Posted on 07/05/2010 3:57:59 PM PDT by Colofornian
In the popular imagination, Tibet is a land of snow-capped mountains and sweeping vistas, fluttering prayer flags, crystal blue skies, saffron-robed monks spinning prayer wheels... SNIP
Tibet's enduring hold on Western minds -- together with the energetic, globe-trotting advocacy of the Dalai Lama -- helps explain why the concerns of the region's minority population are so familiar to so many so far away. (By comparison, it took violence in the streets of Urumqi to awaken foreign readers to the agitation of another of China's minority groups, the Uighurs.) In the Washington, D.C., neighborhood where I live, more than a few homes have decorative Tibetan prayer flags strung sentimentally across balconies and backyard porches. This week, U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to meet with the Dalai Lama in the Oval Office -- over the inevitable protests of Chinese authorities.
SNIP
As for Tibet itself, it's no Shangri-la.
SNIP
Judging by appearances, the new generation of Tibetans seems, in a superficial sense, rather un-Tibetan. But that, too, is an oversimplification, as it became clear from talking to Tashi that he certainly thinks differently than Han Chinese his age...he told me that he and his family members continue to consult their lama, the equivalent of a priest in Tibetan Buddhism, about major life decisions. Recently that meant seeking the lama's spiritual appraisal of whether Tashi's sister should marry a pair of brothers then wooing her (Tibetan custom permits polygamy in certain circumstances involving siblings).
Many versions of Buddhism are practiced in China, some with tacit consent of the authorities, but Tibetan Buddhism has proved particularly difficult to integrate because, as with the Islam practiced by Uighurs, it invests authority in local religious leaders who rival the authority of local officials. On issues ranging from property rights to marriage customs, sparks may fly...
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
The Dolly Llama is a Marxist, he said so.
I had an interest in Buddhism in High School. I outgrew it when I discovered things like this.
Afghanistan is similar. The Appalachians without modern highways would be the same, as would the Rocky Mountains.
Yemen is similar ~ civilization and agriculture takes place at the top of the hills. There's a burning desert at the bottom. The "elite" consists of guys with helicopters to hop from mountain to mountain. Before helicopters getting even a small percentage of the population to agree on anything was nearly impossible although they once conquered Egypt! Oh, yeah, and AlQaida and/or the Communists run the port areas ~ for whatever benefit that gives them.
Mountains break government authority into unmanageable units. The Alps break Europeans into dissimilar nationalities who, given the chance, will kill each other with abandon.
The Carpatho-Rhatians descend from a Cossack group sent into quell a rebellious new possession of the Czar. The Sa'ami withdraw from this, their Southernmost outpost, to the far North, and the Hungarians made war on the Romanians.
The place is still not settled. The Carpatho-Rhatians didn't succeed in their mission and are, themselves, a nearly forgotten yet divided community.
I'm never surprised at what folks can come up with in discussing mountain folk. Michelle Malkin probably ought to know better.
Paraphrasing the author, it’s OK to for the China to conquer and loot Tibet of its ample natural resources because the place isn’t paradise on earth and the Dalai Lama isn’t a living saint. I’m glad she cleared that up.
None of the issues about the culture and cultural and social sentiments of the Tibetan people, past or present (the issues the stupid author focuses on) are relevant to the core issue of their independence.
The issue has always been one of “who had, and who has the right to set their modern course, in this era”; the Chinese dictators, who use the in-migration of Han Chinese to conduct cultural genocide on the Tibetans, or the Tibetan people themselves?
The stupid author ignores the basic issue.
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And it's okay to imprison and torture Buddhist monks and nuns.
As part of the genocidal sinofication program.
Obey the programs of those who killed 3,000 in Tiananman Square.
Don't be a splittist.
IOWs they believe in the inherent right to choose their own path in life. Elena Kagan would not approve.
That remark surprised me also...its good to know who the enemy’s are no matter what type of clothes they wear....
Father Thomas Merton also said that communism was a perfect model for governance ... in a monastic setting. Perhaps the Dalai Lama, a monk since the age of four, sees it in a context like that. He has certainly never claimed to be a scholar of western culture or political ideology.
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Ah...polygamy, multiple sentient beings...explains much.
Oh yeah, Tibetan Buddhist, Islamic, all the same. The former suggest pacifism and meditation and vegetarianism, the latter reduce women to property and stone them to death, commit honor killings hang gays and declare the entire world their slaves on pain of global jihad - but hey, neither one wants to bow to murderous, totalitarian Chinese butcher-masters, so they're both the same.
THIS is the kind of constipated, fraudulent muck that passes for sophisticated internationalism and professional journalism.
I was simply honoring your desire that such advocacy see the light of day.
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I respectfully disagree that Tibetan Buddhism suggests pacifism. Far from it. A better characterization would be “non-aggression.” As for vegetarianism; I have never heard a suggestion in that respect and most of the Buddhists I know eat meat. I do, my teacher does and all of his teachers that I know of do. Tibet doesn’t have a very conducive climate for vegetarianism. It’s too hard to grow things there and too cold to be healthy.
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