re: #400 Old Liberal

I guess we would have to ask him to elaborate. I don’t think it implies that. If he said “Tibet is for Tibetans” and “Tibetans should go back to Tibet”, would we think he was a Tibetan supremacist? I think most of the refugees were driven out, and had no desire to leave. I think to say that they should go back is recognizing that they have a right of return. In Western Sahara, for example, there are tens of thousands of refugees living in desert camps with nowhere to return to. Teenagers today have lived their entire lives in these camps supported by the UN. They would like to go home, Morocco begs to differ. I think the best long term resolution is for refugees to return safely to their homes as soon as possible. If some want to stay, I support that. The more time that passes, the less chance there is of ever returning even if they want to, as their property and places have been taken and their children raised in a different culture.

Remember, in addition to the Dalai Lama being a refugee from current-day Tibet, the Tibetans are fairly recent refugees up on that plateau from their former territorial range. It’s just remarkably tone-deaf, especially considering the European audience.