What on earth was the Dalia Lama Thinking?
Watch a video of this article on: https://youtu.be/qern3QzPOgA
What on earth was the Dalai Lama thinking of? Video emerged on Twitter a few days ago of him kissing a boy and then asking the boy, who is clearly under the age of sexual consent in any person’s language or culture, to suck on his tongue.
About half the world are calling him a paedophile and the other half are defending his actions as either “innocent playful fun” as described by his own website or culturally normal. the BBC claimed sticking the tongue out is a way of greeting in Tibet and Several other sites have supported this, writing off the incident as a cultural misunderstanding because there’s a ninth century Tibetan tradition of showing the tongue and it is often used as a greeting in group sessions.
However, there is not and never has been in any culture anywhere, an acceptable time to invite someone to suck their tongue. We should bear in mind that the same BBC defended him in 2015 AND 2019 when he jokingly said that if his successor was female she must be attractive or useless. Something else his office was obliged to apologise for just 4 years ago.
if this tradition of the tongue were the norm in Tibet, this man who is on the TV screens of almost every country in the world greeting religious, political or celebrity guests would have done this often and probably not raised an eyebrow but he has never done this before either to a child or an adult.
In the minds of some, probably many, this is a man who can do no wrong. Already the “Twitterverse” is alive with justification evidenced by photos of Brezhnev kissing Erich Honecker, also known as Socialist Fraternal kiss, politicians in many countries kiss babies; as a media attention grabber, this is ok, usually the baby’s parents offer the child and take photos. When two adults of the same gender share some special bond in public others might find it culturally insensitive but, for the most part, these things aren’t illegal.
An adult male kissing the lips of a pre-teen boy (who is not a family member) is not a matter of sensitivity, it is a matter that should be considered by the law in any country in which it occurs to establish if a crime has taken place.
The matter is compounded by, in my opinion, two other aspects: the request of that same adult, revered as one of the world’s Holy Men for the boy to suck on his tongue; and the vicelike grip that the Dalai Lama held with his left hand on the boy’s right arm, which appeared to be alarmingly close to the venerable crutch. These two aspects clearly caused discomfort for the boy and preventing him from retreating from the situation.
What interests some observers, including me, is how this has been allowed to become mainstream, it’s more than a month old. The Dalai Lama gives presentations, travels widely, hosts many guests and hardly any of these activities reach the mainstream press, frankly, Tibet is off the radar and the calls for a “Free Tibet” might still ring but they hardly ever ring loudly enough to be heard.
Some on Twitter are suggesting that the Chinese government (or CCP) are responsible for releasing this but in a typically American twist have suggested that there was a plot to release it to MAGAs who share an enmity of China with the Tibetan people and apparently they “care deeply about paedophilia”.
It takes no leap of logic to realise that, even if the dreaded CPC did start this, even if MAGAs were used in a complicated psyop by the Chinese government, it wasn’t the CPC who kissed the boy. The video hasn’t been denied by the Dalai Lama it’s accurate, it hasn’t been decried as a fake, on the contrary, the Dalai Lama issued an apology for it. No one photoshopped or doctored the video to make the Dalai Lama look bad — he did that all on his own.
More likely it is becoming clear to anyone in Washington, where most of the support for a Free Tibet Movement is funded that the Dalai Lama has served his useful purpose. There was never going to be an independent Tibet, this was just a ruse to disrupt China’s relations with the rest of the world. I don’t claim these things, these things come from the CIA itself. The entire story was detailed including with references and citation by Foreign Policy Journal in 2010 in an article entitled The Tragedy of Tibet: A saga of Betrayal, Colonization and Exploitation.
And, if anyone went to Tibet to ask Tibetans, they would be told, there is no need, they’re as free as they’ve ever been.
The same article goes on to describe how exploitation by foreign investment firms would not benefit the people of Tibet, it would be interesting to revisit the article in depth and view the negative aspects of it in light of today’s economic, climate, environmental and most importantly, individual Tibetan wealth situation.
The truth of the matter is, Tibet has improved economically, while there are still poor people there are no longer any in absolute poverty, there are no major issues with the environment and there are no credible reports of human rights issues. Tibetans enjoy a robust and open form of governance which China calls Whole Process Democracy. Don’t take my word for it, watch people who’ve been.
Overall, it’s fairly clear Tibet, and the Dalai Lama were a cause celebre, Tibet was never meant to be an independent or free country, even the Dalai Lama agrees he doesn’t seek independence from China. But now, it’s likely that, given his age, the lack of success in driving a wedge between Tibetans and Chinese inside of Tibet and the fact that he’s publicly brought disgrace upon himself, it might just be time to drop the entire thing.
