Zombie Chronicles the Olympic Torch Relay in SF
As the Olympic flame passed through the city by the bay on April 9, Zombie stalked the crowds that gathered to protest China's oppression of Tibet. The exclusive photo essay is below.
“Olympic Torch Relay Detoured Through San Francisco Back Streets,” screamed the headlines. “Protest Forces Cancellation of Closing Ceremony.”
That’s the basic gist of what happened in San Francisco on April 9. All very neat and tidy, it would seem. Most people scanned the headlines and moved on.
If you took the time to read the full news accounts, you would have also learned that tens of thousands of demonstrators from around the country had gathered in San Francisco to protest against China’s human rights record. But fearing a public-relations disaster if the torch was extinguished or seized by the unruly crowd, the mayor and city officials at the last minute secretly changed the previously announced route of the torch relay so that it completely bypassed all the protesters, who had lined up hoping to get a glimpse of the torch and draw attention to their cause.
With the torch route diverted, all the protesters (and supporters) of the relay were left in the lurch, feeling confused and angry. The assembled global media, perhaps hoping for more exciting disruptions (as had happened in Paris and London over the previous days), were disappointed as well, and portrayed the whole day as a misfire.
But was it really?
The media inevitably resort to generalizations when describing complicated events. The details get lost. Yet life is nothing but a long series of details. At a major protest like this, when tens of thousands of people gather in one place, when emotions erupt and a million little vignettes unfurl, no simple headline can fully describe all that went on. Hell, even with a full-length photo essay like this, I can’t fully illuminate the day’s many facets either. No one could.
Even so, I’ll try my best to find the story behind the news. What started as a stage-managed Olympic photo op first descended into political chaos, then in an instant became an irrelevant sideshow as the relay went in a different direction altogether — and the day ended with a desperate cross-town footrace as relentless protesters (and yours truly) managed to outrun the Olympians and catch the torch at the finish line.
Ready? On your marks…Get set…Let’s go!
I arrived over an hour before the scheduled relay start time only to find, to my initial surprise, supporters of the Beijing Olympics lining the route. The fact that they all had identical oversized Chinese flags, souvenir t-shirts, and even little paper American flags led me to believe that the Chinese government had organized the whole scene.
I quickly discovered that the anti-China protesters were massed a short distance away. Not only did they already outnumber the China supporters, but the crowd was growing minute by minute as people streamed toward San Francisco’s Embarcadero (on the waterfront) to join the protest.
It wasn’t long before they came into conflict. Here a China supporter expresses his disapproval of a banner blaming China for the situation in Darfur.
As the crowds swelled on both sides of he political aisle, mere disapproval rapidly escalated to all-out confrontation. Arguments between China supporters and detractors broke out all over the Embarcadero.
There was no strict physical separation between the opposing sides, though at first the China supporters tended to stay on one side of the Embarcadero while the protesters clustered on the other side with occasional forays into the street. Though even this unofficial arrangement disintegrated fairly quickly.
As the time for the relay grew closer, the conflicts between the two sides grew more heated. Discussions became arguments became mass screaming matches whenever two opposing groups came near each other — which became unavoidable as hundreds more people poured into the area with every passing minute.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Who were all these protesters, and what did they want?
The Protesters
Typical news reports about protests never tell you the exact nature of who’s protesting or why. Which I’ve always found rather odd. Mainstream media outlets inevitably focus on whether or not there was violence, and how many people were arrested. But they’ll rarely discuss the issues underlying the protest in the first place.
So you may be wondering: What’s the hubbub all about?
Turns out a lot of people have a beef with China. I counted at least 20 different causes being championed at the protest, on a dizzying array of topics.
First, of course, were the Tibetans and their supporters, who were there in force: thousands upon thousands of people showed up to condemn China’s actions in Tibet, starting with Mao’s invasion in 1950 up to yesterday, when dissidents were shot and killed in a fresh round of repression.
The second largest contingent were the Darfur supporters, who blamed China for propping up the genocidal Sudanese regime.
Next up were the Burmese dissidents, who demanded that China stop supporting the repressive military dictatorship there.
The Uyghurs had a surprisingly large turnout. Their cause is not widely known in the U.S. — the Uyghurs are a Muslim minority group in far western China that want independence, or at least greater autonomy. China labels Uyghur separatists as Islamic terrorists, though it’s doubtful there’s any substance to the accusation.
Taiwanese Nationalists turned up en masse to warn China: Keep your hands off. The Communist government still regards the island of Formosa as a breakaway province illegally occupied by a defeated rebel army.
All sorts of Vietnamese protesters showed up by the hundreds, drawing attention to myriad causes little known outside the Vietnamese community. For example…
The Paracel and Spratly Islands took center stage in one area of the rally. The dispute over these tiny coral reefs in the South China Sea might seem a bizarre issue to get worked up over, but the islands’ potential global significance has become clear in recent years, as they are now thought to sit atop huge underwater oil and natural gas fields. China illegally seized the Paracels from the crumbling South Vietnamese government in 1974 and never gave them back, while the oil-rich Spratlys are claimed by China, Vietnam, and several other nearby nations.
These folks are apparently still miffed over China’s 1979 invasion of Vietnam.
The littlest protester stood up for the lives of Vietnamese deep-water fishermen who reportedly have been massacred on the open sea recently by predatory Chinese ships operating under instructions from the government — an apparent attempt to wrest fishing rights away from Vietnam. The excellent sign depicts one of the cutesy 2008 Olympic mascots as a vicious monster holding a burning human bone instead of an Olympic torch as it sinks a Vietnamese fishing boat.
But it was more than just Asian nations pointing out the evils of the Chinese government. Other groups were there as well, including…
Anti-fur activists, angry about the factory fur trade in China, where animals are mistreated so horrifically that it’s hard to even contemplate.
Several protesters encouraged people to buy American-made products and boycott Chinese goods, to reverse the lopsided trade imbalance between the two nations and to stop the Chinese economic juggernaut.
Labor activists decried China’s treatment of workers and its anti-union policies.
I’m not quite sure what Lou Gehrig’s Disease has to do with China, but hey — I’m all for stamping it out!
And lastly, this one-man protest accused somebody of stealing Kosovo from somebody else, but the particulars of the theft eluded me.
The Chinese government supplied oversized heads of the Olympic mascots, which were designed to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy but only ended up looking out-of-place and discordant with the deadly serious tone of the protest. Here we see Huanhaun and Yingying. Huanhuan is supposed to represent fire, and Yingying (I kid you not) is supposed to be, of all things, a Tibetan antelope. Could you get any more ironic?
They even handed out mascot signs, in a futile attempt to cutify the protest.
There was some kind of official Olympic performance going on nearby in Justin Herman Plaza, but it was very ill-attended — most of the people in the audience seemed to be the troups of performers themselves. The vast majority of those who came to the Torch Relay came to raise a political ruckus — not watch a canned propaganda show.
Before the protesters showed up and ruined everything, the Embarcadero area was supposed to host a celebration of traditional Chinese culture at the closing ceremony of the torch relay. And even though everything had gone to pot, the scheduled performances went forward anyway, mostly ignored by the huge crowd. Here, traditional dragon dancers walk warily near the protest, doing very little in the way of dancing.
One of the Tibetan groups drew a large crowd throughout the day with an impressive bit of rolling political street theater involving a faux Chinese tank and Chinese soldiers beating and torturing protesters dressed as Buddhist monks.
Notice the Grade-A moron on the left, who made the brilliant decision to wear a Chairman Mao shirt to the rally, as some kind of birdbrained fashion statement — even though he was hanging around with the anti-Chinese Tibetan protesters. It takes a special kind of stupid to be that oblivious.
The dolt also stood directly between the street theater and the faux tank for most of the performance, smirking the whole time and completely ruining the scene for all the other photographers. It’s like he was trying to be annoying.
Back in the trenches, the ongoing battles continued. Here, one China supporter gives a mocking laugh and a thumbs down to some Tibetans.
Though the China supporters were far outnumbered by anti-China protesters, they made up for it in fervor.
When there were no opponents in the immediate vicinity to challenge, they chanted slogans in Chinese anyway. In the absence of the torch relay, there wasn’t much to do if you wanted to show your support for China.
Sometimes the conflicts became personal. These two went at it for what seemed like half an hour. They guy on the right is a China supporter who stationed himself in the middle of a large Tibet contingent, and waved a communist Chinese flag back and forth. The guy on the left took out a whistle and blew it in his face incessantly — when they weren’t exchanging insults.
At one point some random guy grabbed a China supporter by the arm. When challenged as to what justification he had, he claimed he was making a citizen’s arrest because a Tibetan protester (holding a sign in the background) claimed the China supporter had struck him. The fight devolved into further accusations and counter-accusations, needless to say.
Signs
Many of the anti-China signs contained sarcastic reinterpretations of the Olympic rings. This was one of my favorites.
I was intrigued by this guy’s sign and asked him if the swastikas were supposed to be the kind that are a Buddhist good luck symbol, since the color scheme seemed to suggest a Tibetan connection. Or, alternately were they, “y’know, the bad kind.” He looked a little puzzled and said “The bad kind,” then admitted he never knew they were ever used in any other context.
Ouch. Every other protest sign criticized the Chinese government, but this one uniquely pointed out the hypocrisy of the China supporters at the rally.
What I find particularly entertaining about this sign is that it contained no topical reference at all. It could fit in at any protest. In fact, you could just walk down the street with it any day of the week and see what kind of reaction you got.
I was expecting more signs with Olympics-themed protest metaphors, but this is the only one I saw all day.
The hyper-detailed hand-painted poster was a masterpiece of political art — if you stood close enough to it to see all the details.
Tibetan organizers had distributed signs reading “Another ________ for Free Tibet,” allowing people to fill in their own identities. Some of the self-descriptions, as these examples show, were surprisingly frank.
