I guess Star will excitedly jump at the occasion to post about Tibet.

Free Tibet, anyway.

Today, it has been 60 years since the Tibetans were coerced to sign the 17 point agreement with PRC. 

http://www.tibet.net/en/index.php?id=2355.&articletype=flash&rmenuid=morenews&amps&tab=1#TabbedPanels1

China's Wild West

By MARTINE BULARD

My journey to China’s westernmost province began this May in the backroom of an ordinary brasserie in one of Paris’s eastern suburbs. The Uyghur man I had come to see was accompanied by a plainclothes policeman, but even so, his hands trembled and there was a look of fear in his eyes: had I really come to interview him or was I in the pay of the Chinese political police? He was a member of the dissident World Uyghur Congress (1) and had just been granted political asylum in France. His was a run-of-the-mill story: he had protested about an injustice at his workplace in Xinjiang, which led to him being arrested and imprisoned. After that he had fled. That was all he would say. His fear of being tracked to a Paris suburb may seem excessive but it’s indicative of the moral and physical pressure facing the Uyghurs, China’s Turkic-speaking Muslims. (from: http://www.counterpunch.org/bulard08252009.html , originally published in Le Monde Diplomatique)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_people#Uyghur_nationalism

We had very close, well-educated Chinese friends [ex Shanghai] when living in Oz. We broached the subject of Tibet more than 20 years ago with them. It was the only time we came close to a falling-out when they were adamant that Tibet was always, and still is, a Chinese Province, not an independent sovereign state. Nothing we could say would change their minds. Sad.

Very interesting experience but perhaps not surprising for two reasons.

Noam Chomsky says that higher institutes of education are very much indoctrinational  centres and that graduates are often the least informed and most biased of the population.  I have found this in my 12 year university career (studies) as well as in the professional world.  I have great conversations with taxi drivers and less interesting ones with multi-degreed colleagues.  Though many university friend and work colleagues understand the system.

Not to overromanticise the working class but when you're down and you're doing all you're told do without success you can quickly figure the system is fixed and the American dream is just that - a dream.

The educated tend to believe their success is all due to their hard work and they deserve what they have.  And the dream will live on forever. Then they have the shock of their lives when the financial crisis hits, they don't understand how (it's just one of those cyclical things and like Adam Smith's hidden hand a natural phenomenom), recessions/depressions/stagflations occur and they lose their job.

The other possible explanation is that the view is an emotional one and not a rational one and they fail to see this distinction.  I've quoted Jonathan Swift recently a few times and will do so again: 

Best regards,

Mark

I used to live with a Chinese doctor in a shared accommodation when I was in England. When we talked about Tibet, he told me that Chinese went there to help the tibetan people and that the Dalaï Lama was really bad, as example he told me that the Dalaï Lama ate his own excrement. No need to say that I did not manage to make him hear something different.

With regards to tibetans still living in China - the last documentary I saw reported many women having resorted to prostitution out of despair and tibetans being treated like second-class citizens by Chinese living there. I must say there is seldom a documentary nowadays on what's really going on in China; China seems really good at not letting the information that could damage its reputation leaks. I have heard of reports saying that the Chinese government does organ traffic with its own citizens - when for example they want to get rid of some dissidents or Falun Gong practitioners.... I know I probably divert a bit out of the main 'Tibet' subject but it seems to me that other countries are not putting as much pressure on China because of all the economical interests there is there for them.

... and thanks to amazing India, a country that although very much populated already, accepted many refugees from Tibet, and gave them some places to settle down and also let them build monasteries... 

If anyone is interested in sponsoring tibetan monks or old tibetan refugees in India, please get in touch.