The Why Not Tibet Thread?

A single question to start and shape the debate in this thread. Why is so much attention paid to the occupied terrorities, yet so little paid to Tibet? I find this hard to understand when, in my opinion, the situation in Tibet is much worse than that in Israel. Tibet poses no threat to China, they do not participate in suicide bombings. No section of the Tibetian population has expressed their wish for the complete destruction of China. The Chinese government is actively encourages wholescale Chinese immigration to Tibet. There has been documentated cases of Chinese torture of Tibetians or other such abuses of human rights. The spiritual leader of the Tibet people and the Buddhist religion is not allowed back into Tibet. And finally China is a authoritian dictatorship. What do you think?

I'm afraid that in the minds of many, Jews are a diseased, corrupt, mind-controlling, blood-drinking, imperialist global pigdogs bent on repressing everyone but their own.

I think an honest answer to your question would make some people uncomfortable. They would have to admit to feelings in thier heart that they would prefer to convince themselves they do not have. In a word: anti-semitism, not the blatant kind but rather a more ephemeral variety that people pick up through stereotypes.

Originally posted by rmsharpe
I'm afraid that in the minds of many, Jews are a diseased, corrupt, mind-controlling, blood-drinking, imperialist global pigdogs bent on repressing everyone but their own.

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Please, rmsharpe, you could have waited for a few posts to pass before bringing back the old anti-sharon = anti-semite rule... I am definitely against the eastern lunges of the proposed Fence, and yet I'm not against Israelis, let alone Jews.

Tibet is awful, and should brought up more often. Chechnya is three levels worse. The difference with Tibet though as as far as I can see, world opinion won't change a thing. Israel being a democratic nation backed by other democracies and the PLA being dependant as well on western help, there is some possibility that involvement by western public opinion might actually changes something... maybe. Feels strange to say that, but I feel Tibet is even more of a lost cause than peace in the ME.

Originally posted by Kinniken


Please, rmsharpe, you could have waited for a few posts to pass before bringing back the old anti-sharon = anti-semite rule...

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I said nothing of Sharon, nor did I in any way allude to him, or any Israeli government official.

Originally posted by rmsharpe


You sir, are a "master baiter." (ha-ha)

I said nothing of Sharon, nor did I in any way allude to him, or any Israeli government official.

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Nope, but you did post a message stating that many people think of the jews as [long list of "unflattering" adjectives] in a thread not on anti-semitism, but on the situation in the Occupied Territories and how it relates to Tibet, thus preventively linking criticism of Israel policies to anti-semitism.

I don't know if I am a "baiter", master or otherwise , but you are a master prempter (sp?)

Originally posted by Kinniken


Nope, but you did post a message stating that many people think of the jews as [long list of "unflattering" adjectives] in a thread not on anti-semitism, but on the situation in the Occupied Territories and how it relates to Tibet, thus preventively linking criticism of Israel policies to anti-semitism.

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Well it is a thread about why China's occupation of Tibet doesn't stir the outrage in some quarters that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza does. I think anti-semitism is a relevant part of that discussion though not the whole thing.

Huh?

Tibet gets an immense amount of publicity in the public, especially through celebrities and the Dalai Lama.

And, more important, it gets practically exlusively sympathy in the public, while the Mideast issue is seen as far less one sided here in the West.

You should better think about why the Basque country and especially the Kurds in Turkey but also even the Palestinians overall don't get the same amount of positive propaganda as Tibet.

Sounds like good old sino-phobia / anti-Communism to me.

Hitro - Tibet gets sympathy, but very little media attention, especially by international media. Try an experiment - search the CNN website for "Palestinian" and for "Tibet". See which gets more results. Actually I'll save you the trouble -
"Palestinian" - 5,386 results
"Tibet" - 590

See the point?

I agree with G-Man. we have news from Palestina everyday and from Tibet, if we see one a week it is already a lot.

I don't have anything against jews in general, although I don't always agree with Israel's policies. Just like Kinniken said, China isn't democratic or dependant on the west, so they, unlike Israel, don't have to give a damn about what the rest ofthe world thinks. About the same goes for the Russians. So, the effect of an equally strong opinion is less in the case for Tibet than in the case for Israel.

Originally posted by Drewcifer
Well it is a thread about why China's occupation of Tibet doesn't stir the outrage in some quarters that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza does. I think anti-semitism is a relevant part of that discussion though not the whole thing.

