Malcolm, there's no doubt that it was nasty colonizing of Tibet. The idea that one has to go somewhere to have an opinion, or be it to have an opinion, always seems strange to me.
I'm sure you have opinions about places you've never been and people you've never met. Nowadays, we have information media - text, voice, pictures and personal contacts to enable opinions on all sorts of things outside one's own direct experience.
I've never jumped off a cliff, but I'm fairly sure the similar things I have experienced are similar enough that I don't need personal experience. Our daughters have never been raped, but I don't think they need to experience it to know that it wouldn't be a lot of fun.
I haven't been to Tibet, or Rwanda, or East Timor, or Baghdad, or seen the inside of a USSR salt mine or gulag, nor passed the time of day as a Jew in a concentration camp or a Maori in a pa on a cold winter's day in the 16th century. But the information I have and my ability to imagine and empathize gives me fairly reliable ideas.
I haven't experienced TeoTwawki either, but I have a fair idea that it wouldn't be a lot of fun financially.
Mqurice |
