The following Letter to the Editor appeared in the July 5 edition of one of the most widely read Swedish dailies, Dagens Nyheter (Daily News):
The interest in conveying the principle of non-violence is non-existent in the media, and the international society, too, is leaving the advocates of this principle to their fate. I am primarily thinking of the Tibetan people who are living under the oppression of the Chinese occupation power since 1950. The last nail has now been driven into the coffin of this peace-loving people with the railway between Golmud in northwestern China and Lhasa in Tibet being completed in these days. Against the wishes of the Tibetan people.
Not only does the international society become an accomplice in eradicating the culture and natural environment of the Tibetan people, it is also guilty of legitimating violence, which is the contrary to the basic fundamentals of democracy.
The Tibetan culture has never put forth egoism as the path to happiness, but instead advocated the opposite, which is a must in an increasingly globalized world.
The Tibetan people has repeatedly been appealing to the UN to solve the conflict with China according the principle of non-violence, but the interest has been nil. They never resorted to violence by means of terror, in spite of the fact that the Chinese regime has executed 1.2 million Tibetans, levelled monasteries with the ground, imprisoned and tortured, and confiscated their legitimate territory.
The media are creators of public opinion, and here too, the interest in non-violence is non-existent. We are becoming more and more people to share the resources of the world, and then you are caught in your own trap if justifying violence as a way to solve conflicts, when it is actually a matter of sheer egoism and ignorance.
Meng Zi
Stockholm
(Translated into English by Monica Masuda)