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Fair enough. Sadly, it is true that at least some of the opposition to Israel's policies comes from anti-semitism.
I do think though that this explanation is over-used. Following some discussion on the thread on Chirac's supposed anti-semitism, I was wondering how many public personalities in France, one of the most pro-palestinian country in Europe, were Jewish. I already knew, from an anecdotical reference in a an article years ago that Jospin's Finance Minister (Laurent Fabius) was, but I realised I had no idea what other politicians might be. So I emailed my father, a journalist who has interviewed a lot of major politicians and who write about them all day asking him what French politicians were Jews. He could not name one. And he thought my question rather odd.
So as it happens, the country in Western Europe who is the most often accused of supporting Palestinians to the verge of anti-semitism had a Jewish Finance Minister (and probably more, from the name the Health Minister, Bernard Kouchner, might be one as well), and nobody knows, let alone care. Sounds to me like the roots of France's pro-palestinian tradition (which I think is excessive BTW) is not that due to anti-semitism after all...

Originally posted by G-Man
Hitro - Tibet gets sympathy, but very little media attention, especially by international media. Try an experiment - search the CNN website for "Palestinian" and for "Tibet". See which gets more results. Actually I'll save you the trouble -
"Palestinian" - 5,386 results
"Tibet" - 590

See the point?

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True, but then Tibet is "stable". Developments in the Occupied Territories, from bombs to Israeli responses to the latest unraveling of the road map, are much, much more frequent. What could the medias find to say about Tibet everyday?
No, the real scandal is the relative lack of coverage of Chechnya. The atrocities committed by the Russian Army are ghastly, especially for a country who pretends to be a democracy. They dwarf Chinese atrocities in Tibet.
Sadly, we only hear of that on occasion (like the presidential "election", or the hostage-taking last year), and in the meantime Bush and Chirac plays at who will praise Russia the most and recruit it as an ally

I agree with what Kinneken said. And besides that my point is not about attention as a whole, but about the nature of it.

What are the main news we get from the ME? At least here it usually are Palestinian terrorist attacks. Attacks on the Palestinians are much less newsworthy, though they do get reported.
So what I mean is that while Tibet may get (or does get, in fact) less attention in absolute terms in does get far more positive attention in relative terms compared with any other only roughly comparable situation.

When Tibet is reported it is practically always evil red Chinese vs. poor Tibetans while it is far more diverse in other places. Those usually get coverage in more negative terms. For example you only hear about the Basques when the ETA blows up a car in Madrid and you only hear about the Kurds when they burn themselves on the autobahn or blow up a car in Istanbul.
The Tibetans on the other side, are all peace loving people who all want back to a theocratic Dictatorship, which we call freedom...

If you'll ask me the place which is really ignored is North Korea. I've heard and read reports about people dieing there in the millions. More people probably die there in a week because of starvation and because of the regime than were killed in the ME violence in the last decade.

That's a point with some merit, but it may depend from the location. I for instance hear and read news about basques very often.

one reason is pretty obvious, Israel is considered a part of the western hemisphere, while Tibet is not. peple are always interested in their neighbours but not so much in "strangers". Also there are many more conflicts in the world in countries most people don't even know the name of

Originally posted by MCdread
That's a point with some merit, but it may depend from the location. I for instance hear and read news about basques very often.

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Which is a very important point overall.

We, the West, are culturally, politically last but not least geographically closer to the ME than to Tibet.
Then Israel's and the Palestinian's media policy provides far more material than China's - well - not so friendly media policy.

G-Man, North Korea is a pretty big issue currently, don't you think?

And the situation there is not really comparable, it is rather one of a dicatorship that opresses its own people than one of a country oppressing (supposedly or not) another (or a possible one).

Don't forget that the PRK gets far more attention than other dictatorships. Just look at the former Soviet states, very recently Aserbaidschan but also others, like Belorus or Georgia. And what do we hear about the constant slaughter and suffering in Africa? Sidenotes at best.

Why is that? Well, here we are partly to blame, but more important, we can't blame the evil Communist Chinese or the nasty Muslims for it. Or at least the Jews, though that gets old.

Originally posted by Hitro
G-Man, North Korea is a pretty big issue currently, don't you think?

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Not big enough and not for the reasons I'm talking about. It's in the news for its nuclear program, not for its treatment of its citizens.

True, and I agree that that's not a good thing, but as said in the previous post, that applies to all dictatorships in the world unless a Western government wants to lead a war against them which then suddenly makes it the most evil place on the planet.