When I first arrived, the police had cordoned off portions of the esplanade for no apparent purpose; later, they would take down some of the barricades and then set up others. If you monitored their activity you might have come to the same conclusion I did, that they were moving barriers around and opening and closing sections of the street at random for the specific purpose of deceiving the protesters, a ruse to make it look like they were preparing for the torch relay to come through, but knowing all along that it was never arriving.
This series of photos shows the breakdown of security at the main protest site. The relay was supposed to start at 1:00pm several blocks south, and reach here at the Embarcadero area around 1:15 or 1:20. As the clock on the Ferry Building shows, an hour ahead of time at 12:10, the street was completely clear.
Attendees lined the relay route all the way down to the site of the opening ceremony — and the street was unimpeded all the way.
12:30 — the street was still pretty much clear.
With ten minutes to go until the relay began, the crowd had swollen considerably but the police deployed along the street to theoretically keep everyone on the sidewalk.
Then, a very short time later, the whole situation disintegrated. Within a matter of minutes, the entire street from one end to the other was swarming with thousands of people. I’ve seen the S.F police in action — if they want to keep a crowd on the sidewalk, believe me, the crowd stays on the sidewalk. But in this situation the police in fact didn’t seem to mind at all when security broke down and the torch route swarmed with protesters. I didn’t see exactly how it all happened, but my impression was that the police let it happen as an excuse to justify the previously planned secret re-routing of the torch relay. Notice the smile on the cop at the lower left. If the torch really was on the way here in a few minutes, he wouldn’t be smiling.
The international media was there en masse, hoping for the same kind of picturesque chaos that had plagued the London and Paris legs of the torch relay. If you think the protesters were disappointed that the torch was re-routed, imagine how the reporters felt.
At one point a large contingent of China supporters decided to challenge the Tibet supporters head on. Waving communist Chinese flags and carrying Olympics placards, they plunged into the heart of enemy territory, shouting taunts and insults.
A group of college-age American Tibet supporters linked arms, knelt down, and silently stared down the invaders, who proceeded to mock them before retreating in triumph. Everyone on both sides was happy with the outcome; these symbolic battles seem to satisfy a innate need for confrontation.
The Tibetans made creative use of “girl power,” a protest technique that has proven very effective over the decades. There were very few, if any, teenaged Tibetans boys visible at the protest, but dozens and dozens of teenaged Tibetan girls.
Was this gender imbalance accidental? Or part of a strategy? Or do Tibetans only give birth to daughters?
I got the feeling it was intentional: The Tibetan protest movement seems media savvy and is very adept at creating photogenic scenes, whether it be street theater (as shown above), young women…
…or wise old men in traditional costumes.
This Burmese democracy protester bore an uncanny resemblance to detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
“Oh, dearie me, did he really say that?” A woman appears aghast at the blunt words spoken by a fellow China supporter.
“Free Tibet, bitches!” That‘ll tell ‘em. I can’t imagine the Chinese government not freeing Tibet after catching sight of this shirt.
In an odd way this was the most disturbing protest I’d ever been to — because it thoroughly reconfigured the traditional political landscape. I’m no fan of the Chinese government, and for the most part sympathized with the causes of the protesters. Because of this I ended up on the same side as people whom I normally loathe — such as this guy, who I’ve seen many times at anti-Israel protest and who has more than once revealed himself to be an anti-Semite. And here I am, agreeing with him on Tibet. Very unnerving.
Same holds true for anybody wearing a kaffiyeh, the type of person I would normally avoid at all costs.
Why does politics have to be so complicated?
The Race for the Torch
Sometime after 1:30 an official-looking car tried to drive slowly through the tighly packed crowd, with little success. I overheard several people speculating that it was a “test run” for the torch entourage. But if an unimportant car couldn’t even make it through the crowd, it seemed, the torch itself — which everyone would converge on — would have no chance at all of passing unmolested. Rumors ran through the rally that the torch relay was being cancelled.
Which may have been a wise decision, as I noticed that various protest groups had brought fire extinguishers and had positioned them at points along the route — undoubtedly foreshadowing an attempt to douse the flame when it passed, as happened during the torch relay a few days earlier in Paris.
Sometime around two o’clock I noticed something very odd happening on the outskirts of the protest. A few people — almost all of whom were visibly holding iPhones or similar electronic devices — began sprinting northward along the Embarcadero. I caught up with one man as he paused to scrutinize his iPhone, and asked him what was going on. He said that an underground text-message system had been set up by tech-savvy radical protesters, and if you knew how to access it, you could get minute-by-minute updates about the exact current location of the torch. Just a short time earlier, one of the scouts for the network had discovered the torch entourage traveling north up Van Ness Avenue — several miles away, completely bypassing the main protest site. Logic dictated that the torch must be heading to Fisherman’s Wharf by the “back way,” instead of along the Embarcadero.
In a flash, people starting racing pell-mell north up the Embarcadero toward Fisherman’s Wharf, in an attempt to catch the torch relay. But only a tiny fraction of the crowd even knew about what was happening, and an even smaller fraction had the physical wherewithal to sprint two miles. So 99% of the protesters remained behind.
Yet what choice did I have? I started running.
Things were not so simple, however. We were chasing a moving target. If I happened to pass an iPhone owner, I’d shout “Where’s the torch now?” and get the latest update, if I was lucky. But the pursuers began to spread out through the streets of the city, and I soon lost any contact with the secret text-message network, so my fellow low-tech joggers and I resorted to a clever trick: We navigated by the location of the police helicopters hovering in the distance.
I felt as if I was chasing a mirage. The futher I staggered in the direction of the helicopters, the further away they seemed to recede.
Over a mile later, I encountered a cluster of exhausted Tibetans who claimed the torch was heading for a specific intersection. I followed as they dashed down the block, but yet again it turned out to be a wild goose chase: when we arrived, the torch was nowhere to be found.
I immediately headed off again after the helicopters, utterly out of breath, and reconnected with some folks wired into the mobile network, who said the relay had changed course yet again and was currently moving westward along San Francisco’s Marina Boulevard — heading in the complete opposite direction from the original announced route.
Onward we staggered. Most people were unable to continue running at this stage, and were walking as quickly as their bodies would let them.
I rounded a corner and — huzzah! — spotted police lights a throng of motorcyle cops in the distance. The finish line was in sight!
With a fresh burst of speed I hurtled toward the commotion and caught the torch as it passed the Marina Green, the city’s waterfront park.
I was fortunate: the entourage had paused briefly to change runners. I soon learned that there were in fact two torches, and when one runner finished his or her segment of the route, the first torch was used to ignite another torch held by the next runner — just like in a real relay race, which explains why it’s called the Olympic Torch Relay.
Phalanxes of police defended the torch as it was handed to the next runner. Which really didn’t seem that necessary, since only a few hundred people were on hand — not many protesters had found their way to the relay’s location. I later calculated that I had run over four miles to reach the torch.
The new runner waved to the crowd, eliciting scattered boos and cheers from the meager (and mostly exhausted) crowd.
An unexplained delay allowed me to catch my breath. The previous runner stood there holding the old torch, which the Chinese security team has failed to douse. He seemed unsure what to do with it.
After a few minutes the procession started up again. The police moved forward to their new defensive positions, and “El Pato” — a yellow amphibious vehicle normally used for tourist excursions but pressed into service as the torch’s military escort — rolled forward.
After a short distance the torch was passed to a runner in a wheelchair.
As the procession entered the Presidio, a fracas broke out across the street. From what I could tell, a protester had attempted to breach the security cordon, with no success. Police tackled him immediately. It happened so fast, I only got this one blurry shot of the action.
The torch was handed to woman who looked like a professional athlete, and without warning the procession rapidly accelerated. The cops guided her up a freeway onramp to Doyle Drive — which is the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge. As soon as she ascended the ramp, the cops turned on the pursuing crowd and formed a barrier, preventing any onlookers or protesters from following the relay any further.
The chase was on again. Spotting the torch on the elevated roadway up ahead, people swarmed toward the Golden Gate Bridge through the Presidio.
Some gave up in exhastion and sat down on the lawn.
By this time fewer than a hundred people were left, out of an original crowd that must have numbered tens of thousands. We tried to find an alternate access point to Doyle Drive, but were thwarted at every turn by the police.
One determined Tibetan protester had somehow managed to climb up an inaccessible stairway, but was immediately arrested before he could even get to the roadway.
The few remaining diehards scrambled up to a vantage point overlooking Doyle Drive, and discovered that the procession had come to a halt at an inaccessible spot on the freeway — inaccessible on purpose, apparently.
Those in the final group who had cell phones received calls from other protesters monitoring the police radio: the torch had been transferred to a bus, and instead of going across the Golden Gate Bridge as we had all assumed, it instead was being driven straight to the airport, and thence to Buenos Aires, the next stop on the torch’s global route.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom claimed this whole change of course was a last-minute decision — that in fact they were deciding on the route as they were running through the streets — but the well-executed and complicated conclusion to the relay proves that it had been planned well in advance. This was no last-minute re-routing — they were trying to trick the protesters all along.
I managed to snap this photo of the torch bus as it passed. Behind it, in the distance, you can see Alcatraz. Which seems a fitting conclusion to the journey.
Zombie is an undercover photographer. His work is displayed at Zombietime.
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112 Comments
1. JPSobel:So did anyone show up just to support the Olympic idea? Anyone at all with a simple unpoliticized five-ring flag?
Apr 11, 2008 - 12:26 pm 2. song_and_dance_man:Another fine article from zombie.
Apr 11, 2008 - 12:43 pm 3. Urban Infidel:Tremendous job, zombie!
Thanks for being out there.
Apr 11, 2008 - 12:48 pm 4. opagme:Great report. Why is it people who get graduate degrees in journalism cannot produce as informative a piece?
Apr 11, 2008 - 12:48 pm 5. Chuck:Great Work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apr 11, 2008 - 12:49 pm 6. Mongerel:Zombie, the gold medal is yours for your journalism…and athleticism! Thanks for the amazing report.
