by Pauline Bleach

Created on: June 03, 2008

The last of an occupied generation, Why China will never conquer Tibet.

"We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English. - Winston Churchill"

Time passes and generations forget. My Grandmother was one of the last of our country, Ireland, to live in occupation. She got to see freedom and the new pains it brought. But none was as great as the old pain. My father born in 1925, her eldest son was a son of the Irish Free State. No more British Soldiers or worse Black and Tans for him.

Her stories she bequeath to me.

It is laughable to an Irish person to witness countless Chinese claims that Tibet was ever part of China.

Invaded, like Ireland had been many times before, Tibetan culture like ours merely adapted and grew until as Yeats once said the conquerors became conquered'.

We know. We spent 800 years under occupation.

We hid our roots deep but never surrendered them even in famine.

The English, like China and Tibet, was a sister race with much interaction some good, some bad.

But we were never British. We couldn't be.

Even today, among ourselves, we fight valiantly for the thousands of years of our culture at Tara.

I don't know why or what this deep rooted identity is that cannot be dislodged. I just know it can't.

You could get me to say a million times that I hate Tara; I hate my culture' but deep in a place that no one can reach, I know who I am.

I know my culture is worth defending.

Chinese, like English to us, are very different to Tibetans.

They have such different cultures that it is understandable why the Chinese cannot understand that the Tibetans aren't grateful.

For a Chinese person, feudalism was slavery.

For Tibetans, while not perfect, it is now seen as the golden age.

It was a time of much fun. The Tibetans had more public and religious holidays than any other country.

A time of large happy families, the Tibetans did not have the problem with space that China had.

A time of perhaps not plenty but there was no famine or much hunger, the Buddhist nature meant that acts of generosity were encouraged unlike in the Feudal China where wealth meant ignoring the poor.

Tibet was and is a resource rich area. Anyone who claims they cannot survive on their own is delusional. Its resources are one reason why China would find it hard to leave.

I am not saying that the nature of the Tibetans is different to anyone but the society was. It would not have done to be seen to be ungenerous.

There is a story of a sweeper for the monastery being asked to denounce the

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