By Lhadon Tethong
Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet

It's been more than 50 years since China invaded Tibet. And while the brutal nature of Chinese rule in Tibet has not changed, on the surface things look a lot better. To some tourists and visitors it may appear that Tibetans are prospering. In Lhasa, one might see young Tibetans with with cell phones and land rovers running around in the latest fashions. At the Jokhang Temple in heart of the city, Tibetans can be found saying their prayers and making religious offerings. Yet despite this appearance of normalcy, the system of oppression in Tibet is as strong as ever. What has changed over the past years is the level of sophistication and subtlety with which the Chinese authorities control the Tibetan population.

The Chinese know that they cannot openly oppress and persecute Tibetans like they have in the past. With Tibet open to tourists and under international scrutiny, the Chinese Communist Party is careful to keep up appearances. And so they allow Tibetans just enough movement and freedom while maintaining control with a brutal "zero tolerance" approach to anything deemed even remotely political. They bring Chinese settlers in, ship Tibetan resources out, and implement policies that make it very hard to be Tibetan and get ahead. The economic prosperity one sees in the urban centers lifts a tiny minority of Tibetans up while the overwhelming majority of rural Tibetans live in poverty.

It's not easy to explain this new face of the occupation to the general public. When I first began working for Students for a Free Tibet seven years ago I had a difficult time trying to convey both the gravity and complexity of the situation inside Tibet. At the same time, the Chinese government was getting more and more clever in their external propaganda efforts. Luckily for all of us, Windhorse was released just at the moment we needed it most. SFT staff toured the country with the film and helped students organize screenings in their communities. These screenings captured the interest of the young people and increased the number of students involved in each chapter. They also gave a much-needed boost to the level of activity on high school and college campuses across the U.S. To this day, Windhorse is one of the most popular Tibet films amongst students and activists. Whenever there is a Tibetan film festival or screening organized, Windhorse is always top of the list.

I think Windhorse has been so successful because it is a direct and honest account of life inside Tibet. Through the main characters we see the complicated reality of Tibetans living under Chinese occupation. Dorjee and his friends show us young Tibetan men, with little or no economic opportunity, spending their time in pool halls and clubs, smoking and drinking. They are angry and resentful of the Chinese who make them losers in their own lands, but they don't feel they have the power to change things. Dorjee's sister Dolkar is a popular singer with a Chinese boyfriend and more opportunity because she is willing to embrace the Chinese language and way of life. Her success comes at a cost when her talent is exploited and used to further Chinese propaganda about Tibet. Through Dolkar we see that young Tibetans often have to sacrifice their identity in order to fit in and get ahead. And in her boyfriend Duan Ping, we see the frailty and also the humanity of Chinese citizens living in this closed and repressive system. Dorjee & Dolkar's cousin, Pema, is a brave Tibetan nun who risks her life to engage in a brief protest in the center of the city. Pema's story is that of countless Buddhist nuns, monks and lay people who have peacefully protested the Chinese occupation through the years, and whose protests have been met with swift imprisonment, torture and death. In Dorjee and Dolkar's grandmother we find a patriotic Tibetan and devout Buddhist with strong feelings against the Chinese occupiers. And in their parents we see the struggle of Tibetans trying to provide for their children and their family while at the same time trying to protect them from harm and from themselves. Windhorse has also been embraced by audiences in part because it does not try to gloss over the fact that some Tibetans participate in China's system of oppression. In the film you see Tibetans as collaborators - both as a monk informer and a prison guard. There's no attempt to hide the truth and the ugliness of occupation and colonialism. This honest depiction makes the story more real and heartbreaking and therefore compelling to young people.

Windhorse has now made the rounds of college and high school campuses throughout the world. This stunning film has educated an entire generation of Tibet activists about the reality of China's occupation of Tibet. And sadly, the story is as true today as when the film was first conceived. Tibetans are still persecuted for their religious and political beliefs. They are still marginalized economically and politically and treated as third-class citizens in their own country. Chinese continue to spew propaganda saying that Tibet is part of China and that Tibetans love the "great motherland." Population transfer of Chinese into Tibet continues and looks set to increase drastically with the opening of the first railway from China into the heart of Tibet. What has changed though, is the level of awareness and active support for Tibet in the world. This has increased dramatically in the past 10 years. As the 2008 Olympic Games in China draw nearer the Chinese are feeling global pressure to resolve the Tibetan question and have even entered into a preliminary dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama. China is unable to close the book on the Tibetan story because Tibetans and their supporters have kept it jammed open. Films like Windhorse have helped to do this.