Apr 11, 2008 - 12:56 pm 7. BulgarWheat:Zombie:
Great job! I was most interested in the Chinese Paramilitary goons and how they’d get along with our wonderful moonbat crowd.
Apr 11, 2008 - 12:59 pm 8. jaed:His work is displayed at Zombietime.
Er, last time I checked, er…
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:01 pm 9. Keith:Very interesting and a little disturbing. I live in San Francisco, and I was going to go to see all the fuss, but I’m glad I didn’t.
When did everything get so political?
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:03 pm 10. Eliott Kahn:Great photo jounalistic reporting!!!
Thanks for the wonderful shots & commentaries…
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:09 pm 11. Todd:Having the anti-war morons protesting for freeing Tibet is irony at it’s delicious best. The same mob of idiots who pass out Communist propaganda fliers and chant socialist slogans during anti-war protests (aka, Take Another Day Away from a Job Search) are here to stand up for the rights of Tibetans. Riiiiiiiight.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:11 pm 12. Blue China « Prudence Ponder:[...] 11, 2008 by Prudie You know, it seems to me that there are an awful lot of people pissed at China for a whole lot of different reasons. Though, it does all seem to boil down to a few general [...]
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:15 pm 13. Whitehall:Sort of makes a mockery of the whole notion, doesn’t it?
You make a highly public gesture of showing the Olympic Torch to the world but have to NOT show it in public. What’s the point? I’d guess that one just couldn’t cancel the run - that would be embarassing too.
Commies can be SOOO tone deaf - that includes Newsom.
An unanswered question is what is the overlap between the Free Tibeters and the usual Bay Area demonstators? Looks like another opportunity for self-ego-boosting for being on the “good” side of an issue. I will agree with them, though, this time.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:19 pm 14. Polkor:@JPSobel
The olympics isn’t all about sport, silly, it’s a political and economical event just as much.
Nice story, Zombie.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:21 pm 15. james:Hmm, PJ media refers to zombie as a him. I’ve seen other places refer to Zombie as a her.
Either way, I think you’re just about the only undercover photojournalist who could’ve tracked down that torch. Nice work.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:22 pm 16. TS:Not sure why you doubt that the Uyghurs ‘freedom’ movement is not about Islamic supremacism and the enivitable terrorism that comes along with it. Its the same ol’ situation there as anywhere where Muslims form the majority (or near it). Besides, they have an Islamic flag and that is some indication of their goals.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:26 pm 17. Thomass:Anyway, regardless, most of my sympathy goes to the poor animals of the fur trade and just in general the way the Chinese treat animals. It’s sickening.
JPSobel:
“So did anyone show up just to support the Olympic idea? Anyone at all with a simple unpoliticized five-ring flag?”
Yeah, a few people.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:26 pm 18. bosforus:Frank Chu?
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:34 pm 19. Thanos:Zombie, wow. You are in great shape to have run / jogged all that distance, and I know the area and hills. Hat’s off to a truly dedicated reporter.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:39 pm 20. Strike Out Lou Gehrigs? « Office Rumors:[...] Out Lou Gehrigs? Jump to Comments Pajamas Media has a great set of photos documenting the Bejing Olympic torch’s visit to San Francisco. [...]
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:42 pm 21. Sura 109:Greetings, lizardoids.
Tell me something, if you will (yes, I see you’ve got the registration open; no, I’m not going to bother, I wear my bannination from LGF as a badge of honor): Why does Charles Johnson call these protests the “Olympic Torch Tantrums“? It sort of creates the impression that he’s all in favor of China’s crackdown in Tibet. The rest of you mostly seem to be on the side of sanity this time. WTF is up with that?
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:43 pm 22. nousha.com:Hey there!
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:50 pm 23. Carolina Girl:I am French (another French bastard LOL) and I gotta say that I am amazed to see the way news are released to the public here sometimes.
It seems that there is just one way to talk about the world, one opinion.
Thankfully, I live in the best city of the states, SF;-) where everybody feel connected to the rest of the world. I love it! I need it!
Thank you so much for your GREAT and detailed article!
Zombie - watching on TV in downtown S.F., caught glimpses of the relay as it went up Van Ness Avenue - and what may not have been publicized much - those blue and white garbed members of the escort are actually Red Chinese police - and they had to be restrained by S.F.P.D. on several occasions for their rough treatment of U.S. citizens trying to get close to the torch to take pictures (nothing threatening, just proximity).
Thanks for the photos from the Plaza.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:50 pm 24. Son Of The Godfather:Well done, Zombie… Again.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:51 pm 25. Koedo:You have to be the fastest zombie ever! Usually, zombies are sort of slow and clumsy. Although, I’ve never met one.
Great job.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:56 pm 26. psaturn:That was a great reporting Zombie! I agree and understand you that it gets confusing that same folks that are anti Israel would support Tibet..
I think to them it makes sense, the Palestinians are the underdogs and so are the Tibetans while Israel is the Goliath and so is China. But there are large differences, one being that ‘Palestinian’ is an artificial nation and people that never existed before…since previously the term ‘Palestinians’ were ascribed to Jews who lived in that land for millenia….until the advent of Israel.
I think it is similar to sports team, seeing how some supporters are very rabid in their teams. Only that this is not a sport…it is life and death situation sometimes.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:56 pm 27. Jeff:Zombie, you never fail to amaze with your photography and reportage - You are San Francisco’s version of Michael Yon.
Apr 11, 2008 - 1:57 pm 28. ic:The only anti-freedom law I support: limit the size of foreign flags on American soil. I don’t mind American flags being burnt in a protest, but I can’t stand protesters waving enormous foreign flags. Why the heck don’t they do that at home?
Apr 11, 2008 - 2:03 pm 29. Fatwa Arbuckle:Zombie -
For about the nth time, “cheers” for your ongoing journalism efforts; the pics, video and (generally snarky) commentary are much appreciated.
I lived in S.F. from ‘78-’85; looks like things haven’t changed much (besides the Embarcadero and South of Market).
Apr 11, 2008 - 2:10 pm 30. blueroom127:Actually the long haired moron with the camera and the chairman Mao shirt is wearing an anti communist shirt. I recognize it from plenty army/navy stores and own one myself. Under the image of Mao it says “I know communism doesn’t work” in both english and chinese. Supposedly this is something Mao himself said or wrote down or something. Either way, it should clear up why he was wearing that shirt.
Apr 11, 2008 - 2:32 pm 31. Merry:Thanks so much for the report. One thing I do question is whether many (if any) of the Chinese supporting the PRC were sent there by the government. There are a lot of Chinese and Chinese Americans in San Francisco, and for a lot of them, the Olympics is an exciting opportunity to celebrate just how far China has come in the last thirty years (and it really has come a long way, though obviously it still has a long way to go). These individuals don’t connect Tibet to the Olympics, and are just celebrating out of national pride. They don’t need the government to organize them - if the Free Tibet people can get together coordinated t-shirts, signs and flags, why would anyone doubt that China-supporters can manage it?
Apr 11, 2008 - 2:36 pm 32. Michelle B:I’m sorry to be this way, really. But looking at all those people the only thing that came to mind sadly is these people need to get a life.
I’m sick of causes. Everyone has one, and I could care less..and that is sad.
Apr 11, 2008 - 2:39 pm 33. yochanan:off all the groups there the nationalist chinese are the ones i would support the most, the least moonbatish.
Apr 11, 2008 - 2:46 pm 34. hayseed:nothing like that ever happens in Cincinnati.great job zombie
Apr 11, 2008 - 3:22 pm 35. runbei:Thanks for the wonderful coverage, Zombie.
Apr 11, 2008 - 3:29 pm 36. Pencil Nub » The Olympics and the Olympic Torch Relay:[...] China, any how and why it was decided to hold the American leg of the Olympic Torch Relay in that bastion of moonbattery known as San [...]
Apr 11, 2008 - 3:51 pm 37. jack:Zombie, how about doing a report on the continuing and almost daily meditation/sit-ins by Falun Gong members in front of the Chinese consulate at Geary and Laguna?
Not as dizzying an event as the Olympic relay or the Berkeley Marine Follies, but a puzzlement.
Who are they, and what is the beef between them and China? I gather they are regarded as a cult not sanctioned by the Comm. Party and therefore suppressed.
Apr 11, 2008 - 4:15 pm 38. Capsu78:Great report! I watched the event as it rolled out, via CNN. I even watched the “sanitized” report on Chinese TV. This report filled in the blanks.
Apr 11, 2008 - 4:27 pm 39. ProtestShooter:A couple of points:
I think the “torch relay team” was not the Chinese special ops forces used in London and Paris. I think CNN reported they were SF Swat team members, and there was fewer of them than Paris.
I also think that specific well defined “thresholds” for public safety
were met in a defined emergency preparedness plan were what lead to the decision to move to plan B. Plan B was in place all along, but I think I will give Newsome the benefit of the doubt, in that if they could have run the route, they would have… I give them credit for having a plan, and the plan wasn’t deception based but reality based.
Lastly, I am sad and happy I at least was able to take my then 3 1/2 year old, now 26 YO, sit her on my sholders and have her watch the torch run up Mission Blvd in Hayward in 84. The saddest pictures for me are the kids walking away with their parents.
PS. All the protesters have had since July 2001 to complain about China hosting the Olympics, but now it has become hip.
re: are the pro-China folks shills or not - I think the situation’s a bit complex. There are tons of Chinese-Americans who came here from yesterday to 1849. Some of them remember China fondly, some fled the government. I do think there was something of an organized move to hand out free flags and such - I asked my Chinese friends and none of them own flags, and the ones at the protest seemed to be of only a couple of sizes. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Chinese Government was involved with that. But ever been to a 4th of July parade? Folks hand out flags there, too, and it’s not considered a big deal.
Lots more pictures on http://www.protestshooter.com/20080409OlympicTorch/ but I’ll say up front - I was too far south to even consider going after the torch!
