Thursday, October 04, 2007

The plight of World Buddhism, "the American Way", and the Apathy of Mankind

In September 1949, Communist China, without any provocation, invaded Eastern Tibet and captured Chamdo, the headquarters of the Governor of Eastern Tibet. On November 11, 1950, the Tibetan Government protested to the United Nations Organisation against the Chinese aggression. Although El Salvador raised the question, the Steering Committee of the General Assembly moved to postpone the issue.


On November 17, 1950, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama assumed full spiritual and temporal powers as the Head of State because of the grave crisis facing the country, although he was barely sixteen years old. On May 23, 1951 a Tibetan delegation, which had gone to Peking to hold talks on the invasion, was forced to sign the so-called "17-point Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet", with threats of more military action in Tibet and by forging the official seals of Tibet.


The Chinese then used this document to carry out their plans to turn Tibet into a colony of China disregarding the strong resistance by the Tibetan people. What is more, the Chinese violated every article of this unequal 'treaty' which they had imposed on the Tibetans.


On September 9, 1951 thousands of Chinese troops marched into Lhasa. The forcible occupation of Tibet was marked by systematic destruction of monasteries, suppression of religion, denial of political freedom, widespread arrests and imprisonment and massacre of innocent men, women and children.


On March 10, 1959 the nation-wide Tibetan resistance culminated in the Tibetan National Uprising against the Chinese in Lhasa. The Chinese retaliated with a ruthlessness unknown to the Tibetans. Thousands of men, women and children were massacred in the streets and many more imprisoned and deported. Monks and nuns were a prime target. Monasteries and temples were shelled.


On March 17, 1959 the Dalai Lama left Lhasa and escaped from the pursuing Chinese to seek political asylum in India. He was followed by unprecedented exodus of Tibetans into exile. Never before in their history had so many Tibetans been forced to leave their homeland under such difficult circumstances. There are now more than one hundred thousand Tibetan refugees all over the world.


The following is from the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations:


WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED


to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and


to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and


to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,


While the Buddhist monks and civilians continue to be imprisoned and killed indiscriminately in Myanmar, the World continues to passively watch and do nothing about unmitigated aggression on fundamentally peaceful people.

So, I say without hesitation nor apology, that it is not JUST Americans that are asleep at the wheel while the war machine called Capitalism continues to trample the dead bodies of the peaceful. If you want to call everyone in America in general lazy, uneducated, bigoted bores, take a look in the mirror before you do. There is enough criticism to go around.

What there is NOT is enough people to stand together in unity against the machine of oppression and slavery of mind and body to make a positive change for the better for the world at large. When will I see true leaders emerge to unite the people of the world? Better yet, when will the people of the world strike down this concept of "us and them"?

We will all pay, indeed are already paying, for the general apathy associated with living in the contemporary model, of allowing the Corporations to dictate the fate of mankind. Their point of view is only short term, the exploitation of humanity and of world resources for monetary gain. It can only end in ruin for us all.


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