STEM CELL BATTLES

 STATE OF STEM CELL ADVOCACY

April 12—13

San Francisco

Featured Speakers:

Robert Klein     Michael J. Fox—By Video

You don't want to miss this event!  http://americansforcures.org

IN THE HEAT OF DEMOCRACY

 

At 8:15 in the morning, six hundred Tai Chi students, including 62 from Fremont’s Lake Elizabeth, and our athletic “lady of the lake” teacher, May Chen, loaded onto buses.

 

We were heading for San Francisco, to witness the passing of the Olympic torch.

 

There would be protestors, we knew.

 

But we hoped to share a little in the Olympic ideal, begun by the Greeks so many centuries ago.

 

Back then, in a time when almost every nation was engulfed in the flames of war, there was a break: an agreed-on time of peace. For a few brief days, humanity could put aside the enmity of endless war, and come together in the sheer joy of physical exertion, running, leaping, wrestling, lifting heavy things: the exhilarating play of sport.

 

And now, today, as we rolled across the San Francisco Bridge, and saw the splashes of color at the Embarcadero, (people with signs) I wondered if that same feeling of connectedness would prevail.

 

I was well aware (as who could not be, as the media reports it non-stop) that there were things wrong in China.

 

A friend, Alan, put it to me: “They take civil liberties a lot differently over there. If you actively supported stem cell research in China, and the official position was against it, they could put you in jail.”

 

He was probably right. The example did not quite fit, as China seriously supports embryonic stem cell research, but the civil liberties part was probably correct.

 

Of course, if you live in the state of Michigan right now, and you derive a stem cell line from Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT), you can go to jail for ten years and be fined ten million dollars. And Senator Sam Brownback wants to inflict a law like that on our entire nation, and President Bush supports him…

 

As to the rights and wrongs of the main issue the protestors were shouting about, I did not know both sides.

 

“Free Tibet!” the signs said.

 

Tibetan independence? All I could relate that to was the Irish wanting to break away from the United Kingdom, which rebellion brought many years of violence, and is still not completely settled today; or when the Confederacy wanted to leave the Union, and America fought its bloodiest war, and our nation, as Lincoln said, was “divided against itself”.

 

I doubt if any government in the history of the world has been immune from wrong-doing: all are guilty of something. In my own country, look how we treated Mexican-Americans, whose land we often stole, or Native-Americans, whom we killed, or African-Americans, whom we enslaved—or Chinese-Americans.

 

In all of American history, only one nationality has been officially targeted for discrimination.

 

Begun in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act essentially took away all legal rights and protections from Chinese-Americans.

“The Chinese Exclusion Act …specifically targeted Chinese laborers, blocking them from entering American ports… barred Chinese from testifying in court, and also required all Chinese to carry resident passports, with the harsh penalty of deportation enacted if they were found without them. The Chinese Exclusion Act… was not repealed until…1943.”—www.TeachingAmericanHistory.med.net

This was no short-lived mistake; it was official American policy for more than sixty years.

 

Our bus was passing knots and clusters of yelling people, waving signs, shouting.

 

The protestors were supposed to have their own section, where they could hold press conferences, gain access to global and local media—and let those of us who supported the Olympic ideal of international cooperation have our gathering in peace.

 

Naturally, that was not good enough. They wanted confrontation, which makes news.

 

The protestors tried to figure out the most likely route for the runner, and went there.

 

They came to us.

 

Picture a large city plaza.

 

Thousands of people lined the edges of the open square, many groups, waiting to perform in the center.

 

Tai chi groups like ours stretched and stiffened and stretched again; lion dancers worked to exhaustion; a huge screen made small on stage athletes and musicians become huge. A not-too-good band played for what seemed like centuries—the lead singer had an obvious white wig, and dark glasses. He reminded me of Herb Tarleck on the TV show WKRP on Cincinnati, and with the songs they were singing, I could understand him not wanting to be recognized.

 

And the protestors grew in numbers, passing through the crowds, holding their placards high.

 

As their numbers increased, so did their confidence, and soon they were screaming their message, passing across the performance area, at every break between Tai Chi groups, and every time there were more of them, and they were increasingly slower to leave.

 

Finally their numbers were so huge, they did not leave the square. They clearly intended to stay.

 

Right where the Olympic torch was supposed to pass.

 

Rumors flew: how somewhere else the runner had been knocked down, and the Olympic flame extinguished.

 

What to do?

 

We were told not to interact: not to feed the tension, not let it explode into open conflict.

 

Chinese hospitality and good manners warred with national pride.

 

 The lion dancers returned, weaving through the crowds, gradually clearing the space once more.

 

We were in the central square about five hours.

 

I saw no pushing, no shoving, no throwing of objects.

 

The protesters protested, of course, shouting and shouting and shouting, all day long. There was much verbal abuse of China, endless insults printed on signs, some of which made no sense at all.

 

For those who had come to express international friendship, the Olympic spirit, to watch the torch go by, and for the joy of playing Tai Chi—we did our best.

 

The Chinese way, it seemed, was for everyone to participate, and not to make too huge a fuss over any single group or individual. So a champion might be out there, moving in elegance like a mountain stream, or some old retired English teacher clunking along, having a good time—all were welcome.

 

At last it was time, for the Chen routine, my favorite style of Tai Chi Chuan. A bunch of us came out, from different schools. We lined up, spread our arms for spacing, and began.

 

This I liked.

 

And right in the middle of the routine, I felt a sudden wonderful energy connect us, a feeling of shared delight, like electricity through the ground. Everyone felt it, I could see and hear that, there was an “Oooo!” from the crowd.

 

Dang, I thought, we must be doing really good! But then the next step turned us around.

 

On the giant screen behind us was the Olympic torch, being lighted.

 

For an instant, even the protestors quieted.

 

As if they too were remembering a gentler dream, the possibilities of a world united.

 

The moment passed; the tai chi went on, the shouting resumed.

 

I understand people fighting for political change. It must be done. In the stem cell arena, I do it too.

 

But should we not leave some avenues open, a peaceful public way, for our separate peoples to reconnect?

 

The Olympic Games is one such place--perhaps the only one.

 

If we extinguish the torch of international cooperation, we do so at our peril.

 

 

 

P.S. What happened next? The runner with the torch went around, on a different route.

 

We put our weary sun-burnt selves onto the bus, and went home.