i just attended a music and dance presentation by the monks of Gaden Shartse. They are Tibetan Buddhists, followers of the 14th Dalai Lama. Their monastery is in India, and they live in exile. There is an incredible video about Tibet, called Cry of the Snow Leopard, and it shows the destruction carried out by the Chinese (but let's not get carried away by human rights violations - it might endanger WTO and favored trade status for China - think of the money our corporations would lose if we imposed sanctions on China?). The program was great - the monks obviously enjoyed themselves. They talked about non violence, peace, negative feelings and behavior, impermanence of all living things - beautiful message. The monk who did most of the talking said we Americans spend about 10 years in our cars, maybe a couple years looking in a mirror at our appearance etc., so how much time do we spend in our lives paying attention to spiritual matters? Wow! Good point, especially for the culture of "Whoever dies with the most stuff wins."
On the other hand, Tibet was almost medieval in its organization prior to the Chinese invasion - the monastic system had a negative effect on the expansion of the economy - the country was very isolated - but despite this, I think the chinese invasion has been a disaster for Tibet, for its culture, for its people. Estimates are that 2 million Tibetans have died as a result of the occupation. If only Tibet had oil......then we would be demanding freedom and democracy.
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Many good points. Right now thousands of chinese are protesting Japan and marching on its embassy as well as stoning Japanese stores becuase they claim to be upset that Japan is softening its new history books that have been approved. Although I doubt that any of the atrocities commited by the Chinese in Tibet are in their history books. Corrupt America is also to blame for its political money policies, "Well Iraq doesnt have nukes but at least we freed its oppressed peoples from the evil Sadam (who we backed for years and paid no mind to until we had an excuse to invade them and exploit their country)." In the words of the W. "Were going to have a CRUSADE on terror."
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