The recent uprising in Tibet, where civiliansand Buddhist monks are protesting the 50-year occupation of their landby China, may seem far away and difficult to comprehend especiallysince uncensored reports are so difficult to find in the media.
ButKT Rusch, a Milwaukee musician, has a personal connection to theprotests. For 14 years, Rusch has sponsored and exchanged letters witha Tibetan monk who has been exiled in India. They finally met when shevisited his Buddhist monastery in India in January, somehow findingeach other with only a grainy photograph in a crowd of 30,000.
Sinceher visit, Rusch has been communicating with another exiled monk, whoshe calls Tenzin. She’s afraid to give out more information about him,even though he is an Indian citizen and lives in India. Tenzin has beene-mailing Rusch photos of the uprising, photos deemed too disturbing orgraphic for the mainstream media. Rusch has confirmed through theAustralian press that the photos are real.
Tenzin told herthat he has heard that Chinese forces are going house to house, lookingfor resisters, “trying to keep things out of sight,” Rusch said. Ruschsaid the protests were peaceful until the Chinese reacted violently.She takes issue with the Chinese government’s portrayal of the DalaiLama, the spiritual leader of Buddhists worldwide, as an evil force forTibetans.
“It’s almost a caricaturelike an evil character ina cartoon,” Rusch said. “But they [the Chinese government] won’t evenmeet with him. They haven’t and they won’t. If you are in his presenceyou would know that he’s not this evil wolf plotting to throw China outof Tibet.” While younger Tibetans seem to support independence fromChina and a total boycott of the Olympics, to be held in Beijing thissummer, the Dalai Lama has been urging China to grant Tibetansautonomy.
Rusch said that she feels the uprisings are likelydue to pent-up frustration with 50 years of Chinese oppression, as wellas the increased media attention devoted to the upcoming Olympics. TheGames have already come under fire from humanitarian activists becauseof Chinese connections to the forces of genocide in Darfur. Now,Tibetans seem to be raising awareness of the Chinese occupation at thesame time that China is trying to promote its vibrant society andeconomy at the Olympics.
Rusch and fellow musician SaskiaPretorius are sponsoring a Rally for Compassion to raise awareness ofthe human rights violations in Tibet and China. They ask supporters towear red to symbolize compassion, and to bring supportive signs andphotos of the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King and Gandhi. It will beheld on Sunday, April 6, from 11 a.m.-noon at the corner of 12th Streetand Wisconsin Avenue.
To read more of Rusch’s views on the Tibetan uprising, go to www.milwaukeerenaissance.com.
What’s your take? Write: editor@shepex.com.
In reference to photo: Ina Tibetan village, a 17-year-old student was killed by a gunshot. Onenews outlet reported that Chinese law enforcement arrested 572 monksunder suspicion of communicating with exiled Tibetans.
