I’ve become a lot more emotional lately – and this Ted talk twice brought me to tears. It’s true – a single act of uninhibited kindness can shatter your inner wall against hatred and fear. And yes, I do believe that humanities essence, deep inside, is good.
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One of the things I most distinctly recall from my travels was not that I took my own freedom for granted, but how little I understood that freedom. All my life, I’d been able to express myself freely, to practice my religion openly, to enter University without fear that my skin color would put me at any disadvantage. I learned, quite starkly, that this wasn’t the case in many part of the world.
Malaysia was one of those countries where I learned a great deal about the reality of freedoms, and openness. Like America, Malaysia was diverse, with at least 8% of the population adhering to the world’s four great religions (Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity). But it was certainly not a melting pot. It was more like a pizza with segregated toppings, rigid lines between each culture, leading to common misunderstandings and distrust. There are exceptions, of course, but far too few.
It was with this background that I took the opportunity to see Anwar Ibrahim speak last Tuesday night at UC-Berkeley.
Malaysian politics has been dominated by a single political party, the United Malays National Organization (UNMO) which, though the the 55% Muslim Malay majority, has governed uninterrupted since independence. Mr. Ibrahim was once part of this monopoly of power, rising rapidly within the UNMO all the way up to Deputy Prime Minister in the late 1990′s. But then things changed.
As any political historian will tell you, Democracy doesn’t work well with a single party perpetually is in power. Corruption reigned, cronyism was standard practice, often, as Mr. Ibrahim himself noted, to the detriment of economic policies. His own attempts to change this backfired, and he was arrested on trumped up corruption charges and jailed in 1999, for the next six years.
It was in Malaysia that I learned about some shocking laws. How it was illegal, by law, for a Muslim to convert to any other religion. How if a Muslim and a non-Muslim wanted to get married, the non-Muslim must first convert to Islam. These laws, of course, did not apply to other religions. There were affirmative action laws in place for the majority Malays, who, historically, had been among the poorer groups in colonial Malaysia, though ignored the plights of poor Chinese and Indians.
What was most striking to me about Mr. Ibrahim was when he spoke about his six years, in solitary confinement, in prison. I expected rage, anger, but instead I saw calmness, reflection, and even hints of nostalgia. Prison had given him time to think, to read, and to reaccess his values. It had changed him as a person
“I understand the value of freedom better than most of my friends,” he said, about what he learned from being jailed.
It made me reflect back on my travels. The times I treasured most weren’t when I was some festival, or party, but it was those in-between moments, when I was sitting on a train, alone, watching the world pass me by out my window, with a book in my lap. I began thinking how it might be good for me if I could be in solitary confinement for a year, to have time to truly read, and come to terms with myself.
I could see a glimpse of where Mr. Ibrahim got his drive from. Incredibly optimistic, hopeful about the future of not only Malaysia and Democracy, but of Islam as a whole to modernize and become accountable to it’s people.
“We will succeed.”
Yes, I know, he’s a politician. But if he’s still optimistic, after all that he’s gone through, I have no reason to give any excuses.
Interested in my Malaysian travels? Here is a link to my posts from my World Trippers travelblog. And here are some photos.
This is the definition of bravery. I wish the world could know who this young man was. No sign of him has been heard ever since that day.
In China, Twitter and Facebook are blocked as the Government overreacts in fear to the 20th anniversary of the massacres at Tiananman Square. Any mention of Tiananman is forbidden in Chinese news. The photo above? Never to be found in China.
Also read this great Tiananman Voices piece from the BBC.
It’s almost as if the events of June 4th, 1989, when I was six years old, never happened.
EDIT:
Good AP story on the identity of Tank Man.
I’ve recently been reading the Story of Tibet, by Thomas Laird.
It’s an incredible book. Part history, but more, historical narrative of a story being told through the words of the greatest human beings in history, the Dalai Lama. A man, who, had he never fled his home country, would likely be dead.
It’s at times a tourtous read. Numerous times, reading about the horrors being pepertuated by the Chinese Communists, I’ve had to put the book down, and take a deep breath, rage boiling in my blood.
An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind, said Mahatma Gandhi. But the pains the Tibetan people have gone through during the last 50 years are often too painful for my faint heart. Thousands of monasteries destroyed. The most sacred site in Tibet desecrated. And the heart and soul of the country, a voice for peace and mutual understanding, ostracized for over five decades as the world allows the Communists to grow more and more powerful.