Apr 11, 2008 - 4:34 pm 40. G. Allison:Hi. A friend told me about your post after reading my own blog entry about the event [FYI, http://www.wormlips.com/blog/2008/04/10/the-holy-grail ]. Thanks for your great reporting! I admire your photos, your attention to subtle and enlightening details — and your athleticism! Wow. Throughout that day I was getting the text messages you write about, but decided there was no way I was going to catch up to the flame. Good work!
Apr 11, 2008 - 5:00 pm 41. Ken in Irvine:Thanks again Zombie.
Apr 11, 2008 - 5:40 pm 42. Rob:Zombie - Your the best and you provide a real blog of record! Historians will refer to your work in the future. Thank you so much!
Apr 11, 2008 - 5:42 pm 43. Wolf Pangloss:jack, read Human Organ Harvesting in China for what the Falun Gong protests are all about.
Apr 11, 2008 - 6:59 pm 44. Daily Pundit » MSM: Torched by Zombie:[...] Pajamas Media » Blog Archive » Zombie Chronicles the Olympic Torch Relay in SF [...]
Apr 11, 2008 - 7:09 pm 45. Tibet « Wolf Pangloss:[...] Zombietime and Ginna Allison have excellent photo reports on the fabulous torch relay disappearing act in San [...]
Apr 11, 2008 - 7:18 pm 46. Darren:A hundred years from now, photoessayists will *still* be studying Zombie’s work to see “how it’s done”. Absolutely the best there is.
Apr 11, 2008 - 7:58 pm 47. bikermailman:O Great Zombie, you have done another most excellent work! Actually, I think your reporting is getting better… I have to agree with you about being on the same side as some of these freakjobs. I’ve felt that way for a while, and I don’t even get to see these people like you do. Thanks again for your great work!
Apr 11, 2008 - 10:00 pm 48. Tex Taylor:I agree with the poster above. I’m tired of causes and tired of protests - they all look and sound the same to me. The fact that the Olympics, once a spectator sport for the simple enjoyment of competition has become nothing but politics sickens me. I feel sorry for the athletes who train their entire lives to have it ruined.
If you want to protest China being awarded the Olympics, tune out and save your money - a far more effective way to punish.
Apr 11, 2008 - 11:15 pm 49. Denny, Alaska:Thank you! Excellent reporting. I now have a much better sense of what went on.
Apr 12, 2008 - 1:14 am 50. 2blue4u:Amazing report. Here in Germany / Europe the media has practically ignored the SF torch relay.
Weiter so! (continue with your great reporting)
Apr 12, 2008 - 1:22 am 51. pass the moonbaticide:Just TRY taking a lit cigarette lighter on a bus , and you know what would happen .
Apr 12, 2008 - 1:32 am 52. Peter Warner:The Olympic Torch, on the other hand …
Excellent, just superb job of reporting, Zombie.
Apr 12, 2008 - 7:01 am 53. Steve Yuen:No other media has provided any reports that come close to yours in explaining what happened in the SF portion of the Olympic torch relay, from what I’ve seen.
You’ve put them all to shame, and show what real journalism is. Thank you, sincerely.
P-dub.
Zombie, yours is an excellent example of what used to be called shoe-leather journalism (is it now Nike photoblogging?) Thanks for capturing the moments and your accompanying astute observations.
Apr 12, 2008 - 8:41 am 54. akinkhoo:BLOG FTW, CNN SUX IN COMPARE,
Apr 12, 2008 - 10:08 am 55. tdaxp » Blog Archive » Tibet should remain a part of China:i could barely tell WTF was happening on the helicam only interested in finding the stupid torch -.-”
[...] Germany, Australia, Japan, etc) and create enemies angered by her support for their enemies — the Burmese, the Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese exiles, the Darfuris, and others. If China’s solution to uprisings is to escalate the problem, Beijing will gain more enemies [...]
Apr 12, 2008 - 10:10 am 56. Michelle B:OH! And one more thing to all the ‘Lets Boycott The Olympics’ crowd, instead of punishing the athletes, while China laughs at our “nananana” lets ALL BOYCOTT buying anything made in CHINA!!!!!
That will hurt China….
Apr 12, 2008 - 10:30 am 57. Susan:I heard Zombie is a girl, not a boy. Is that true?
Apr 12, 2008 - 11:41 am 58. Al:Fantastic coverage.
Apr 12, 2008 - 1:32 pm 59. Useless:Yay Zombie. I would have a sign that said Another “Republican” for a free Tibet if I could have been there. I think it was kind of funny however to think of the liberal moonbats being at odds with commies over an issue… I would have though that the moonbats would have been all in support of the Chicoms. Just watch though. Any rightwinger that comes out in support of a free Tibet is still going to be attacked by the moonbats.
Apr 12, 2008 - 2:36 pm 60. Kristina C:I am glad people have causes and care. I am not one of you who are sick of it and just wishes they would “get a life”. I saw a documenatary on the Tibetan people and they are and have been truly brutalized. After I saw it, I wished that I did not have Chinese products. It’s a worthy cause for others to stand up against…it could be you one day. Also, the cause for the animals…very worthy and I am proud to stand up for them. I am glad I am not apathetic and heartless like some.
Apr 12, 2008 - 3:34 pm 61. Kristina C:Oh, one more comment. I am not really for boycotting the Olympics and putting out the torch but I do applaud those getting the message out.
Apr 12, 2008 - 3:36 pm 62. mr:Best read I’ve had in ages! Thank you for writing this.
Apr 12, 2008 - 4:58 pm 63. Zombie Rocks…Zombie Chronicles the Olympic Torch Relay in SF « Tizona’s Weblog:[...] Posted by tizona on April 12, 2008 Pajamas Media. Typical Zombie…Most Excellent Photo Chronicle. I can’t believe this occur… [...]
Apr 12, 2008 - 5:32 pm 64. starangel:There were estimated 10,000 Chinese supporters at San Fransisco on that day. To support all of them … I had not realized Chinese government was that rich. Wow!~
Seriously, there was a few online forum called and organized for rally in San Fransisco, but they were all formed volunteering by oversea Chinese. The found came from donations of Chinese who genuinely cared about their motherland.
A big blue earth for all of us
——————————-
A Poem Dedicated to the last 150 years of this planet
By a Silent, Silent Chinese.
When we were called the Sick Man of Asia, we were the Yellow Peril.
When we are billed to be the next Superpower, we are a threat.
When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to our markets.
When we embraced Free Trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.
When we were falling apart, you marched in your troops and wanted your “fair share”.
When we were putting the broken pieces together again, “Free Tibet” you scream, “it was an invasion!”
So, we tried Communism, you hated us for being communists
When we embraced capitalism, you hate us for being capitalists.
When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.
When we tried limiting our numbers, you said it is human rights abuse.
When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.
When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts.
When we build our industries, you called us polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.
When we buy oil, you call that exploitation and genocide.
When you fight for oil, you call that liberation and democracy.
When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted rule of law for us.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you call that violating human rights.
When we were silent, you said you want us to have free speech.
When we were silent no more, you say we are brainwashed racists.
Why do you hate us so much? We asked.
“No,” you answered, “We don’t hate You.”
We don’t hate you either,
But do you understand us?
“Of course we do,” You said,
“We have NBC, CNN and BBCs…”
What do you really want from us?
Think hard first, then answer…
Because you only get so many chances,
Enough is enough, enough Hypocrisy for this one world.
We want one world, one dream, and peace on Earth.
Apr 12, 2008 - 6:12 pm 65. Swimmer:This big blue Earth is big enough for all of Us.
Nice piece of photographic journalism and commentary. Great overview of protest activities which I most likely not have experienced in person.
Apr 12, 2008 - 6:45 pm 66. Mengya Li:“The fact that they all had identical oversized Chinese flags, souvenir t-shirts, and even little paper American flags led me to believe that the Chinese government had organized the whole scene.”
I’m sick of hearing this phrase from all these Western medias. Can Chinese people not support their own country? Is it so unbelievable that out of 1.3 billion people, a population that exceeds that of the USA, Canada, all of Europe, Russia and Australia combined, there would be people that support a government that over the past 100 years took them from being one of the weakest and poorest countries on this planet to a potential superpower? Point to me one other government that has managed to do as much for their people? Yes individual human rights have been stepped on along the way, but heck when you’re trying to develop a country of 1.3 billion a few people trying to destabilize the process is going to get stepped on, just deal with it. Not to mention even today in the Western countries that doesn’t have the excuse of trying to develop they’re consistently still stepping on the rights of not only their own people but, since Wester countries love to stick their noses into the business of other countries, the rights of people in other countries as well.
Sorry, the Chinese government doesn’t need to answer to the government nor the people of the Western countries. They only need to answer to their own people and their own people are stating very firmly that with the lessons learned from the 20th century of the West being bullies of the weak, China must maintain as number one in priority a strong sovereignty, meaning the ability to tell other countries that no, you can’t separate OUR country whenever you want.
Yes be surprised that there were actually China’s supporters this time, as more Chinese come abroad they won’t tolerate anymore the West’s bias against their country and the slandering it has had to endure all these decades. This is the first time the Chinese community abroad has bound together in solidarity because it threatens the sovereignty of their country. When the USA bitched about the tainted toothpaste from China, the toys (hey if you want high-quality toys stop paying Chinese workers $1 an hour, choose, quality or pay the workers a fair salary), the tainted pet food, FaLunGong and whatever else, the Chinese generally didn’t pay you guys much heed. China’s culture tends to just ignore and move on, allowing the West to slander and spread as much lies as they wanted. Well not this time. From London, Paris, Sydney, Germany, Vancouver, Edmonton, North Connecticut and soon to be Ottawa, the Chinese are taking a stand for their country and telling the West that interference in their internal affairs and the spreading of lies about their country will NOT be tolerated anymore. You’re not used to seeing people wave that 5-star red flag with such pride eh? I understand. Having moved to the USA when I was 6 years old and living there for 3 years before moving to Canada at 9 until today it’s been 15 years and now I am proudly a Canadian citizen. For all these 15 years, however, I have always felt the tension against China, that 5-star red flag is asking for a beating if one were to hold it in public here and to say I am a proud Chinese back in the day heck that would have gotten me murdered. Racism doesn’t exist here? Think again. Get used to it, no longer will we be ashamed and fearful to hold up the 5-star red flag of our homeland. Contrarily, it should be the West who invaded us in the early 20th century, divided our country, called us dogs on our very own soil, then looted and burnt our palaces and treasures while leaving, sanctioned us, and now want to separate us that should be ashamed.
