What's the deal with T***T?
How did the whole situation come to be?
How did T***T altercation begin?
I think "limited knowledge" is pretty accurate. Tibet has been a part of China on and off for centuries and, of course, the people from Tibet and the people from China are genetically very similar, suggesting that they separated as different societies only fairly recently (as in within the last 5 to 10 thousand years).
I'm also unsure what you mean by "illegal military action." Illegal under which law? International law is only binding if the country that breaks the law has agreed at some point to abide by those laws. For example the US currently is not going to be taken to court for breaching international law such as the banning of landmines and cluster bombs and recruiting children into the armed forces because, along with a handful of countries like Saudi Arabia and Syria, they've refused to agree to the laws.
Legal laws aren't intrinsic, they're an agreement not to behave in a particular way. You can only breach them if you've made that agreement (or in the case of state laws, if it's been made by your representatives - ie. politicians, or the people in power over you).
Modern international politics also usually doesn't deal with who was right or wrong in the past until those people are out of power, so even if China really were "in the wrong" with their actions of the 1940s, that's completely meaningless for today's political climate until there's a Chinese government in power that is strongly sympathetic to Tibetan nationalism. Deciding who to blame for the problem won't help things at all, or achieve any kind of peace.
I think it's really important to note that for the vast majority of Tibetans, whatever you think of their rights to freedom, their quality of life has improved dramatically over the last 50 years. Under the Buddhist theocracy the majority were basically bounded peasants - ie. agricultural slaves, and it was only well after the Chinese occupation that the Dalai Lama conceded that beating and killing these people was wrong.
There is, of course, the moral question about self determination, but I think that's very complicated because the majority of Tibetans received no education under the previous theocracy and could very easily be seen as being brainwashed, as indeed could many Chinese people. Given the lack of objectivity on both sides, I think there's a real question of whether either side are actually in a position to be able to make rational and reasoned decisions about their own welfare.
I'm also unsure what you mean by "illegal military action." Illegal under which law? International law is only binding if the country that breaks the law has agreed at some point to abide by those laws. For example the US currently is not going to be taken to court for breaching international law such as the banning of landmines and cluster bombs and recruiting children into the armed forces because, along with a handful of countries like Saudi Arabia and Syria, they've refused to agree to the laws.
Legal laws aren't intrinsic, they're an agreement not to behave in a particular way. You can only breach them if you've made that agreement (or in the case of state laws, if it's been made by your representatives - ie. politicians, or the people in power over you).
Modern international politics also usually doesn't deal with who was right or wrong in the past until those people are out of power, so even if China really were "in the wrong" with their actions of the 1940s, that's completely meaningless for today's political climate until there's a Chinese government in power that is strongly sympathetic to Tibetan nationalism. Deciding who to blame for the problem won't help things at all, or achieve any kind of peace.
I think it's really important to note that for the vast majority of Tibetans, whatever you think of their rights to freedom, their quality of life has improved dramatically over the last 50 years. Under the Buddhist theocracy the majority were basically bounded peasants - ie. agricultural slaves, and it was only well after the Chinese occupation that the Dalai Lama conceded that beating and killing these people was wrong.
There is, of course, the moral question about self determination, but I think that's very complicated because the majority of Tibetans received no education under the previous theocracy and could very easily be seen as being brainwashed, as indeed could many Chinese people. Given the lack of objectivity on both sides, I think there's a real question of whether either side are actually in a position to be able to make rational and reasoned decisions about their own welfare.
Do you have any references for this? I'd like to read more about the issue.Jeremy wrote:I think it's really important to note that for the vast majority of Tibetans, whatever you think of their rights to freedom, their quality of life has improved dramatically over the last 50 years. Under the Buddhist theocracy the majority were basically bounded peasants - ie. agricultural slaves, and it was only well after the Chinese occupation that the Dalai Lama conceded that beating and killing these people was wrong.
Off the top of my head you could try God Is Not Great; How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens, or studying 20th Century History at school, or you know, www.google.com. It's hardly an obscure fact.