Finance Minister Trevor Manuel's comments on the Dalai Lama's visit (see here) were profoundly disturbing. Here is an intelligent man, one of the brightest minds and otherwise most responsible members of our leadership, sprouting an entirely erred view on the Dalai Lama's apparent sole agenda for coming to South Africa.
Let's take a step back to consider the following: It is not too far-fetched to liken the Dalai Lama to Nelson Mandela. They share many similar character traits, elements that have raised them to the stature of elder statesmen and peacemakers, both Nobel Peace Laureates, both deeply humble, both immensely effective in expressing their moral authority, both totally committed to the cause of the freedom of their people. And they happen to really like one another, which says something.
Consider the period when, as a freedom fighter, Mandela was traveling internationally garnering support for our liberation struggle. What would we have thought had the US or Germany or Holland or Japan denied him entry to their country because they were trading with the White South African government? We would have balked at the sheer cruelty of it all.
Even though the Dalai Lama's invitation for this visit may have been to come here to speak about peace in general terms at the conference - and not only to try and split the Chinese Motherland as Manuel suggests - the question for us is How dare we stop him speaking about Tibet anyway? What gives us the right to hold the Tibetan people's future in the balance, when we called on the world to help us, for decades, and ultimately received assistance from every quarter which resulted in our eventual liberation?
The Chinese have brutalised the Tibetan nation on a scale that equals the worst the world has seen and is currently experiencing. It easily matches the darkest times in the Middle East, Bosnia and Darfur. The death toll since the Chinese invasion of Tibet is well over a million people. Over a million lives! I have been to Tibet and witnessed firsthand the savagery of the Chinese soldiers' treatment of Tibetans. On one occasion I saw two uniformed Chinese men beating an elderly Tibetan lady with batons, openly in the streets of Lhasa. It was one of the most distressing moments of my life. The barbarity was tangible. (View the recent Chinese response to protesters inside Tibet below)