MIM Notes 189 July 1 1999

BOURGEOIS PRESS WEAKLY DEBUNKS DALAI LAMA

Western imperialist press coverage of international issues is one-
sided to the point of blinding ignorance on the subject of Tibet 
just as it once ignored the situation in East Timor. Now three 
bourgeois news organizations have attempted to "debunk" the Dalai 
Lama slightly.

We agree completely with the English conservative magazine the 
Economist: "All the world, it seems, needs Tibet, or more 
specifically Tibetan Buddhism. ... This perception of Tibet and 
its religion is an extraordinary accomplishment for a nation of 
perhaps only 4 million people--2.6 million of them in Tibet 
proper--scattered across the roof of the world. It appears most 
visibly in the throngs of young hippies making their way to 
Dharamsala, the main Tibetan exile, hoping for an audience with 
the 'jewel of the lotus,' and in a new espousal of Tibetan 
Buddhism by the Hollywood chic."(1) 

Now at least in Scotland, the Scotsman says, "If these freedom-
loving hipsters had heard some of the whispers escaping the 
heavenly state, however, they might have considered moving to next 
year's fad." The root of this opinion is a Lama Kundeling who says 
the Dalai Lama is responsible for despotism and murder to this 
day.(2)

Although the Economist chides the Tibet Buddhists mostly for not 
being Western enough to keep out the Chinese communists, it has 
now admitted that the original reason for the exile of the Dalai 
Lama was a lie of "febrile" junior Tibetan officials in March 
1959. Specifically they conjured a rumor that the Dalai Lama would 
be kidnapped by the central government of China and this is what 
provoked the civil war that ended in the Dalai Lama's exile.

MIM has explained before: the old system in Tibet was a slave-
owning system into the 1950s. The Maoist central government did 
end the slavery and brought a new economic system, but it was 
relatively respectful of the culture of Tibet. Former Tibetan 
slaves were the heads of the Communist Party and government of 
Tibet--not Han Chinese.

It is now also known that the CIA did indeed provide concrete 
military and financial aid to the Tibetan reactionaries--as 
admitted even by the Economist now.

Notes:
1. Economist reprinted in World Press Review June 1999, p. 30.
2. World Press Review June 1999, p. 31.