Pre-Olympics political pressure got me out of Communism, let’s support the current activists pressuring China to respect human rights!

We were lucky to be amongst the thousands of Jews who were allowed to emigrate, part of a Soviet political ploy to look benevolent on the international stage. Fewer families got exit visas after the Olympics were over.

We arrived in Rome via Vienna just in time for Passover — the Jewish celebration of the escape from slavery in Egypt.  

The current protests around the Olympic Torch relays rekindle my belief in the power of activism. I don’t believe in violence. I am talking about peaceful activism. I hope that the current protests will be as successful as international pressure was on the former Soviet Union. I deeply appreciate the work of the protestors who are putting China’s government in the spotlight. The more pressure the Chinese government faces, the more likely it will be to stop its repression in Tibet and to negotiate with the government in the Sudan to stop the Darfur genocide.

Last week, I returned from a trip to China and witnessed similar repression on the freedom of the media and personal expression as was present in the days of the Iron Curtain. In addition to the Stalinistic fashion of huge gray buildings adorned with a red Communist flag, the wide boulevards, and the ever present smell of dust and diesel fuel, the Communist style barriers to freedom of expression were common. 

My blog was blocked. Sometimes I could not open my email. 

I could barely read or see any foreign media news reports about Tibet. The English language Chinese news didn’t report about why the Tibetans were protesting. The journalists just mentioned that there was unrest and that Chinese children in Tibet wanted to go back to school and were hoping for the demonstrations to end soon. Children love it when school is canceled. I relished snow days when I lived in Boston and school was canceled. Did the newscasters really believe that people were going to believe their reports? 

To make people feel excited about hosting the upcoming Olympics, there were posters, banners, TV commercials and Beijing 2008 souvenirs everywhere. The government was waving the Olympic flags and hiding its horrors.

It all reminded me of Soviet propaganda.

Was I back in the USSR or the PRC?

All of China can’t make an Exodus like my family did, but we can stand for their freedom.

The Chinese need to know that even if they silence their own population, the rest of us are neither deaf, blind nor mute. We care.