FOOTBALL, ROBBEN ISLAND & THE RELATIVISM OF POLITICAL CRUELTY

From JamyangNorbu.com Well, the World Cup’s over and the teams and visitors have all gone home, but the afterglow of achievement hasn’t entirely faded for South Africans. The people of this struggling “rainbow nation”, especially its new president Jacob Zuma, can be deservedly proud of having successfully hosted this tremendous international sporting event. Over forty years ago Zuma was a player himself, in fact the captain of the Rangers club, one of the teams that made up the Makana Football Association, organized by the prisoners of South Africa’s notorious Robben Island state prison.

An article in the New York Times mentioned that in Robben Island “…soccer brought relief from the exhausting life of breaking rocks in a quarry. It conferred dignity on prisoners subjected to beatings and humiliating body searches.” An inmate, Lizo Sitoto who was imprisoned on Robben island from 1963 until 1978, claimed that “football saved many of us. When you were outside playing, you felt free, as if you were at home.”

Nelson Mandela was kept in an isolation unit and not allowed to play football, but it appears that he somehow managed to keep himself physically fit. On Thursday February 11, 1990, when he was released from Robben island and the whole world celebrated his freedom, some observers noticed how spry and energetic he looked in spite of his 27 years behind bars.  His physical and mental fitness, was of course, in great part, the product of his own discipline, political focus and iron will.

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The Tongue of Our Mothers

Tibetan as a language has a great history and a rich literature. For centuries it evolved on the Tibetan plateau, its influence often flowing down into other Himalayan cultures such as those of Ladakh, Bhutan, Sikkim, Tawang and so on. Scholars and researchers maintain that Tibetan is the only language today in which one can access the full body of Buddhist literature, including all the root texts and the commentaries.

In the new millennium, when the Tibetan language is thriving in places like Bhutan, Ladakh and, curiously, on the internet, it is coming under systematic attack in Tibet. Watch this short video from Reuters reporting on how Tibetans in Tibet fear the loss of their mother tongue because of China’s education policies as well as cultural and economic imperialism in Tibet. I hope that the strength of our language and our spirit will withstand China’s effort to forcibly assimilate us.

A Digital Celebration of HHDL’s 75th by Tibetans in Tibet

Beginning on July 6th, the 75th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tibetan web users in Tibet and China flooded popular Chinese language social networking websites with images of the Dalai Lama. Contained in status updates, profile pictures, and photo albums, images of  the Dalai lama and the banned Tibetan national flag filled popular networking sites 51.com and Qzone. This outpouring of expression and protest, largely by young Tibetans comes as China intensifies it’s crackdown on vocal Tibetans.

This “digital celebration” of His Holiness’s birthday from inside Tibet is joined by reports that thousands of Tibetans in Tawu, Kham South-Eastern Tibet, held a massive long life prayer where His Holiness’s portrait was honored followed by cultural performances and a traditional horse racing competition. As well as a video showing thousands of Tibetans in Golok Amnye Machen, Amdo North-Eastern Tibet, offering prayers and dedicating songs to their spiritual leader.

Bellow is a collection of images posted by Tibetan web users inside Tibet and China.

SFT Protests in Solidarity with the Uyghur People

June 8, 2010: The World Uyghur Congress marked the one year anniversary of the tragic July 2009 protest in Urumchi, East Turkestan today by organizing demonstrations and other actions all over the world. In New York City, Uyghurs and supporters demonstrated in front of China’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. SFT’s executive director Tendor and USA grassroots director TenDolkar joined the protest in support of the Uyghur people in their struggle for basic human rights and gave rallying speeches striking similarities between the Tibetan and Uyghur people’s struggle for freedom. As the Chinese government continues to oppress the Tibetan and the Uyghur people and use excessive and extremely violent forces to crush all forms of dissent, SFT will stand and fight in solidarity with our Uyghur brothers and sisters for Rangzen, for freedom.

Video clips of Tendor’s speech to come up soon!

Tibetans in Tibet celebrate the Dalai Lama’s 75th birthday

As people worldwide celebrate the 75th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tibetans in Tibet defy China’s restrictions to join the celebrations. Watch this incredible video of Tibetans in Amdo dedicating songs to the Tibetan leader: http://www.khabdha.org/

"Rinchen Samdrup Sentenced to 5 Years! The Sacred Texts He Saved and His CDs Destroyed!" By Woeser

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost written by Woeser on July 3, 2010. The blogpost is mainly made up of private photos taken of Tibetan environmentalist Rinchen Samdrup who was sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of "incitement to subversion". The sentencing of his younger brother Karma Samdrup to 15 years in prison the previous week had already attracted the attention of international media and Woeser has written about how she personally has known the brothers for many years. In the blogpost, Woeser refers to the book "Heavenly Beads", written by Liu Jianqiang and published in 2009 by Tibet People's Publishing House, in which several Tibetan environmentalists were profiled, including Karma Samdrup and Rinchen Samdrup. Read a review of the book here on ChinaDialogue. This blogpost has also been translated into Tibetan and can be read by following this link. Today, July 3, Rinchen Samdrup, elder brother of unjustly sentenced to 15 years "King of Dzi (Heavenly Beads)" Karma Samdrup, was sentenced to 5 years in prison by the Tibet Autonomous Region Chamdo Intermediate People's Court on charges of "inciting splittism". I dug out my photos of summer 2004 taken in the Karma Kunsang area of Lhasa, photos of Rinchen and his family. In fact, some of these pictures have already been posted on my blog. But I want to post some more, I'd like people who see these photos to understand what kind of person Rinchen Samdrup is. And I particularly want to add that Rinchen Samdrup and his family, over a period of more than 10 years have made great efforts to save the major achievements of Tibetan Buddhism of Changchup Dorje and all of his precious texts, they entered everything into the computer word by word and put them on discs, after the police raid, the evil officials confiscated everything and it is said that  everything was destroyed by fire! What this means, needless to say, is that I am left extremely outraged. Those who do evil, remember well, the judgement of karma, like justice, has a long reach. ******* Rinchen Samdrup is a former monk, even now a devout believer and practitioner, familiar with Buddhism and Tibetan medicine and the only doctor in the local village. He is also a talented folk artist, poet, thangka painter, builder of stupas, manuscript board engraver, all of which he is good at. Spread over the floor are the pages of the major achievements of the great master of Tibetan Buddhism Changchup Dorje, the founder of Nyangla Temple, including Buddhist and Tibetan medical texts, due to the passage of time, many are damaged and only half are remaining having been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.  Over the last 10 years, Rinchen Samdrup wracked his brains and tried every means to save them. During a trip to Lhasa, he saw a computer and became very excited, he stayed in Lhasa to learn computer skills in the hope that he could enter the scriptures into the computer and preserve them forever. (more...)

FUNERAL GAMES*

Few pleasures can beat the funeral of someone you loathe. It is not, I admit, a very Buddhist sentiment, but I think karma (the hardcore, not the new age version) will, this once, overlook my rancor, when I add that the someone in question is the late (more...)

RANGZEN ALLIANCE, SWITZERLAND

I was in Switzerland at the beginning of this month and gave a slideshow and talk at Zurich on Saturday the 5th, “Was Tibet an Independent and Sovereign State?”, based on my essay Independent Tibet – The Facts, but with a more polemical title. The talk was well attended by Tibetans. In fact the auditorium (more...)