Over the past few weeks, I have become conscious of two remarkable facts applying to complex political problems happening half a world away.
The first is how remarkably simple they are, really.
The second is how remarkably quick and easy it is to become an expert on them.
I have never set foot in Tibet, or spoken to a Tibetan, but I now have a clear understanding that this unfortunate region was a veritable paradise of peace and enlightenment where happy Tibetan farmers tended their yaks under the benign rule of the saintly Dalai Lama, until the Chinese came along and ruined it all. If only the clock could be turned back, all would be well.
There is some truth in the above. That truth is that I have indeed never set foot in Tibet, and I have never spoken to a Tibetan. As such, I am ill-equipped to come to conclusions about what is required to secure peace and stability there.
I am not ill-equipped to comment on the way the problem has been addressed by the world's media. On that subject, I have as much right to an opinion as anyone else.
The most cursory investigation of the history, culture, and social and political structures of Tibet, through sources equally available in China and elsewhere, reveals the above analysis to be facile and simplistic.
Unfortunately, it is not unrepresentative of the way that the issue has been presented in the West's media to the people of the West. But simplistic analysis leads to trivialised debate, and trivialised debate legitimizes the contribution of a boorish oaf like CNN's Jack Cafferty, who described the Chinese as 'goons and thugs' and characterised their whole commercial output as 'trash covered in poison paint'.
