Thursday, March 20, 2008
tibet
politics! there's no getting away from it. i've tried to stop writing posts on it and revert back to the the main theme in this blog on more interesting stuff like what books i've been buying lately or yes , about SEX but there's no way of avoiding politics. malaysian silly season has come and gone but the aftermath if anything is getting more and more interesting. and on the world stage, upheavals and mayhem on scattered spots around the globe go on as usual.
george fucking bush in his speech marking the fifth aniversary of american invasion of iraq yesterday said this:-
"The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. And with your courage, the battle in Iraq will end in victory."
what's so nobel about invading a sovereign country on false pretense (looking for nuclear weapons) and killing thousands of innocent people and ruining a country is hard to fanthom unless you admit the real reason. geopolitics for american selfish interest and oil! and that's not so nobel by any stretch of imagination.
when americans first invaded iraq the second time five years ago i mentioned to one of my aussie friends that americans will stick like leeches to iraq and will never come out until they are fully satiated and their bodies distended with blood and i haven't proven wrong. there's only one and ONLY one way if iraqis want to get rid of american invaders anytime soon. kill as many of these bastards as possible to reach a tipping point when americans will say well, fuck geopolitics. fuck oil...lets move on and screw up venezuela or someplace else...
and a strange thing happened in tibet last week . out of nowhere (at least to most people) tibetens held ademonstration and protest against the occupying han chinese in their capital lhasa. but not only the han chinese that were the targets of this justified anger of the zhang tibetans but also the hui muslim chinese as both are viewed by tibetans as one and the same occupying foreigners in their country. Iraq and tibet are poles apart but will be interesting to see how things will develop in both. how they handle their occupiers who incidentally come from two most powerful nations on earth. things in tibet seemed to fizzle out and in iraq too , it's quieter than usual but we never know what the future is in store for us- as the saying goes.
***
in 2004 i traveled to tibet. took a flight from chengdu to lhasa.this was just a couple of years before the rail track was completed and i was taken by surprise to find that there is a vibrant hui muslim community in one area of lhasa. i simply stumbled upon it beca
use there
was no mention of this community in my guide book. after visiting the usual sites, potala gong - that iconic dalai lama palace , and walking up and down the bhakor jie tourist street and the rest , i walked around the city aimlessly when i saw a mosque one day when my chinese collegues were travelling to some remoter parts of tibet which i was barred from (because i didn't have proper paper permits). seemed like this is the area shown on cnn during the chinese hunt for the demostrators last week.
being a muslim fundamentalist myself (at heart) i can not pass a mosque without paying my respect and say my muslim prayers and was pleasantly surprised to see that the place is alive and vibrant. one little incidence also caught me by surprise. one old man came out of the mosque, we exchanged our customary muslim assalamualaikum (which one beijing chinese friend referred to as 'muslim password') and after a few pleasantaries in broken english he mentioned 'mahathir good!'. didn't expect anybody in lhasa to know anything about mahathir.
two other little incidence made my trip to lhasa memorable. the most visited site after the potala palace in lhasa is the sacred johkang temple on bahkor square, the tourist clogged part of the old city. on the ou
tside of the temple you'll see the pious buddhists do their prostrations and in the inside...well i don't know what was inside. i did go into the temple with a gaggle of other tourists but here's the memorable part. not ten minutes after entering the holy place i had this urgent urge to micturate but it was impossible to find a toilet in a temple and even if there was one, there was no way i could explain my need and find my way to it and i've never in my life felt such an excruciating pain to pee. and there was no other choice but i had to turn back and go out and find the nearest loo outside. i thought may be the good buddhas in the temple just don't want an extremist muslim in there. so ok, that's fine with me. i respect buddhas.
and the second incidence. although I tagged along with a group of important chinese government officials we only stayed in a three star hotel as this was an unofficial visit and everybody had to pay his own way and the chinese government people don't have too much pay as you know. and as you know in many parts of asia many three star hotels have one thing in common. they have massage parlours or in some cases outright prostitution den. and this one was no exception. and a few randy ones among us went to visit the place and enquire details as you might say. being the only non chinese speaking person in the group i was completely lost but that night there was a little knock on my door and when i opened it there were two little giggling chinese girls standing there . we sleep ok? yes good! i said. but you're han! no zhang? no zhang! oh sorry i said. we, good. one of them said. we delicious. i'm sure you are. i said. but good night.
