PROTESTS REVEAL DISCONNECT BETWEEN TIBETAN PROTESTORS

Published Mar. 24, 2008 in "The Oklahoma Daily"
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Published Mar. 24, 2008 by uwire.com
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Published Mar. 25, 2008 by BYU NewsNet Online
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The Chinese government is currently moving truckloads of troop reinforcements into what it calls the Tibet Autonomous Region to combat widespread rioting against Beijing’s rule.

China’s claim to Tibet comes from Tibet being a part of several old Chinese kingdoms as a result of temporary defeats in border conflicts of previous centuries. Most recently, Tibet was invaded and forcibly made a part of modern China by Chairman Mao’s forces in 1951. Tibet’s most definitive claim as a sovereign nation stem from treaties signed with the British in the early 1900’s. It is accepted internationally that a treaty can only be signed between two sovereign nations or peoples.

The Chinese presence was never welcome, evidenced by the 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. That uprising was brutally quashed. The Dalai Lama, spiritual and political leader of Tibet, was forced to flee to India.

During China’s rule, the distinct Tibetan culture has been systematically suppressed. Monasteries, the nerve centers of Tibetan culture, have been destroyed. By law, Tibetan words on signs have to be smaller than the corresponding Chinese, and be located in less prominent positions. Tibetan is banned in schools, and anyone seeking state employment or university admission is required to speak Chinese.

China often points to improved transportation infrastructure as proof of its good works in Tibet. However, these have only resulted in a massive influx of Chinese from other areas. Most businesses and commerce are owned by Chinese, and Tibetans in general remain crushingly poor while much of China is increasingly prosperous.

The primary advocate of the Tibetan cause has been His Holiness The Dalai Lama. As befitting his office and personal beliefs, he has supported non-violent resistance as the means to alleviate Tibet’s sorrow. He has been compared to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi in shunning violence over his fifty-year struggle.

As revered as he is, his methods are not without detractors. These are mainly the younger generation, who never knew life before Chinese occupation. While careful to not insult His Holiness, many voice frustration at the lack of measurable progress of his methods. They support — and engage in — direct confrontation. They are the ones leading and spreading the current protests inside Tibet, which mark the 49th anniversary of the 1959 uprising.

In their actions and philosophy, the younger protesters are more akin to Stokely Carmichael than the MLK-esque Dalai Lama. Much as Dr. King sought peaceful and just coexistence of all Americans, His Holiness seeks an autonomous — not independent — Tibet coexisting with the rest of China. Many believe his long and largely fruitless struggle against the Chinese monolith has caused him to soften his stance and seek instead a more easily achievable goal. Regardless, Tibetans still living within its borders and many expatriates decry this abandonment of what they see as Tibet’s birthright as a nation. The more confrontational protest movement’s genesis can be traced to the Dalai Lama’s initial calls for coexistence.

As events have shown, his Holiness is not in control of the massive protests currently going on within Tibet. This is the first time that the acknowledged leader of the Tibetan rights movement has been powerless to stop or temper such protests. He has admitted so publicly, after the Chinese government accused him of fanning the flames of violence. It seems that the cause of Tibetan independence now has two distinct and somewhat disjointed groups trying to carry its banner.

While this may be uncharted territory for the Tibetans, this has occurred before in other movements — including the Civil Rights Movement in America, which compares rather well with the struggle occurring in the high Himalayas.

Both focus(ed) on bringing equal rights to a highly oppressed people. In each movement, there was initially one dominant philosophy. The peaceful resistance of Dr. King and that of the Dalai Lama share this common mantle. In the later stages of the Civil Rights movement, another philosophy — that of direct action — emerged, championed by figures such as Carmichael and Malcolm X. The same is occurring in Tibet right now.

It is still too early to see if the confrontational protests will work. They have, however, succeeded in refocusing global attention on one of the world’s great injustices. His Holiness’ methods, while never letting us forget about Tibet, never quite grabbed the world’s attention in the same way as the new protests. Without any authorization, aid or allies, the ragtag Tibetans have managed to greatly tie up Chinese resources. They have also handed China a major public-relations nightmare when it can ill afford it, with the Beijing Olympics starting in mere months.

Beijing has acted as expected, and is trying to completely stamp out any semblance of rebellion. It’s increasing its standing pressure on the Dalai Lama to abandon criticism of China, while simultaneously unleashing its military in Tibet.

