West v Eastern view of Tibet

When China's President Xi Jinping was warmly welcomed with celebrations in Tibet last week, many in the Western world, of which we are an extension, were surprised.

- Eric Mthobeli Naki

I was not surprised because I was there recently.

The story of Tibet, or Xizang as it is known today, is complex as there are essentially two sides to it – the Chinese side and the Western side, which clash.

One journalist was told before jetting off on a sponsored trip to China that Tibet is devastated, its people are suffering, they starve, their culture and language are being suppressed and are on the brink of extinction under the Communist Party of China (CPC) rule.

The person went on to tell me how China's revolutionary leader Mao Zedong was brutal to opponents. But she was unaware that Tibet was invaded by Britain and left in ruins with massacres of the Tibetan people. People were forced into labour camps and their land taken over.

But the Tibetans, along with the previous Dalai Lamas, fought fiercely using bows and arrows and other ancient weapons in defence of their ancestral land against imperialist invasions, although they were ultimately overrun and massacred by the rifle-toting Britons.