Will the real Dalai Lama please stand up
By Hannah Naiditch 02/07/2008
Recently President Bush presented the Dalai Lama the Gold Medal, Congress’s highest and most prestigious civilian award. It was a glamorous ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, attended by the rich and famous. Senators Diane Feinstein, Robert Byrd, Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were among the hundreds of admirers.
Actor Richard Gere, his spokesman and one of his biggest fans, proclaimed “It’s that just by the proximity to him, you will get spiritually healed,” and he called him “the greatest living human.”
President Bush called him a “universal symbol of peace and tolerance, a shepherd of the faithful and a keeper of the flame for his people.”
The Dalai Lama also has his critics. Author Michael Parenti sees him as reflecting a distressing symbiosis between religion and violence. Historian Howard Zinn expresses disappointment in the Dalai Lama’s suggestion to wait a few years before judging the war in Iraq, when this preemptive and illegal war is such a clear-cut moral issue.
So what are we to make of the Dalai Lama? Who is this frail man, his hands folded as if in permanent prayer, with a smile that rarely leaves his face and a bow in deference to those who cross his path? He moves slowly and gracefully and he talks a lot about forgiveness and peace.
This apparently gentle man is the 14th of a long line of reborn Dalai Lamas who ruled over a brutal feudal theocracy where disobedience was not tolerated. Punishment ranged from loss of limbs to the gouging out of eyes and flogging people to death.
It was a country where most of the population were serfs and slaves, totally accountable to their masters. Some slaves tried to survive by begging. A few hundred privileged families shared power with the Dalai Lama and owned most of the land. The old Tibet was far removed from the freedom that Dalai Lama and his supporters are talking about. There were no schools, no healthcare, and the literacy rate was about 5 percent.
There are those who see the Dalai Lama as a man of contradictions and they see his admirers as gullible and misinformed. He has expressed his belief that modern science takes precedence over ancient religions, but he ruled over a medieval and brutal theocracy. He preaches peace but refuses to pass judgment on Iraq.
Is the Dalai Lama speaking out of both sides of his mouth, trying to play it safe and to offend nobody? It seems clear that this seemingly meek gentleman is a shrewd observer of human events. To many observers he remains an enigma.
Was Tibet ever this romantic, Hollywood-style Shangri La? Were the Tibetan people, with their colorful garments, bells, and horns, really content as they submitted to the rituals of prayer and as they clapped their hands to get rid of doubts and harmful emotions, hoping for greater awareness and enlightenment? Or did they not know any better as they spent their lives in this remote and isolated society? Did China destroy Shangri-La and a beautiful ancient culture or did they liberate and modernize a backward and brutal kingdom?
China invaded Tibet in 1959. The foreign-sponsored uprising was easily crushed and the Dalai Lama with his riches and thousands of followers fled to India, where he set up his government in exile. The “Free Tibet” movement and the west would like to return the Dalai Lama to his throne. The Dalai Lama himself claims that he is not seeking independence but “meaningful autonomy,” while China accuses the Dalai Lama of a hidden agenda.
China has significantly altered Tibet’s social structure. China has constructed roads and introduced light industry. They built hundreds of schools and life expectancy has dramatically improved. Michael Parenti among others points out that the Chinese abolished slavery, built hospitals, and eliminated mutilations, floggings and amputations.
They introduced land reform. Acres of land formerly owned by nobles and lamas were distributed to landless peasants. Not many Tibetans would choose to go back to slavery and grinding poverty. They don’t look at the Chinese occupation as Paradise Lost.
One of the Dalai Lama’s missions is to preserve and to keep the ancient Tibetan culture alive. But what is this cultural heritage that the Dalai Lama is trying to preserve? Does it include the teaching of the feudal system, and the need for slavery and absolute obedience? Does it teach the poor that their life of suffering is due to the evil acts they committed in previous lives and that they must accept their life of misery as atonement for past sins?
For the Tibetans the issue is whether you hold on to an ancient culture of social injustice or you support moving into the modern age. Many former serfs have sided with China.
Indications are that the powerful lamas and their ancient culture that this Dalai Lama wants to preserve may be a thing of the past unless foreign troops try to change the course of history.
