India's Nuclear Tests, so strongly opposed then and today, US is ready to remove the sanctions so that India can buy raw material for the nuclear weapons if it wants. India is now a responsible user of Nuclear weapons - says US. I think that is what was said by Dalai Lama then, according to Salon, India is a strong contender in the world power.

Just an example that Values change over a period. There are no universal values, almost. The one value which does not is as rightly said by many here, the right for self-determination. The right to be one self, to the extent that one does not not harm anyone else.

Let us use this one unchanging value as a scale to measure who is on the right side. Tibet has never harmed anyone, China did. Dalai Lama's Religion did not, Chinese politicians who oppose religion did. Why Venom against a person, who did not harm anyone and only asked for the rights of his people? Because you are not able to relate to his values. Are you trying to curb his and his countries rights, because you don't understand them.

Don't speak of what was negative about Tibet, before China took over, we are simply taking an easy way out.
We do not have right to discuss because as a world audience, we never fought along with Tibetans to give them their freedom to be what they want to be. If we did, and Tibetans are free today, then we have earned our right to point fingers at some of their negatives, remembering that there are no universal values.

whilst yeah he's religious so shouldn't head it, but he does make a good public image, and most of the time he's a pretty swell guy. Far better than the Pope, anyway.

Thank you Sholto for saying this. He does so little for the cause, laughing and writing forewords to for the new ages section is not the answer. Tibet needs someone who is going to yell and tell the world what is happening. Sadly his watered down softly softly approach is what world leaders can stomach, as meeting him is a low risk sop to popular sentiment. Finally he's doing the right thing..

Your nasty aside about the "exceptionalism" with which Buddhism is regarded in the West is perhaps the most puerile remark I have ever heard from a "journalist".

'not one whose "mystical" aura allows for next to no examination or criticism about its aims and its strategies.'

Bit rich Sholto considering your defence of all things Islam.

His books on happiness & the heart of the Buddha's teaching are very good. He's a genuine expert on Buddhism - pity he keeps getting asked about politics.

@Left Is Forward - at first i thought your response was hilariously ironic, but on second reading it appears you are truly serious. You could not have provided any better example of the very tendency I was describing.

If only we had the moral fiber to kidnap all the babies of the "Amazonian indigenes" and other irrational societies, dispossess them of the retrograde cultures and languages which hinder their ability to see the world as we Moderns do, and open their minds to the Universal Truths of High Priests Comte & Mendes, then we could finally achieve "human growth and orderly progress."

One value that in unarguably universal is that EVERYONE on the planet wishes to be free of a-holes who approach them with the inherent violence of a totalitarian utopia that must be imposed on them "for their own good," whether it be corporate, religious or scientistic (yes, i meant that and not scientific.) There is absolutely no difference from the perspective of the recipient of such benevolent attention.

What a sad, flatlined monoculture of a global society we would have if any such ideology ever achieved the full flower of its "vision."

Sholto Byrnes - You are a sick SOB for saying this about anyone.

But SEWM, liberalism and progressivism are UNIVERSAL values - just like democracy and human rights. The Positivism of Comte, which the modern progressive movement is rooted in, suggests Progress as a force that is objectively right, and religion simply has no place to occupy in a rational society - except as one based on reason, not metaphysics or divinity. Comte's own suggested Religion of Humanity is worth reading about (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_humanity) - Temples of Humanity still function in Latin America where Positivism and Liberal Progressivism were key marks of the post-colonial republics, and adherents included the intellectual Raimundo Teixeira Mendes (responsible for "Order and Progress" appearing on the Brazilian flag). These goals are universal.

The Latin American Progressives for instance, opposed Christian missionary work with the Amazonian indigenes... but not out of a false respect for their "self-determination" or their mystical and superstitious totemic nonsense. Their hope instead, was that as the native people developed and integrated into society, they would lose all their absurd mystical faith and practices - just as Europe today has largely shed the nonsense of Christianity.

I wish the Tibetans well, but I also wish for them to develop. Part of human development is losing the ties that hold us back in the past. Non-rational religion and superstition a major force of conservativism, that holds back human growth and orderly progress.

There are no universal values, sorry. And whose definition of progress is objectively right? Look at Bhutan, a country who places Gross Happiness above Gross Domestic Product. Who are we to say they are inferior? Did anyone ever consider perhaps they are the sane ones?

Read Neville Maxwell's writings about the old Tibet which Dalai supports. Thumb screws and feudalism were the order of the day.

The Chinese have obliterated all that.

Ah, the hypocrisy of the left - you can't help but admire the audacity - Des Demona you got there before me. I bet the author of this piece wouldn't write something like this about the prophet Muhammad.

