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Editorial: A talk with the Dalai Lama[The Boston Globe]5 May 2009IN A MEETING at
the Charles Hotel in Cambridge last week, the Dalai Lama and more than
100 scholars from China showed how direct discussion can overcome
irrational prejudices and official cant. Chinese academics needed a
chance to encounter Tibet’s spiritual leader without government
interference.The organizer of the event, Lobsang Sangay, a
senior fellow at Harvard Law School, set out the simplest of ground
rules: civil discourse and no photographs taken until after the
discussion. Moderator Tu Weiming, professor of Chinese history and
philosophy and Confucian studies at Harvard, urged all sides to allow a
genuine exchange of ideas, celebrate their differences, and refrain
from trying to convert others.But the participants hardly
needed coaching. The Chinese scholars were respectful and open-minded,
often acknowledging false impressions they had originally held about
Tibetans, the history of Tibetan-Chinese relations, and the role of the
Dalai Lama. For his part, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists
seemed to surprise many of the younger Chinese academics as he
described the three- and four-hour audiences he had with Chairman Mao
Zedong in Beijing more than a half century ago.Some in the
audience were amused when the Dalai Lama said he had once been
attracted to the moral principles of socialism, particularly its ideal
of equal distribution, and had even asked to join the Chinese Communist
Party. There were no challenges and no raised eyebrows, however, when
he said that today there is a ruling Communist Party in China without
communist ideology.Free from official mediation, the academics
heard the Dalai Lama say that he welcomes the material progress China
had brought Tibet – but also that his people were suffering nonetheless
because they lacked freedom of expression, religious freedom, and
freedom from fear.Drawing a distinction between autonomy for
Tibet and political independence, he explained the request his envoys
made to Chinese officials last summer, shortly after the violent
clashes on the Tibetan plateau in March 2008. He said they had asked
only for forms of autonomy consistent with those promised to national
minorities in China’s constitution – especially the right to preserve
Tibetan language, culture, and religion. Yet Chinese officials falsely
accused him of demanding independence for Tibet, calling him a liar and
a demon.The Chinese scholars who crowded around him afterward,
snapping photos of themselves with the Dalai Lama, now know he is
nothing like the figure depicted in Beijing’s propaganda. –The above piece is reproduced from the online edition of The Boston Globe on 5 May 2009.
