Big Trouble in Little Tibet

It’s been a great week for China watchers everywhere…unless your vantage point happens be somewhere on the Tibetan Plateau. Agitated Tibetans took to the streets this week in protest against the policies imposed upon them by the communist Chinese government in Beijing. The Chinese response was tragic, yet predictable, and exercised with all the finesse of a raging mountain gorilla. Police and paramilitary units descended on the Tibetan Autonomous Region to quash the protesters, leaving an unknown number dead (perhaps a dozen or more) and many others in state custody.

Of course, China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, had a ready explanation for the widespread unrest. It was all orchestrated by that nefarious mastermind of international intrigue, Tenzin Gyatso; better known as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Yes, how could we have not seen it? It was the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Lamist Buddhism that sparked the revolt, not state restrictions on religious worship, demographic dilution by Han Chinese through official settlement policies, or outright discrimination. That tricky, bald bastard.

Any attempt at achieving true autonomy for Tibet, let alone independence, is almost certainly a doomed enterprise. The PRC is dead set on maintaining its territorial integrity and there are a lot more Chinese with a lot more guns than there are Tibetans. No amount of protest, international scolding, or meditation by Richard Gere is going to change that.

I am, however, curious to see how these events will play out domestically in China. In spite of the government’s best efforts to control internal news coverage of the protests, China is too wired today to keep out reports from the international media. Will this create outrage in China proper? I doubt it. Ever since Tiananmen Square in 1989, Americans seem to think of the Chinese multitude as yearning for freedom within the oppressive constraints of the state. But in reality, Chinese society has become increasingly nationalistic in recent years and many (though not all) have done quite well from its economic boom. Why rock the boat? In fact, why should the Han Chinese reaction to injustice against Tibetans be any different from white America’s reaction to the L.A. riots or the Katrina debacle? I could be wrong, but I’m not holding my breath for any popular Chinese outcry on Tibet’s behalf.

News and Notes

• Saudi clerics: “So wait, now we aren’t supposed to call for the ritual beheading of heretics and infidels? Time for another sermon revision…”
• Holy crap, Canada has state secrets? And an “elite counter terrorism squad”!? And a “Department of National Defense”?!?
• If you’re going to spy on someone, it’s probably not a good idea to carry your CIA buddy’s business card with you at all times.
• Do I sense a diplomatic cat fight coming on?

Preface & Acknowledgments

Before introducing this segment, I would extend my gratitude to the man who made it possible: Justin Young. Justin is responsible for pulling me into all of my journalistic endeavors dating back to a staff position on my high school newspaper. It was his idea for me to do a weekly world news round-up on his blog, Media Bitchfest, which, sadly, is now “frozen in carbonite.” Mr. Young’s work lives on at the excellent iTricks.com where you can learn everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about the magic industry. The point is, I wouldn’t be putting my pointless thoughts on digital paper, and I certainly wouldn’t be writing World News Weekly, if it were not for Justin Young. So I must give credit where credit is due: mad props, homie, mad props.

A Living Obituary

It was a difficult week to single out one international headline for attention in WNW with elections, secessions, exploding satellites, and all manner of other things making news around the world. However, having grown up in South Florida and being a student of history, I couldn’t help but go with a bombshell that was dropped in the Caribbean but went on to shock the globe: Fidelito is out. Granted, it wasn’t exactly difficult to see it coming. Last year Castro “temporarily” ceded power to his brother Raul after undergoing intestinal surgery, prompting a global media deathwatch with its attendant talk of a “new dawn” for Cuba.

Even so, the idea that Fidel Castro, the dictator, the bane of every U.S. president since Eisenhower, is actually stepping down after 49 years in power certainly is striking. The fatigue-donning dynamo that came charging out of the Sierra Maestra to fan the flames of revolution from Nicaragua to Angola and threaten the very heart of Yanquí Imperialism itself is moving on. Castro says he will take it easy from now on, fighting capitalism through his periodic essays published in Cuba’s state press. Doubtless he will remain enormously influential in Cuba’s communist party, but his daily management of the country’s affairs has ceased and an era is at an end.

Never again will Castro set quotas for sugar production in a five year plan, nor order mass arrests of “sexual deviants”, nor even feel the joy of dispatching an informant with a single bullet to the base of the skull. Pobrecito…adios, Señor Presidente.

News & Notes

• Whoa, Belgrade! Hannah Montana tickets are available at the Czech Embassy down the street.
• Pakistani electorate draws inspiration from Neil Simon play, sends message to Musharaff: “Suck it.“
• U.S. President hopes to repeat the success of Bush and Bush’s Big Score with release of Bush in Africa.
• $2,426.75 in quarters invested in “Missile Command” finally pay off U.S. Navy ensign