The New York Times reports on an exhibit in Beijing which gives the official history of Tibet:
With Tibet closed to foreign journalists and much of the region suddenly, and mysteriously, troubled by patchy phone and Internet service, the only way to get a glimpse of contemporary Tibet these days is by visiting the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, a socialist-style confection whose current exhibition, “50th Anniversary of Democratic Reforms in Tibet,” is getting rave reviews from the soldiers, schoolchildren and government officials who are bused in day after day.
With its display cases of gruesome torture devices, grainy film scenes of mutilated faces and the “liberation” shots of beaming Tibetans, the exhibit is a propagandist tour de force that reinforces the Communist Party’s unbending version of history during what is referred to here as a “sensitive time.”
In addition to marking the five decades since Tibet was “unshackled from despotic theocratic rule,” Saturday is the first anniversary of the riots in Lhasa that left 19 people dead and prompted a heavy-handed government response, one that has intensified in recent weeks in areas with large Tibetan populations.
