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Dalai Lama Retires From Politics
ThailandTom
Veteran
Comments
I feel extremely sorry for HH the DL, and partly, I condemn the so-called 'superpowers' who frankly are blatantly far more interested in finance, commerce and profit, than human lives.
It can't be an easy thing for him to negotiate such sensitive issues, and as the saying goes, "You can please some of the people all of the time....."
I'll either record the programme or watch it....
Dalai Lama to receive 2012 Templeton Prize in London on May 14
As we [BuddhaDharma Quarterly] reported in late March, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the recipient of the 2012 Templeton Prize — an honor bestowed upon those deemed to have made an “exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.”
His Holiness will receive the honor this May 14, at 1:45 PM (GMT), during a ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. You can view the ceremony online at www.templetonprize.org from 8:45 to 10:00 AM (EST) or 5:45 to 7:00 AM (PDT).
@BonsaiDoug Cool.
Why focus on this one issue? Just because we happen to identify as Buddhist?
Isn't this how the world - how samsara - is? I'm not necessarily saying we should be blase to conflict and suffering, but why be up in arms about something we can't necessarily control?
Btw, for trivia's sake, in Buddha or Bust by Perry Garfinkel (a terribly dry, Euro-centric read, IMO), he goes to HHDL's home village and asks people about the whole PRC-occupation thing. The people he talked to basically said they don't know what the big deal is about since they haven't noticed anything significantly different in their lifestyle. They can still be Buddhist and do as they please.
I think most of the conflict arises from the West and, as @Dakini said, the Tibetan monks in China and elsewhere who are not taking a "Middle Way" approach and getting arrested/tortured/etc.
Feudal Tibet wasn't sunshine-and-roses either... The CIA did funnel money. And 100 NGOs mean 100 competing interests. There are hundreds of NGOs working to "save Africa" and whatnot... what's going on with that? There seems to be even more conflict. This is just blatant Sinophobia.
Let's face it...Americans don't know much about Asia. When I was a principal, usually in the spring teachers would start asking if I was going to Thailand during the upcoming summer. But a surprisingly large number of well-educated people would ask me if I was going to Taiwan, and when I told them it was Thailand, many would say, "Same thing, isn't it?"
Then we have those who say, "somebody should do something", but if someone suggests the CIA, then they go off on another rant.
Talk. Empty talk 95% of the time. Let them put their money where their mouth is.
It has never been clarified who would run a "free" Tibet. Would the theocracy be reinstalled? A secular gov't, or a mix of monks and lay politicians? Monks aren't supposed to be politicians, and yet to work in old Tibet's gov't, one had to wear robes and keep to vows, according to some reports. Genuine autonomy would be good, if the Chinese could be relied upon to honor that over generations, and changes in leadership. No country's done a good job of granting autonomy to ethnic minorities or indigenous peoples, not even the US, which supposedly honors a "government-to-government" relationship with the Native nations.
It's true about most of the Tibetan cultural areas being able to continue practicing Buddhism. I've seen films of Western tulkus going back to the village their reincarnation came from, and everyone has greeted them warmly, including the local Chinese official overseeing everything. But other areas are suffering crackdowns.
HHDL's village was completely rebuilt 2 years ago. Everyone's home was torn down, and the gov't built new traditional-style homes for everyone. The gov't wants to turn the village into a tourist attraction.
All I can say about the whole issue is, "it's complicated". Sometimes it's best to stay out of these complex issues, and leave them to the people directly concerned. I was not in support of a Free Tibet, because the DL wasn't. But how realistic is his hope for an autonomous Tibet within China? And does it matter what side we're on, if in the final analysis, the future for Tibet looks bleak?
*sighh*
This isn't really Sinophonia, it comes from direct experience. I remain extremely fond of the country of my childhood, love the Chinese language and if course all my Chinese friends and family.
Sadly, our American school districts (and I believe some English and Australian ones as well) are buying into some of the CCP propaganda. An increasing number are, understandably yet naively, accepting large sums of money from the Chinese government in exchange for establishing "Confucius Classrooms."
The Confucius Classrooms are an outreach program of the CCP's education department. They aren't that nefarious yet, in practice--I mean, American kids aren't wearing Young Pioneer scarves or anything. But you can be sure that when it comes time for the exchange teachers to teach the world history bits, it will be from the CCP perspective, to the extent they're able to get away with it.
If you watch some of the opening ceremonies for these Confucius Classrooms, complete with huge red banners, it's sometimes hard to tell, without more context, whether the footage is from Ottumwa or Beijing, lol. Laughable at the moment, but a little icky underneath it all.
I'm all for cultural exchange; however this program is designed and administered by the Chinese government. I just can't believe, that after three generations of fleeing this blasted political party, my girls might be the fourth. Each generation said to itself, "Well, it will probably come to a natural end in my lifetime." Instead, the Party now has nukes and is directly teaching American elementary students (granted, a small number so far). I don't feel I'm Sinophobic, but at this point I definitely admit to being Party-phobic.