Don’t believe Tibet belongs as a part of China? Think China invaded Tibet in 1951? Take a look at this propaganda video from the USA during WWII that clearly identified Tibet as a part of China. Remember, back then China was an ally against the Japanese, and this is WWII, so before 1945, if even back then Tibet belonged to China…well how does a country invade its own province 6 years later? So let me get this straight, when China’s an ally, you nod your head that Tibet is our’s, then as soon as you no longer need our help, you try to split up our country? I don’t think so.
USA propaganda movie in 1940s: Tibet is part of China
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWnRl16H1mY
Also, take a read through this article from ‘Global Research: Centre for Research on Globalization’ a group based in Montreal, Canada on what this whole Tibet issue is REALLY about:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8625
Free Tibet? Oh please, Westerners just like that ‘f’-word and as long as you can attach it to your cause then BAM everyone’s in support, regardless of whether they can even find the place on the map or not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twHzXN3kNTs
Take a look at what really happened during the Lhasa riots and some American academics who truly has studied Tibet weigh in on the issue:
2008 Tibet Riot, the Truth and Lies 1/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROTyGOJ2ZZI
2008 Tibet Riot, the Truth and Lies 2/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N8r1I66SA8
2008 Tibet Riot, the Truth and Lies 3/4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpgmomcxrp4
2008 Tibet Riot, the Truth and Lies 4/4
Apr 12, 2008 - 6:54 pm 67. Bozoer Rebbe:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIXoHkUlYNY
I see that the cadres are now out in force.
See the curious combination of arrogance and victimhood. It’s not the Party’s fault or China’s fault that they sell contaminated products or don’t pay their workers a living wage. No, it’s America’s fault.
It’s America’s fault that value added work can’t be done in Chinese factories because of the total disregard for intellectual property in China.
It’s America’s fault that India is gaining on China because India permits 100% foreign direct investment but China requires having a Chinese partner.
Boo effing hoo. You whine about being invaded by the west in the early 20th century. China never was an imperial power was it? China never extended it’s armies into Vietnam and Korea, did it? Mao and his henchmen didn’t murder tens of millions, did they?
Mengya Li, if China’s so great, what are you doing in Canada?
And if you’re gonna whine about being called dogs, Mao called Americans “running dogs”.
Li, if Canada and the US is so racist, tell me, what would your parents do if you married a black person?
Apr 12, 2008 - 11:18 pm 68. kazen:Very funny journay~
The fact that they all had identical oversized Chinese flags, souvenir t-shirts, and even little paper American flags led me to believe that the Chinese government had organized the whole scene.
====================================
hoho~~~bias, bias and bias. well, i am a member from chinese student and scholar association. this is the association that has direct connection with the chinese embassy; however,
our president personally ask us not going for security issue~~~hia? why we “government organization” doesn’t want to go?
Using bias will give a bias conclusion. They are people organizing them for sure, do you think Free tibetians don’t??? But Chinese supporters are organized mainly by Chinese Business association, and other non-governmental association or even through internet. Shit, just by looking at those ugly shows in London and Paris, do you think Chinese will stay at home? If some boycotters are aiming by what they are so called justic, we are coming out because we are Chinese! That simple! We are coming out for our Olympic flame and our voice! You can’t even think how many Chinese are disappointed by westen media. Most Chinese don’t trust on governmental voice and they believe westen media is more justic. But, your great media making it’s reputation really bad these days. Great time for people to think about credit of media.
BTW, there are always ppl say Chinese been brain wash, but i just get a link on germany show facing to children about tibet issue. Well, i firstly don’t want to pick on their statement of how ccp persecute tibet. I just want to ask. How can they give such kind of political voice to little children who not yet form their value and logic thinking. May i consider that as “brainwash”? media don’t tell the truth, sadly, when ppl realize these, they may be have build their value already. Their sense is all base on their value. Do you still think there is never bias?
On tibet issue, i have to tell you because of the Chinese historical issue. Chinese hate any tendency of seperation. Each seperation in China caused at least 50 years or even hundreds years of disorder. Through Chinese history, whenever population becoming 5,000,000,000, the national war between han and other minority can cut the population into 1/5 of the original population. A government=/= a nation=/= China.
Apr 12, 2008 - 11:50 pm 69. kazen:If one try to put their dummy “human right” on to Chinese and causing any civil strife. Great, I am glad to give the gold medal to that someone. Guess what’s on the medal? Butcher!
It’s America’s fault that value added work can’t be done in Chinese factories because of the total disregard for intellectual property in China.
Apr 13, 2008 - 12:08 am 70. psaturn:====================================
That’s certainly the fault of Chinese government who don’t have a proper system on these firms. A crime can’t be crime if no certain law apply on it even if from ethric issue, it is. See Carrefour’s case, they put “entering fee” to chinese supplier who want to enter their supper market, but chinese government don’t actually realize that untill recently~~~sigh~ but who is the beginner of this fee? Chinese government?
I sadly say that arrogance is what i can see from your post, man. Maybe you wanna say, you are dog of government or stuff like you are brainwash. But i have to tell you, I can read Chinese and English, but you can just read English. If I can hear two different values, but you can just heard one, the one that you think “was, is and always be” the “truth”~ who do you think can draw a better conclusion?
Mengya Li, I do not think you understand the Tibetan situation. As you pointed out, the USA ‘propaganda’ film recognized Tibet as being part of China. Do you understand what Tibetans want? They want AUTONOMY, they want the right to have their own religious practices without governmental interference. They want to have their own determination of who will be their next reincarnated leader and not the Chinese government. Dalai Lama repeatedly said he wanted AUTONOMY and not independence.
The Christians in China also want the same thing. They want to have the freedom to determine who is their leader is and not the communist government of China.
I see you have lived in the West for a long time but I don’t think you understand individual and regional freedom.
I am Chinese by birth and an American citizen by adoption. I grew up in Spain and they have their own problems with regional problems too with the Basques and the Catalans. Much autonomy has been granted to the Catalans and the Basques by the democratic government of Spain.
China could learn from Spain. Note that China has a special administration on Hong Kong. Hong Kong still has full religious freedom that is not enjoyed in mainland China or Tibet.
The Tibetans have not been granted the human rights as enshrined in the Human Rights charter of the United Nations.
That the Tibetans have been reacting violently, when their whole religion is based on non violence, tells me that the Chinese government are doing something that is not good for the Tibetans for a long time and you should recognize that, Mengya Li. People do not just want to be fed, clothed etc. They want to retain their identity as to who they are and their culture.
Apr 13, 2008 - 12:28 am 71. Mengya Li:I’m in Canada as are the rest of Chinese abroad precisely so that when more incidents like this Tibet issue arises in the future the West can’t lie about it anymore and slant the view whichever way they want. Unlike the West, Chinese are open to learning the good points from the Western countries and then integrating them into the Chinese culture to make life even better for the Chinese people. Hence they at least acknowledge that the Western countries do have many good points that they can learn from and will do at their own pace.
If I married a black person, or any other person my parents would be happy for me as long as I am happy. I have been told and reassured time and again by my family that as long as whomever I choose, man, woman, whatever race or ethnicity treats me well and with respect they will be happy for me. Thanks for asking.
It is the fault of the mega-corporations that for profit they are willing to exploit labourers wherever they can. It is the fault of Western consumers for wanting high quality yet unwilling to pay for it. I can’t wait until the day China is strong enough to enforce labour laws and minimum wage and Americans will have to either pay $50 for a t-shirt from Wal Mart or find exploitative labour elsewhere on this planet, but hey you guys can probably always do that, America has seen to it that enough poverty-stricken countries will remain in poverty for many years to come.
China was an imperial power internally. They had a monarchy for 5000 years to rule over their own people, otherwise they could read North America just as easily as Columbus can, but expansion by military was never their priority. China went into Vietnam and Korea both times to fend off USA troops. Well look at that, more instances of the USA sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong. They sure are interested in that area of Asia. As Chairman Mao said “Better to fight under another’s roof instead of one’s own”, during the Korean War the USA had already pushed North Korea almost to the border of China, and McArthur wanted to push into China and eliminate the Communist government in China as well. Hence China had no choice, in order to avoid another war on their own soil they entered into the war where Chairman Mao lost his eldest son. Let’s see some American politicians stick their sons into the front line for Iraq.
Mao’s mistakes leading to the deaths of millions of Chinese people is an internal affair and one that the Chinese people generally forgive. Don’t believe me? Ask any Chinese you know. He did what he did for what he thought would make life better for the Chinese people, unlike the West that likes to poke at China just to see it squirm in discomfort and roll in turmoil. Like I mentioned above what the Chinese see is that despite his mistakes Mao took China from one of its darkest points in history and brought it onto the path to the strong country you see today, a path followed by ZhouEnLai, DengXiaoPing, JiangZeMin and HuJinTao. Henchmen? Oh please, Chinese always refer to that first generation of leaders with the utmost of respect and admiration, regardless of mistakes they had made because the results are the evidence of their capability and intent. It the invading European countries at the beginning of the 20th century hadn’t been kicked out there would still be signs hanging on the doors of stores in Shanghai and Beijing claiming “Chinese and Dogs not allowed to enter”. Yes Mao did refer to the West as dogs, because of the actions of the West and the continuing actions of the West even today, it really hasn’t changed much. What reason did the West have for referring to the Chinese as dogs? Oh let me guess, because they were weak and couldn’t defend themselves and had to endure the humiliation right? Yeah the West always were good at bullying the weak.
