04.03.08

Kibitzing Tibet: pulling rank on DL (??)

Posted in Tibet at 7:23 pm by nemo

SK comment: Dalai Lama:
Thanks for a politic reminder re: Dalai Lama. Remember I am a leftist breaking with the left over Tibet, not a DL groupie. I am not a politician, if I speak my mind and am wrong, so much the worse for me.
I want the facts even as I support Tibetan independence, not autonomy like the DL, independence. So who am I dealing with? And I note the record here: the Bolshevik extermination of the Buddhists in Mongolia. The Chinese are surely trying the same thing, but in disguise, with a better PR cover. Time is short, and the lama system very inefficient, and I fear muddled. An independence movement to establish a republic is one thing, a movement to restore a lamaist monarchy, problems….

My concern is most definitely NOT doing a Hitchens on the DL. He is a man with many dimensions. Rather, a sudden sense of the desperation of the moment for the Tibetans. The destruction of their culture is accelerating with the onset of the trans-Himalayan highway.
Anyone with any sense of Buddhism has to be alarmed at what’s about to happen, while everyone sits around discrussing the fine points of ancient sutras.
The question is, why can’t the Tibetan independence movement generate lift? Is the DL’s strategy right? Does he grasp the dynamics of a non-violence movement? Is it the right approach? I will have to leave those as questions, but I have a right to wonder who this complex man, the DL really is. Enough said, I think I have already figured through the answers to my own questions. I feel nervous: he is not even a vegetarian (as one leftist website gloatingly pointed out). Trouble. I can pull rank at once. No Gandhi here. Walking through his politics with a major firewall down. My point: the enemies of the Tibetans have them figured, no?
Maybe I have completely missed what is going on, so I will be wary on this. After all these are merely sideline ruminations, whispering in the dark. Maybe it will help. I have seen a number of gurus over the years! I don’t take lamas lying down. The Dalai Lama is exceptional among lamas, given the history of Tibet, however, a true messenger appearing with a message, but it seems that message was for Westerners almost. What of the Tibetans? If I take the DL at his word, I find his strategy strangely odd. I sense that noone really cares about the Tibetans, DL included. They have their rich followers in the west. It will be the death of western buddhism if this false non-violence piety leaves them with a Mongolian style Buddhist extermination on their hands.

Anyway, thanks for the prompt. (the other stuff on wealth I will reply to later).

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