The Party's subtle, incessant message that people should give up freedoms in exchange for "political stability" is the kind of thing that sadly suffocates creativity, self-image, self-confidence, artistic freedom, and eventually the "biggies" like freedom of the press and assembly.
How many times in history have we looked at a totalitarianized nation and asked, "Why couldn't they see it coming?" When an organization as controlling and powerful as the CCP is involved, I think a certain level of phobia is healthy.
No imperialist nation is about "peaceful rise." I understand we're focusing on the PRC because of the topic at hand, but I just wanted to put that out there. How is this any different from the United States? Every imperialist nation has its propaganda. It just so happens that the PRC's has a red flag attached to it (despite them straying far from their roots), and people get their Cold War panties in a knot.
Hard to believe anyone would go for this without a fuss, given how many Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Tibetan, etc. communities there are around the US.
"The Confucius Institute program began in 2004 and is financed by the quasi-governmental Office of Chinese Language Council International (colloquially, Hanban 汉办), which describes itself as a non-government, non-profit organization that is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China...The related Confucius Classroom program partners with secondary schools or school districts to provide Chinese language teachers and instructional materials. As of July 2010, there were 316 Confucius Institutes and 337 Confucius Classrooms in 94 countries and regions.
A number of the more serious concerns and controversies surrounding the Confucius Institutes stems from its relationship to the Chinese party-state. Hanban, the body which administers Confucius Institutes, states on its website that it is a non-profit, non-government organization, though it is connected with China’s Ministry of Education and has close ties to a number of senior Communist Party officials. The current chair of Hanban is Politburo member Liu Yandong, former head of the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China.
The Economist notes that China "has been careful not to encourage these language centres to act as overt purveyors of the party’s political viewpoints, and little suggests they are doing so", but also noted the important goal of give the world a “correct” understanding of China, as well as efforts in opposing Chinese dissident groups abroad, such as Tibetan independent activists, democracy groups and the Falun Gong."
As for the Confucius Institutes' opposition of dissident groups, by way of perspective, a Syrian-American was recently arrested and charged with several criminal counts, based primarily on the fact he was taking pictures of Syrian democracy marches in the United States. If Chinese nationals were prosecuted under the same rules, a sizable number of exchange students in my town--and in all likelihood, professors--would be up on similar charges for their work photographing Tibetans in Madison, Wisconsin, under the auspices of the China Consulate-Chicago.
"According to Fabrice De Pierrebourg and Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a number of individuals holding positions within the Confucius Institute system have backgrounds in Chinese security agencies and United Front Work Department, “which manages important dossiers concerning foreign countries. These include propaganda, the control of Chinese students abroad, the recruiting of agents among the Chinese diaspora (and among sympathetic foreigners), and long-term clandestine operations."
Canadian intelligence official David Matas feels that, "informally [the institutes] become a vehicle that the Chinese government uses to basically intimidate the academic institutions to run according to their guise and also as a vehicle for infiltration and spying into the campuses to find out what's going on hostile to their interest."
That's already too many snips, so here's the link - very fascinating and thought-provoking. Even as I mentioned the Confucius Institutes here earlier today, I had no idea quite how widely established they now are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerns_and_controversies_over_Confucius_Institutes
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/e-petition?PetNum=1853
"I'm most concerned about what might happen in the long run," said Matthew Sommer, an associate professor of Chinese history at Stanford. "The program seems to be expanding exponentially in the United States and around the world, and inevitably it's going to have an increasing influence on the way Chinese studies is taught in the U.S. and elsewhere. It's not so much what might happen right now, but what might happen 15 years from now, or 20 years from now."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-01-04/chinese-funded-institutes-us-colleges/52378280/1
I'll stop there...a ton of thought-provoking reading in these links alone, but a Google search will turn up a good deal more if you're interested.
In the memoranda of understanding when signing the Confucius Institutes deals, American universities must state their support for a "One-China Policy." This is troubling, because it means that professors at Chinese history, and discuss, for example Taiwan's view, may receive strong pressure to cease discussing it, given that China can threaten to yank the university's Confucius funds based on that discussion. It's really ill-advised to allow any government, plus the added influence of large amounts of funding, to influence freedom of discussion and freedom of curriculum.
“There is a whole list of proscribed topics,” said June Teufel Dreyer, who teaches Chinese government and foreign policy at the University of Miami.
“You’re told not to discuss the Dalai Lama — or to invite the Dalai Lama to campus. Tibet, Taiwan, China’s military buildup, factional fights inside the Chinese leadership — these are all off limits.”
How can any institute of higher learning claim to be acting ethically if it begins declaring foreign policy topics off-limits, in exchange for money? The very course of study at many of these schools includes trying to prepare students for careers in foreign affairs - how can that happen with certain foreign affairs topics are censored?