I don’t know, if I headed over the river into Quebec, yelled “Free Quebec!” and burnt shops and property while stabbing and burning to death non-supporters and Anglophones I wonder if I would get honoured as a freedom fighter too as the rioters in the Lhasa riots of March 14th were labeled as by Western media? I wonder if the actions of the police that would come to stop me would be labeled as a crackdown as the Chinese authorities were labeled to be doing? I don’t know, in China those actions gets you labeled as criminals and murderers, I think in Canada it’d be the same. Why don’t we take a look at an actual Tibetan’s open-letter to the Free Tibet supporters:
Apr 13, 2008 - 12:42 am 72. westside:http://news.deviantart.com/article/46443/
“Yes be surprised that there were actually China’s supporters this time, as more Chinese come abroad they won’t tolerate anymore the West’s bias against their country and the slandering it has had to endure all these decades. This is the first time the Chinese community abroad has bound together in solidarity because it threatens the sovereignty of their country.”
Li, if China is so great why are more Chinese, as you say comging abroad. If there is so much support for China amongst the Chinese expats in the UK, Australia, Candan, the US and Russia, why are they all abroad.
Maybe it has something to do with Chinese spying on Western Tech and Defense companies.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about China as a country advancing after all that Mao and his cohorts did to kill the country. But can’t China grow without stealing tech and defense proprietary infomation from the West?
Apr 13, 2008 - 12:44 am 73. starangel:I think this is a very objective analysis of the Tibet riot on March14. After reading this, perhaps, we could reflect a little on ourselves what we could improve. =)
from EastSouthWestNorth
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20080405_1.htm
I thought that the key to the affair is not the “tree” that is the “CNN military vehicle photo” (frankly, I thought that the details about that issue are arguable). Rather, the key is the “forest” in which many western media obviously went blind in their Tibet reporting.
My personal observations in England over the past three weeks showed that many of the mainstream media began by being extremely biased, but they gradually became fairer as time went on. But a couple of days ago, BBC ran a documentary titled . This news documentary ran for one hour without interviewing a single Han person. All the interviewees were Tibetans, most of whom hated the Chinese government. This reminded me of how the Chinese Communists used to organize the lower- and middle-class peasants to criticize the landlords. Some of the allegations (such as “Tibetans will be arrested if seen speaking with a foreigner”) are almost surely lies, as I have an American student who works as a long-volunteer in Tibet and none of her Tibetan associates have ever been arrested a result. While I believe that maybe certain monks have been arrested for speaking to the foreigners, this hidden suggestion that the experience is prevalent is misleading. Similar misleading elements filled this entire documentary. This is like a director wanting to tell everybody about the “real America” and then going on a tour of Harlem interviewing all the black people who had been arrested before. The result is then declared to be the “real America.” What is the result of the such a “report”? The Tibetans will be angry when they see it, the westerners will be angry when they see it and the Chinese people will be angry when they see it. I see no constructive contributions as this documentary only served to inflame the hatred among the various sides.
I believe that it is a clear truth that many western media went blind selectively on Tibet. But I must distinguish between making value judgments versus making judgments about facts. I do not believe that the western countries are out to get the Chinese. In fact, I believe that most of the westerners who feel sympathy for Tibet are decent and kind-hearted people. The problem here is that the biased news reports and the resulting public opinion formation have formed a vicious cycle. “Support Tibet” is part of “political correctness.” Most news report are edited under the premise of this “political correctness”, which in turn reinforce the “political correctness” of “supporting Tibet.” With this backdrop, it is pointless to argue over the details (e.g. whether the “military vehicles” photo had been edited by CNN) … The important thing is the “overall impression” conveyed by the media.
Based upon my chats with westerners, many of them have the following overall impression about Tibet: Before 1951, Tibet was an independent country that resembled Shangri-la; the Communists then invaded Tibet; they implemented cultural cleansing programs in the manner of white people over aborigines elsewhere; the current policies of the Han people and the Chinese government in Tibet continued to be systematically discriminatory, exploitative and oppressive … By comparison, they are almost completely ignorant of the historical relationship between Tibet and China, the previous system of peasant-slaves, the unity of state and religion, the riots instigated by the monks against land reform, the 1956-1969 “armed struggle” supported by the CIA and tacitly approved by the Dalai Lama, the compensatory policies in place today, etc. The basis of the “political correctness” is likely rooted in 1989, when the Tibetan democracy movement occurred around the same period of the June 4th democracy movement in mainland China. Together with the Nobel prize won by the Dalai Lama, westerners cannot avoid “bundling” the struggle by the Tibet people with the “democracy movement.” When many westerners (as well as Chinese people) talk about Tibet, they are really reminiscing about that other event.
I should state here that I do not believe that just because a region had belonged to a certain nation once upon a time, then it ought to remain so for perpetuity. That is an issue of value judgment. But the issue of whether Tibet once belonged to China in history calls for a factual judgment. On the matter of factual judgment, I felt that the “one nation theory” is correct for at least better than 50% or more. In like manner, I do not believe that when a government offers preferential policies for a certain ethnic group, then people from that group should be thankful. Once again, this is an issue of value judgment. But the issue of whether the Chinese government has given preferential policies for Tibet calls for a factual judgment. Because of their value judgments, many western reporters decided to gloss over or avoid altogether mentioning that “Tibet once arguably belonged to China in history” and “the Chinese government offered many preferential policies to Tibet” and thus deprive the western people of a chance to make their own value judgments based upon the facts. That is unfair. Maybe you say that you don’t care what the western media have to say. But when their well-intentioned deeds have resulted in stirring up a virulent nationalism among the Chinese people, you better care.
I think that my divergence from the other bloggers on this affair is based upon my refusal to bundle the March 14 Lhasa disturbance with the democracy movement. To state it bluntly, I feel that you people think that this disturbance arose because the Chinese Communists had the wrong ethnic policies which abused the Tibetan people to the point where they finally exploded in an extreme form. Even though it is wrong to employ violence, the Chinese government left them with no choice.
For me, I detest sentiments such as nationalisms to the extreme (because far too many wars and hatreds were started as a result). I don’t feel that the the Tibetan nationalism was really “purer” than that in mainland China, Taiwan, Chechnya, Serbia, Kosovo, Zimbabwe … I admit that there ware many stupid elements in the ethnic policies of the Chinese Communists and that “rising up against the oppression” was one factor for the March 14 disturbance. For just like the cases in other nationalist uprising elsewhere in the world, the “elite structure” (in Tibet, this would be the structure of the Buddhist monks who were aided and abetted by the western politicians and media over the past two decades) is another important factor.
Wang Lixiong must surely be considered to be sympathetic to the Tibet cause, and he even wrote that the “awakening to the cause of independence” occurred after the 1980’s. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, many Tibetans loved Chairman Mao more than their own parents. They never felt the need for independence back then. So how come the transformation occurred after the 1980’s? Did the Chinese rule got so bad that the people had to rise up? Did the secret Tibet finally revealed itself? Or could it be that the new and more tolerant environment provided the Tibetan elite to mobilize (especially by the monks in exile)? I think that it is the latter. Even Wang Lixiong acknowledged that the Tibetan policies of Hu Yaobang were the most tolerant and humanitarian in the history of the Chinese Communists, but they only led to the three disturbances in 1987, 1988 and 1989.
You cited Woerser’s essay that called for attention about the suppression of the demonstrations from March 10 to March 14 before the big disturbance itself. Let us suppose that she is correct (and I do not regard her as a neutral source of information). Why don’t we move backwards before March 10 when the Tibetan monks has advocated separatism under the name of freedom of religion for the past two decades? Of course, my political opinion is that even separatism should be tolerated. But when I think about how I can wake up tomorrow morning and all the people in Xinjiang, Yenbian, Mongolia, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Taiwan and Hong Kong are all clamoring for their own separatism, then maybe I am going to disgusted while still being tolerant. This disgust does not mean that I feel strongly about national sovereignty. On the contrary, it is due to my indifference towards the notion of national sovereignty. Because of this indifference, I feel that in the absence of a humanitarian crisis and systemic discrimination, those who are “fighting for independence” and those who are “defending unification” are equally silly. Both sides are attempting to consolidate their own influence by instilling hatred, and it is always the common people who serve as cannon fodder in a conflict.
Of course, there is something else about nationalism that I despise most of all. That would be the natural human senses of bigoted “territoriality” and “xenophobia.” If the logic of “resisting the oppression” led to attacks on Han civilians, then why did the Tibetans attack the Hui people as well? Since when did the Hui people “oppress” the Tibetans? Don’t you think that the Tibetan nationalism contains the element of hitting at unrelated persons that is present in all the manifestations of nationalism around the world, including China itself? Many people use the words of the angry youth in China to show how brain-dead they are. Frankly speaking, if we had gone onto a Tibetan forum instead, would similar extremist writings be present as well? Are only the Han angry youth “brain-dead”? Are the Chinese ruling class the only one that is malicious?
By the way, you think that the Tibet problem will be cleared up as soon as there is freedom and democracy. Don’t forget that freedom and democracy do not mean just freedom and democracy for the Tibetans, for there is also freedom and democracy for “brain-dead people” like myself.
Another point is the uneven process of modernization. The Tibetans deserve sympathy for being marginalized for their language, but should the blame be assigned to the “government”? The Tibetan woman who wrote to Lian Yue said that she was forced to attend a Han school because the quality of Tibetan-language education was poor. If the government was deliberately under-investing in Tibetan-language schools, we should deplore that. But could there be a factor wherein there were insufficient numbers of Tibetan teachers who can teach physics and mathematics using the Tibetan language? What about it? Should the Han teachers be forced to learn Tibetan to teach their classes? (I recall Xu Mingxu writing about the difficulty of translating modern technology terms into Tibetan).
