and tension in the atmosphere that will take a lot more than letter-writing to dissipate. (sorry, K, I did send them anyway)


Om mani padme hung
Om mani padme hung
Om mani padme hung

Om shantih shantih shantih

[Caroline]

Konchog,
so you know, I tried to send the message just now to the President of the IOC via your link. Delivery of the message failed due to it being blocked on the receiving end. If you find a better link, please share it. thanks for bringing this front and center to us all.

[Konchog]

Huh. Thx, Caroline. Is anyone else having problems with that link?

Leamur: I read that too. Can you even take that in? Morning incense offerings are illegal! I mean, OK, if you're doing it in the middle of the floor at the local police station, but on the roof of your monastery? Beggars belief.

[minnie]

i didn't see the link in the last post, sorry! i've sent letters to both. and bloglines is showing a different picture for your first image than what i see here on the blog. did you change it?

[Konchog]

Yup, changed it. Always striving to show the impermanence of all phenomena! And also this one makes my point much more dramatically.

Thanks for pitching in, minnie.

[GONPO YESHE]

Thank, Konchog, I am sending the links out to folks in my address book.

Glad you are back in Mongolia. I trust you were well cared for downunder!

Peace, brother.

[Christian]

Anyone got this Non Delivery Status?

The following message to was undeliverable.
The reason for the problem:
5.1.0 - Unknown address error 550-'Blocked\x004.'
Final-Recipient: rfc822;solidarity@olympic.org
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0 (permanent failure)
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 5.1.0 - Unknown address error 550-'Blocked\x004.' (delivery attempts: 0)
Reporting-MTA: dns; mx70.getactive.com

[Zendette]

Hi Konchog, I had no problem with the link. While I did sign as you requested, I didn't do it earlier mainly because I have a hard time seeing the point. It's not as if a billion signatures will even matter to the decision makers. It's not just this issue. I get requests to sign online petitions to send to the UN quite often, usually asking for sanctions against certain countries who are complicit in holding Israeli MIAs. I never sign these because, frankly, I don't see that it has any impact. I'd love to see proof that ANY online petition has EVER yielded results. Maybe it's the benefit incurred by the intent, rather than any tangible benefit....

[Christine L]

Hi all
I also just got the message that the email to was undeliverable.

I have been n the Australian Tibetan Council website at this page
http://www.atc.org.au/content/view/561/1/
and the same message is available and appears to be sent so maybe anyone having difficulty with the kink Konchog has posted could try this one.

[Carol of Seattle]

K,
I sent my letter first time around. What do you think of this business I am hearing that HHDL is threatening to resign as the leader-in-exile of Tibet?

[Christian]

Carol,

Gandhi used the same threat to calm down everybody. It seems to work, at the moment.

[Leamur]

It's occurred to me that the Olympic Committee might have shut the email down either automatically or by separate action to prevent what could amount to a denial-of-service attack.

[Kay in New Mexico]

Maybe a billion letters won't sway the Chinese government, but "all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for men (people!) of good will to do nothing"... What if the billionth-and-first letter is the one that does the trick?

I had no problem with the link when I sent the letters. I have also written to all my congresspersons and senators and sent information about these actions to everyone I know. In my Episcopal parish, prayers are offered at every Mass for the people of Tibet -- and for the people of China, too.

As members of the human family, I believe that each of us is obligated to do everything we can. So Konchog, if you hear of something else we might do to help, please let us know!

[Janet]

Thanks for posting the links... couple o' clicks is at least a couple of clicks closer to a better world and away from the pit of despair... it's time to hope that this is a special moment in history where there's some leverage on China.

[yeshe lhamo]

Heard another disturbing update this evening (Wed, 3/19) driving home tonight from work...PRI's "The World" program was interviewing reporter in Szechaun Province who has been personally witnessing an extraordinarily large number of large truck convoys (30-80 trucks per convoy) heading to Tibet. When he could see inside trucks, he said they were loaded with Chinese soldiers armed with automatic weapons and with bayonets on their weapons, as well as with full riot gear. He said that convoys with smaller numbers of trucks are not unusual, but these were large convoys and there were just so many of them.

[holly]

Hi Konchog,
I had trouble with the link also. But have signed many other petitions since then. There was a small turnout at the protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC today. Mostly Tibetans.

[Christian]

The French press is very much sympathetic with the Tibetans. But, interestingly, they do not report all what tourists in Tibet witnessed, in particular mobs of Tibetans looting Han shops and lynching the owners.

I think this is why H.H. the Dalai-lama has threatened to forsake his political duties, so that these violent protesters and thieves do not think that they have his consent. They could seriously hurt the cause of the non-violent Tibetans.

The situation in Tibet is much more complex than we think abroad and the media is biased. (But I hope this come to no surprise.)

Also, "Free Tibet" slogans as in the picture above are an encouragement to Chinese authority who can easily say: "Look, they want an independent Tibet, contrary to what the dalai-lama says." I think "Free Tibet" is a bad slogan. It is not like "Free Vermont," because free speech is protected by the constitution of the USA, but not in China -- it is not just Tibet. Or else, protests in all China should raise first, for the right to enjoy free speech.

Good luck with that.

I hope I do not sound too downbeat here.

Anyway, shooting unarmed monks is despicable. But my point, if any, in this improvised rant, is that the situation in Tibet is certainly different from the situation in Burma and Western media filter the information, just as the Chinese authority do.