Free Tibet

During daring daughters trip to India they spent some time in Mcleod Ganj, which is where she got me the T-Shirt. Mcleod Ganj is the home of the Tibetan government in exile. It is a suburb of Dharamshala, about 250 miles North of New Delhi and about 100 miles Northeast of Lahore, Pakistan, which is near the border crossing.

I used to see Free Tibet bumper stickers around fairly often. Haven't seen one lately. I wonder why. Anyway, I just realized that it's been 60 years since China invaded Tibet, which kind of made me think that there is never going to be a free Tibet. But the USSR took over a bunch of countries in Eastern Europe after WWII, and just recently relinquished their control. So maybe Tibet will be free again someday soon.

Thinking about Tibet makes me wonder why the Chinese wanted it anyway. Nobody lives there, it's three miles in the air and the economy is non-existent. Maybe they just wanted more space for their enormous population, but I would think they have plenty of miserable territory of their own, why would you want someone else's? I think I just figured it out. Northwestern China is a vast desert, and deserts are notorious short of water. Tibet is next to the Himalayas, which get a lot of snow. Snow eventually slides down the mountain, and melts, so perhaps China went after Tibet for the water. Or maybe they did it just because they are big bully boys and they didn't like the old Dali Llama preaching all that peace and tolerance nonsense right next door to their perfect world.


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