Our friends at Avaaz (including openDemocracy's co-founder, Paul Hilder) have been working at getting a global and significant petition to represent world opinion about events in Tibet. Pasted below is their latest request, which I fully support.
Avaaz's work at Bali, in Gaza and in Burma has been really impressive. They have been able to deliver strong, credible messages representing global opinion very rapidly at moments that can count. I am reminded of an observation by Arthur C Clarke:
"A hundred years ago, the electric telegraph made possible - indeed, inevitable - the United States of America. The communications satellite will make equally inevitable a United Nations of Earth; let us hope that the transition period will not be equally bloody." (First on the Moon, 1970).
Avaaz are making use of the possibilities of the Internet - the new telegraph - in just that way, and the events in Tibet are part of the bloody transition.
Dear friends,
Our petition for restraint and dialogue in Tibet is exploding, with 253,353 signers since yesterday! Add your voice to the outcry now:
Sign the Petition!
In just 36 hours, 253,553 of us have supported the Dalai Lama's call for dialogue and human rights in Tibet. This is an incredible response--if each of us can get 4 more of our friends to sign the petition, we'll hit 1 million this week!
After decades of suffering, the Tibetan people have burst onto the streets in protests and riots. The spotlight of the upcoming Olympic Games is now on China, and Tibetan Nobel peace prize winner the Dalai Lama is calling to end all violence through restraint and dialogue--he urgently needs the support of the world's people.
China's leaders are lashing out publicly at the Dalai Lama--but we're told many Chinese officials believe dialogue is the best hope for stability in Tibet. China's leadership is right now considering a crucial choice between crackdown and dialogue that could determine Tibet's--and China's--future.
We can affect this historic choice--China does care about its international reputation, and we can help them choose the right path. China's President Hu Jintao needs to hear that the 'Made in China' brand and the upcoming Olympics in Beijing will succeed only if he makes the right choice. But it will take an avalanche of global people power to get his attention. Click below now to join 250,000 others and sign the petition--and tell absolutely everyone you can right away--our goal is 1 million voices united for Tibet:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/22.php
China's economy is dependent on "Made in China" exports that we all buy, and the government is keen to make the Olympics in Beijing this summer a celebration of a new and respected China. China is also a sprawling, diverse country with much brutality in its past, so it has good reasons to be concerned about stability -- some of Tibet's rioters killed innocent people. But President Hu must recognize that the greatest danger to Chinese stability and development today comes from hardliners who advocate escalating repression, not from those Tibetans seeking dialogue and reform.
We will deliver our petition directly to Chinese officials in New York, London and Beijing, but it must be a massive number first. Please forward this email to your address book with a note explaining to your friends why this is important, or use our tell-a-friend tool to email your address book--it will come up after you sign.
The Tibetan people have suffered quietly for decades. It is finally their moment to speak--we must help them be heard.
With hope and respect,
Ricken, Iain, Graziela, Paul, Galit, Pascal, Milena, Ben and the whole Avaaz team
See also: Will any countries boycott the Olympics? market on openDemocracy Inkling Markets. Free to join, why not start trading today?
