This
film was made possible by Google Earth and made necessary by the Chinese
Communist Government. Most people of good conscious understand the occupying
Chinese powers have sharply curtailed Tibet’s political and religious freedoms.
However, the extent to which state-backed enterprises are currently despoiling
the Tibetan environment remains a largely under-reported story. Canadian
filmmaker Michael Buckley concisely and cogently exposes this systematic abuse
in the short documentary Plundering Tibet
(trailer
here),
a selection of the upcoming 2015 Socially Relevant Film Festival in New York.
Obviously,
it is difficult to gain access to Tibet, especially if you have a history of
speaking out against the Communist occupation (and if you don’t, perhaps you
should ask yourself why not?). Even for those already within the country, many
of the pertinent sites are forbiddingly remote. That had provided them a
measure of protection, but with advances in technology, Chinese consortiums are
now better able to access and extract remote mineral reserves. In many cases,
like the recently discovered lithium deposits, the rapidly escalating value of
Tibet’s natural resources now more than covers the cost and effort involved in
their appropriation.
Needless
to say, Tibetans receive no compensation from such plundering. That would be
bad enough, in a conventionally venal way. However, Tibetan Buddhism celebrates
the divine in the natural world and specifically recognizes many of these sites
as sacred holy places. This is not simply exploitation. It also constitutes
desecration.
Buckley
lucidly but forcefully establishes the full significance of China’s policies of
plunder, highlighting several especially egregious cases. Given his reliance on
Google Earth, the look and the feel of the film is sometimes comparatively less
cinematic than the standard issue-oriented documentary, but what choice did he
have? At least he is able to illustrate his indictment with visual evidence. As
a result, the film is quite convincing.
What
is happening in Tibet is crime. Even those who do not consider themselves
environmentalists should be alarmed by the state-sponsored defilement, out of
respect for Tibetan cultural and religious traditions. One of the clear
highlights of the Socially Relevant Film Festival (and one of the few selections
mercifully not trying to gin up false pity and outrage for the “Palestinians”),
Plundering Tibet screens this Tuesday
(3/17) at the Maysles Cinema.