One of the most crucial aspects of any movement or revolution is unity and communication among its perpetrators. This is absolutely necessary, at least in general terms. This unity and agreement between different figures and ideas was the main reason that the Civil Rights Movement was ultimately successful. All other successful such movements, like Poland’s Solidarity or the African National Congress in South Africa, had these above attributes. Every failed movement, like the 1857 Indian Sepoy Rebellion or the 1936 Arab Revolt, failed largely because unity and communication were lacking.

By choosing to confront the Chinese head-on without the Dalai Lama’s knowledge or direction, the Tibetan protesters tread dangerous ground. His Holiness’ dissociating himself from the violence, while understandable on religious grounds, further highlights this nascent disconnect. Neither he nor the protesters gain anything from this situation.

Instead, it seems China has another weapon to yield in its quest keep Tibet subjugated forever — newfound Tibetan disunity.

24-HOUR NEWSCAST LOSE SIGHT OF TRUE GOALS OF NEWS

Published Mar. 3, 2008 in "The Oklahoma Daily"
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Cable TV has not been universally beneficial for society. True, one can watch National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel and other eye-opening programs on cable. Keep in mind, though, that cable also has spawned “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” Lifetime and, of course, “Flavor of Love.” Somewhere between these two extremes of moderately enlightening and highly frightening lies the existence of cable news.

The three-faced juggernaut of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News has taken news from a 30 minute primetime affair to a non-stop, round-the-clock smorgasbord. While network news focuses on mostly local issues, cable news channels were meant to traverse the world in their presentation of topics. This idea of balanced news from all over the world all the time is great — in theory.

In practice, however, all 24-hour cable news outlets have defenestrated the idea of balance in their news coverage. Instead, just a few topics are focused on. Virtually all other topics only are mentioned in passing in the form of a picture or a small headline. The designated hot topic, in contrast, is dissected, analyzed, reassembled and re-examined over and over again.

Perhaps the best example of this is the phenomenon known as the U.S. primary season. If for some extreme reason you were not already aware, that’s right now. If the cable news channels’ coverage is any indication, there absolutely is nothing else newsworthy going on in the world at the moment.

As I’m writing this, CNN is on in the background — for research purposes. For the last 40 minutes, the three leading campaigns have been the exclusive focus. Every single campaign has a dedicated reporting team, and every minute detail is discussed and debated. The candidates themselves are nowhere to be seen, or heard. Instead, we are shown dark stages with manic, sign-waving mosh pits.

Meanwhile, new Israeli operations in Gaza that have killed more than 50 Palestinians in retaliation for rocket attacks are relegated only to a passing ticker at the bottom of the screen, along with coverage of the Russian presidential election. News of who might be the new leader of the largest country of the planet, and that of fresh violence in the world’s most volatile region are made to share space with the weekend weather forecast for Minneapolis and today’s NBA scores.

I wouldn’t feel nearly as disillusioned if the coverage of the campaigns focused on important things — like stances on immigration, social security reform or healthcare. Instead, I’m treated to an in-depth analysis of Sen. Barack Obama’s connection with controversial preacher Louis Farrakhan. There really is no connection. For those of you who care about this, unlike me, Obama is a member of church of a denomination whose national governing body sanctioned publication of a magazine that extolled Farrakhan’s good virtues — like organizing the Million Man March in 1995.

See what I mean about no connection?

This says to me two things. First, the church membership shows Obama is, in fact, not Muslim, as several imaginative (I’m trying not to use “lying”) right-leaning figures have insinuated. Second, it tells me that CNN and I have wildly differing definitions of “news.” Don’t think this is limited only to Wolf Blitzer and company. MSNBC and Fox News are just as bad. I just don’t tune to them as often because I don’t want my television programming to be connected with Microsoft (that’s the MS in MSNBC), and because I don’t want to listen to Bill O’Reilly twist the facts.

There certainly are times when cable news’ attention should be focused on one or a few things. The counting of votes from different primaries, attacks on or by our country, and natural disasters are examples of this. All the cable channels have continued to present informative, up to the minute coverage in situations like Super Tuesday, Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina. When most of the country and much of the world was looking to the Big Three cable news channels for updates, they all delivered.

Why can’t they focus on real news all the time? Don’t tell me there aren’t enough newsworthy things going on in the world. Even a cursory glance at the websites of the BBC, and even those of the U.S. cable news channels, shows how much is going on all over the world at any given time and how under-reported truly newsworthy things are. By not covering news from the other 190 countries of the world, and instead rehashing and reanalyzing old news and quasi-news, and these channels are contributing to the appalling global ignorance of most of America.

