Please Listen To Our Voice, Calgary West MP Rob Anders

As Calgarians of Chinese heritage, we were shocked and horrified by MP Rob Anders' comparison of upcoming Beijing Olympics and Hitler's Berlin games during a CBC radio talk show Eye-opener on April 17, 2008. Your remarks put you well in a position that you are lack of political vision and poor knowledge of history. And it is unacceptable by anyone who really concerns about peace and human rights. You can ignore we Chinese Calgarian's desire and say whatever you want to say, however we can not ignore your remarks simply because you are an MP of Calgary West Ridings which is supposed to represent a big group of Calgarians. When your remarks got spread among Chinese Calgarians, besides the anger and upset, we were really curious about why you, a politician of many years, boldly gave shocking comments hurting Olympics and Chinese like this without any consideration of disturbing and upsetting others. We have to doubt your qualification and capability as the MP to represent us.

There are numerous historical records and evidences to prove that Tibet is part of China. From past hundreds years till now, the whole world accepts the fact, the United Nations has declared it, and every member honors it. Any comments of calling free Tibet, calling Tibet as a country, or pursuing sovereignty in Tibet is challenging the international diplomacy. We can understand that you must be too busy on political issues, and do not have time to check a book out of the library, but we can not tolerate an ignorant politician making a such ridiculous remark in front of the public and offending his voters. Before you go around castigating others, at least you should hear both sides of the story.

We absolutely disagree with your comparison between 2008 Beijing Games and 1936 Berlin Games. China has never initiated a war and never aggress any other countries. Chinese people love peace. Also, here are some facts for your information:

1. China is a multiethnic nation with diversity. 56 ethnic groups form ONE CHINA, including Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, Hui (Muslim), Zhuang, Korean, etc.

2. The population in Tibet increased from 1.1 million (1951) to over 2.7 million (2004), over 93\% is ethnic Tibetan. Total ethnic Tibetan population is over 5.4 million (2000), more than 50\% live in other 31 provinces outside of Tibet.

3.In Tibet, people don't pay tax, enjoy free medical care, and are not restricted by birth control policy. All Tibetan children enjoy free education with Tibetan as their major language, and Chinese as bilingual.

4. This comparison chart clearly shows a tremendous improvement in today's Tibet. (Excel chart not shown, refer to PDF file)

5. Dalai Lama is not the only spiritual leader in Tibet, and there are other Living Buddhas who also have lots of believers. Tibetan people have complete freedom on religious beliefs; temples, religions and culture are being well-protected. Chinese government even pays salary to Monks in temples even they don't work.

6. We encourage you to go to Tibet, compare the real life of majority Tibetans with those Dalai's followers in Dharamsala, which are about 100,000 or so. [1]

7. Past Tibet ruled by Dalai before 1959 was a brutal serf society under the feudal theocratic regime, 95\% Tibetans were serfs without any human rights. They paid tax on everything [2].

8. Even now Dalai Lama is facing to a lawsuit for religious persecution from other Tibetan Buddhism sect in India [3].

9. Shoko Asahara, who has been convicted of masterminding the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and several other crimes, also had a close tie with Dalai, and his group was entitled by Japanese government to be legal based on a critical pronouncement with reference from latter [4].

10. Dalai Lama has supported other country to develop nuclear weapon [5].

11. On March 27, 2008, Tsewang Rigzin, the President of Tibetan Youth Congress, declared that they would adopt the way of using suicide bombers and so on, which is exactly a terrorist strategy. [6]

12. Tibetan Government-in-Exile claims pursuing autonomy in "Great Tibet", which in fact is calling for free Tibet, but there has never been such an area in Tibetan history, and includes different administrative systems in other regions, going against not only the aspiration of the people in Tibet, but also the Constitution of China and the basic system currently in place.

As Chinese Canadian, we are living in a great country well known for its democracy and multiculturalism. Many of us have also lived in China for decades. We are the ones who know China better, not others who have never been to China, and who don't even know where Tibet is. Yes, China is an imperfect entity. This comment, however, in many cases, not only to a country like China, it applies to you and me: we are all imperfect people. Compared to Canada, we realize there is still a long way to go in China, that's also part of the reason that China still claims she is a developing country; But China has been making tremendous improvement on human rights. In today's China, it is the best time for human rights in the past hundreds years!

When you see those "peaceful protestors" attacked innocent civilians and causing death, injure and property damage, when you see in Paris stages of the Torch relay, a Tibet separatist was attacking a single-legged Chinese special Olympics athlete and trying to grab the torch from her, what would you say regarding those shameful acts of violence?(Photo not attached, see PDF file)

"According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." [8] Olympic spirit calls for respect, mutual understanding, tolerance, peace, friendship and solidarity. Olympics is not a political game. It shouldn't be politicalized.

Enjoying the peaceful and democratic multiculturalism, we are proud to be Canadians; with the remembrance to hometown, we also love our motherland. As a member of the big family in Canada, we would like to advance the understanding and engage a stronger relationship between China and Canada. Unfortunately, we realize that the microphone has been given only to Tibetan separatists, and the voice from Chinese Canadians has been ignored. The public can only hear one-side story, which has already caused misunderstanding and conflict. China is experiencing difficult and unprecedented changes; we need to remember the growing pains all countries experienced at such time. There are a lot of ways China could have a positive contribution to the world. Backing China into a corner is not the right way to make this happen.

We strongly condemn your remarks and urge you to take back your words and apologize. We also hope you and the public can have a comprehensive awareness and understanding of today's China, enhance mutual exchanges and cooperation, stop distributing misleading and biased information, help her to achieve democracy, instead of pushing her in the opposite direction.Should you need more information about Tibet and China, please do not hesitate to contact us at: CCAS2008@gmail.com

On behalf of Chinese Calgarians

Undersigned @ http://www.petitiononline.com/MPROB/


April 23 2008

Reference:
[1] http://tigerloong.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/the-riots-in-lhasa-by-eirik-granqvist/
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWGGjpJJCKE, http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
[3] http://www.sumatiarya.nl/voiceofDorjeShugden.html
[4] http://www.iivs.de/~iivs01311/SDLE/Part-2-13.htm
[5] http://www.salon.com/news/1998/07/13news.html
[6]http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2008/marzo/27/non_violenza_Non_paga_Potremmo_co_9_080327123.shtml
[7] http://www.olympic.org