Tibet's Star Activist Warns Obama

[babylonsister]

Tibet's Star Activist Warns Obama

by Tunku Varadarajan

As the president prepares to meet with the Dalai Lama, controversial Tibetan activist Tenzin Tsundue talks about why Obama must stay strong with China, Google’s shameful history of censorship, and his time in a prison camp.


"Here is an opportunity for Barack Obama to show the world who he is, a man who does not get threatened, who keeps humanity above business and politics. He must prove that he is a president who keeps his promises. Obama now cannot turn back." These forthright words were emailed to me by a very forthright man, Tenzin Tsundue, one of the most energetic activists for independence among Tibetans of his generation.

The 35-year-old was born in India, and raised there by parents who fled Tibet in 1959. He fights the good fight—nonviolently—from his base in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama and thousands of other Tibetans live in exile. Tsundue's email to me was in response to a question I'd asked about the Chinese threats, issued this week, that Sino-U.S. relations would be severely damaged if Mr. Obama were to meet the Dalai Lama later this month.

Tsundue is adamant that the meeting should take place, as promised by the White House. "By Obama meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans in Tibet who have lost their sons, daughters and parents, and whose friends are still missing from protests in 2008, will feel they have not been forgotten by America, that America still stands with them in the dream to see freedom and democracy in Tibet and China.

"One of the secrets of China’s aggressive media strategy," Tsundue explains, "is to try winning the argument even before it has started, by making the first bold statement." When dealing with such an aggressive interlocutor, he adds, "The basic strategy should be to be calm, and hold your ground. If you panic, China will chase you."

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-04/tibets-star-activist-warns-obama/full/

[midnight]

1. Seems like the U.S. and China use similar media strategy....

China’s aggressive media strategy," Tsundue explains, "is to try winning the argument even before it has started, by making the first bold statement."

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

— Noam Chomsky, The Common Good, Odonian Press, 1998

Since the voice of the people is allowed to speak out , those in power better control what that voice says — in other words, control what people think. One of the ways to do this is to create political debate that appears to embrace many opinions, but actually stays within very narrow margins. You have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept certain assumptions — and that those assumptions are the basis of the propaganda system. As long as everyone accepts the propaganda system, the debate is permissible.

Noam Chomsky, Propaganda, American-style, Interview conducted by David Barsamian of KGNU-Radio in Boulder, Colorado (Mid 1986)http://www.globalissues.org/article/157/war-propaganda-and-the-media#Smeartacticsareincreasinginsophistication

[Raster]

2. Seems like home.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Very interesting piece. Thank you.

[Phx_Dem]

4. I generally hate the word warn or warning.

Unless it has to do with national security, it always sounds more like threat.

I assume and would hope that is not the case here.

[xchrom]

5. Recommend