george fucking bush in his speech marking the fifth aniversary of american invasion of iraq yesterday said this:-
"The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. And with your courage, the battle in Iraq will end in victory."
what's so nobel about invading a sovereign country on false pretense (looking for nuclear weapons) and killing thousands of innocent people and ruining a country is hard to fanthom unless you admit the real reason. geopolitics for american selfish interest and oil! and that's not so nobel by any stretch of imagination.
when americans first invaded iraq the second time five years ago i mentioned to one of my aussie friends that americans will stick like leeches to iraq and will never come out until they are fully satiated and their bodies distended with blood and i haven't proven wrong. there's only one and ONLY one way if iraqis want to get rid of american invaders anytime soon. kill as many of these bastards as possible to reach a tipping point when americans will say well, fuck geopolitics. fuck oil...lets move on and screw up venezuela or someplace else...
and a strange thing happened in tibet last week . out of nowhere (at least to most people) tibetens held ademonstration and protest against the occupying han chinese in their capital lhasa. but not only the han chinese that were the targets of this justified anger of the zhang tibetans but also the hui muslim chinese as both are viewed by tibetans as one and the same occupying foreigners in their country. Iraq and tibet are poles apart but will be interesting to see how things will develop in both. how they handle their occupiers who incidentally come from two most powerful nations on earth. things in tibet seemed to fizzle out and in iraq too , it's quieter than usual but we never know what the future is in store for us- as the saying goes.
***
in 2004 i traveled to tibet. took a flight from chengdu to lhasa.this was just a couple of years before the rail track was completed and i was taken by surprise to find that there is a vibrant hui muslim community in one area of lhasa. i simply stumbled upon it beca
use there
was no mention of this community in my guide book. after visiting the usual sites, potala gong - that iconic dalai lama palace , and walking up and down the bhakor jie tourist street and the rest , i walked around the city aimlessly when i saw a mosque one day when my chinese collegues were travelling to some remoter parts of tibet which i was barred from (because i didn't have proper paper permits). seemed like this is the area shown on cnn during the chinese hunt for the demostrators last week.being a muslim fundamentalist myself (at heart) i can not pass a mosque without paying my respect and say my muslim prayers and was pleasantly surprised to see that the place is alive and vibrant. one little incidence also caught me by surprise. one old man came out of the mosque, we exchanged our customary muslim assalamualaikum (which one beijing chinese friend referred to as 'muslim password') and after a few pleasantaries in broken english he mentioned 'mahathir good!'. didn't expect anybody in lhasa to know anything about mahathir.
two other little incidence made my trip to lhasa memorable. the most visited site after the potala palace in lhasa is the sacred johkang temple on bahkor square, the tourist clogged part of the old city. on the ou
tside of the temple you'll see the pious buddhists do their prostrations and in the inside...well i don't know what was inside. i did go into the temple with a gaggle of other tourists but here's the memorable part. not ten minutes after entering the holy place i had this urgent urge to micturate but it was impossible to find a toilet in a temple and even if there was one, there was no way i could explain my need and find my way to it and i've never in my life felt such an excruciating pain to pee. and there was no other choice but i had to turn back and go out and find the nearest loo outside. i thought may be the good buddhas in the temple just don't want an extremist muslim in there. so ok, that's fine with me. i respect buddhas.and the second incidence. although I tagged along with a group of important chinese government officials we only stayed in a three star hotel as this was an unofficial visit and everybody had to pay his own way and the chinese government people don't have too much pay as you know. and as you know in many parts of asia many three star hotels have one thing in common. they have massage parlours or in some cases outright prostitution den. and this one was no exception. and a few randy ones among us went to visit the place and enquire details as you might say. being the only non chinese speaking person in the group i was completely lost but that night there was a little knock on my door and when i opened it there were two little giggling chinese girls standing there . we sleep ok? yes good! i said. but you're han! no zhang? no zhang! oh sorry i said. we, good. one of them said. we delicious. i'm sure you are. i said. but good night.
