亲爱的，你别去德国了吧，现在才发现德国人不但傻而且疯。。。。。。整个西方都疯掉了～～～～～～～～～

First of all, here in the west, there are a lot of people who think that our media is hyping the Tibet freedom thing up. That's true. And I really think that there are many DIFFERENT interest groups involved in the whole process.

I do not know for sure but as far as I know, the Chinese media do blame the Dalai Lama for all the things that happened in Tibet. And that is, from my point of view, an obvious propaganda because there are different groups in Tibet - potentially violent, strongly politically motivated ones and non-violent (just protesting) and simply happy people as well.

But it is obvious that many people were killed in Tibet. There were violent protesters and there was violent Chinese police involved in killings. I think that's undisputable. And thus, brutal Chinese military/police are to blame as well as brutal Tibetan criminals.

Now, the problem is that the Chinese government has kicked out journalists from Tibet and has shown little "brain" in explaining things. As you have mentioned, transparency and objectivness is so important, on both sides! And from my knowledge of Chinese media coverage there is little objectivness on Chinese side as well as on western.

And as I am critizising our media and our western politicians, so should you critizize your media and your government as well. So, please be as outraged about Chinese propaganda as we all are about Western propaganda. Because, obviously there are lies and instigation on BOTH SIDES. And that's so devastating.

If we really want to live in a world of peace without fear and hatred, we ought to be fighting for transparency, objectiveness, free education, and broad-minded societies all over the world. And by saying the word "fighting" I do NOT mean violence or lies or instigation, or making mischief. Therefore I really think that western media and western government as well as Chinese media and government should stop that kind of instigation and stop making mischief.

What I want to add, is that, from the translated Chinese media coverage, pictures and commentaries I read, there are a lot of false facts, instigation and overstatements on the Chinese side as well. I would really like that the Chinese people watch their media coverage as critically as many western people do. Because even the composition of videos can be aimed at making mischief instead of telling the truth and showing the facts. That is what I have learned from the false media coverage in Germany, by the way...

Yours,
Peter

@Fiona:

Your comment shows that making mischief and Chinese AND western instigation by the media and the politicians has begun to work. And that is really sad. Really sad!

Taring all Germans or all Western people with the same brush is as stupid as our western media coverage and your Chinese media coverage. If you think that the majority of the people in the West agreed with their media or their government, then you are completely wrong and possibly misinformed by your government and your media. Please recognise the lies on BOTH SIDES!

@Jinyu

I have just finished to read the translated version of your first link (reveFranceBBS) and I would like to share my thoughts on it:

Some comments of "lofty sky" (the entrance post) above and under every picture he has posted from France are full of hatred, false analysis and unobjectiveness. I am no longer surprised about your feelings. And it is really sad that there is so much making mischief on both sides. I feel really bad that the image the Chinese people get from Europe and "the West" is so wrong. That's horrible.

For example, why does he call the "Free-Tibet" group dirty drug users? That is pure hatred, no broad-minded analysis.

Or here another example of taring all Europeans with the same brush:
突然一个脏毒份子跳了出来，露出了屁股，从嘴形不难可以看出，是那个4字英文单词。这些人都是全欧洲跑的，有人给钱和指使去做这些很恶劣的事。

"Lofty sky" is furthermore making the argument that the person on the picture was "ordered" to do this.
False. There is no such thing as a planned and paid for demonstration. Here in Europe, there are simply some people who believe the CNN stuff and are fired up. They are not paid by some mysterious people. They are free to protest. And yes, they are also free to do stupid things. That is an incovenient but important element of democracy, you are free to demontrate even if you are demonstrating for stupid or bad things.

The most important thing is though, to understand that the group of people who were involved in protesting for "free Tibet" are a mixture of different people. There are some people who simply are worried about YOU, the Chinese people, who may be suffering under the dictatorship - even if you are not, but many people in Europe think that you suffer from the dictatorship in China because we - the Europeans - have suffered A LOT from the dictatorships in our countries.

And yes, there are some stupid people among the demonstrators as well who are just there for fun or because they had a bad childhood and just want to venting their fury or they have nothing different to do in their life. There are so many different people in demonstrations. And I really know about demonstrations.

Because I attended a large demonstrations against tuition fees two years, ago. There were so many different people. Some people even didn't know what the demonstration was about! But they were there and waiving a flag! Many people who were not even students just wanted to do damage to cars while the protests were going on and they did. But it would have been really really unfair to blame the peacefully protesting students to blame for the damage or for the other stupid people who were violent and aggressive.

And that was just two examples from the first link you have posted under your article, which shows that there are people on this planet who simply WANT to make mischief and WANT to spread fear and hatred - on the western side AND on the Chinese side.

