Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion

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I watched the film Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion. In my opinion, this is an excellent documentary, full of vivid images, well-blended historical and modern footage and very good production planning. Although, the film pays ample tribute to Tibet's status as a Buddhist spiritual capital. However, the documentary also deals in brute, practical politics, examining Tibet's strategic position as a buffer between two of the world's most populous states- China and India- and its importance to the Chinese as a power base in the Himalayas. Early on I was struck by the similarity between the Tibetans, the Native Americans and the Guatemalan Indians (all of who share some basic moral precepts), but was distracted when I realized the compelling portrait that the documentary painted of Tibet as a nation committed to the concept of spiritual education. One analogy offered up by one of those interviewed I found especially compelling: Tibet was spending 85% of its budget on spiritual development, with 10% of its population in monasteries (this being the equivalent of America redirecting its entire defense budget toward education.) The documentary will clearly anger the Chinese, for it carefully itemizes the many ways in which Tibet is uniquely Tibetan, including in its language, greatly distant from Chinese. The documentary carefully covered the death of 30 million Chinese and half the Tibetan population that resulted from Mao Tse Tung's order that Tibet grow wheat instead of barley. A section of the documentary focuses on CIA training of the Tibetan resistance. The conclusion of the Tibetans themselves that CIA was not serious, only providing enough support to enable harassment but not victory, and then the blow, or Henry Kissinger selling Tibet out for the sake of engagement. Another very powerful section points out that the US, with its 89 billion dollar a year

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