The current uprising in Tibet could be seen as an opportunity for western nations to officially condemn China's occupation and oppression of Tibet, if such nations had actual moral foundations and their government officials had functioning consciences.

Tibetans were a people who, before embracing Buddhism, had never been defeated in war ... and they were aggressive, war-like. After becoming primarily Buddhists, they never again waged war on anyone, becoming a nonviolent, peaceful, deeply spiritual people. They became as intensely and effectively committed to the Buddhist concept of overcoming the limits of this world spiritually as they were previously committed to overcoming their enemies.

Then came Mao, and its army ... Nuns were raped, children were forced to shoot and kill their own parents to amuse the Chinese soldiers, Tibet was being "liberated" with bombs, bullets, bayonets and rape, and the world turned its back on the Tibetans who everywhere went to ask for help, believing in the universal decency of human kind, in the Buddhist idea of compassion.

Today, decades of unbearable oppression and gross abuse by China have apparently erased centuries of a nonviolent tradition embodied by the Dalai Lama, and made thousands of Tibetans desperately angry, with nothing to loose but a life they no longer cherish.

Would you have anything left to loose if your nation had been invaded and occupied by a foreign power, your flag had been outlawed, your centuries-old temples and monasteries were destroyed, your sacred manuscripts burned, your spiritual leaders imprisoned, tortured and killed, your culture regarded as inadequate and your traditions and language to be replaced by those of the invader, the young women of your nation sterilized against their will, your natural resources taken, your children indoctrinated, your most sacred places deliberately disfigured and trashed by a blatant disrespect for your culture and your race, and you were made a minority of impoverished, despised, second-class citizens on your own land?

Come to think of it, it might sound familiar to some among you ... next thing you know, after having destroyed Tibetan culture and severely damaged the spirit of Tibetan people, the Chinese will accuse them of lacking self-respect, the way Native Americans are criticized by rednecks and other ignorant and racist bullies on this continent.

Back to Tibet: China has absolutely no business being in Tibet, and cannot in any way justify its aggression, invasion and occupation of a formally sovereign and nonthreatening nation. China cannot legitimize its current and ongoing oppression of Tibetans, and its agendas of cultural genocide and ethnic "assimilation," anymore than it can validate the tyrannical control and oppression of its own citizens.

Wait, what am I saying? I cannot criticize communist China, although Tibetans have less freedom under the Chinese boot than Koreans, Cubans or Venezuelans ... why? Because China is one of the largest trade partners of the US, it is an integral part of the globalization agenda, of the "new world order," and causes finance capitalists and investors to salivate copiously at the prospects of immensely juicy profits, of unprecedented economic growth and unbelievable investment opportunities. It really does not matter that China has already severely polluted 80 percent of its waterways, that it is spewing so much smoke from its coal power plants that in some of its cities it is dark at noon and the sun is no longer seen, that its toxic fumes fall over Canada and will soon come to your neighborhood, and that it tortures and imprisons anyone who objects to its tyrannical communist ideology and its corrupt regional government.

You might have noticed that China has never been part of Bush's "Axis of Evil," and that its communist regime is hardly ever mentioned, even though Americans were trained for decades to fear and hate anything that looked communist or red, even shadows and hallucinations. No, China's communism has become invisible to western eyes and minds.

It is then no surprise that C-SPAN, which along with KQED usually covers events, such as demonstrations against the war in Iraq, no other military-industrial complex-controlled network would touch, is broadcasting the official Chinese version of the current events in Tibet, directly translating from China's propaganda machine, the Chinese Central Television. Of course it does not help that all western journalists have been expelled from Tibet, so as to allow the Chinese militarized police thugs to crack down with unrestrained brutality on Tibetans-meaning shooting civilians, as they have already begun to do a few days ago.

What do Bush, Cheney and the other "freedom-loving," "let's export democracy through shock and awe" neo-con ideologues and their "moderate" spineless Democrat supporters have to say about China? ... Not much. The point is, freedom, in the minds of the finance capitalist elite and the puppet politicians it controls, means "free-market," not free people. As long as nations open up their borders to US "interests" such as trade, commerce and investment, as long as their populations have the "freedom" to consume mass-produced junk, it matters not if they have freedom of speech or if union organizers are tortured to death. As a matter of fact, repressive regimes, whether fascist as in Central America-Columbia comes to mind-or communist as in China, that consider unionists and environmentalists to be enemies of the state, are said to be business-friendly, saving U.S. corporations much money they would otherwise have to pay on living wages and on cleaning up their toxic mess.

Hitler the psychopath himself would have continued to be seen as a viable economic partner and political ally – he was fiercely anti-communist – by America and England if he hadn't attacked western Europe, regardless of how many more millions of human beings he would have kept eliminating in his concentration camps ... he would have been our pal for a long time, like the Shah of Iran or the apartheid regime of South Africa, and like Saddam before he decided to free lance in Saudi Arabia and to nationalize the Iraqi oil industry. The devil himself, if he was real, would be well received by our corporate and banking elite if he was willing to make a deal that would increase their profits.

Back again to China: the globalization agenda today forbids anyone in the mainstream media to criticize China in any realistic and effective manner. China "deals," so China is good, and I am waiting to see Tibetans portrayed as thugs, criminals, murderers, terrorists, in line with the Chinese government propaganda machine that is working overtime in the U.S. today.

Our government gave a piece of metal (a medal) to the Dalai Lama and allowed him to address Congress, gave him a pat on the back and a nice applause (and a T-shirt and a coffee mug perhaps?), then turned around – literally – and made million dollars deals with communist China, that has kidnapped and imprisoned the successor to the Dalai Lama since he was a very young child, and possibly killed him, replacing him with a fake, Chinese-chosen puppet. Will this one also get a medal when he grows up?

My heart is with the Tibetans, a unique people who created a beautiful and deeply spiritual culture, just as it is with the native people of this continent. Different languages, cultures and locations, same destruction, same cultural genocide, same implicit acceptance by the world as a "regrettable" inevitability ... It is regrettable to loose one's watch, to destroy another people and culture without cause is criminal, and always will be, no matter how many times it is repeated and by whom it is done.

Raphael Montoliu lives in Lakeport.

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