TIBETSPACE

JON STEWART AND THE DALAI LAMA

Maybe, just maybe, there's one other person on the planet, aside from myself, who missed Stewart's take on Obama deciding not to meet with His Holiness.  

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ROBERT THURMAN, ONCE AGAIN, ON TIBET, CHINA, AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The indefatigable Robert Thurman on Tibet, China, and the simple question, 'Why the Dalai Lama matters.'  And atheism, and the political right, and anything else that crosses his mind and fall within the wide arena of Tibet and His Holiness.

WELCOME TO TIBETSPACE

Welcome to TIBETSPACE, a blog in the process of changing. Begun as a site for all things Tibetan, all things Tibetan has dramatically expanded as His Holiness has created conversations that continually transcend traditional cultural boundaries.  So I will try to chart some of those conversations here, always keeping His Holiness's views in mind, but also trying to show how long those views are.

CHARTER FOR COMPASSION

The Charter for Compassion is one of the organizations that is trying to respond productively to the widespread human suffering that has become part of the daily experience of the citizens of developed countries.  Never before has the middle class, normally insulated from such suffering, had access to the fundamental images of deprivation, torture, homelessness, starvation, and environmental catastrophe that our online capabilities serve up nowadays on a continual basis.  The point is that when exposed to atrocity, most people want to do something about it.  And with such massive exposure now in play, Charter for Compassion is trying to provide people with ways of facilitatingthat response.  So have a look at the video below, visit the website, and figure out your own response.  There are lots of implications to projects like this one, and I'll be looking at some of them in the future.

CHARTER FOR COMPASSION TRAILER from TED Prize on Vimeo.

JEWISH-AMERICANS LEAD THE CHARGE AGAINST SUPERSTITION; BUDDHISTS TAKE SECOND PLACE!

With Halloween and its attendant spirits having passed us by, and with superstition still a plague on many serious discussions, The Pew Research Center wondered which religious groups in American were the least and most likely to believe that angels and demons wander among us.  The results were not altogether surprising.  Among traditional religious groups, Mormons and Evangelical Christians were the most likely to believe in such spirits.

But leading the pack of rationalists, by a wide margin, were American Jews whose talent for casting the cold eye of analysis on the world around us seems an inalienable element of their long and distinguished tradition--a muscular 73% disagreed with the proposition.  Buddhists came in a distant second at 56%.

So Buddhists and Jews . . . . I'd like to know more about what they share.

ONE PICTURE = 1000 WORDS

The picture to the left, of Dalha Agitysang (in red), a Tibetan activist, and Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the Uighur Muslim freedom movement in Xinjiang, was taken recently at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany.

Remember it well.  The future of any significant resistance toward Chinese oppression in Tibet and East Turkistan clearly lies in the kind of concerted and combined efforts that this photograph so eloquently captures.

GOING GREEN: CHINA AT THE FOREFRONT

China has emerged recently as one of the leaders of the Green Revolution, and while none of these innovations are showing up on the Tibetan plateau, they do point to the fact that financial incentives to protect and repair the environment, wisely conceived, will command more attention than ideological ones.  With just over a month to go before the climate change conference in Copenhagen, it's well to remind ourselves that behavioral changes--how we live our daily lives--must find creative ways to partner with the larger corporate structures that have been loathe to accept innovations that effect their profit margin.

Climate change, of course, directly impacts human rights, which is why the UN on March 28, 2008, issued a resolution stating as much (7/23).  The resolution declares unequivocally that the world's poor have "limited adaptation capacities" when faced with catastrophic climate change, and that specific areas of the world are particularly vulnerable.  The UN recognizes further that "low-lying and other small island countries, countries with low-lying coastal, arid and semi-arid areas or areas liable to floods, drought and desertification, and developing countries with fragile mountainous ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change."

In other words, countries in Asia and Africa, and places like Tibet, would be at special risk, not only because of the geographical conditions of these regions, but more importantly because of the population's limited ability to respond effectively to the changing conditions.

