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National Post: OTTAWA -- Calling China "the worst human-rights abuser in the world," Tory MP Rob Anders is heading to Ann Arbor, Mich., Frday to meet with the Dalai Lama to discuss concerns about the upcoming Olympics in China.
"I want to go and talk to the Dalai Lama," Mr. Anders said Thursday.
"Partly, by doing so, I think we're highlighting the issue, but, as well, I want to ask him about the cultural genocide that is going on there."
Mr. Anders compared this year's Beijing Olympics to the 1936 Games held in Berlin when Germany was under Nazi rule, arguing that China is the wrong choice to host the Games.
"I absolutely 100% think it compares to the Berlin Olympics in 1936," he said.
"You've got Falun Gong practitioners, which are not allowed to participate in the Olympics. Adolf Hitler had issues with Jews being able to participate in the Olympics in 1936."
Adherents of Falun Gong say they follow Buddhist tenets of "truthfulness, compassion and tolerance" through meditation and exercise, but the Chinese Communist Party has banned the practice, calling it an "evil cult" that threatens state security.
MR. Anders, the MP for Calgary West, is an outspoken critic of China and a member of the Parliamentary Friends of Tibet, an all-party group formed in 1990 by members of Parliament and senators concerned about the political situation in Tibet.
Eight years ago, Mr. Anders also crashed a Chinese New Year's event on Parliament Hill wearing a Free Tibet T-shirt.
Mr. Anders called China "the worst human rights violator in the world, right now."
"And, I think their record in terms of deaths and atrocities far overshadows those in the Second World War. If you look at the people who were killed during the Great Leap Forward and the cultural revolution under Mao, it makes the deaths on the Russian front in the Second World War look small in comparison," he said.
Mr. Anders stopped short Thursday of calling for an outright boycott of the Olympics, but he did say no Canadian politician should attend the games, nor should any Canadian athletes be used as "propaganda tools."
"I'm sensitive to the fact that we've had Canadian athletes . . . who have trained for years," Mr. Anders told a CBC radio program, the Calgary Eyeopener.
"They're good athletes; they want to have the opportunity to compete. But I don't want to see them used as a propaganda tool for the Chinese communists."
MR. Anders said many Chinese Canadians are also frustrated with the Chinese government.
"If people could see the forced labour camps [in China], they would understand. . . . There's goods that are being purchased in Canada today that are made in forced slave labour, in Chinese labour camps."
When told of MR. Anders remarks, the president of the Chinese Professionals and Entrepreneurs Association of Calgary said: "Rob Anders - he's amazing."
Hujun Li said he totally disagreed with the remarks and said Mr. Anders had gone too far.
"He's just trying to do something to hurt Chinese," said Mr. Li, who lives in Anders' riding.
Calgary MP Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to the minister of Foreign Affairs, said Mr. Anders was speaking as an individual and his comments are not reflective of government policy.
Others expected to meet with the Dalai Lama at the University of Michigan are Senators Consiglio Di Nino and Mobina Jaffer, MPs Ken Boshcoff, Diane Bourgeois and Peggy Nash, as well as Ontario provincial politicians Cheri DiNovo and David Ramsay.
Calgary Herald, Canwest News Service
2 comments:
ah more "self-whiteousness" afoot. comparing china's failed sociopolitical experiment to the planned extermination of an ethnic group? the devil really is in the details.
and if you want to bring up the nazi olympic games? did it not appear to anyone in the free world that germany's course in 1936 was looking grim from any rationally democratic standpoint? it never occurred to a single conscientious cracker to boycott the machinations of a bunch of goose stepping genocidalympic maniacs.
why? because the nazi looked so pleasantly like the proud visage of glimmering caucasoid hopefulness- not to mention most americans probably still get closet boners when even vague notions of "racial purity" and segregation are uttered.
i can only assume that the standpoint of "boycott" as a reasonable form of international protest, expected to produce discernable results stems not from the desire to perform actions of true efficacy but to 1) assuage guilt, 2) romanticize empty politicization 3) avoidance of more pressing domestic issues is both truly a hallmark of self-whiteous arrogance and stems from the limited perspective and 4-year historical attention span attributable only to an american.
is it even necessary to point out the irony that a country that committed genocide on an indigenous people not 200 years ago, enslaved another group of people 150 year ago , routinely engages in foreign military incursions believes it maintains the moral higher ground against a country that has never declared war on another country, exercises its sovereignty well within the same "loose interpretations" (read: foot on throat) that any country has operated in with regards to perceptions of national stability, all the while maintaining a foreign policy of mutual beneficience? is it even more delusional that the denizen of such an empire not feel in the least bit complicity- wait even critical of other nations?
wow what are you smoking because what i'm smoking isn't doing it for me anymore.
*cough* *cough* i had something stuck in my throat. oh yeah it was the truth.
a nation's track record doesn't bar one from an appreciation of human rights. however it is only more prudent to search for systemic causes and change the world according to your own worldview first. even the great soul, gandhi acknowledged that peaceful protest only is effective against a government with compassion, and as most of us from the developed world are wont to point out, the chinese government is lacking in this area. so encouraging peaceful protest, egging on an already repressive government does tibetans a disservice. you end up attaining lip service and more intense, secretive repression.
you can probably expect china to give up its claim on tibet as much as you can expect americans to give back the land to the cherokee or europeans to pay repatriations to its colonies. so dream up something a little more fruitful than writing a blog that does little more than to produce xenophobia and an outlet for your inability to recognize and articulate tensions present in your personal life and the country you live in- thanks!
Hey SP - Did it ever occur to you that bloggers, writers, journos, lawyers, freedom fighters, and religious groups are languishing in jail in China for speaking their truth and pointing out the acts of violence committed by the wicked Communist party? And you're trying to tell me to keep silent!!! We, in the West, enjoy free speech in case you forgot.
If, Beijing didn't want the spotlight beaming on its horrible human rights situation, it only had to stay out of the Games in the first place. The fact that they were given the Olympics is just sick! They win the medal for the utmost unfit Oly host.
Here's why.
Where does it say in the Olympic charter that it's OK to steal the organs of Falun Gong and then cremate the bodies or torture priests because they refuse to worship the Party? Where else in history can you find a regime that has killed more than 80 million people--more than the two World Wars put together--just in 50 years of reign?
Look it up in 'Mao: The Untold Story or the Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party' and then maybe we can talk.
Making apologies for Beijing, one of the worst murderous regime on the planet, is not the way to go.
They simply have to be encouraged to do better for the sake of 1.3 billion Chinese people.
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