[The Random Factor] India, Tibet, & China

[The Random Factor]

Hello everybody, I hope you had a wonderful week. 

My friend Nick, who bought me the ticket to see 
the Dali 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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