Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-12-Speech-4-197"
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"en.20090312.28.4-197"2
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"Mr President, Tibetans, like all nations, have the aspiration to live under their own laws and their own people, and, in denying their national aspirations, the Chinese Government uses a series of arguments about abolishing feudalism and overcoming serfdom and superstition.
Ultimately, it is all a version of what Engels called ‘false consciousness’: they believe that the Tibetans do not really understand the issue and, therefore, should not be allowed full democracy.
I would just appeal to Members of this House to consider the irony of the similarity between that argument and the one that was trotted out in the aftermath of the French, Dutch and Irish ‘no’ votes. In this Chamber again, we kept on hearing that people had not properly understood the question, that they had really been voting on something else – against Mr Chirac, or against Turkish accession, or against Anglo-Saxon liberalism – and that they had not understood the issue and that they needed better information.
I believe that people, whether in Tibet or in the nations of the European Union, do have an understanding of their wishes and desires, and they should be allowed to express that through the ballot box. I know I am getting as tedious as Cato the Elder, but he was eventually listened to, and I will repeat, as I have in every speech, that we should have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
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