I have come in from the garden to have some lunch—leftover sweet peas and new potatoes. I have to be quick about it because as fast as I can hoe it out, the bindweed will fill the empty space again. But I also need to type this while the subject is on my mind and while the sun is shining, since that’s when the Internet works best out here. As I write this, it is June 4, you see, the anniversary of the day the Chinese soldiers killed all those students twenty years ago. But I really don’t know what to say except that I cannot recall another time when so much loss of life was met with so much silence. Does that scare you as much as it does me?
Yet I am glad to know that someone is not afraid to remind the Chinese government of its responsibility for what happened in 1989. On his website, His Holiness writes that China should review what happened in Tiananmen Square in the interests of embracing “more truly egalitarian principles” and pursuing “a policy of greater accommodation and tolerance of diverse views” since it will help the country “enhance its international standing as a truly great nation.” (http://www.dalailama.com/news.383.htm)
Imagine that. The one leader who truly has something significant to lose dares to challenge Chinese authority. A monk who acts like a man . . . rather than cowering in fear before a country that keeps threatening to pack up its yuan and go home.
But what do I know? I’m just an old woman whose dog has died and whose apple trees appear to be coming down with the blight. What do I do about that, do you think, short of cutting down the trees my daddy planted all those years ago?
