Tibet is living proof that today the UN is committing the same mistake as the League of Nations back in the 1930's. Action is only being taken by Tibet, where it is being brutally repressed by the Chinese. This instance has gotten into a mess, way out of hand. With the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, China has broken almost all of them. I saw that someone should either force China to get out of Tibet, peacefully or not. It has to be done. The age of Imperialism should have ended a century ago. Much like the Holocaust, Tibetans general rights have been cast aside so that they cannot express themselves (culture) in anyway that is not allowed by China, that has pressed their beliefs onto Tibet. More Chinese are being sent into Tibet, much like Lebensraum. On the far end of the spectrum is the Holocause where most rights of the Jews were taken away, and if they disregarded these Laws, yes they were law, they would be killed. Here China is not as harsh, but people are still suffering. People are "re-educated" and put as slave laborers. You could go to prison for ten years for even expressing happiness about a topic not approved. The UN is talking to the brick wall that is China, while the Dalai Lama goes around the World, trying to convine people that something should be done. And hes right.
In this day and age, as I said before, Imperialism should be dead. China expects us to believe that they are helping an anti-modern country, meanwhile they are exploiting the people and environment of Tibet. China is breaking the UDoHR in front of the world. Where is the feelings of humanism? People are now joining the cause to free Tibet. Hopefully all the work since...1951(!!!) should pay off. After all, the cultural revolution and Communism are dead in China, or should be. It seems that now China is mimicking Germany and Italy in late blooming of conquering other nations. It seems that no one in China is listening to the UN to tell it to stop. Their excuse is understandably obvious. But the main point is that what China is doing to Tibetan citizens is wrong. Europe admitted their mistakes of the past. They must not be repeated.
When I finished reading some articles about the 'fair trials' and justifications of imprisonment for Tibetans, I didn't really understand how that was possible. For instance, for celebrating a buddhist holiday or the day the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel peace prize. For teaching or writing about the status of Tibet, it's culture, it's people or even it's environment. All these are liable reasons for China to label these people a "threat to society" and say that they are a danger to state security. Chinese education is provided, but Tibetan teachings are illegal. There is just a puppet government. It makes people laugh. I feel immense pity and sorrow for the poor people who's lives just got a little bit worse because of the product of our past mistakes. Soon China will totally repopulate Tibet with Chinese and many endangered species could go extinct. People should think of the future.
So far as I know, the real partaking of blows in this match is the Dalai Lama and China. He is constantly trying to improve the circumstances in his country that he is in exile of. Currently, there have been more recent Sino-Tibetan talks that have been serious. Europe and the U.S. have merely been motivators for Tibet to take action. Even now, the Dalai Lama's requests have been lowered to general autonomy (self-determination) instead of a declaration of Independence. After reading some speeches of the Dalai Lama, it is an eye opening experience to recieve information from an eye witness (http://www.tibet.com/DL/vienna.html). The UN should step in to unite the causes made by each continent.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Period 5-Andrew's Reflection
The Chinese repression of Tibet tells me that human rights are often put down in place of national or personal goals. This also shows that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights issued by the United Nations can not be reinforced in all situations due to the reluctance of the United Nations to violate nation sovereignty. The United Nations lack the real power needed to enforce their laws. Individual countries in the United Nations have power but will not work together to enforce the international laws like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I feel that the leaders of China made the wrong move by violating Tibet’s nation sovereignty and by killing, through starvation and displacement, thousands of people. However, I also firmly believe that China is right to keep the United Nations from doing anything inside the borders of Tibet now that it is controlled by China. National sovereignty should be placed above everything else or the United Nations or other powers could begin readopting the barbaric imperialistic notion of “helping” countries while just taking them over.
Nobody, including the United Nations, should be allowed to violate nation sovereignty. Any and all activities against what the government of a nation is doing must be restricted to an outside area and only a nation’s agents should be allowed to enter the nation’s borders. All negotiations should be held in a previously agreed upon neutral territory where neither of the powers in dispute has any hold or presence prior to the commencement of the meeting.
The idea of Humanism is a true belief but the fact remains that some things are simply more important than individual humans. During the Holocaust the people running the concentration and death camps believed that their lives and their country were more important than human lives. The Chinese also believe in something more important than human lives. In Germany the idea was wrong. Themselves and their government were not more important than the lives of the individual people they were killing. In China the government is protecting the invaluable principle of nation sovereignty. They have a justified reason in that, if there was another series of imperialistic takeovers many hundreds of thousands of people more than they were killing could die.
Nothing should be more important to a government than nation sovereignty apart from the survival of the human race. And no one should have the power to violate that nation sovereignty at will.
