The Important Thing Is...

When disaster strikes, you want as much help as you can get and as much help as others are willing to give you. That is unless you are a government who is more worried about staying power than saving people.

Earlier this month, an earthquake hit Tibet, in a remote corner of western Qinghai province in China. The epicenter of the quake was in Yushu county, and since then thousands of Tibetan Buddhist monks have flooded into the county to provide relief aid to the affected citizens.

Of course this being Tibet and these being Tibetan monks, the Chinese government is very uncomfortable letting monks do good deeds and getting good press for their action. So Chinese authorities has now ordered monasteries to recall their monks back from the affected area.

Never mind that there are more than 12,000 people injured and over 9,000 of them are still in hospitals. Never mind that this is Tibet where the people trust monks much more than the Chinese government (that might be the main problem). Never mind that the monks had helped with rescue work, donated money and materials, organized prayer sessions, conducted memorials for the dead, all for free by the way; the most important thing for China's communist leadership is that they stay in power.

And the Chinese people wonder why Tibetans prefer the Dalai Lama to the Beijing government.