The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner recently hosted a dinner for the man who’s holding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner in prison. The Hollywood community and their human rights lobby were oddly silent on this event. Could it be because Hope and Change has been placed over all those “Free Tibet” bumper stickers in Hollywood?
Most notably missing on the current subject of China’s human rights record is Richard Gere, a man who has championed the Tibetan people for years and one who I believe to be sincere in his cause. In 2008, Mr. Gere took to Washington and said this about the Bush administration and Tibet:
But the Bush administration was not silent on the subject and did more than just show the public where Tibet could be found on a map. In 2007 Bush hosted a very public event for the Dalai Lama (also a Nobel Peace Prize winner) and awarded him one of the highest U.S. honors and called on China to open talks with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing reviles as a separatist.
In 2009 the current administration snubbed the Dalai Lama before Obama’s trip to Beijing, later holding a private meeting with the exiled leader in the Whitehouse Map Room away from the press and then sending his Holiness out the back door.
Hollywood activist like Richard Gere who only speak out on human rights when they’re able to position their cause through a prism of righteous indignation over a Republican administration and not governments in general, let more people die while they wait for their boogie man to return to the White House. What say you, Mr. Gere?