We have reached a critical period now when workers in the human rights vineyard must partner with those in the fields of climate change.  Their goal is the same:  to protect human life and to insure that the human community enjoys the fundamental set of rights and liberties that free societies have historically claimed as their birthright.  The notion of social responsibility now includes insuring a viable and life-sustaining ecosystem--that's also part of our birthright, and it's a relatively new amendment to it, but it's one that is currently having an impact on all of our endeavors.

To learn more about these matters, consult the website maintained by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

EIGHT NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES HONOR HIS HOLINESS

In a public ceremony in Dharamsala, Tuesday October 27, three Nobel Peace Laureates gathered to honor the non-violent career of the Tibetan people and their leader, the Dalai Lama.  The three laureates in attendance were Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, and Mairead Corrigan Maguire.  They read to His Holiness a letter of commendation that was signed by five other laureates--Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Adolfo Perez Equivel, Betty Williams, and Wangari Maathal.

Clearly the ceremony was well-timed, offering the counter-vision to the violent legacy that confronts our new century.  The Tibetan people, according to the laureates, have much to offer us:  "The distinct culture of Tibet embodies universal values of compassion, tolerance, and a profound understanding of our interdependence with all living beings.  These qualities have much to offer the world as we seek to build a more peaceful, just, and sustainable global in the 21st century."

Plain and simple:  against the huge and growing crush of violence on the planet--more on this in the next posting--we have little left to do but simply push back with non-violence, compassion, and a heightened sense of interdependence.

Thanks to these laureates for trying to do just that.

On a note of related interest:  When Mairead Corrigan Maguire landed in Houston in May of this year, on her way home to Northern Ireland after having attended a three-day conference hosted by three other Nobel Peace Laureates in Guatemala, she was detained by Homeland Security for two hours, during which time she was interrogated, photographed, and fingerprinted, causing her to miss her flight.  View the report here.

'STRATEGIC REASSURANCE:' THE NEW WAY AROUND TIBET

I just reread Gore Vidal's Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated, and I'm glad-sorry I did.  I'm glad because it's a potent reminder of America's hidden obsession since 1947 for preemptive state terror in developing nations; we need to keep this obsession squarely on our radar now, even though the corporate-sponsored media rarely encourages us to do so. I'm sorry I read it because it's depressing to read the book in the current political climate, faced with Obama's fresh promise to escalate our presence in Afghanistan.  Some of the Bush folks, angry at W for stirring up trouble in Afghanistan and then walking out, are happy to see Obama taking up Bush's cudgel again.  That's depressing, right?

So why did I reread Vidal's little book? Because in a previous post, I'd stumbled on the phrase "strategic reassurance," a phrase debuted by Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg on September 29 to describe our new relationship with China. (The first use of the phrase occurs in the ninth paragraph, if you want to cut to the chase.)  The new policy announcement was largely ignored by the media, of course, but "strategic reassurance" stands behind Obama's refusal to meet with His Holiness.  And I figured Vidal would re-kindle a healthy measure of intelligent mistrust in all announcements from the federal government, and I was right.  Having finished Vidal, I felt intelligently mistrustful all over again, and it was invigorating, particularly when it came to understanding "strategic reassurance."

The phrase means that we need to avoid embarrassing China by pointing to the human rights violations that it silently chalks up to the price of becoming a super-power in the modern world.  And the unspoken proviso underlying the announcement is equally clear:  we need to avoid this embarrassment because we're up to our neck in Chinese debt ($800 billion). When Steinberg does begin to talk about a few of the problems that China's energy-acquiring foreign policy has created, he does so in oddly circumspect terms:  "The problem is not just that China's mercantilist approach disrupts markets; it also leads China to problematic engagement with actors like Iran, Sudan, Burma, and Zimbabwe, and undermines the perception of China as country interested in contributing to regional stability and humanitarian goals."