China is in the wrong - but that doesn't make the Dalai Lama's dream of a return to an independent, poverty stricken, feudal Tibet right.

gordy has it right when he recommends Neville Maxwell's study of the old Tibet - it was not a nice place and I for one wouldn't re

Lots of people commenting on this site seem to be Islamophobic. It would be funny if it wasn't so f*cking pathetic - probably a bunch of Americans who still believe in the propaganda spewed by their far-right establishment or some Tea-Party Trash (TPT for short). Islamophobia seems to have become the new anti-Semitism, and by that I mean an acceptable kind of prejudice within public discourse that is aimed at the 'enemy within' our majority populations, who supposedly have a secret agenda and an evil religion.

What really amuses me is the comment posters who seem to think any article on religion which does not equate Islam to super-Nazism is somehow pro-Islam. These same people throw a mental fit if you dare to point out Christianity's (or the Tea-Party's) many many flaws, hmmmm....

Even better is when they make comments as retarded as RK does when he says: "There only one conclusion. Left does not like peace. It likes the world to burn. All the time. Is that the reason why it likes Islamists?". Which is retarded and funny on so many levels I hardly need point out that left wing people are usually pacifist and are the first people to criticise ANY religion. Another example of TPT at work I think.

That said the NS is particularly reluctant to apply the same stringent standards by which we should critique all religions to Islam.

Best regards for you all,

Looking forward to your visiting.

http://www.1shopping.us/

Buddhism is a proper religion, unlike the violently enforced ideologies that parade as such. The Dalai Lama has conducted himself as a shining example of humanity in the face of evil.

The media needs people to feed off.

Tibet isn't the only country that has been occupied and colonized overt the ages.

China occupies Tibet and the West is protesting.

Israel is occupying Palestine and the West is hardly reproaching them for it.

Without Tibet's occupation the Dalai Lama would be a man without a cause.

No one would notice him then.

That man - who never asked for his position, who saw his country invaded, destroyed, his culture ripped to shreads has done more to promote goodwill and compassion than any other human being i can think of in the modern world. He was never a politician and has always proclaimed himself as a simple monk. And to read the comments on here about him and this article is DISGUSTING. Politicians are ther last thing we need and how dare any of you lecture this man on how to behave and what his life should have been. You are the embodiment of everything Buddhism is against - IGNORANCE.

Iden "That said the NS is particularly reluctant to apply the same stringent standards by which we should critique all religions to Islam."
To true...
A case in point,The Dalai Lama has never called for the killing of anyone for blasphemy as far as I know.

Calls for Pakistan's blasphemy law to be abolished have been renewed after a Christian woman was sentenced to death following a squabble with villagers.

Human Rights Watch say the case of Asia Bibi, the first woman sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan, underlines why the law should go.

She said she was arrested after rowing with women who refused to drink water made "unclean" by a Christian's touch.

Critics say the law has been used to target minority faiths in Pakistan.

No-one has ever been executed under the legislation but about 10 accused have been murdered before the completion of their trials, correspondents say.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who can pardon Ms Bibi, ordered a review of the case after the international outcry that greeted her sentencing this month.
Ms Bibi, a 45-year-old mother from Punjab province.
She denies insulting the Prophet Muhammad during an argument with other farmhands in a Sheikhupura district village in June last year.
Human Rights Watch's Ali Dayan Hasan said: "Asia Bibi has suffered greatly and should never have been put behind bars.

"The injustice and fear the blasphemy law spawns will only cease when this heinous law is repealed."

Human Rights Watch says social persecution and legal discrimination have become especially widespread in Punjab province against religious minorities, such as Christians and the minority Ahmadi Muslim sect.

@ felix

I don't disagree with anything you're saying and I'm glad you agreed with my final point, but I must reiterate another point I tried to make:

Not every article on New Statesman which deals with religion has to mention Islam. The above blog post is discussing Buddhism and its spiritual leader, not regional politics and injustice in certain Islamic nations.

I'm only talking about Islam here because there are numerous comments above complaining that Islam hasn't been compared to some kind of hyper-evil super-Nazism, which is of course ridiculous Islamaphobic TPT babble.

Can we get back to Buddhism, Tibet & the Chinese occupation please?

He's just another example of human division and represents the dire need to have something or someone to regard as hallowed in a swamp of personal fear. No evidence whatsoever exists of mystical realms god figures spirit or hidden powers.

Sholto, I would recommend you "The Compassionate Revolution" by David Edwards, which shows that Buddhist ideas (which btw even Richard Dawkins regards as non-religious and a "philosophy of living well" rather than a "faith") are entirely compatible with politics. Edwards makes some well-observed points about the lack of compassion, the anger and bile and viciousness which has undermined radical politics' appeal for so long, and you could learn a lot from this. When you leave this publication, please notify me and I might consider reading again.

And he is not alone; Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton and the many superstars milking it whilst pretending to care about the oppressed and downtrodden in their respective communities.
A couple of years ago on a visit to my Brother in SE Asia, I bought an old magazine (second hand), Jet, 1973. I was shocked to see an article on the Rev. Jessie Jackson. Lucky men, wish I could doss about all day and have the lifestyle of the rich and famous.