Recently President Bush presented the Dalai Lama the Gold

Medal, Congress’s highest and most prestigious civilian award. It was a

glamorous ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, attended by the rich and famous.

Senators Diane Feinstein, Robert Byrd, Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi were among the hundreds of admirers.

Actor Richard Gere, his spokesman and one of his biggest

fans, proclaimed “It’s that just by the proximity to him, you will get

spiritually healed,” and he called him “the greatest living human.”

President Bush called him a “universal symbol of peace and

tolerance, a shepherd of the faithful and a keeper of the flame for his

people.”

The Dalai Lama also has his critics. Author Michael Parenti

sees him as reflecting a distressing symbiosis between religion and violence.

Historian Howard Zinn expresses disappointment in the Dalai Lama’s suggestion

to wait a few years before judging the war in Iraq, when this preemptive and

illegal war is such a clear-cut moral issue.

So what are we to make of the Dalai Lama? Who is this frail

man, his hands folded as if in permanent prayer, with a smile that rarely

leaves his face and a bow in deference to those who cross his path? He moves

slowly and gracefully and he talks a lot about forgiveness and peace.

This apparently gentle man is the 14th of a long line of

reborn Dalai Lamas who ruled over a brutal feudal theocracy where disobedience

was not tolerated. Punishment ranged from loss of limbs to the gouging out of

eyes and flogging people to death.

It was a country where most of the population were serfs and

slaves, totally accountable to their masters. Some slaves tried to survive by

begging. A few hundred privileged families shared power with the Dalai Lama and

owned most of the land. The old Tibet was far removed from the freedom that

Dalai Lama and his supporters are talking about. There were no schools, no

healthcare, and the literacy rate was about 5 percent.

There are those who see the Dalai Lama as a man of

contradictions and they see his admirers as gullible and misinformed. He has

expressed his belief that modern science takes precedence over ancient

religions, but he ruled over a medieval and brutal theocracy. He preaches peace

but refuses to pass judgment on Iraq.

Is the Dalai Lama speaking out of both sides of his mouth,

trying to play it safe and to offend nobody? It seems clear that this seemingly

meek gentleman is a shrewd observer of human events. To many observers he

remains an enigma.

Was Tibet ever this romantic, Hollywood-style Shangri La?

Were the Tibetan people, with their colorful garments, bells, and horns, really

content as they submitted to the rituals of prayer and as they clapped their

hands to get rid of doubts and harmful emotions, hoping for greater awareness

and enlightenment? Or did they not know any better as they spent their lives in

this remote and isolated society? Did China destroy Shangri-La and a beautiful

ancient culture or did they liberate and modernize a backward and brutal

kingdom?

China invaded Tibet in 1959. The foreign-sponsored uprising

was easily crushed and the Dalai Lama with his riches and thousands of

followers fled to India, where he set up his government in exile. The “Free

Tibet” movement and the west would like to return the Dalai Lama to his throne.

The Dalai Lama himself claims that he is not seeking independence but

“meaningful autonomy,” while China accuses the Dalai Lama of a hidden agenda.

China has significantly altered Tibet’s social structure.

China has constructed roads and introduced light industry. They built hundreds

of schools and life expectancy has dramatically improved. Michael Parenti among

others points out that the Chinese abolished slavery, built hospitals, and eliminated

mutilations, floggings and amputations.

They introduced land reform. Acres of land formerly owned by

nobles and lamas were distributed to landless peasants. Not many Tibetans would

choose to go back to slavery and grinding poverty. They don’t look at the

Chinese occupation as Paradise Lost.

One of the Dalai Lama’s missions is to preserve and to keep

the ancient Tibetan culture alive. But what is this cultural heritage that the

Dalai Lama is trying to preserve? Does it include the teaching of the feudal

system, and the need for slavery and absolute obedience? Does it teach the poor

that their life of suffering is due to the evil acts they committed in previous

lives and that they must accept their life of misery as atonement for past

sins?

For the Tibetans the issue is whether you hold on to an

ancient culture of social injustice or you support moving into the modern age.

Many former serfs have sided with China.

Indications are that the powerful lamas and their ancient

culture that this Dalai Lama wants to preserve may be a thing of the past

unless foreign troops try to change the course of history.