The promise, and dare I say, the original goal, of cable news at its inception decades ago was to present the news as it happened all over the world. That’s what should be happening. That can easily happen. The cable news channels can easily make themselves into what they should be. The manpower and the technology for the change are both there. Sadly, for those of us who want to know about more news more of the time, the cable news channels seem to be lacking in the most crucial requirement — the desire to change.

'RAMBO' UNLIKELY MEDIUM FOR PROTEST INFORMATION

Published Feb. 18, 2008 in "The Oklahoma Daily"
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John James Rambo has gone down in American film and cultural lore as the quintessential no-holds-barred action hero. From the jungles of Vietnam to the deserts of Afghanistan, he was the idealized poster-man (no one can call him a mere poster-boy) of the American way, triumphing over communists of all ilks in years past. With the recent release of the fourth film of the series, simply titled “Rambo,” our hero has turned into a resistance fighter of sorts. More importantly, he has become something of a real-life hero for the present.

This most recent film finds Rambo, played by the seemingly immortal Sylvester Stallone, at a Thailand monastery. As the movie progresses, he journeys into war-torn Myanmar (formerly Burma) to aid Karen tribal resistance fighters. There are the requisite explosions, machine-gun fire and general mayhem. Instead of the Soviets or the Viet Cong receiving Rambo’s ire, this time, it’s the military of Myanmar.

That’s the same military that happens to control basically everything in Myanmar. They have done so for more than 40 years. In the process, Myanmar has become one of the most brutal authoritarian states in history. Anything remotely resembling is discord or democracy immediately squelched. Some of the more brutal examples include the 8888 Uprising in August of 1988 and the protests of a few months ago led by Buddhist monks.

News coverage of such demonstrations is sporadic and extremely limited, even by today’s sound-bite news standards. Part of the reason for this is the total lack of press freedom in Myanmar and extremely tight government controls on Internet and other media outlets. News of much of the brutality that regularly occurs in Myanmar simply does not spread outside its borders.

Many things, however, do make it inside its borders. These include contraband goods, weapons and even bootleg DVDs of “Rambo.” The anti-military junta message of the film has provoked the anger of the ruling authorities. Anyone caught watching or possessing the film can be punished by 20 lashes or 10 years in prison. In a country as oppressed as Myanmar, that threat falls on deaf ears, as many people continue to watch and distribute the film, according to the few journalists allowed to operate in the country.

After the brutal crackdown of all public forms of dissent, the simple act of watching a banned DVD can become an ideal way to defy a heavily-armed government. Banning the DVD in the first place shows the disconnectedness of the wildly unpopular junta that is stubbornly clinging to power solely by the power of bullets. Its idiosyncratic and oppressive policies have once again taken center stage.

While that alone will not do much when it comes to fighting a force such as the junta, it does raise the world’s consciousness of an old and forgotten corner of Southeast Asia. Stallone himself has become an advocate for the people of Myanmar through the filming and promotion of the film. Stallone, though almost ancient by Hollywood terms, still commands attention and wields significant fan clout.

Celebrity power has launched more than one successful protest movement. It also has served to educate adoring masses about the cause the celebrity du jour happens to be endorsing.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t favor mindless celebrity adulation. But as a means to raise consciousness, there are few better vehicles. This is evidenced by a marked increase in the coverage of Myanmar in the media.

At the moment, “Rambo” the film and Rambo the character seem to be the faces of the global Myanmar junta protest movement. While the merits of either in this role are open to debate, such figureheads are sorely needed. The true warrior and deserved face of the struggle for democracy and freedom in Myanmar, the eminent Aung San Suu Kyi, is under strict house arrest by the Myanmar military. Suu Kyi has not been seen in public for years. She is the rightful Prime Minister of Myanmar, according to the last elections held in 1990. However, the results of those elections were summarily invalidated by the military.

Sly Stallone is no Suu Kyi. Not even close. But he and his recent film are continuing the work to which she has dedicated her life. Though both Stallone and “Rambo” seem unlikely vehicles of protest, they seem to be working, at least for the time being. It remains to be seen whether the recent fervor with Myanmar will continue, and more importantly, will have visible results on the global stage. That is what the people of Myanmar, and, free people everywhere, must hope for.
The fall of the Berlin Wall often is connected with former President John F. Kennedy’s long ago uttering of “Ich bin ein Berliner.” The fall of the Myanmar junta, if it happens, may well one day be connected with Rambo’s bullet-ridden triumph over the Myanmar military.