Shoes defend Human Rights!

Watch the video above. A protester threw a shoe at the Chinese PM at a lecture at Cambridge University, over China's Human Rights record and occupation of Tibet.

One poster on my Buddhism blog argues for saves Tibet....

Rightly there is a lot of people who are angry over China over their record, protests taking place during the Olympics, freedom of speech being notoriously restricted for native Chinese. For foreigners, it is increasingly difficult to go to visit China - it is not so straightforward, visas have to be applied for before travel.

The argument protesters will give is that giving these kind of people the space to speak freely, air their views justifies their actions and condones them.

The other is, of course is that without letting people like these speak out or treat them as individuals, equal to everyone else, we cannot see the error of our ways.

Personally I'd like to see a bit of both - I'd have seen the humor in the shoe hitting him in the face, but I also think diplomacy, discussion and debate will eventually help China turn the tide and establish a democracy one day. It will happen. Force tends to never really achieve anything - look at Iraq, Ireland, - the Second World War may have ended Fascism but it created the Cold War of Capitalism v Communism. Real change comes peacefully. We are no better than the people we criticize for their actions if we wish to restrict their views, rather than persuade them.