We consider Hitler a terrible man, and no country would ever put his face on their money. But Mao Zedong was responsible for the deaths of more than double the number of people as Hitler - 25 million estimated, the vast majority his fellow Han Chinese. He invaded three foreign nations for Chinese lebensraum (living land) – Tibet, Outer Mongolia and the Muslim Uighur homelands of the east, all regions never under control of any previous Chinese dynasty. But his name and his face are everywhere in China, his face on the currency. The greatest butcher in human history is the face of the world’s second greatest power.
We wonder what Europe might have looked like if Hitler had won. Well, to get some idea, we have to look no further than the other side of Eurasia.
When will the world stand up for Tibet?
My #1 non-environmental issue
There is an allure to the Olympics games, and allure that transcends sport. It is the ultimate gathering of the world – because of the athletes who participate, amateurs from all different walks of life competing peacefully and representing their countries with valor that makes us all proud.
But the Olympics are far more than who wins the gold. From the Olympic charter.
Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.
Mimicking an idea from another Olympic games (see more below), China is organizing a worldwide tour of the torch as part of their grand public relations bonanza surrounding the games, and has invited 50 world leaders, including President George W. Bush to attend the opening ceremonies.
If there is one thing that history has taught us, is that we cannot divorce the Olympic Games from Politics.
It is fitting that the torch made its only North American stop in San Francisco, the birthplace of the United Nations, and on my way to the Torch rally I passed through UN Plaza, where representatives from 50 nations, including China (the nationalists, not the communists) hoped to wipe away the ashes of war and lay the foundation for a humane, just world.
The Olympics have always been, and always will be political. pleasedontbefake wrote a diary about the 1968 Olympics, and how the international attention placed on the dictators in Mexico paved the path for eventual fair, free Democracy. In away, the Olympics helped bring about this change in Mexcio and the diarist believes that 2008 in Beijing will be similar. I fear, though, that another Olympics might be a better analogy. One where a similar torch rally was held to improve a nation’s deteriorating standing in Europe.
Hitler was convinced by Joseph Goebbels to allow the games to take place in Germany. Preparation for the games started in the early 1930s. Hitler used the Olympics as a tool for propaganda. Film-maker Leni Riefenstahl, a favorite of Hitler, was commissioned by the International Olympic Committee to film the Games. The film, titled Olympia, originated many of the techniques now commonplace to the filming of sports.
Hitler removed signs stating “Jews not wanted” and similar slogans from the main tourist attractions. Hitler desired to clean up Berlin, the German Ministry of Interior authorized the chief of Berlin Police to arrest all gypsies and keep them in a special camp.[1] Nazi officials ordered that foreign visitors should not be subjected to the criminal strictures of anti-homosexual laws.
Politicizing the Olympics. Hiding repression. Throw in a military buildup and growing economic might, and you have Berlin/Beijing 2008, the sequel, with the Chinese Community Party in the starring role.
Beijing is mimicking Nazi Olympic preparations. In 2001, the communists promised the international community to improve human rights in order to win the Olympics but once the games were awarded Chinese officials changed their tune. Deputy Prime Minister Li Langing said his country would maintain its “healthy life” by combating the Falun Gong spiritual movement and Vice President Hu Jintao promised “… to fight … the separatist forces orchestrated by the Dalai Lama [the spiritual leader of Tibet].”
We didn’t boycott the 1936 Olympics. We did almost nothing to reign in Nazi Germany until it was almost too late. The international spotlight of the Olympics only enhanced Germany’s global standing and help move the country rapidly into a war economy. We all know the costs.
Would a boycott have made a difference? Would the international community paying attention to the already evident signs of gross Human Rights Abuses in Germany helped? We will never know.
But, in retrospect, wouldn’t it have been worth it to try? Is there anyone who doesn’t wish that the world had done more to stop Hitler before it was too late?
It is now 49 years since China illegally invaded and annexed Tibet – 49 years where the international community has done little for the Tibetan people, or the numerous other oppressed peoples of China. Southern Mongolia, East Turkestan – who speaks for them? Were it not for the sea, Taiwan, one of the few multiparty Democracies in East Asia, would also be under the reign of the CCP. As the cultural genocide continues, the world prepares to gather in the nation with more executions than every other country combined, with horrendous Human Rights atrocities, and rumors of mobile execution vans abound. Is that Olympism?
If we don’t do something now, if we don’t use this leverage to force reforms within China, when will we get the next chance?
I will end with a quote from an unlikely source, yet one that I agree with.
“Bush’s presence would be akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt sitting in the same stands as Germany’s Adolf Hitler in 1936….any American seen waving in the stands “will go down in history as cooperating in the genocide Olympics of 2008. And history will never, ever, ever forgive them.”
From Republican Congressman Frank Wolf (VA).
