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julian_w
Joined: 08 Sep 2003
Location: Somewhere beyond Middle Peak Hotel, north of Middle Earth, and well away from the Middle of the Road
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 Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:04 pm Post subject: Happy Birthday to the Dalai Lama |
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Just got an email from Canadian Bruce, whom I met in Bucheon a couple of years ago.
These days, he's hanging out in India with the Dalai Lama and the crowd there. He says it's the big DL's birthday today; and there's a heap of Koreans in Dharamsala ready to join in the party too. That's cool.
There's a recently released beautiful and interesting sounding new movie to check out.
And for the Chinese, all this and a simple question, too: where is the Panchen Lama? |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Happy birthday, Dalai Lama! For this wondrous occasion, here's $1.7 million from the CIA to help train you guys to fight the Chinese off so you can reestablish a brutal stranglehold over your land. |
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swetepete
Joined: 01 Nov 2006
Location: a limp little burg
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| Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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| I didn't know the Dalai Llama was a strangler. Could you elaborate? |
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BuHaoChi
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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.....
Last edited by BuHaoChi on Mon Oct 29, 2007 5:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:22 am Post subject: |
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| swetepete wrote: |
| I didn't know the Dalai Llama was a strangler. Could you elaborate? |
I didn't say strangler. I just meant he wants to revert Tibet to the way it used to be, basically a feudal system ruled by a religious leader who doles out the corporal and capital punishment generously. |
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Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:34 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Happy birthday, Dalai Lama! For this wondrous occasion, here's $1.7 million from the CIA to help train you guys to fight the Chinese off so you can reestablish a brutal stranglehold over your land. |
| Quote: |
| Could you elaborate? |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzin_Gyatso%2C_14th_Dalai_Lama#Criticism
| Quote: |
In October 1998, The Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the U.S. Government through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and also trained a resistance movement in Colorado (USA). When asked by CIA officer John Kenneth Knaus in 1995 whether the organization did a good or bad thing in providing its support, the Dalai Lama replied that though it helped the morale of those resisting the Chinese, "thousands of lives were lost in the resistance" and further, that "the U.S. Government had involved itself in his country's affairs not to help Tibet but only as a Cold War tactic to challenge the Chinese."
British journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote a scathing attack on the Dalai Lama in 1998, which questioned his alleged support for India's nuclear weapons testing, his statements about sexual misconduct, his suppression of Shugden worship, as well as his meeting Shoko Asahara, whose cult released sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system. Brian Given published a detailed reply to these criticisms in World Tibet Network News.
There has also been criticism that feudal Tibet was not as benevolent as the Dalai Lama had portrayed. Critics have suggested that in addition to serfdom there were conditions that effectively constituted slavery. Also the penal code included forms of corporal punishment, in addition to capital punishment. In response, the Dalai Lama has since condemned some of ancient Tibet's feudal practices and has added that he was willing to institute reforms before the Chinese invaded. However, historian Michael Parenti believes there was a connection between Dalai Lama's 1959 fleeing Tibet and the then PRC Central Government's decision to gradually phase out serfdom in Tibet. |
Here is a scathing article regarding the "Tibet myth."
http://www.swans.com/library/art9/mparen01.html
Here's an equally-scathing rebuttal:
http://studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=425
And here are some rebuttals in Letters to the Editor.
http://www.swans.com/library/art9/letter26.html
I'd like to point out a few things:
- The feudal system was already in place before the Dalai Lama was chosen.
- He was only 15 years old when he became the head of state. Do you really expect for him to have single-handedly dismantled the system at that young age? Also, he was only 24 when he was forced to flee to India. Some people seem to expect a lot from a man so young.
- Tibetans hated the old system, but don't blame him for it, and in fact continue to revere him, carrying photos of him with them.
- No matter how bad the system was, there was no justification for the invasion by China. It was a land grab, pure and simple, with nothing at all to do with "liberation."
- One-sixth of the Tibetan population was killed during the Chinese invasion and occupation.
- The Dalai Lama has admitted to being an owner of slaves.
- He has described the previous feudal system as "very very bad."
- The Dalai Lama has reluctantly given up his dream of an independant Tibet (though some other Tibetans have not), instead hoping for greater autonomy within China. In any case, he does not have any desire for a return to the old feudal system.
Edit:
- If someone invaded and occupied your country, wouldn't you try to liberate it?
- If Tibet had been successfully liberated by its freedom fighters, there's a low chance that the societal structure would have reverted back to exactly what it was before. When Korea was liberated in 1945, did it automatically go back to the feudal system that existed before the Japanese Occupation?
Last edited by Troll_Bait on Fri Jul 06, 2007 1:38 am; edited 3 times in total |
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swetepete
Joined: 01 Nov 2006
Location: a limp little burg
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| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:50 am Post subject: |
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Interesting stuff. Thanks.
In any case, I know the Canadian Bruce mentioned in the OP, and have heard a lot of his stories about the refugees in India. Pretty nasty situation by the sounds of it...not Darfur by any means, but still, very much a rock-and-hard-place situation for the emigrants. |
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josesiem
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Location: Bundang, Korea
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| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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| It still surprises me how some people will cut down anyone. Hitchens is one of the most negative, unhappy guys I've seen. He simmers in his own hate and misery. But that's karma for you. |
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