Hi Steve, thank you for the article. Yes, it is a good introduction to people who are not too familiar with the issue, and it is fairly neutral in tone. However, the situation is much more complicated, depending on where one wants to find an artificial point of origin.
Rest assured that TAR [Tibet Autonomy Region] is not autominous. Economical development is really pluddering of natural resources. Unless one counts the opening of a disco next to Potala [a moral equivalence of setting up the Mustang Ranch near the Vatican, if you get my drift.]
The article does hit on something though. While the West may see it in simple terms, it is not so historically and sociologically. Tibet of old was a theocracy border on feudalism. At the turn of the century, Tibet was a skirmish point for many nations, including Russia and Britain. Another point is that there are talks among the rank and files, especially younger Tibetan in exiles, to ignore the Dalai Lama's non violence approach. Probably it is in part spontaneous after decades of impasse, but one cannot rule out the Chinese authority may actually *encourage* these elements to undermine unity - and to justify its action.
One point implicit in the article is not correct though. A friend of mine, a tibetan foreign student holding a Chinese visa, actually didn't know the [written] Tibetan language. Obviously, speaking is possible. The problem is that the written language is very different. It is a religious language like Sanskrit and Hebrew - well, it was derived from Sanskrit. This person speaks better mardarin than I do though.
best, Bosco |
