From bomb victims in Baghdad to starving refugees in Darfur, every night there are disturbing images on the television news.  One grows numb to it all after a while, but occasionally there is a scene so contrary to what is right and proper that it remains in one's consciousness and reverberates through the soul.

 

Last summer I saw footage of Chinese authorities roughing up the monks in Tibet. These, gentle, holy people have been beaten and imprisoned for simply exercising  their territorial prerogative. I can't think of anyone else who embodies my notions of world peace and coexistance better than the Dalai Lama and his followers.  How could anyone direct any anger or hostility at Tibetan Buddhists?

 

And yet, picture this if you can: 

 

India, 1946: After one too many baton blows to the head, a fed up and beaten down Mahatma Gandhi strikes back at his oppressor, landing a solid right jab to the British militia man who was laying some serious hurt upon him and his followers.

 

Alabama, 1965: Knocked down by water hoses, attacked by police dogs, then insulted by a barrage of racial slurs from an angry mob, Reverend King blows his cool and hurls a rock at a sadistic Sheriff's deputy, knocking him out cold.

 

These are disturbing and counterintuitive images, aren't they? The notion that these great and noble advocates of non-violent resistance would abstain from turning the other cheek and enter the fracas like any other angry protester just doesn't seem right.  We may cheer an effective counterblow in boxing, but it doesn't register as an appropriate response when passivists confront the abuses of authority, does it?

 

Now imagine the Dalai Lama and his followers in the streets of Lhosa, confronting the Chinese like Abbie Hoffman at the 1968 Chicago Convention; a mob of radicalized, agitated munks with a "We're not gonna take it" attitude more akin to a Twisted Sister video than the Tao.

 

Before you scoff at such a scenario, consider a report from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Young Tibetans question path of nonviolence."  Seems as though there are few Stokely Carmichaels among the Buddhists who figure that getting their heads kicked in while passively resisting hasn't had much of an effect on Tibetan independence.

 

A number of restless and impatient activists are losing faith in peaceful protests and hunger strikes.  These are the role models that many of us look toward to eventually bring an end to war and man's inhumanity to man. Some of us want to believe in a higher spiritual order that will eventually overcome brute force and confront certain powers with the ugly reality of their harsh tactics, inspiring a global change of heart when it comes to forcing one's political will upon another.

 

We would like to think that the world is watching and won't tolerate such injustice and blood-letting, but the sad truth may be that the Olympics in China probably drew more viewers, more media coverage and more passionate response than the resistance movement in Tibet did last summer.

 

Remember the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, when three African American boxers from the United States raised their fists in a salute to black power as they were recognized for winning medals? It created such a stir. People were so upset that radicals would use a non-political stage like the Olympics to promote their perspective.

 

An original deciple of Reverend King, Stokely Carmichael grew tired of the continuous ass whippings he saw his people take during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.  He is the one who coined the term "Black Power" and inspired groups such as the Black Panthers as well as the Black Olympic atheletes to assume a more radical strategy for self determination.  Could we be seeing the same sort of reaction now from Tibet's angry youth?

 

"We are always waiting and nothing has changed in Tibet. "I want peace, but when you are pushed so much, you finally strike back," says Jigshe Tsering, a hunger striker positioned just outside the Dalai Lama's residence. 

 

Abbie Hoffman professed a similar sentiment, didn't he? He was arrested and tried for inciting a riot as a result of his role in organizing the violent confrontations with police during the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Many angry opponents of the war, racism and police brutality were eager to follow his lead, to fight back in the streets and take the battle to the enemy.

 

It may be worth noting that Abbie Hoffman is dead today, a sad, tragic suicide victim who apparently never found the peace or justice he sought through violent means.  Yes, and I could just as forcefully argue that the Reverend King is also dead. Yes, but so is Stokely Carmichael, who changed his name to Kwame Ture. he died of prostate at age 57, claiming that his cancer "was given to me by forces of American imperialism and others who conspired with them."

 

I don't know, and really can't say for sure, but I think that inner rage can consume and destroy an individual as surely as the forces of opression can. In the end, no one has built memorials to Hoffman or Carmichael. There are no holidays in honor of their legacy, and although their actions may have felt right at the time, I don't think they inspire us in quite the same way as the non-violent actions of Gandhi and King.

 

I hope there will be a voice of reason, a soulful digging for greater patience and less anger by the Tibetans, and a resolution for their struggles that closely matches the independence movement in India and the Civil Rights movement in the United States.  Heaven knows we don't need or want anymore bloodshed at this brutal point in world history.