Out of the Lama's mouth:
***** NYT September 18, 2003 Dalai Lama Says Terror May Need a Violent Reply By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The Dalai Lama, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and one of the world's most prominent advocates of nonviolence, said in an interview yesterday that it might be necessary to fight terrorists with violence, and that it was "too early to say" whether the war in Iraq was a mistake.
"I feel only history will tell," he said. . . .
At a time when many political and religious leaders are saying that the American antiterrorism campaign and the war in Iraq are only fueling additional terrorism, the Dalai Lama refused to pass judgment. . . .
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/18/national/18LAMA.html> *****
Not a radical critique but a voice of a person who resigned from the position of director of the London-based Free Tibet Campaign:
***** NYT September 19, 2003 Dalai Lama Lite By PATRICK FRENCH
. . . [T]he risk of the Dalai Lama's ever growing celebrity is that it distorts what he really represents, namely an ancient cultural tradition that is not always appealing to the Western world. In short, the Dalai Lama - or a simplified version of him - has been appropriated by the American people over the last decade. A chain e-mail message recently circulated with his "millennium mantra," offering advice such as "Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon" and "Once a year, go someplace you've never been before." This e-mail message was in fact a hoax, but it nevertheless was widely circulated. During his United States tour in 2000, after being briefly mistaken for a Muslim by Larry King on CNN, the Dalai Lama had to endure being introduced to a crowd in Los Angeles by Sharon Stone. Barefoot and draped in a feather boa, she described him as "the hardest working man in spirituality" and as "Mr. Please, Please, Please Let Me Back Into China!" That he came from Tibet was momentarily lost.
The Dalai Lama has become whoever we want him to be, a cuddly projection of our hopes and dreams. This enthusiasm, though, has not translated into any tangible political benefit for Tibetans. He has been seen on advertisements for Apple computers and SalesForce.com software; significantly, he was not paid for either of these uses of his image. Some of the books that purport to be written by the Dalai Lama are scarcely by him at all, but have his face on the cover to increase sales.
In reality, Tibetan Buddhism is not a values-free system oriented around smiles and a warm heart. . . . For example, the Dalai Lama explicitly condemns homosexuality, as well as all oral and anal sex. His stand is close to that of Pope John Paul II, something his Western followers find embarrassing and prefer to ignore. His American publisher even asked him to remove the injunctions against homosexuality from his book, "Ethics for the New Millennium," for fear they would offend American readers, and the Dalai Lama acquiesced.
When he is speaking to his own people, the Dalai Lama is very different from the genial figure we see in the West. I remember a public talk he gave at his headquarters in Dharamsala in northern India in 1990, after conflict between Tibetans and Indians there. He spoke in Tibetan, and his delivery was stern and admonitory, like a forbidding, old-fashioned father reprimanding his children. The crowd listened respectfully, and went away chastened.
While the current love-in has been going on in America, the Tibetan government in exile back in Dharamsala has been brawling. The prime minister of the exiles, Samdhong Rinpoche, walked out of the Assembly last week when accusations (later withdrawn) were made regarding corruption in the New York-based Tibet Fund. In the 1980's, Dharamsala was a vibrant intellectual community. Today, it has been killed by kindness: much of the talent has migrated to Europe and America as a result of generous foreign sponsorship programs. The government in exile has to struggle on, aware that its influence is severely limited. . . .
Patrick French is author of "Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/19/opinion/19FREN.html> ***** -- Yoshie
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