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Kow-tow Watch

Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Step forward Brian Roper, Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University (or City and North London polys, as were):

"Brian Roper, vice-chancellor of the university, expressed in a letter to the Chinese embassy in London on June 16 his regret of his school's move, saying that offering the degree to the Dalai Lama was not a well-considered decision, according to an embassy official last week.... Angered and offended by the move, Chinese students and Internet users at home and abroad called for a boycott the university, saying its conferment of honours on the Dalai Lama had hurt the feelings of the Chinese people".

Sensitive flowers, aren't they?

"It also has a Free Tibet Society, which advocates the "Independence of Tibet."

A staff member of the Chinese embassy in London said the university's apology is sincere but it is not enough to completely offset the negative effect. "The university should do more to repair its image in the eyes of Chinese students, such as not providing speaking platforms for Tibetan separatists," he said".

Here's a list of other institutions for Beijing to get upset with.

Meanwhile, China Daily has come up with a list of '30 reasons to watch the Beijing Games'.

These include the following:

13. Babies named after the Olympics - "A total of 4,104 Chinese have been named Aoyun (Chinese for "the Olympics")"

20. Highest number of mascots - five. "Multiple Olympic mascots are not uncommon, but for the first time more than three figures will share Summer Olympic mascot duty when the five Fuwa take center stage. Featuring four of China's most popular animals - the fish , the panda, the Tibetan antelope and the swallow - and the Olympic flame.."

21. Venues on fengshui


Well that's certainly overcome my cynicism, and I will be glued to the box for the duration. Blogging may well be light.....

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Consequences? Who cares?

Sunday, June 22, 2008
For your entertainment, here is a commercial for the Lancia Delta. Unlikely to air in these parts as Lancia abandoned the UK market some years ago as they could not overcome a reputation for producing rust buckets



Those eggheads at Lancia parent Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino need to brush up on their knowledge 0f world affairs and Cult Studs, methinks:

"Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said he ''didn't know'' if the commercial had political overtones, but that he ''certainly liked it''. Source

My position on Tibet is a matter of record, so am happy enough for Lancia to align itself with Tibet, but a car manufacturer that builds in the 'People's Republic' of China really should have given the issue more than a nano-second's thought.

Too late now, as "Fiat on Friday apologised to China for a television commercial starring United States actor Richard Gere that it acknowledged ''could disturb the sensibility of the Chinese people''. Sensitive flowers, aren't they?

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Non-fiction sentence of the year

Monday, April 21, 2008
This, from James Palmer's 'The Bloody White Baron', his take on Ungern-Sternberg. The section at issue is dealing with some of the lesser known elements of Buddhist practice:

"Even the enlightened gods had their dark sides...Even more terrible was Palden Llamo, one of the divine protectors of Buddhism but also a devouring mother who sacrificed her own children. She rode upon a lake of entrails and blood, clutching a cup made from the skull of a child born from incest, her thunderbolt staff ready to smash the unbelievers and her teeth gnawing on a corpse. Her horse's saddle was made from the flayed skin of her own child, who had become an enemy of the faith, and snakes wound through her hair. Like many gods, she bore a crown of five skulls and a necklace of severed heads. Her ostensible purpose was to defend Buddhism against its enemies, and in particular to guard the Dalai Lama, but she must have terrified many true believers as well. The Tibetans considered Queen Victoria to be one of her incarnations".

A worthy winner, I think, and puts me in mind of the Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra anecdote:

""After watching Sarah as Cleopatra, lasciviously entwined in her lover's arms, an elderly dowager was heard to say:' How unlike, how very unlike the home life of our own dear queen'."


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Losing something in translation?

Sunday, April 20, 2008
From China Daily:

"Protests against "Tibet independence" continued in several Chinese cities on Sunday. Protestors gathered in front of outlets of the French supermarket chain Carrefour, chanting "Oppose Tibet independence", and "Oppose CNN's anti-China statements" on Sunday morning. Chinese police were monitoring the demonstrations, which had no effect on the supermarkets' normal operations, Xinhua said. More than 1,000 students and citizens in front of the Carrefour in Xi'an (Xian is about as far from Lhasa as Lerwick from London....C) held banners, saying "Strongly oppose CNN's anti-China statements" and "Condemn Tibet secessionist in France tearing up the Five-Star Red Flag"(I really like this one. The language that is, not the sentiment. C). They chanted "Support the Olympics", "Go China" and "Condemn CNN" through loudspeakers".

Maybe they sounded snappier in the original. Also, could they not have wheeled out 'running dog lackeys', just for old times' sake?

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The London protests

Monday, April 07, 2008
But for pressure of work I would have gone up to town to cry 'shame' at the Olympic quislings and so forth yesterday, and rather regret that I could not. So, a big round of virtual applause to those who braved the intemperate weather.

