Sound Of Sirens

The Dalai Lama was in Berlin yesterday and we participated in the demonstration to show our solidarity with the Tibetan People.
Knowing a bit on the background of the history of Tibet and the Dalai Lama it is beautiful and quite outstanding to hear him and witness his clarity, spontaneity and openness. Being a buddhist he believes in the interconnection and interdependence of all beings. (This is the same understanding modern science or indigenous people have and that plays, and will play more and more, a key role in our ability to create sustainable communities, or, to put it more bluntly: our ability to survive.) It is the understanding of: If you destroy the other, ultimately you destroy yourself.
This believe and wisdom is being put into prisons, tortured, massacred and intended to be cut off from the world. Its language, its traditions, its people are being wiped out for the sake of progress and stability.

What is happening in Tibet since 60 years (’intentionally or unintentionally’ as the Dalai Lama once put it) is a Cultural Genocide.
Tibet has been invaded and annected by the China in 1949/50. Its culture and ecosystems are being exploited and destroyed systematically ever since. You could also describe this as a warfare of a culture with a materialistic worldview against a culture based on a spiritual worldview.
And this warfare is tolerated by all those who intend to ‘do business’ with China, who believe in economic growth and who see all these market opportunities, all those who do not want to jeopardize their relationship with China - all those government responsables and corporations who do not take a clear stand for human rights, for freedom of speech, for interconnectedness and interdependence.
Again: this is ‘a few’ against ‘the people’. The Chinese public does not have much of a chance: There is no uncensored access to information. Corporations like Google and Yahoo cooperate with the Chinese Government, censoring their search engines. (Since the clicks are what counts…) International press is not allowed in Tibet, and so forth.

So that’s why we went to the demonstration yesterday, and that’s why we write about it. And that’s what Tibet and the Dalai Lama has to do with a sustainable future…

More Info:
Declaration of Human Rights
tibet.org (e)
tibet initiative.de (d)