[noodle]

Ronin, just a quick question. If Tibetans don't have a "free voice" as you put, then how were they were able to bypass the one child policy, and how are they able to have Tibetan as an official language for their provence (amoung other privileges which prove that they are more autonomous than the west and Tibetans abroad would like to admit)?

It's true that there is always room for improvement (this applies to every single nation, state or other, in the world! There is no democracy in the world where people TRUELY have the voice. This might sound ridiculous to someone so idiological as yourself, but it's my opinion, and I'm sure many others would agree), but you should think about what you're saying a bit. You belittle separatists in Georgia, but assume that the separatists (which are a minority) in Tibet are saints or are doing the right thing. Last years riots were not caused by the majority. In fact, many people that visit Tibet are suprised to find that many Tibetans are happy with their lives and are very content with the Chinese government. There was even a documentary a while ago which was made for BBC (I think) that was not aired because the makers of the documentary had the oposite opinion of that of the political agenda of the west (i.e. they weren't bashing the Chinese government non stop).

I'll try to find this documentary on Youtube (if it's still there). Most of the Tibetans interviewed were extremely happy because life for them was not like prior to 1950's. i.e. 95% of the people were not slaves. Since China took back Tibet (which was illegaly claimed as a country by the British for a couple of decades), it gave the majority of people the ability to own their land and keep what they sow! Other things mentioned by the Tibetans was how they liked the fact that they had education, food, money, freedom of religion. There were however complaints, such as, sometimes they felt threatend by the Chinese army, that too many Han Chinese owned the shops, but funnily enough, hardly anyone mentioned the Dalai Lama. It only came up when questioned about it... Anyway, enough of the descriptions, I'll find the documentary and you can see for yourself.

Btw, before you dismiss this documentary, you should also know that it isn't the only one of it's kind. Many foreigners that travel abroad like to keep video diaries. This also fit the same message of the documentary!