In terms of language, many Tibetans say that it is hard to find a job without being able to speak Han. This was taken to be evidence for “cultural genocide” by the government. Frankly speaking, it is not easy to find a job anywhere in China if you cannot speak putonghua. So are all the local cultures in China being “exterminated”? It is not easy to find a job in Haiwaii if you cannot speak English, right? What can be done in this situation? The Tibetans must either develop their own enterprises that can raise the employment rate, or else they can start to learn Han as well as Tibetan (and the two are not in conflict with each other). There are many higher institutions of education in China which award much higher “work points” for publications in English rather than Chinese. This is forcing many Chinese scholars to publish in English instead. Is this similar to the suffering of Tibetans who don’t know the Han language? Unfortunately and inevitably, such are the trade-offs in the process of globalization and marketization.
Anyway, my view is that the March 14 Lhasa disturbance occurred because of the following factors. First, “resisting the oppressive rule” is one factor. Secondly, the long-term mobilization by the elite is another factor. Thirdly, the natural ethnic bigotry of humans is another factor. Fourthly, the process of modernization had been uneven. You people have focused completely on the first factor and you ignored the other three factors. This is basically where we disagree. I feel that all four factors are important. I feel that the same framework can be used to analyse the “anti-Japanese sentiments” among the Chinese (obviously, the relative contributions by the four factors would be different). You can say that I do not emphasize the first factor enough on Tibet. So I will repeat myself — I think that the the government policy to “disallow media coverage,” “to forbid the worshipping of the Dalai Lama” and “to ban peaceful assembly” are stupid and reactionary, and the government bears an inexcusable responsibility for the intensification of the conflict. After the disturbance, the government’s diplomatic awkwardness and the reification of their thinking were unbearable to watch. But at the same time, I still feel that it is extremely dangerous to equate extreme nationalist sentiments with the demand for freedom and democracy, especially when state and religion are regarded as one. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.
Apr 13, 2008 - 2:22 am 74. starangel://Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about China as a country advancing after all that Mao and his cohorts did to kill the country. But can’t China grow without stealing tech and defense proprietary infomation from the West?//
And awhile you tell me that you are not about discrimination? wow~ wow!
Apr 13, 2008 - 3:32 am 75. starangel:Ok, pasturn, you say that we don’t understand what they want, and you guys do, that’s autonomy. Well let me tell you that Tibet is called Tibet Autonomous Region because it IS AUTONOMOUS!
Apr 13, 2008 - 4:14 am 76. Sardar:Alot of ppl need to look into your backyard before converting the Olympic spirit into a political statements like an opportunist that pleases no one other than to boost self ego.
Apr 13, 2008 - 7:13 am 77. Hertz:Zombie:
> I’m not quite sure what Lou Gehrig’s Disease has to do
> with China, but hey — I’m all for stamping it out!
The only link btw. Lou Gehrig’s Disease and China, I can think of, is that Mao Tse-tung suffered from ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease and it very likely was the cause of his death.
Apr 13, 2008 - 8:21 am 78. Cinnamon:You’ve outdone (and outrun) yourself this time, Zom! Once again, doing the job the local mainstream media fails to live up to.
And I know what you mean about strange political bedfellows. Never thought I’d see the day I’d be agreeing with the keffiyeh crowd, but there you have it.
It’s also rather satisfying to see the commies be the bad guys in SF for a change. The local Stalinist crowd has been fairly quiet on the whole affair, except for that sign you photographed at the March “anti-war” protest urging people to “Defend China!” and put down the “Free Tibet” movement. At least they’re up front, as are the Chinese-American communists photographed in this report. Unabashed imperialism, unlike the U.S. (contrary to rumors).
Apr 13, 2008 - 10:10 am 79. psaturn:starangel:
>Ok, pasturn, you say that we don’t understand what they want, and you guys do, that’s autonomy. Well let me tell you that Tibet is >called Tibet Autonomous Region because it IS AUTONOMOUS!
Just calling something is not the same thing as being one….autonomous means Dalai Lama would have the freedom….
Look at Hong Kong…it is truly autonomous for the time being….the question is this, do the Tibetans feel ‘autonomous’ ? Not how the Chinese government or the Han Chinese perceive but how the Tibetans perceive.
Apr 13, 2008 - 10:22 am 80. Bozoer Rebbe:I sadly say that arrogance is what i can see from your post, man. Maybe you wanna say, you are dog of government or stuff like you are brainwash. But i have to tell you, I can read Chinese and English, but you can just read English. If I can hear two different values, but you can just heard one, the one that you think “was, is and always be” the “truth”~ who do you think can draw a better conclusion?
To begin with, your English skills are not what you think they are, but it’s ironic that you are calling me arrogant while you brag that you know both Chinese and English. Big effing deal! Can you read Hebrew like I can?
//Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about China as a country advancing after all that Mao and his cohorts did to kill the country. But can’t China grow without stealing tech and defense proprietary infomation from the West?//
And awhile you tell me that you are not about discrimination? wow~ wow!
How is it discrimination to note the empirical fact that China is perhaps the world’s worst violator of intellectual property? The simple fact is that it is very difficult to trust a Chinese vendor that they will not manufacture your technology for another customer. This is aside from the blatant theft of IP like the Chery QQ, which is a bolt for bolt copy of a GM car.
The head of Robt. Bosch’s Chinese operations has made it clear that they cannot do any manufacturing in China that involves proprietary information because their joint venture partner, which they must have by Chinese government fiat, will steal that information. Bosch only uses proprietary information in plants that it can control.
Oh, and BTW, China’s been invading Korea and Vietnam since long before 1948. China had emperors, presiding over empires, made up of conquering other peoples.
Apr 13, 2008 - 11:40 am 81. psaturn:Quoting Zombie:
> The fact that they all had identical oversized Chinese flags, souvenir t-shirts, and even little paper American flags led me to believe that the Chinese government had organized the whole scene.
Kazen:
>hoho~~~bias, bias and bias. well, i am a member from chinese student and scholar association. this is the association that has direct connection with the chinese embassy; however,our president personally ask us not going for security issue~~~hia? why we “government organization” doesn’t want to go?
Kazen,
You need to learn what is the definition of bias.
Zombie made an observation and that led Zombie to believe that someone from the Chinese government most likely organized the whole scene. You said that it was not so. You gave the example that your president discouraged from participating because of security issue.
You claim you know English well and yet you did not employ the correct English word here. You used the word ’security, that was not an appropriate or relevant word to use in that sentence in that context. I totally understood what you meant but you probably don’t know the difference between the word ’security’ and the other word that you should have used instead.
Why won’t you admit that the Chinese government encouraged you to participate in this to counter the Free Tibet protesters? There is nothing wrong in the government doing that…but to try to hide it and saying it is individual doing it…that is stretching the truth a little bit…
Have you noticed that many of the Free Tibet protesters are American whites, who normally support leftist, communistic causes?
Apr 13, 2008 - 1:16 pm 82. Wm T Sherman:Chinese government shills coming out of the woodwork?
Apr 13, 2008 - 2:33 pm 83. Novellus:I’m personally exhillerated that these protests are taking place, and I view it as a slap in the face of every Chinese worldwide. As I fully expected years ago, China lied, and lied, and lied when it promised numerous things, in order to obtain the games. The IOC was suckered by liars, and today we see the truth…
The way the torch was rerouted through San Francisco at the last minute, was very much an attempt to spare China some much overdue embarasement. Unfortunately, it only showed how weak China’s facade is on the world stage, and how easily that can betorn in free countries.
With every torch relay, the world learns more, and China is embarassed further. The protests will only grow louder and stronger….
China will contiue to opress, and the games themselves will be a sham.
George Bush - Stay awy from the opening ceremonies, and China MUST free Tibet.
Apr 13, 2008 - 8:09 pm 84. psaturn:Novellus:
>I’m personally exhillerated that these protests are taking place, and I view it as a slap in the face of every Chinese worldwide.
Novellus, I am not sure if you realized you were getting into a racist issue…by saying it would be a slap to every Chinese worldwide.
There is a huge difference between the Government of China which is communist and the Chinese people with varied political inclinations and diverse opinions and following. You also have Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places….
I am of Chinese descent and yet I am for Free Tibet. And I did not tell IOC to pick Beijing either…they should be very concerned about the air pollution in Beijing…it is BAD!
Apr 13, 2008 - 11:37 pm 85. low water:Well comments from starangel. The whole complex issue of Tibet is simplified to the point of bigotry. It is as if all the angers and jealousies of the China’s rise from the Western world are met at single issues of Tibet and Human Right.
Looking at how the China Government has treated the Tibetan and its people, many grievances are true. Let me repeat again, China Government is one of the foremost totalitarian in the world.
The fact is that Western civilization has made itself a comfortable life and built the best institutions around to safeguard those privileges. It is indeed a great achievement and I believe it is a, in retrospective, mostly positive than negative phenomena to history of human kinds.
However, this does not give the Western world’s right to criticize others as most often its history show otherwise. I do not need to repeat those hideous crimes and unfair treatments to the weaker states/races from the last 4 centuries and even the last decades. Most of these actions are justified in the very language of human right, “modern” civilization. Exterminating the Native American Indian, forcibly taken away Aboriginal babies, systematic “eliminating” all the European Jews are just some of those unspeakable crimes.
Let admit: Tibet is a problem China Government has to resolve sooner or later. However, we will not reach there because of Western’s high handed pressure. It will do the reverse for it sounds very much like from a hypocritical high priest, sitting on a high horse and telling us what is right and wrong.
This is a plea from a Chinese man: Can we deal with this issue in a sensible way?
Apr 14, 2008 - 3:37 am 86. Jack:Oh, come on…
Would all the chicoms residing in the West, defending monstrous actions of their beloved motherlands’ government please shut up?
You’re here, not there. For SOME reason you or your parents or grandparents decided that maybe, just maybe things would be better for them in the West than under the communist boot.
Apr 14, 2008 - 7:06 am 87. M. Lee:Great work. Millions of thanks. you deserve a citizen (global citizens’) award.
