Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Also Distorting the Facts

On Sunday morning waking up from a somewhat restless night on a hard bed in the hostel we were staying at, I turned on the TV to see what was on.

State media broadcaster CCTV 9, the English channel was showing its current affairs program called Dialogue, featuring host Yang Rui. It's usually a dry program featuring one Chinese and one non-Chinese guest.

But today was a bit different, interspersed with "historical footage".

The topic was "Western interests in Tibet" and the guest was a guy they claimed was a former editor of the Japan Times. His name was Yoichi Shimatsu and had a perfect American accent, no trace of Japanese at all. I just Googled his name and he is currently a media studies lecturer at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

And this "guest" claims to have done lots of research on Tibet and the Dalai Lama. But throughout the entire show he claimed the DL had a "secret army" and that Heinrich Harrier, the Nazi who was his tutor in his early years, was the one who inspired the DL on separating from China.

The alleged facts were so outrageous I wanted to scream at the TV, but at the same time couldn't stop watching because I wanted to see what else was coming out of this supposed learned guest's mouth.

He also claimed the Nazis believed the Tibetans were part of the Aryan race, but they inter-married Mongoloids so their skin became dark.

I swear I'm not making this up.

And the other day I read a columnist from the China Daily who claimed the Dalai clique "was an extremely cruel regime that would gouge the eyes of slaves or skin them to make human-skin handicrafts".

So let me get this straight again -- who is distorting the facts here?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

there is certain amount of truth to these claims. in tibet due to the ultra conservatism and ignorance of the people, the dalai lama is god and king. people are submissive to him. women have no rights. they are virtually slaves. the dl has all the supreme power. and it is also true that the dl has financial supprot from the cia. have we ever wondered why the dl is visiting the u.s. now? just to receive a university honorary degree in seattle? he is going to see bush too? why at this time when the olympic torch riots tided in with tibetan human rights are boiling hot everyday. how come he is not in his own comfortable enclave looking after his flock.?