Absolut Tibet

Absolut, the Swedish vodka, has pulled the advertisement it had been running south of the border showing Mexico extending up through roughly what is now Oregon. "More than a dozen calls to boycott Absolut were posted on michellemalkin.com," the Washington Post reports. It quotes a statement on Absolut's consumer inquiry phone line as saying of the advertisement, "In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues."

Well, wouldn't it be fun to see what would happen were Absolut to roll out an advertisement on Tibet. This is because of an idea we first read from the pen of one of the great foreign correspondents of the current generation, Anne Applebaum, who wrote of looking through the ice at what lay beneath the Soviet Union. She used the phrase in her book "Between East and West" to describe the ability to see through the Soviet Union to the countries and the peoples who existed beneath the ice of communism.

This is what makes the issue of Tibet so powerful. We may think of Tibet as an isolated and tiny mountain kingdom occupied a generation ago by the Chinese communist regime. But what about the idea of Tibet that is kept in the mind of the Tibetans themselves – those in the Himalayas and those in exile? It turns out that the Tibet that lives in the minds of Tibetans is a vast land extending deep into what is claimed by the Chinese communist party.

When Absolut runs an ad showing Mexico extending into America, people tend to laugh at it precisely because it's illogical. This is because America is a place people are seeking not to escape but to get in to. But the idea of what one might as well call Absolut Tibet, even though the ad hasn't been made, is another matter altogether. Should the idea of the real Tibet, the one that lives in the mind's eye of the Tibetans, ever take hold, it would be a radically destabalizing idea for the Chinese communist regime.

China's communist party boss, Hu Jintao, understands all this. He may be bidding to play a role on the world stage and be looking forward to hosting the Olympics, but he got his job by effecting the suppression and oppression of Tibet. He knows better than anyone the dangers to his regime of the idea of Tibet. This is why, as the Olympic torch is carried toward the games in China, so many people are protesting. And why so many are raising a glass in the Tibetans' honor.