Free Tibet or find Madeline?

I'd like to express some thoughts going round my head about what i can only see as an apathy in our society.

The issue of Tibetan suppression over the last 5 decades has hardly raised an eyebrow around the world beyond those few who genuinely follow the campaign and have found out for themselves the terrible issues that Tibetan people face and have faced daily for the last 49 years.
However, i don't blame the general public for not going and 'actively looking for problems with the world' -not many people would want to find problems. Fair enough, but that's not to say people don't react to problems, they do - just look at the Madeline Mccann issue. So why has an issue where 1000s of people are being tortured to death not received anywhere near the public hype that of one girl going missing?
-I think the answer is that people are not actually apathetic in their reaction to events, just ignorant, and through no fault for their own. The apathy lies with those that choose what to place on the public stage -be it the world media or governments.

I don't really know where I'm going with this - first I was going to write about how sad it is that it takes violence to finally bring the Tibetan issue into the public eye - how a race, one of the most peaceful on earth, has had to resort to violence (against the wishes of the Dalai Lama) as the only way to possibly bring about change to a regime under which they are forced to live their extremely suppressed lives.

The fact that this violence has finally made the world prick their ears up a little to what is going on is, i think, what I'm struggling to get my head round. Why was there no media attention before? Human beings were being tortured every day, still are...by a country holding the Olympics this year(!!!). Only now, when those being tortured finally go against their beliefs in order to fight back, do we hear about it.

I find it very hard to comprehend how a cause such as that of Madeline Mccann can not only create such mass hype but also mass support, when the torture and murder of innocent, peaceful human beings on a daily basis by a brutal dictatorship that rules by the greatest use of propaganda ever experienced (to the point where it is hard to distinguish it from the original 'Big Brother') only hits our screens when the oppressed fight back (after 49 years of trying to maintain their peaceful beliefs).
I find the balance between the two absolutely astonishing and, to be quite honest, disgraceful. Of course, I'm not suggesting for one second that I'm pro the kidnapping of young children. It is great that we can use 'people power' to make things happen, but we need some perspective.

Grrr, I'm really struggling to put across what i'm trying to say. Perhaps it's best just to copy and paste the email i sent that made me come and write here in the first place:

it's a shame that the only way to make things happen seems to be by the use of violence but it appears to be working.
at the end of the day, if short term violence and deaths brings to an end years of daily torture it may be worth it but it's just a shame that people don't pay attention to things that go on unless there is conflict. i think it's an absolute disgrace that the madeline mccann thing managed to gather the attention that it did. if half of that attention were focussed on the tibetan issue or similar ones then so much more could come of it!

I'm only going to heaven if it tastes like caramel.