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Oh please. This is propaganda of the worst sort. The Dalai Lama is as transparent as he can be about his intentions for the democracy and autonomy of tibet. His teachings over many years are plain as day. He gives speeches constantly recommending good things, and understands how complicated the world is. He makes no supernatural or worthy claims of / for himself. So we are supposed to disregard nearly everything he's said in 50 years and hold him accountable for what his predecessors have done. (Not that I see any advocation by any buddhist ever for enslavement). If you read the Tibetan Buddhist texts, then you can only conclude that it is peaceful. Make no mistake, the Chinese have a full force brigade attacking DL as often as possible.
Clearly if Tibet was as bad as stated, the Tibetan's would have welcomed chinese rule. Fortunately we have plenty of Western documents from Tibet well before the '50s and the picture of Tibet is not slavery by the ruling class.
I like how CK talks about "New Age" ideas such as happiness peace and forgiveness.
If readers care about this issue at all, you'll do real research and find this article and CK are smearing with an agenda. Besides CK has nearly everything he says as wrong.
Sounds like your sources are largely Chinese propaganda, which is not surprising given that "the victors write the history". If china was such a great occupier why is that native tibetans want independence even to the point of attempting non violent demonstrations to which they are put to death?
Also the Dalai Lama was 24 years old when he fled Tibet he had been in power for only 9 years at that point (since he was 15), it is hard to blame him for all the atrocities that had occured in Tibetan society up until that point or the overall structure of government there which was not his creation at that point.
Also at that point the world there were plenty of societies that were feudal and democratic societies were the execption not the norm so tibet it self being a feudal society at that point is not suprising especially considering how isolated and thus uneducated its common people were. On the other hand the Dalai Lama has often suggested that were he the leader of Tibet again he would introduce a democratic society and insist that the line of Lamas be only figure heads.
Basically your post seems like a combination of conjecture and hype with a little chinese propaganda mixed in.
The more I read this article, the worse it gets...
"It was a country where most of the population were serfs and slaves"
Absolute LIE. Yak Farmers Yes. Slaves? No not most.
"There are those who see the Dalai Lama as a man of contradictions"
Um, yeah and there are most of us who understand reason and can reasonably see consistency across his writings and speeches for 40 years.
"Is the Dalai Lama speaking out of both sides of his mouth, trying to play it safe and to offend nobody? It seems clear that this seemingly meek gentleman is a shrewd observer of human events. To many observers he remains an enigma."
What?? Sure people put too much faith that he might have spiritual healing powers. That's why he explains constantly, he's just a simple monk, he can't heal. He wants peace. that's all he ever says.
"Was Tibet ever this romantic, Hollywood-style Shangri La? Were the Tibetan people, with their colorful garments, bells, and horns, really content as they submitted to the rituals of prayer and as they clapped their hands to get rid of doubts and harmful emotions, hoping for greater awareness and enlightenment? Or did they not know any better as they spent their lives in this remote and isolated society?"
Nobody but writers of 1930's travel books said it was a Shangri-la. It's cold, dusty and harsh, and very religious and superstitious. Every peoples in every culture are trapped and doesn't know full awareness outside. All people are trapped in many ways. They participated in their culture they knew. God could this article get worse?
"Did China destroy Shangri-La and a beautiful ancient culture or did they liberate and modernize a backward and brutal kingdom?"
What China did was a land grab. They persecuted thousands or hundreds of thousands. Rape, torture, genocide. It's still happening! All the possible wealth of the region is going to the Chinese. The Tibetans flee the land, where they are persecuted to Nepal / India for safety and a chance at life. The country was stolen from them, by the chinese who thought Tibet was inferior and doesn't deserve the resources they weren't fully exploiting. It's very sad.
The Dalai Lama religion is of the old age type but he is shrewd enough to feed the Westerners with the new age stuff. Happiness, peace, forgiveness and so forth. He is no Gandhi.
Very suspicious of his motives. Using a religious cloak with mixture of Shambala teachings and new age fad to further his political agendas. People are so gullible to fall for it. Westerners are jumping from the boiling pots to the frying pans. Western tradition very much simple, just believe and you will be save or some sort of divine grace, no need to do anything on your part, cool pot until it is boiling. Eastern religion is the frying pan, compassion, reincarnations, karma , empty words and concept. Talk much about ego, the oil that really heat up the pan.