LHASA, April 26 (Xinhua) – The Dalai Lama’s claim of cultural genocide in Tibet is untenable in front of such facts as the use of the Tibetan language and the compilation of Tibetan books, says Dainzin Qoizhag, a living Buddha of the Kagyudpa Sect of Tibetan Buddhism.
”When I was 11, I began to work as a teacher in such areas as Zhanang and Nagarze counties, because there were few educated people in the whole Tibet in the past,” says Dainzin Qoizhag, also vice chairman of the Standing Committee of Tibet Autonomous Region’s People’s Congress.
”At that time, except for some religious books in big noble families, there were no storybooks about Tibet at all,” said the living buddha. “But now, there are all kinds of books. And all kinds of culture and arts are booming.”
In March, the Dalai Lama told a press conference that “somewhere cultural genocide is taking place.”
Dalai Lama a fascinating and much misunderstood character, it’s true.
Christopher Hitchens went a bit below the belt in his Salon piece, “His Material Highness,” (http://www.salon.com/news/1998/07/13news.html ) with several cheap shots, Tenzin Gyatsu (the Dalai Lama) has proven to be as astute at Spin as he is at teaching 11th century Buddhist texts.
Veteran China journalist Orville Schell writes of the spinning of Tibet in “Virtual Tibet,” which talks about the land-locked Himalayan country in terms of the West’s quest for Shangrila.
The Chinese government’s claims of Tibet being feudal and technologically backward are true, according to travellers’accounts. The monks are often overprivileged in comparison to villagers, they say. (Relative, of course, 6 cups of rancid butter tea instead of two!).
But it ain’t as if the Chinese government has a shining reputation for cutting through the bullshit. I’d ask about the lineage of Dianzin, and his relationship to the government.
At the end of the day, the Dalai Lama’s calling for special autonomy and dialogue with the Chinese — very reasonable and realistic no ? It’s a kind of East Timor strategy — how else are you supposed to take on a super power ?