Evan's Reflection period 5
This illegal repression of Tibet by the people's Republic of China shows that the UN is not doing what it should be. When China first invaded Tibet, the Dalai Lama pleaded to nearby countries to aid them in their fight for individual freedom, but none of his calls for help were successful, and Tibet was soon under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government. The UN's job is to ensure diplomatic resolution to all conflicts that may arise between countries to avoid violence, as well as to make sure that all people follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When Tibet was repressed, the UN took no action against the Chinese, even if their annexation of Tibet was illegal. This trend would continue throughout several decades and still the UN did nothing to stop this. This goes to show that while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is upheld in almost every country of the world, violation of these rules is not enforced by the UN. This occurence is similar to the Holocaust for several reasons.
First, even though people all over the world have knowledge of what is happening in this country, nothing is being done to help the innocent Tibetans. In addition, Chinese people are continually immigrating to Tibet, much like Germans spread into captured countries for more living space. Finally, people are stripped of all of their rights in Tibet, just like the Holocaust. As in th Holocaust, people of a certain religion, in this case buddhism, are discriminated against and have to go through riots, similar to pogroms, by the people who opress them and destroy their places of religion and their homes as well.
The events that occured during this repression overall denied the general idea of humanism. Humanism is the principle that stresses the importance of the individual. When the Chinese took contol of Tibet, their laws removed almost all of the rights of the native Tibetans. People lost their right to do anything that did not conform to the ideas of the Chinese, anything that might make them an individual. When a person had enough courage to speak out against their Chinese rulers, they were put into a forced labor camp, similar to the labor camps of the Holocaust, until they changed their ideas about the Chinese. All in all, what the Chinese have done to the Tibetans has removed all traces of humanistic ideas from the Tibetan public, and when anyone has any feelings that are anti-chinese, they do not speak out, for fear of being captured and detained by the Chinese government.
When the People's Republic of China invaded Tibet in 1949, China used several reasons to justify their seizure of their nighboring country. All of their reasons covered up another motive for the invasion, the revenge for the Dalai Lama's offense of their leader, Mao Zedong, when he refused to sign an agreement with China. Another reason they invaded Tibet was that they believed they would bolster the economy of Tibet. This seemed like an okay thing to me at the time, then I found out that this benefit came at the cost of Tibetan human rights. I believe that nothing on Earth could be worth the cost of your rights as a human. All of the reasons that China invaded Tibet were justified in the eyes of the Chinese, but they were breaking the rules established by the UN to gain power amongst the locals. In my opinion, the cost of invading Tibet, as in being view negatively viewed by the entire world, just for claiming Tibet, a rocky and mountainous region of central Asia, that had no real use to the Chinese.
I believe that the UN should have full power over the sovereignty of other countries, including ours. When a country invadeds the sovereignty of another country, I believe that the UN should at least investigate the situation and have a vote on whether or not they should take action against the conflict. There should be some sort of trial where a representative from each country presents information to the UN and after all of the information was presented, they would vote. I believe that if they wished to invade the sovereignty of the US, then they should have the right to, as long as they did not break the universal declaration of human rights. All in all, the UN, being a worldwide organization, should be able to allow or deny a conflict to occur between countries.
First, even though people all over the world have knowledge of what is happening in this country, nothing is being done to help the innocent Tibetans. In addition, Chinese people are continually immigrating to Tibet, much like Germans spread into captured countries for more living space. Finally, people are stripped of all of their rights in Tibet, just like the Holocaust. As in th Holocaust, people of a certain religion, in this case buddhism, are discriminated against and have to go through riots, similar to pogroms, by the people who opress them and destroy their places of religion and their homes as well.
The events that occured during this repression overall denied the general idea of humanism. Humanism is the principle that stresses the importance of the individual. When the Chinese took contol of Tibet, their laws removed almost all of the rights of the native Tibetans. People lost their right to do anything that did not conform to the ideas of the Chinese, anything that might make them an individual. When a person had enough courage to speak out against their Chinese rulers, they were put into a forced labor camp, similar to the labor camps of the Holocaust, until they changed their ideas about the Chinese. All in all, what the Chinese have done to the Tibetans has removed all traces of humanistic ideas from the Tibetan public, and when anyone has any feelings that are anti-chinese, they do not speak out, for fear of being captured and detained by the Chinese government.