Apr 14, 2008 - 10:32 am 88. M.E.:Thank you very much. These beautiful photographs show free people that protest and discuss. Here one can see men and women of all races, but all them are Americans. For an European (as I am) that is amazing thing. I felt joy looking at these images of the feast of Liberty.
Apr 14, 2008 - 12:18 pm 89. Careless:Low Water: saying that because someone in the distant past did something bad they cannot criticize is nothing but saying that no one can ever criticize anything ever. It’s a stupid statement that even you almost certainly don’t agree with.
Also, the earlier Chinese poster saying that the post Mao government continued the policies of Mao resulting in the current Chinese state… well, wow, that’s one of the most wildly ignorant, stupid, and funny things I’ve seen on a thread of this sort. Mao would have shot Deng in the face in 1982 if he had the chance.
Apr 14, 2008 - 9:47 pm 90. Crystal:This made me laugh so hard. You’re hilarious writer, you know that? Thanks for the support for “communist China”! Yay!
Tibet will never be free, thanks for reaffirming the fact =D
Apr 15, 2008 - 1:12 am 91. Thomass:Mengya Li:
“that support a government that over the past 100 years took them from being one of the weakest and poorest countries on this planet to a potential superpower? Point to me one other government that has managed to do as much for their people?”
There not only is there no other, there are none all together.
Governments don’t do that. People do… as in entrepreneurs and workers. Governments do things like murder people. Of which, your government in question did a great job. Ours too, to be fair (native peoples).
The only thing good the Chinese government finally did was get out of the way and again allow private ownership of some means of production…
Anyway, governments are not their people and vice versa. Fascists and communists can’t understand that…
Apr 15, 2008 - 5:33 pm 92. Pajamas Media » Blog Archive » Terror, Oil, and the Beijing Olympics:[...] China was reflected in protest efforts to disrupt the Olympic Torch relay through San Francisco. Zombie, in a photo-essay depicting the cat and mouse game between the Torch and the protesters, observed [...]
Apr 16, 2008 - 1:04 am 93. Adam:Excellent report as usual, Zombie. Great job getting pictures, and staying on top of things, especially when you managed to keep up with the torch’s actual location as much as the police would allow. Sprinting that far on the hope of getting to the torch before it’s too late (And you got an excellent shot of it, too) takes dedication, which is the mark of a true journalist.
Apr 16, 2008 - 1:32 pm 94. rappmandu:I too found it interesting that in this case, you wound up on the same side as the lefty protestors who you normally oppose on their other protests. It’s kind of like how on some action/superhero TV shows, there are episodes in which the hero has to temporarily join forces with one of his enemies to stand against a bigger, common threat (i.e. the X- Men having to team up with Magneto’s crew to fight Apocalypse or something).
Keep up the good work, and if you’re able to, I’d love it if you could possibly go to Denver in August to cover the DNC protests, those should present a ripe opportunity to give an awesome report.
Heya, zomb! Before this went down, I was wondering to myself whether/how you’d cover this event. Thanks for going the extra mile (or four) to bring us the goods.
Apr 16, 2008 - 3:50 pm 95. mark:the whole idea of the olympic torch is kinda insane, it is not a tradition of ancient greece. the relay was invented by Carl Diem who had been planning the 1916 summer olympics in berlin,when they were canceled because of WWI. Twenty years later, Diem returned as the general secretary of the organizing committee of the 1936 olympics under ADOLF HITLER. The torch that was carried at that time was manufactured by Krupp, the huge steel and munitions conglomerate that armed Germany for two world wars…….Time to drop that tradition. and how would you like to strive to be the best at something only to have to put up with the protestings of someone that doesnt care about the games at all…come on world lets get real.
Apr 16, 2008 - 9:39 pm 96. Pajamas Media » Blog Archive » China Protests Inspire Vietnamese:[...] Photo by Zombie. [...]
Apr 17, 2008 - 12:01 am 97. The Glittering Eye » Blog Archive » The Council Has Spoken!:[...] and I’m glad the Council found it as worthwhile as I did. Second place honors went to Pajamas Media’s “Zombie Chronicles the Olympic Torch Relay in SF”. I also voted for this sharp piece of [...]
Apr 18, 2008 - 5:28 am 98. AGITATED:speaking of human rights issue againts china ..USA and its allies NATO NORTH ATLANTIC TERRORIST ORAGANIZATION-bands of thugs and criminals)are the worst. They started never-ending wars which resulted to mass killing of innocent civilians (iraq, afghans. until now I still can’t get the reasons or morals of this wars. and yet they critizising china over its action againts TIbEt. IRAQ IS WORST THAT TIBET. FIX IRAQ BEFORE UNLEASING ATTACKS ON TEBIT ISSUE.
Apr 18, 2008 - 9:17 am 99. Bookworm Room » Good stuff to read today:[...] On the non-Council side, first place went to Baldilocks, for It’s the “White” Church that Obama’s Talking About (UPDATED), her excellent post about Obama’s attack on religion in his bitterness speech. Second place was for a Zombie photoessay at Pajama’s Media entitled Zombie Chronicles the Olympic Torch Relay in SF. [...]
Apr 18, 2008 - 10:47 am 100. Adam:Um, okaaay, Agitated. Typical liberal troll: Can’t argue against us on the issue at hand, so they’ll have to try and completely change the subject. The things China has done in Tibet and elsewhere make any of your perceived injustices in Iraq or Afghanistan look like a little girl’s tea party by comparison. You want to talk about mass killings of innocent civilians? China’s Communist government is famous for those (i.e. Tiananmen Square, 1989). Add to that the fact that, in case you didn’t know (ultra- liberals tend to have no sense of history), China’s oppression of Tibet and of its own people has been going on for LONG before the “Never- ending” wars in the Middle East. Oh, and you really need to learn how to spell- check.
Apr 20, 2008 - 5:55 am 101. Right Wing Nut House » THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN - DOUBLE GOOD EDITION:[...] 2. “Zombie Chronicles the Olympic Torch Relay in SF” by Pajamas Media. [...]
Apr 22, 2008 - 4:00 am 102. Jurij Below:Thank you very mutch for Your Information and pictures. This is one way to show the problem of zombie of politics and to think about dignity of the man.
Apr 26, 2008 - 6:47 am 103. Dinocrat » Blog Archive » Hard to know what to make of the world sometimes:I wish more: please show also the holocaust zombies. I spent in the soviet Gulag 16 years and I know: the Gulag was not “harmless” as “holocaust”. Since last 25 years Wiesel and co. suggest: Holocaust was a greatest and “uniqe” “crime against humanity in world history”. Now is spoken only about “a holocaust”. Especially in Germany.
The truth is bitter, but ist the truth: Goulag was before, during and long after the Holocaust.
I envy your liberty of free speech and I hope you keep your freedom. In Germany now are so much zombies, first of all in the media.
God bless America.
Jurij Below
Frankfurt, Germany
Contact: jubelkron@freenet.de
[...] Zombie’s photo shoot of the San Francisco [...]
Apr 29, 2008 - 6:05 pm 104. tonez:i wanna use a picture of these for my song . i think it would be one more place a reminder should scream
May 20, 2008 - 9:33 pm 105. Zombietime: It’s the Little Things That Make My Day at Yield to Pedestrian:[...] watching, my feet almost hurt just thinking about pounding all that pavement. His coverage of the Olympic torch relay was fantastic, and really points out what a terribly lazy job the MSM does of covering real news and [...]
Aug 25, 2008 - 9:56 am 106. Rachel Peepers:Zombie, an A+++ on reporting (writing and photography).
You deserve both the Pulitzer and the Nobel Peace Prize.
Gore deserves the pomposity pie for claiming to invent the internet.
Verbal pat on the back. Well done.
regards,
Aug 25, 2008 - 10:38 am 107. A-Class Fighter:rachel
Pathetic Pro-Tibet rioters, they are all no good im-breds! They are all terrorists and should not be trusted. Its funny cause 2 European dudes and 3 Tibetans in Australia tried to cause trouble for the Chinese ppl in Civic right, but they failed hardcore because my friends and I fought them and kicked their ass! They ran walked away in shame. Pussy Tibetans and Europeans. I raise my Chinese flag and my friends waved their Austrailian flags and said ‘Screw you pro-tibet rioters’. Tibetans, Americans and Europeans are truly pathetic. We kicked their ass in the fight. Down with USA, down with Burma, down with Tibet, down with Europe.
Nov 3, 2008 - 11:08 pm 108. Corine:Greetings! and test of guestbook, coming up here to show love to the site.,
Nov 27, 2008 - 1:37 pm 109. lily:China should leave the uyghurs alone
they have NOTHING to do with uyghurs
Chinnese can kiss uyghurs ASS……
Uyghurs FOR life =D
east turkistan is the best
Dec 9, 2008 - 7:09 am 110. Arthur-a Chinese!:You guys do not know China at all! you! are! disgusting as DaLie Lama! we all Chinese love Tibetians as our family, what about Dalie? he’s dreaming to control Tibet and to be the king, to get his slaves back! to mystify people out of China that he’s a “free soldier”!
Jan 20, 2009 - 8:12 pm 111. Topden:Why don’t you come to China, to Tibet of China? you’ll see all you heard from Dalie Lama are fake! are lies!…. and you fools are just help that “slave owoner” and Biggest lier to get his wild ambition!
Thanks for this great chronicle, with some wonderful photography. I am particuolarly interested in getting in touch with the Taiwanese guys who did that detailed illustration. Might you have their information by any chance. I am a Tibetan graphic designer and wanted to see if I could collaborate with them.
Mar 2, 2009 - 5:29 pm 112. uyghur:Does anyone know about a country called EAST TURKISTAN??????????
Mar 3, 2009 - 4:03 amI bet u all know about Tibet and other countries that was taken over by the RED communiest Chinese…u should no there is a nation under occupation called EAST TURKISTAN….
it was taken over by the chinese in 1949…and renaimed to Xinjiang ( New Territory) Uyghur Autunomes Region in 1951…and now the chinese controlles everything…uyghur people don’t have FREEDOM……………..