Protest for Liberty, Democracy, Human Rights, Peace

Dr. Mahesh Yadav writes appeal letters for the Tibetan cause in his own blood. Six Tibetans in Exile in New Dehli went on a hunger strike to protest the Chinese government's illegal invasion and annexation of Tibet. Thupten Ngodup, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, immolated himself to protest China's brutal regime. Jampa Tenzin, another monk, ran into a burning police station to rescue other monks that were being gunned down, and emerged with charred flesh hanging from his arms.

After all of that, picketing outside the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas seems very little to ask of myself.

The reason is huge; over 1.2 million Tibetans have died as a result of China's occupation of Tibet. The International Commission of Jurists declared that China is committing genocide in Tibet. Monks and nuns have been tortured; nuns have had cattle prods pushed in their vaginas, been hung upside down and beaten, been forced to publicly copulate with monks, and submerged in raw human sewage. At the time of invasion, children were forced to shoot their own parents and dance on the corpses. Peaceful protests have been sprayed with gunfire and Tibetans have been forced to watch the public executions of their beloved religious leaders. Refugees that attempt to escape, in some cases young nuns and children, have been picked off by snipers of the People's Liberation Army, as was shown in the YouTube video on the Nangpa-La pass shooting, captured by a foreign cameraman. And of course, the six-year-old boy Gedhun Choekyi Nyima became the youngest political prisoner in the world when he was kidnapped and held incommunicado in Beijing.

But what do I care? I'm as white as wonderbread, have never been to Tibet, do not speak Tibetan, and have not myself suffered from any of the atrocities that China has committed. Why, then, am I traveling to Houston to protest what China has done and continues to do?

Perhaps it is because of what Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free somebody else."

Don't get me wrong. America is far from perfect. I loathe Bush with a passion, but I appreciate that I have the right to say so. The reason I speak for the Tibetan people is that they cannot speak for themselves. Owning a picture of the Dalai Lama or a Tibetan flag, or even expressing loyalty to the Dalai Lama or a wish for Tibetan indepedence, are graves crimes now in Tibet. There is no freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of assembly in Tibet. I, from outside Tibet, take a stand for Tibetan freedom because the Tibetans themselves cannot.

So on March 10, 2007, I and several Tibetans and activists from Austin, Texas will be traveling to Houston to protest outside the Chinese consulate. We will be joined by others from Houston, greater Texas, and even Oklahoma. I will report on how the protest goes so that everyone here can read it, but it is my hope that others here will come, participate, and have stories of their own.

March 10, or Uprising Day, is a tradition. In Tibet on on March 10, 1959, Tibetans staged the first massive resistance to Chinese occupation. That same year the Dalai Lama fled to permanent exile in India and has not been inside his homeland since. The uprising, naturally, was crushed, but the legacy of resistance lives on to this day. It is time to remind China that the world has not forgotten Tibet.

This is about more than a mountainous nation in the heart of Asia. The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Laureate and symbol of compassion, is one of the few moral leaders the world has been lucky enough to have. Tibet's devotion to pacifist Buddhist doctrine in the face of oppression and genocide makes it a guiding light of hope for world peace, and a symbol of sacrifice for the sake of liberty. Protesting China's occupation of Tibet isn't just a stand for the Tibetan people; it is a stand for liberty, democracy, and peace, values that any world citizen can be proud to stand for.

Zimbabwe is a country where public attention and international pressure may prevent a genocide; West Papua is a country where the U.S. public could stop the U.S. sponsored genocide and racial replacement programs.

Is there any reason people opposed to genocide could not raise their voice about all these victims?