Generally speaking, marches, demonstrations and so forth are dismal failures in terms of the outward aim - to change the policies of one's own government or that of another. However, the marchers, banner wavers also have themselves as a psychological target, and Countryside Alliance, CND, stop the war types etc will all have felt a nice rosy glow of self-righteousness and taken away a sense that they had at least done something.

Where the Tibet protests succeeded was not in persuading the 'People's Republic' of China to decolonise Tibet (and come to that East Turkestan), which they are not likely to do any time soon, alas, but to ensure that Tibet's struggle and the vile human rights record of the 'People's Republic' of China becomes global news, and penetrates even the consciousnesses of the boneheaded retired athletes and ''ims and 'ers off the telly' who judged that getting their faces in the papers (that they might plug memoirs, diet supplements, television programmes or whatever) was more important than exhibiting even the most elementary sense of decency. So, Trevor MacDonald, Konnie Huq and the rest of you - avaunt.

That the preservation of law and order was part delegated to a series of Chinese secret policemen / special forces types (they certainly weren't athletes, were they?) is also profoundly shocking.

Meanwhile, make haste to the Number Ten site, and attempt to play the embedded video of the Dour One doing an embarrassed nod at the torch. And fancy, just fancy, a message flashes up saying 'sorry, this video is no longer available'.

And since I am having lots of fun with wonder that is hindsight, enjoy this from Livingstone's site:

"On Sunday 6th April the Olympic flame will be carried across London as part of the global Olympic Torch Relay. Large crowds are expected to cheer on the 80 torchbearers, including Paralympians, Olympic athletes and celebrities as they carry the torch through ten London boroughs from Wembley to Greenwich".

One final (?) afterthought: it is a desperate shame that Peter Hain is no longer in the government, as it would have been delightful watching him trying to square collective ministerial responsibility with his known stances on 'normal sport in an abnormal society'.

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Shameful. Just shameful.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008
WorldPublicOpinion.org has polled the population of these parts, the US, France, India, South Korea and Indonesia on the opening stages of the genocidal campaign of the Chinese government against the Tibetan people, and less than two thirds of Britons manage to sign up to this, extraordinarily mild, statement:

"Critics of China say that it should allow Tibet to have autonomy, to preserve its traditional culture and to allow the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet".

In contrast, 19% go along with this, "China says that Tibet has long been part of China, that Tibet has benefited from modernization, and that the Dalai Lama should not be allowed to return because he aims to split Tibet from China". And the mouth-breathing remainder (18%) have no opinion.

Meanwhile, top marks to South Korea, with 84% supporting the first statement, and shame on the 63% of Indians who either support the 'People's Republic' or have no opinion. I imagine that the Koreans are well aware of how Beijing used to regard Korea as being its own private plaything too.

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Hurrah for Canada

Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Or rather two suicidally reckless extraordinarily brave Canadians, who unveiled a pro Tibetan independence banner on the Great Wall, and kept it there for 90 minutes. More here.

The two bold Canadians, Melanie Raoul and Sam Price, members of Students for a Free Tibet have been hauled off in the Chinese equivalent of the black maria, and are yet to be heard from.

The action, naturally, is on youtube:



The comments on the video are extraordinarily telling.... Still, I'm locked out from the 'People's Republic' of China by the Great Firewall of China, so I'm not anticipating a blizzard of Pekiing's straw men and women telling me what a dirty gwailo I am.

The story is all over the North American media, but would seem to be insufficiently newsworthy for a certain broadcaster that does, however, sees fit to drivel on at length about the forthcoming Olympics in Peking.

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The Dalai Lama rows back

Sunday, April 08, 2007
The Dalai Lama's precise position on sovereignty for Tibet has not always been entirely clear, but it would seem to be now:

"The past is past. When the People's Liberation Army came to Tibet, according to legal experts, Tibet was a de facto independent nation. Therefore, we consider it an occupied land. But that doesn't mean we are seeking independence". He made these comments in an interview to be screened by CNN, although this post is based on a report in the Taipei Times.

Alarmingly, he conceded "Tibet is a backward country, economically, materially. Therefore, for our own interest as far as material development is concerned, we want to remain within the People's Republic of China". More encouragingly he notes, "I think many visitors to Tibet, including many Chinese, can see that Tibet is actually ruled by terror, the rule of terror".

Tibet is in no position to resist the Chinese occupation, and Beijing is unlikely to be conscience stricken any time soon, alas. Meanwhile, I continue to support self-determination for the people of Tibet. The Central Tibetan Administration's (Govt in exile) page is here, complete with what would appear to be a rather literal translation of their national anthem. Given quite how bloody many national anthems are, this is a rather noble sentiment: "may everyone throughout the world enjoy the glories of happiness and peace".

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