When the People's Republic of China invaded Tibet in 1949, China used several reasons to justify their seizure of their nighboring country. All of their reasons covered up another motive for the invasion, the revenge for the Dalai Lama's offense of their leader, Mao Zedong, when he refused to sign an agreement with China. Another reason they invaded Tibet was that they believed they would bolster the economy of Tibet. This seemed like an okay thing to me at the time, then I found out that this benefit came at the cost of Tibetan human rights. I believe that nothing on Earth could be worth the cost of your rights as a human. All of the reasons that China invaded Tibet were justified in the eyes of the Chinese, but they were breaking the rules established by the UN to gain power amongst the locals. In my opinion, the cost of invading Tibet, as in being view negatively viewed by the entire world, just for claiming Tibet, a rocky and mountainous region of central Asia, that had no real use to the Chinese.
I believe that the UN should have full power over the sovereignty of other countries, including ours. When a country invadeds the sovereignty of another country, I believe that the UN should at least investigate the situation and have a vote on whether or not they should take action against the conflict. There should be some sort of trial where a representative from each country presents information to the UN and after all of the information was presented, they would vote. I believe that if they wished to invade the sovereignty of the US, then they should have the right to, as long as they did not break the universal declaration of human rights. All in all, the UN, being a worldwide organization, should be able to allow or deny a conflict to occur between countries.
Period 5 Christian, Andrew, Evan
When did this event occur?
This repression began in 1951 when the People's Republic of China successfully captured the capital of Tibet and enforced new laws over the country. The beginning of the Chinese invasion began when China sent an invasion army of 40,000 soldiers after the Dalai Lama refused to sign a peace treaty sent by the Military dictator of China Mao Zedong. Zedong took this as a personal offense and attacked Tibet. This invasion resulted in the deaths of about 1.2 million Tibetans.
This repression began in 1951 when the People's Republic of China successfully captured the capital of Tibet and enforced new laws over the country. The beginning of the Chinese invasion began when China sent an invasion army of 40,000 soldiers after the Dalai Lama refused to sign a peace treaty sent by the Military dictator of China Mao Zedong. Zedong took this as a personal offense and attacked Tibet. This invasion resulted in the deaths of about 1.2 million Tibetans.
Period 5, Andrew, Christian, Evan
Who was tortured and why?
Tibets diverse culture and religion has set it separate from other asian countries. China has used its military to sever the human rights, constantly abusing them in cases of arbitrary arrest, political arrest, torture and execution. According to Human rights groups, over 700 political prisoners have been apprehended by the PRC police, but there could hundreds of other names not known. Many detained have not had trials for up to four years. These prisoners have to have a special "re-education" where they are forced to denounce their beliefs and are placed in force labor camps. Forms of torture would include sleep deprivation, starvation, shocking through electrical batons and beatings. Most of these cases are caused by different religious beliefs by Tibetans who either freely practice their banned religion (usually buddhism) or talk of the status of Tibet or of revolution or celebrate any religious holidays.
What was the result of this event?
As of yet, Tibet's current situation has a slight glimpse of hope. The UN is constantly having peaceful talks with China to come to a compromise, although Tibetans desire nothing less than full independence. The Chinese government refuse to offer even a small grant of freedom and won't even consider the Tibetans' request for a fully autonomous government. The Dalai Lama is traveling to different groups around the world to raise support for the Tibetans' idea of an independent government.
Tibets diverse culture and religion has set it separate from other asian countries. China has used its military to sever the human rights, constantly abusing them in cases of arbitrary arrest, political arrest, torture and execution. According to Human rights groups, over 700 political prisoners have been apprehended by the PRC police, but there could hundreds of other names not known. Many detained have not had trials for up to four years. These prisoners have to have a special "re-education" where they are forced to denounce their beliefs and are placed in force labor camps. Forms of torture would include sleep deprivation, starvation, shocking through electrical batons and beatings. Most of these cases are caused by different religious beliefs by Tibetans who either freely practice their banned religion (usually buddhism) or talk of the status of Tibet or of revolution or celebrate any religious holidays.
What was the result of this event?
As of yet, Tibet's current situation has a slight glimpse of hope. The UN is constantly having peaceful talks with China to come to a compromise, although Tibetans desire nothing less than full independence. The Chinese government refuse to offer even a small grant of freedom and won't even consider the Tibetans' request for a fully autonomous government. The Dalai Lama is traveling to different groups around the world to raise support for the Tibetans' idea of an independent government.
Period 5 Christian, Andrew, Evan
What part did the government play in this event?
Once China had successfully gained military control of Tibet, they sat down with the Tibetan Government on May 23rd, 1951 to impose their new laws. These new laws restricted human rights all across the country, especially in the area of religion and over 6,000 monasteries were destroyed during this repression. The Chinese occupied Tibet for several years until the Dalai Lama peacefully signed an agreement with the Chinese. Most of the high ranking government officials went into exile, including the Dalai Lama, for fear of being captured by the Chinese. This new puppet government was under the control of the People's Republic of China and established further laws that they believed would help Tibet would prosper. These laws for prosperity have limited certain rights and turned Tibet into a country that ran by essentially Communist rules.
