the transparency post needs qualifying

I hope I didn't give the impression that I am even somewhat okay with China's position on Tibet. I feel a very real kind of allegiance to the Tibetan cause, and if there is something I can do to help Tibet gain some measure of autonomy from Chinese occupation, I do it. I believe that this is a nation of people whose way of life merits a deep respect, even a veneration. My experience in Tibet really made it clear that if ever there was such a thing as real transparency, it is in the faces of Tibetans. From my trip-of-a-lifetime month in Tibet, there is no doubt in my mind that the average Tibetan is present and genuine in every motion of his or her day. They are a sunny, clear and equanimous people living in a sunny, clear yet volatile climate, and their way of life is an inspiration to many of us, even if we have never been to their homeland.

I am also aware that much of China was once occupied by the fierce Tibetans. As crazy as it seems today, most of the second half of the seventh century saw a strong Tibetan empire that included the Qinghai, Gansu, Xinjiang, and Hotan provinces of today's China.

Comme quoi, everything changes. It is not for no reason that things are happening as they are. But I will repeat, I am pro-Tibetan independence (of some form) and I think it's very important to continue exerting pressure on the Chinese government. I think there is hope that it will own its mistreatment of Tibetans, beginning with the human race. The antelope may disappear, and much as I wish it would not*, I can not hold out such a stretch of wishful thinking.

*When I was a kid, my friends and I each had a favourite animal, kind of a totem. I thought everyone did, or at least should, have a particular animal they felt a kinship with. (Go figure, mine is the turtle - with whom I have NOTHING in common!) When I asked my Mom what her animal was, she said the gazelle... which made me do some research... thanks for being so strange, Mom... During a long bus ride in Tibet, I actually caught sight of a graceful and beautiful antelope (of which the gazelle is one type - not sure if this was one), one member of an endangered species. I immediately thought of my Mom and asked a fellow traveler to take a photo, but it didn't turn out. I took a photo a month later of a taxidermal arctic gazelle in a museum in the Yukon Territory, and I gave that to my Mom instead.