And so countries become "actors;" genocide is "problematic engagement;" and China runs the risk of not  being perceived as a country interested in "regional stability." The cardinal sin here is "disrupting markets." And of course Tibet is never mentioned.  

Here's the deal.  The policy of "strategic reassurance" makes a kind of sense to a kind of world I feel less and less willing to understand:  let's talk about the things we agree on--making money--and forget those we claim to disagree on--human rights. (Remember Secretary of State Clinton's February announcement that economic issues will trump human rights in our negotiations with China.)

And O yes, a side-note from Steinberg to President Obama:  do not meet with the Dalai Lama, and I won't mention his name or his country, as I catalogue China's "problematic engagements" in the announcement of our new policy.

The new policy seems to be working.  China, at least, felt reassured by Steinberg's announcement of "strategic reassurance."  

On Tuesday, October 20, about three weeks after Steinberg's proclamation, Chinese authorities executed four Tibetans in Lhasa for their participation in the 2008 protests against the Chinese occupation of their country.

It wasn't reported in the major American news outlets.

OBAMA & THE LAMA: FIVE MORE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Obama's decision not to meet with the Dalai Lama hasn't gone away.  In fact, it's invited more voices into the discussion:  Vaclav Havel has weighed in, and organizations like Human Rights Watch have had their say as well.  A couple of days ago, Maureen Dowd at the New York Times spoke out, and even Frank Calzon, executive Director of Center for a Free Cuba, has compared Obama's emerging political vision as reminiscent of the realpolitik that characterized Henry Kissinger's tenure as Secretary of State.  And The People's Daily in China lost no time reporting the snub, an unambiguous victory for them. Clearly, Obama and the Lama have hit an international nerve.  When something like this happens, when Americans become over-wrought about the way a Tibetan monk is treated, I think it points to other issues lying deep within the hearts and minds of those same Americans.  Perhaps many of us feel that His Holiness is addressing issues, important issues, that receive scant attention in our daily political discourse.  Five things to keep in mind as you make your way through this complex piece of international hand-wringing:

1. First, we need to be clear about the different job descriptions of a Tibetan monk and an American president. Bureaucratic institutions designed to reflect and encourage a set of well-defined ethical practices among its members are called monasteries or convents. Bureaucratic institutions that are designed to let its members have a say in charting their own course through the future, paying less attention to ethical practices, are called democracies.  Leaders of each institution will operate from a radically different set of principles when it comes to engaging whatever political reality confronts them.  So, in one corner, we have Barack Obama, the leader of the free and purportedly secular world (America isn't secular, but that's the advertisement), and in the other corner, we have the leader of the monastic world, the most famous monk in modern times, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.  That's a substantial difference in orientation, and it's a difference that can't help but characterize their responses to the world around them.
2. Sometimes, we need to look at what's very plain and obvious:  monasteries and democracies have different takes on how you behave in the world at large because, for one thing, they have different relationships to the world.  The citizens of a monastery and the citizens of a democracy define their missions a little differently.  Democracies--I'm thinking of ours--tend to look after themselves before they look after others; that's why domestic issues win elections and international concerns, including human rights, lose them (unless we're under attack). Monasteries, on the other hand, at least Tibetan Buddhist ones, while fighting hard for their own survival in India, are following their own tradition and trying to relieve the suffering of others because that's the way their particular platform is put into motion.  If it's civil defense you're looking for, or better roads, or indoor plumbing, or a military-industrial complex, then you're more likely to find these things in a developed democracy; if it's the alleviation of spiritual suffering you've got in mind, you might try a monastery before you make a pilgrimage to D.C.  The discourse coming out of the Capitol will often be defensive in nature; that coming out of Dharamsala will often be altruistic in nature.  We need both, and at different times in our history, we need one more than the other.  Just now, those who wished the President would have met with His Holiness most likely felt the need for a little more altruism in the national conversation.
3. So, people get anxious about how the Dalai Lama is treated when his area of expertise--human suffering and how to remedy it--seems to be one of the areas of expertise we most need to consult.  As you've noticed, there's a great deal of human suffering going on at the present moment, and since 9/11, Americans have become more cognizant of how quickly this suffering can arrive.  But in an environment where apocalyptic facts are the daily headlines, one fact has gone unnoticed.  In his monumentally important book, Planet of Slums, Mike Davis writes that "for the first time the urban population of the world will outnumber the rural.  Indeed, given the imprecision of Third World censuses, this epochal transition has probably already occurred."  Americans, particularly our students, are registering the effects of this fact subliminally.  They are rightly concerned about their futures. To cite a few more facts from Davis's book:  the present urban population of the world--3.2 billion--is larger than the total population of the world when John Kennedy was inaugurated. China added more citizens to its cities in the 1980's than did all of Europe, including Russia, during the entire nineteenth century. And with these urban populations come slums:  there are now hundreds of full-fledged slums on earth, and they range in size from a few hundred to a million people.  The inequities inherent in living conditions of this sort breed the host of problems that we see confronting us every day:  poverty, disease, war, famine, terrorism, and oppressively entrenched class structures. In short, human suffering.  And there's little on the horizon that seems capable of reversing this trend in the developing nations whose populations are growing-- which means, in turn, that their slums are growing.  It is no longer a problem of the developing world; it has become the world's problem.  And altruism of the kind His Holiness describes has intriguing advantages for all of us.  No wonder many Americans want our leaders to listen to him.
4. Because the world is becoming smaller as its population inexorably grows, and because our media make us instantly aware of the suffering and inequity that accompany this growth, we expect our leaders to address this suffering.  For the first time, Americans are being exposed to the kind of inestimable human suffering that has been readily visible to anyone traveling, for example, in India for centuries. Walk through one of the slums of Delhi, and you realize that no democracy in the world can solve this problem because there are two problems here:  one of them is economic and systemic--Will somebody please send food and shelter?--and the other one is, for lack of a better word, philosophical--Will someone please explain why suffering of this magnitude occurs in the first place?  And when it becomes obvious that the food isn't coming and the system isn't being repaired quickly enough to supply it, and that Obama, and leaders like him, can't solve even these kinds of food-supply problems, Americans want to hear from someone like His Holiness who has some insightful things to say about the questions that perennially plague us all: Why, we want to know, does suffering exist, why is it inevitable, why does it never go away, and what can each of us, in our small, insignificant way, do about it?  
5. Because this second kind of suffering, this philosophical suffering (which doesn't have a shred of philosophy about it to those who are currently doing the suffering), is becoming more and more a part of Americans' daily diet on television and the internet, Americans are interested in what people like His Holiness have to say about it. That's only natural.  As I've indicated, this kind of suffering is part of his area of expertise--he isn't a policy-wonk, but he is a spirit-wonk. And so we're confused when Obama doesn't meet with His Holiness, who gives good advice on this problem, because the Chinese, who have been recently in the business of creating this problem, tell him not to do so.  But we shouldn't be confused at all.  Only rarely do we find leaders of democracies who embody the kind of spiritual values that can address the particular pressures that most Americans are feeling now. Obama can't do it, but then few political leaders could straddle both of these worlds. (And remember:  Hillary Clinton told the Chinese in February, 2009, that human rights, from the American perspective, would be secondary to economic concerns.  This has been announced policy from the beginning.)  Obama's refusal to meet with His Holiness shows that he is, perhaps, more political, in the cynical sense of that term, than many had thought or hoped he would be.   That the story won't go away shows that Americans, along with the rest of the world who questioned Obama's decision, are finding themselves in need of the kind of counseling that only His Holiness and others like him can give us. Suffering, of the philosophical sort, is now squarely on the American radar, and frankly we're stifled by it. We need help in understanding it, and we're a bit undone when a leading authority on it is rebuffed by our President.