According to an article by London correspondent for the Nation, D.D. Guttenplan, March 05, 2012, one junior faculty member at a U.S. campus with a Confucius Institute responded to a reporter’s recent query with an e-mail explaining that to be identified as a critic could end his career: “I am an untenured professor in a department which receives a lot of money from a Confucius Institute, which is run by senior faculty that will vote on my tenure case.” (http://chinhdangvu.blogspot.com/2012/03/critics-worry-about-influence-of.html)
Arts and education definitely deteriorate when they become narrowly-defined political instruments rather than broad-minded exchange. From China Rhyming, December 29th, 2011:
"On the upper floors there are some good displays about Chinese-Australian life – the long slow march to equality for the community and some lovely old artifacts. However, there is a rather shameful display of modern China with maps of China that don’t feature Taipei as a capital, Taiwan as a province etc etc – all sponsored by the nasty local Confucius Institute that spread Beijing’s view of the world. Shame on the University of Melbourne and the Victoria State Government Department of Education and Child Development for being involved in this distortion that pushes Beijing’s view of Chinese history and geography – the taxpayers of Victoria deserve something a little better I would suggest. The government and academia in Melbourne should be smarter than to allow the unquestioningly pro-Beijing CI and their hard core no debate anti-Taiwan attitudes into an otherwise well balanced museum."
Soft Power Smackdown! Confucius Institute vs. Taiwan Academy
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/08/12/soft-power-smackdown-confucius-institute-vs-taiwan-academy/?mod=WSJBlog
[Just saw your last msg come in, vinlyn! I understand what you're saying. As with the Chinese Student & Scholars Association issue, more evidence of wrongdoing would make it easier to pass judgement on the program. I do think the basic principle of an institution accepting money from a foreign government, in exchange for censoring certain topics, is unethical, at least by most universities' mission statements. Unethical for many reasons, not the least of which is that it risks binding individual East Asian Studies professors to what is in effect a gag order on what they may discuss and teach. I'll check into the conservative ones you mentioned - it would be interesting to see if they are having discussions on this.]
I still don't see how this is any different from history lessons given by any country. In Canada, the US, Japan, S. Korea, etc, the history books are full of propaganda, full of missing facts and half-truths.
You're shouting censorship being unethical. Well, how is censoring the censored curriculum objectively better? Would you support banning/censoring any websites that contain information that, in your eyes, is unfair and biased? For example, a pro "One-China Policy" website? What about the freedom for people to support the politics they want to support? Would you support a Taiwan independence movement-sponsored education institute?
I know I sound like a complete shill for the PRC, but I'm not trying to be. I'm just trying to get you to see that the PRC is just flexing its muscles like any other imperialist (or aspiring imperialist) nation does. Take off your Red Scare-tinted glasses for a second, is all I'm saying.
"The primary purpose of the University of Wisconsin–Madison is to provide a learning environment in which faculty, staff and students can discover, examine critically, preserve and transmit the knowledge, wisdom and values that will help ensure the survival of this and future generations...."
...then they must amend the "examine critically" part.
In a free society, people can pretty much do as they like. However, if, due to agreements with foreign governments, staff and students are no longer free to "examine critically" issues that deal with China, then the mission statement must be amended.
I should add that public institutes are free to do as they like only to the extent that the voters allow; if the UW sells out on its mission statement and the voting public doesn't like it, they are free to (hopefully) vote in a new administration who will get things back on the democratic track we started out on.
The problem is not China saying what it wants to say. The problem is China trying to tell others what they can and can't say.
I wouldn't be asking, but I am confused about some of the reactions to the self-immolation. A while back, I posted Robert Thurman's perspective that he posted on his facebook: Is this the typical view of self-immolation within TB? I'm not sure if I can wrap my head around it.
I don't buy Thurman's statement. There's some concern, too, that all the self-immolaters were young, some still in their teens. How good is their judgment at such a young age? Most teen monks haven't received advanced teachings, if any teachings other than prayers and texts to memorize without understanding the meaning. So the extent to which their self-immolation would have been motivated by "love" or any Dharmic principle is doubtful.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g-ZHQmBBy6M1E5AHewZYmRTTlASg?docId=CNG.ed0efe0b5d6d6b9267fc54dfbe287833.2b1
The Vietnamese monks did not self-immolate until things had gotten to the point of this desperation, and these Tibetans are now clearly at that point as well.
This is not some casual choice that we can sit in such quick judgement on; what is being downplayed here, accidentally or through ignorance or whatever, is the incredibly deteriorated situation inside Tibet at this very moment. Never in history have Tibetan people self-immolated like this. And it's not only young monks--there have been older monks, 40 or so years old, and 40 year old farmers as well. Tibetans are under siege and absolutely no one is coming to their aid.
I am quite torn by such issues. For example, I could see good practical reasons for many years for the West intervening in Burma. But on the other side I could question the wisdom of intervening in another country's affairs.