It wouldn’t have happened in Beijing or any other Chinese city. Pro-Tibet demonstrators chanting, “Shame on China,” would have met batons, bullets, jail, and the subsequent torture that comes with incarceration there. The Chinese government bussed in thousands of pro-Chinese supporters who waved the red Chinese flag proudly, wanting to celebrate, not demonstrate. Democracy is alive and well here in San Francisco, where everyone has his or her say. All were disappointed the torch didn’t come down the Embarcadero, but thank God it didn’t. It would have been a bloody mess. But, I also have to ask, what did the demonstrators accomplish?
   

I had a TV job and wandered around the Embarcadero with a cameraman, talking to both sides. Jigdol Ngawang, like many Tibetans I met, was humble, yet angry: his country was annexed in 1950 in a vicious land grab by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) Army (which outnumbered Tibetan forces 9:1); there is a six-decade body count of his countrymen in the hundreds of thousands; dissenters are thrown into prison, tortured and placed under house arrest; and ethnic Chinese who move to Tibet are given more rights than his people.

A lot of heat, but little light at the no-Torch run demonstration

His country is called the TAR (the Tibet Autonomous Region) by the PRC, but autonomy is a stranger in a police state.
   

“Go China,” cried Mary Lin and Bobo Zhang, proudly waving the five-star red PRC flag. “What if Hawaii wanted to leave the United States, what would you think?” asked Zhang, a San Francisco bartender. “Tibet has always been China, “ she added. Not really, Ms. Zhang. Tibetans speak a different language, have a different religion, and celebrate a different culture than most Chinese “citizens.” They’ve been fiercely independent for centuries, standing up to Chinese dynastic rulers, warlords and British colonialists.
   

No wonder the 2008 Olympic torch run is such a mess. The father of modern image making, Joseph Goebbels, convinced Adolph Hitler to host the Olympics in 1936 to celebrate Aryan supremacy. Then the Fuhrer’s Olympic boss, Carl Diem, came up with the running of the torch from Greece to Germany, allegedly to celebrate the “ancient aura” of the games. But, what happened in ‘36 was an ode to the master race, with the torch itself branded with the logo of Krupp, the arms manufacturer and wonderful people who gave us the Panzer tank. No one will confuse the Krupps with the  Sound of Music’s von Trapp family. The torch run has tainted roots, and China does not like it when the Fourth Estate brings up this fact.
   

Back on the Embarcadero, it became obvious the torch wasn’t coming. The cameraman and I were at Bryant Street surrounded by the demonstrators, supporters, the SFPD, and the CHP. Well after 1 p.m. when the torch was expected, the cops were doing no crowd control. The Muni median was jammed with people, and the police just sat on their motorcycles. My source with corporate security sent me text messages, and KCBS news radio told me the torch was headed to the Marina. There were shouting matches, and pushing and shoving among the pro-Tibet and pro-China folks, but no arrests.
     
Wu He Lo and his crew waved huge Chinese flags, and verbally mixed it up with the pro-Tibet demonstrators. The Tibetan demonstrators actually from Tibet were proud and sad, and did little else than chant, “Shame on you, China.” The pierced, tatted-up Gen-Y-ner, pro-Tibet protesters were looking for some action, and were taunting and yelling at the pro-China supporters. It made for good TV, but I had to wonder if the non-Tibetan (Caucasian) demonstrators were just looking to stir things up.
   
I tried to tell Mr. Lo and his pals that the torch wasn’t coming, and got a very I’ve-been-living-in-a-police-state response. “Who told you that, the mayor? I don’t believe you.” I told him I heard it on the radio. “I don’t trust the press, they say bad things about China.” (The parallels between the PRC and the imperial Bush Administration are staggering. When they can spin the news media to do stories their way – like positive Olympic stories or pre-Iraq invasion Saddam-has-nukes stories, the news media are great. But when the reporters write something they don’t like, then it becomes negative, biased reporting, and the news media gets demonized.) “It’s not coming, Mr. Lo.” He then paused, and said, “It’s shame when extremists hijack the running of the torch for political purposes.”    

Across the street, one of the Gen-Y-ners who taunted people like Mr. Lo was happy. He would only give his name as Chris and didn’t want to answer my questions. Like most zealots, he wanted only to lecture me. He finally said it was sad the City had become fearful, but considered altering the torch’s course a victory.
   

As I walked down the Embarcadero, I saw no winners. Mayor Newsom made the right call; the situation would have devolved into one much worse than Paris and London. But, what did the demonstrators accomplish?  Tibet is a still a police state and Tibetans are still being killed, jailed and tortured. PRC President Hu Jintao most likely didn’t watch my broadcast or any other, and will make no concessions on Tibet. I’m so glad Chris thinks what happened in San Francisco was a victory, because I don’t. Sure, in America we have the right to protest, and protest we did here on the day of the torch running. But, nothing has changed in Tibet and China, with President Hu considering the conflict an “internal Chinese matter.” Chris and other protesters felt happy, while Tibetans still live a miserable life in China’s police state. Sleep well,  Chris. Nice victory.

Matt McFetridge is a two-time Emmy Award-winning television producer who has covered 20 wars in 20 countries over 20 years. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it