Hi, Peter, thanks for your comments, or we say, essay? ;-)

As i said, "For the ways we Chinese act I would never say that they are all right." I know Chinese media cover many facts and block many links. Propaganda we all have. Since I first used the internet, I knew that already. I am already out of rage you know. Some facts they covered, I @#$%$%^&. In this case, I really think the transparency and freedom to speech of west should be highly appreciated.

Why I wrote this? Because this time I was disappointed. I used to get to know the facts from the major media in west. This time, however, there were so many reports which were untrue. I hope you can understand my feeling. hmm.. how to describe? It's the feeling of betray.

To this case, in the contrary, the Chinese media use the usual way they deal with. They report the issue afterwards, with a short text or one minute news on TV, of course they mentioned Dalai Lama. These I would never read and watch. I know what is all about even without reading. But thanks this time, they finally unblocked WIKI and BBC and so on.

For the west media I would never expect them to be "stupid". But this time they were. The difference is too big to ignore. And I really don't want that they would act just like Chinese media. I hope you can understand.

Second, about the BBS I have linked. My intention was to show how calm and orderly the Chinese students are, and how odd the French people were acting (as you mentioned, that they even don't know what is going on). The most important part I wanted to show is that one Tibet people wanted to destroy the torch. He is not the single one who wants to do that. Olympic games are not just for Chinese, but for people worldwide. In this case, I just wanted to point out: pls, don't mix two things together.

About the "dirty drug user", I hope you can just ignore. I never see this from other places. This guy, who obviously lives in France and attended the demo, must be very upset this time, he must have gotten too many bad things from the demo. "dirty drug" in Chinese sounds perfectly like "Free Tibet".

About whether that Tibet guy was paid or not. We could never come to a conclusion. Does he always live in France? Or he just “went” to France this time?

@Peter:

I’m sorry for what I’ve said about Germans. I’m really not serious about what I’ve put in my comment. Since I started learning German language, I also begun to love this country. Most Germans that I know are friendly and very nice. Because I love Germany so much, I’m especially disappointed and sad and angry when I read so many negative and untrue reports about the Tibet issue written by German media. As Jinyu has said, we somehow feel like betrayed. Cause we believe that German and French media would give objective reports instead of hyping the Tibet freedom up as American do. But sadly, what the western media do is so disappointing.

I admit that what the Chinese media says is always full of lies and I hate that there is so little transparency in China. Actually, most people I know, especially those who are well educated, would not believe all the words from Chinese media. But this time the western media is so wrong. Many media cut things out of context and the reports are full of stupid errors. But also I have to say it’s stupid of Chinese government to block all the foreign journalists out of Tibet, which would only make more misunderstanding.

By the way, politic is politic, why do so many people mix it with sport?! Now that they always talk about peace, love, liberty, blabla, why do they boycott the torch which symbolizes peace?

@Fiona

Never mind! I understand your frustration and I share your feelings.

I totally agree with your second comment. The Olympic Games are all about sports and the Olympic Games in Beijing are a great opportunity for people from all over the world meeting in China and enjoying all together with Chinese, European, African and American, etc. the beauty of sports.
So I am really angry about the Western media. Actually I should not be surprised because our Western media has always presented the "facts" with a Western bias. But as you have mentioned...this time we should altogether cry out loud "enough is enough". We are sick and tired of propaganda from both sides. And WE (Chinese and Germans and many more) are sick and tired of hatred, animosity, fear and distrust! Let's have the most beautiful Olympic Games we ever had. And let's tell our governments and media centres that they shall STOP THEIR POLITICAL GAMES RIGHT NOW!

No more lies!

WE, THE PEOPLE of this planet, want to live in peace and harmony. We are all human beings! To the media all over the world: STOP THE LYING! STOP THE INSTIGATION!

By the way, Paul has written an interesting article about this issue:
http://pugio.net/2008/04/out-of-control-the-tibet-issue.html

Best regards,
Peter

Hi again!

I have found an interesting interview on CNN which shows that CNN is not always presenting false facts about the Tibet issue.
Very reliable and authentic description of the Tibet riots some time ago provided here by a reporter of The Economist:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/20/tibet.miles.interview/

It turns out that CNN can be a reliable source of information, too. Not always, but sometimes. :) And to the reporter, James Miles, thank you for this interview. It turns out that at the beginning of the riots there were brutal Tibetan criminals and then Chinese police/military clashed with them.
Anyways, the one-sided media coverage is going on on both sides. Paul is riht: beware of what they feed you.

Greetings
Peter

Thanks Peter, the article is quite good, however also a bit BS:

He says: Well we didn't see any evidence of any organized activity, at least there was nothing in what I sensed and saw during those couple of days of unrest in Lhasa[...]

But he also said before that: [...]Those two groups were singled out by ethnic Tibetans. They marked those businesses that they knew to be Tibetan owned with white traditional scarves. Those businesses were left intact. [...] Almost every other business was either burned, looted, destroyed, smashed into, the property therein hauled out into the streets, piled up, burned.

I don't know. For me it sounds quite organized. :-D