News of Tibet - updated

Graphic from Ageless Hippie Chick by way of FranIAm

If you wish to stay abreast of events in Tibet, here are some resources for that.

Barbara O'Brien (a great political writer at Mahablog) writes about Buddhism and about Tibetan events at about.com and you may find her articles here.

Parallels can be so uncomfortable:

"Most people in China assume that Tibet, like Taiwan, Inner Mongolia, or the Muslim Xinjiang region of the northwest, is an integral and inalienable part of its territory," Fallows explains. The Chinese people on the whole have no idea that Tibetans feel oppressed by China. The Chinese are told that the unrest is being caused by a minority faction of dead-ender Dalai Lama supporters. The Chinese will support whatever "harsh" response Beijing chooses.

Blogger Rebecca MacKinnon is watching Web chatter from China. "For those living in the West who didn't realize that there's little sympathy for Tibet independence among ethnic Chinese in the PRC," she writes, "this blog post on Global Voices will be a shocker. John Kennedy has translated chatter from Chinese blogs and chatrooms that generally runs along the lines of: those ungrateful minorities, we give them modern conveniences and look how they thank us... where have we heard this before?"

You may have noted the headlines about the Dalai Lama speaking of cultural genocide:

"Cultural genocide" refers to the fact that China has been moving ethnic Chinese into Tibet for years, to the point that Tibetans have become an ethnic minority in their own country. At the same time, the school systems and other institutions are forcing Chinese culture on the Tibetans. This, combined with the widespread destruction of Buddhist institutions, could cause Tibetan culture to be wiped out in Tibet.

There is also The Peking Duck. The post there for today includes these words:

Let's look over on the other side of the world. Beijing's chant of One World One Dream is getting drowned out by the international uproar over Tibet. Even if the line the Chinese have been spoon-fed about Tibet being "liberated" from feudalism is true, and even if the Dalai Lama actually is a pawn of the CIA, the world is still going to bristle when it perceives religious oppression and the crushing of protests. Hypocrisy, you say? Maybe. But perceptions matter, and China is not being perceived well this week.

With the Olympic Torch Relay starting in only a few days, the threat to China's pride cannot be exaggerated; they have hitched their star to the Olympic Games, and if that star crashes and burns the country will erupt in outrage and shattered pride. I hope that doesn't happen; I hope China will be smart enough to do something truly constructive and make peace with the unhappy Tibetans. Knowing Hu Jintao's past, of course, one can only conclude this is unlikely. Heads will be cracked and more lies spun out by Xinhua.

Here is a recent NYT posting from Google News:
China Takes Steps to Thwart Reporting on Tibet Protests
New York Times - 42 minutes ago
By DAVID BARBOZA BEIJING - The Chinese government is restricting foreign journalists from entering Tibet and neighboring areas, and blocking some news, video and Internet reports about the protests there from appearing inside China, according to ...

Update:

A belated h/t to Fran for the Peking Duck link and for keeping the topic in our consciousness.  And let's not forget MP's post with yet another great word-balloon illustration.  [I really mustn't forget to give credit to my friends.]
--the BB