http://aura.gaia.com/
I’ve been watching closely as the resolve of nations weakens in the face of the current financial strife. For now Europe is still prepared to embrace the Dalai Lama as a friend and all round good guy. But for how long? The world needs an injection of capital and China is holding all the aces. And Beijing is fully prepared to use its bulging wallet as both carrot and stick to secure its global agenda. 
South Africa is the latest country to fall foul of, or to be complicit in, China’s 3Bs international overture. It’s not clear whether they were bought, blackmailed, or bullied (or some combination of the three), but for sure China has used its leverage to get the Dalai Lama barred from a peace conference in South Africa. Via the excellent Danwei, this from Reuters:
South Africa has barred Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama from entering the country to take part in a peace conference, media reports and a lobby group said on Sunday.
The newspaper said his visa was refused due to pressure from the Chinese government, prompting Archbishop Tutu to threaten to pull out of the meeting and to demand an explanation from the authorities.
The Dalai Lama was to join fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates Desmond Tutu, Martti Ahtisaari and FW de Klerk, as well as Norway’s Nobel Peace Committee, at the conference scheduled for March 27, the Sunday Independent reported.
Mandela and Tutu, among other notable Nobels had invited their old pal His Holiness to attend. And why not? It is a peace conference after all. Well, not any more. China, that great champion of non-interference, has stuck its increasingly mighty oar into the machinery to pressure South Africa into denying the Dalai Lama a visa. And the African nation didn’t so much blink as buckle at the knees.
Appeasement has all characteristics of psychological reinforcement, whereby rewarding a given behaviour only increases the likelihood of it happening again. Just ask the Poles what Chamberlain’s appeasing of Hitler did for them. Does anyone really expect a globally powerful dictatorship to stop making demands of other countries when their strongarm tactics keep getting them exactly what they want? Of course they won’t. And the demands will become greater and the screams and calls for retribution against those brave enough to deny the bully will get louder.
Is there any hope that China can set aside its natural inclination towards the petty and the unreasonable and accept that hearing all sides of an issue is not going to mean the end of the Republic? Is there any vestige of a chance that the Chinese leadership might demonstrate a capacity to use their influence as an instrument of good? As long as we keep reading stories like this one that has to be a big double negative. This bodes ill not only for the Dalai Lama and Tibetan culture, but more importantly for the prospects of a free and prosperous Africa.
As the mighty, resource-rich continent comes increasingly under Beijing’s control, the number of corrupt, despotic regimes is on the increase. With those regimes come the most appalling human rights abuses, hunger, and disease, rendering the term ‘quality of life’ no more than a sick joke. Africa is already the most impoverished continent on the planet and I simply don’t see where China’s claim of a ’strategic partnership with our brothers’ is changing that situation for the better. Where’s the outrage at the suffering of their ‘brother’? Where’s the demand for a better standard of living and a semblance of dignity for their ‘brother’? And where’s the moral responsibility that says “stop doing this to my brother”? There is no moral responsibility in Chinese foreign policy. But what do you expect from the unelected and the unaccountable? It’s soft power run amok.
What the hell kind of nation disrespects the request of Mandela and Tutu that they sit down together for a dialogue on peace with the Dalai Lama? It’s the same nation that holds a gun to the head of Mandela and Tutu’s country.
I’m not a man of faith, but seriously; God help Africa now.
Update
Predictably, the remaining Nobel Laureates have halted plans for the conference as an expression of outrage over the South African government’s kowtowing to pressure from Beijing. Good for them.
“I am very saddened today to see that someone like the Dalai Lama, who all our laureates hold highly, has been turned down on their visa application,” Mandla Mandela told a press conference.
Archbishop Tutu has branded the government’s decision as “disgraceful” and accused the government of “shamelessly succumbing to Chinese pressure”, a sentiment echoed in the local media.
“This rejection by the government… is really tainting our own effort of democracy. It’s a sad day for South Africa, and it’s a sad day for Africa.”
On a side note, Youtube has been blocked again in China after video footage emerged of CCP brutality against Tibetans. And these are the people that call the Dalai Lama a terrorist. You can still see (perhaps) a snippet at Yahoo.