Once China had successfully gained military control of Tibet, they sat down with the Tibetan Government on May 23rd, 1951 to impose their new laws. These new laws restricted human rights all across the country, especially in the area of religion and over 6,000 monasteries were destroyed during this repression. The Chinese occupied Tibet for several years until the Dalai Lama peacefully signed an agreement with the Chinese. Most of the high ranking government officials went into exile, including the Dalai Lama, for fear of being captured by the Chinese. This new puppet government was under the control of the People's Republic of China and established further laws that they believed would help Tibet would prosper. These laws for prosperity have limited certain rights and turned Tibet into a country that ran by essentially Communist rules.
reflection...............Jamie
When I first thought of learning about China’s occupation of Tibet I thought it would be something really cool to learn about. I had always seen advertisements, or heard people say, “Free Tibet” or “Save Tibet”. Now I really had a reason to figure out what everyone was taking about. I thought it would be similar to learning about the Darfur Crisis, but I was wrong. I’d had some prior knowledge as to what was going on in Darfur, and thought since Tibet was on the same list of projects, I figured that they must have something to do with each other. I was right in some ways but at the same time was completely wrong.
I knew that this project would have something to do with human rights and was exited to figure out what was really going on with Tibet. When I first started to really learn about Tibet’s crisis, it made me really upset that people had the guts to discriminate against each other like that. Essentially what I had come to figure out was that Tibet realized that they wanted to become Buddhists, and fallow the Dali Lama, but in order for them to do this they would have to break from the chains of China. The rest of Chinese society was conforming to a religion that didn’t settle with Tibet.
When Tibet had announced this decision to China, they were very unhappy, and occupied all of Tibet to keep them from escaping the rest of China. Eventually, China had set up their very own set or Nuremberg Laws, which they called, “The 17 Points”. These points, slowly but surly took away all of Tibet’s rights. It also forced them to conform to a society that they didn’t belong to. China had even created it’s own Nazi party that has helped to kill off over one million people over the years, just because of their religion.
After learning all of this I thought to myself that what China is doing to Tibet sounded somewhat familiar to what Japan had done to China during World War 2. When China was being beat up by Japan, they didn’t like it, and didn’t think that it was fair that all of their people were being killed off. But what gave them the power to go after natives of Tibet with the same attitude Japan had towards China. China knew very well what Tibet was feeling like, so what would incourage their vicious activity to continue to live on?
Today the problems in Tibet aren’t as bad as they were when they were at their peak, but there are still major conflicts. China still doesn’t fully except their religion. They are also still occupying Tibet today. Tibet still does not have any political freedom, and they are forced to go along with what ever China tells them to do which isn’t fair. This conflict has been going on for so long I wonder if it will ever really come to an end. Every generation of Tibetan people continue to hope that things will change over time, but enough time has gone by.
Jamie Z................Pd 2
I knew that this project would have something to do with human rights and was exited to figure out what was really going on with Tibet. When I first started to really learn about Tibet’s crisis, it made me really upset that people had the guts to discriminate against each other like that. Essentially what I had come to figure out was that Tibet realized that they wanted to become Buddhists, and fallow the Dali Lama, but in order for them to do this they would have to break from the chains of China. The rest of Chinese society was conforming to a religion that didn’t settle with Tibet.
When Tibet had announced this decision to China, they were very unhappy, and occupied all of Tibet to keep them from escaping the rest of China. Eventually, China had set up their very own set or Nuremberg Laws, which they called, “The 17 Points”. These points, slowly but surly took away all of Tibet’s rights. It also forced them to conform to a society that they didn’t belong to. China had even created it’s own Nazi party that has helped to kill off over one million people over the years, just because of their religion.
After learning all of this I thought to myself that what China is doing to Tibet sounded somewhat familiar to what Japan had done to China during World War 2. When China was being beat up by Japan, they didn’t like it, and didn’t think that it was fair that all of their people were being killed off. But what gave them the power to go after natives of Tibet with the same attitude Japan had towards China. China knew very well what Tibet was feeling like, so what would incourage their vicious activity to continue to live on?
Today the problems in Tibet aren’t as bad as they were when they were at their peak, but there are still major conflicts. China still doesn’t fully except their religion. They are also still occupying Tibet today. Tibet still does not have any political freedom, and they are forced to go along with what ever China tells them to do which isn’t fair. This conflict has been going on for so long I wonder if it will ever really come to an end. Every generation of Tibetan people continue to hope that things will change over time, but enough time has gone by.
Jamie Z................Pd 2
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