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April 9, 2008
Pro-Tibet Protests: Sports Lovers Meet Torture Victims
UPDATE: We've been holding the corner of Embarcadero and Washington streets since 10 a.m. this morning in San Francisco together with Tibetans, Students for a Free Tibet, Darfur activists, and then of course pro-China folks have been right here with us. Intense emotions abound as sports lovers meet torture victims.
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I'm sitting with a mix of folks from Students for a Free Tibet, Ruckus, RAN and others at the jail where the seven Tibetan rights activists who pulled off the stunning Golden Gate bridge action have been held since being whisked off the bridge yesterday.
Our latest news is that they're coming out any minute now -- that's been the word for two hours. I think of them through the labyrinth of halls and walls beyond the door so sleepy, sore, with perhaps no idea of just how far reaching their tremendous action has been for two days.
This isn't the first action on the Golden Gate Bridge, but a good friend pointed out that its probably the biggest action since 9/11. But the actions in this campaign so far have all been big -- Mt. Everest, the Great Wall, the Eiffel Tower. Well, almost the Eiffel Tower. Police presence in Paris was too high for the action to get going, so they defaulted to a nearby bridge over the Seine whose name escapes me now, writing this on my phone from the waiting room of this jail.
The demands -- no torch run through Tibet, an end to human rights abuses, and ultimately the liberation of Tibet -- are on the front page of newspapers worldwide.
The victory in many ways is already complete for the campaign on the torch. The Olympics were supposed to herald a new China. Thing is, the Chinese government thought it could get the symbolic stamp of approval without actually changing its behavior. As Tibet has escalated their campaign for international attention, China's government has shown its unwillingness to improve their violent history.
The activists are released one by one, first the women, then the men, swamped by journalists and then enveloped by loved ones.
They are free! Tibet is next!
Adrienne Maree Brown is the executive director of The Ruckus Society and an advisory board member of WireTap. A co-founder of the League of Young Voters, Adrienne is obsessed with learning and developing models for action, community strength and movement building.
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