treehuggingoctopus wrote: ↑Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:34 am
Nilasarasvati wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2022 9:00 pmI'm a red/black far leftist and it's very hard to accept that most of my teachers are, at best, liberal minded Monarchists and ethno-nationalists. I think it's appalling that pretty much only His Holiness the Dalai Lama has any kind of real committment to a secular, egalitarian society and most teachers I know would see no problem with turning the clock back 100 years and going back to Serfdom.
(A red black to a red black: ) HHDL is not alone. There are plenty of teachers committed to social change but they have to tread with extreme care. Some of them find themselves in PRC. Some are exiles in increasingly jingoistic and bloodthirsty India. Some in Nepal, precariously placed between China and India. And some in Bhutan, an otherworldly pocket that could be obliterated in a few hours. India, Nepal and Bhutan are living through, and reacting against a neocolonial hell, and such reactions are seldom nice. It would be a miracle if anything socially emancipating could emerge and persist in such environments. Postcolonial studies help a lot here.
Then there indeed are vast cultural differences, which must be understood, and handled, with great sensitivity; this alone is a daunting challenge. Nothing easier than judging the Other in terms of our own framework.... PS. When a Tibetan lama says that respect has to be earned, he has every right to say so, and it would be probably better for us to go an extra mile here; after all, it is their culture that is hosting something we are interested in. It is our responsibility, however, to ensure that Vajrayana in the West reflects that which is truly valuable about our heritage.
Something sensible at least ... but, see how you deep you are (quite unvoluntarily) into cultural assimilation (and in terms of profit, strangely) what is "truly valuable about our heritage"?
Otherwise, HHDL is in speaking terms since long with VHP, and validated India's claim on Arunachal (actually stolen by the British in the 30s in violation of the 1914 Simla agreement), this to say that Tibetans position in India is precarious since day 1 - 63 years and mlre than two generations.
The Bhutan problem come in great part from British colonial policis, hundreds of thousend of Nepalis soldiers were not allowed to return home (ritual impurity) after WWI & II and were sent to Assam, Burma (all thrown brutally away at independance) to be used as cheap labor and tho keep tribals at bay.
Same goes with Rohingya in Burma, Tamil in Sri Lanka ... not to forget Darjeeling and Sikkim, the Rana governement
sold families to British India so the original Lepcha and Tibetan (Buhia) will be overpowered
The Bhutan crisis has a lot do with the Darjeeling (Gorkkha) problem and, that may seem strange to you, with Nepal's domestic policies:
the ultra-royalists always dreams to go back to "Greater Nepal from Garhwal to Kalimpong, and at the time of the 1992 revolution, both Nepal
And Nepali Congress and the two main branches of the Communist Party of Nepal (splts and reunites incessantly) called publicly for a revolution in Bhutan too, and promised land to Nepalese and Gorkhalis (Darjeeling) who would help to overthrow the "illegitimate" monarchy, illigetimate among other things, because in the Hindu cast world, Bhote / Bhutias / Tibetans are cow-eaters (and even killers) - outcasts, in other worlds. Which proper Hindu of good or acceptable birth (be it a communist) could accept to be ruled by a cow-eater?
I was in Nepal then (Nepali speaking since 1987), and obviously the promise of land was heard by some
In Darjeeling notably - that I know also well - that suffered greatly during the Gorkha movement culminating in1988 - event involving some Nepalesz ultra-nationalists)
Not to forget the role of varioius Christian denominations - positive at times in terms of caritative work, but clearly in a scenario scripted in some Washington offices: I witnessed twice (Nepal and Mongolia) evangeltsts providing US green cards and even citizenships by the number of converts you bring - plus cash (also very active in parts of Assam where there's - guess what - oil)
I even witnessed a training camp near Kathmandu for the new "pastors", techniques of crowd and individual manipulation, drawn directly from the book written by French army's special servives in Algeria, transfered (with US assistance) in South American- and since widely distributed
No doubt Bhutanese overreacted (never forget that the first census was 1988, followed Gorkha agitation in Darjeeling. Many Nepalese from there were trying their luck elsewhere. Bhutanese authorities had in mind what happened in Sikkim before, and some places in Assam.
Plus some of the movements were pretty violent (certainly not "democratic" , had direct connections with Nepalese political parties (seems that some "party workers" were trained in Nepal, possibly involving a few Nepalese, the Nepalese press never hid this, far from it ...and certainly mostactivists clamed that Bhutanese culture had to be eradicated (brutally)
From various Nepalese sources, plus a UN officer directly involved, a significant number of refugees (even with relatively tolerant norms) could not fully qualify, a percentage possibly coming from Assam, Darjeeling and even Nepal
They've been riots in Eastern Nepal when people found that the refugees were given actually more that they got (nothing, this is), plus would possibly go the US cost-free (an impossible dream to many Nepalis)
Your perhaps saw images of the camps (avalaible on the net still, I think) can you imagine the living conditions of their neighbours.
It seems that , at the end, if one counts the refugees relocated in various countries (the US far ahead), the few left in limbo in Nepal (usually elders, and now without much support), the few hundreds accepted back in Bhutan and you end up with a number of resetlled refugees superior to the UN recorded numbers of refugees, add to that a number, difficult to evaluate, of people who resettled early , unrecorded, in Assam, or Darjeeling if they had family roots there (or,even, came straight from there)
Camps ended being run by Lutherians.
Total accepted by the US: 92,323
That Nepal never accepted to take part of them (even if over 90% of refugees coming originally from Nepal directly, or no more than a few generations) is simply due do the fact that Nepal is an over-populated country, that exports population since long, plus the fact that some Nepalese politicians prefered to see their role in instigating the crisis forgotten. One reason being that India (thetaht as a graat say ine Nepalese politics) , got highly disturbed by the fact this was happenig in the most sensible geographical part of the country, the Siliguri corridor. The Nepal/India, Bhutanese refugee camps is some 20 kms from the India/ Bangla Desh. Check on a map. Z-Ang-d China not very far, cofortablu sitting on the top of the Himalayas
The access to Eastern Indian ressources can be easily cut, an economic and strategic disaster?. So India decided to freeze the situation, and was certainly happy to have this lakh refugees sent to the US.
There are certainly cultural issues, and local politics issues, but caught in context locals actors are not even aware of, when aware, have no control on (and can be easlily manipulated) - much larger actors are involved.
I tend to see this as a direct consequence of the British Imperial rule, and the beginning of reshaping of this part of world according to the needs of the US empire (of the version 0.2 - open society) ... poor guys caught in the middle.
I met some Lhotsampas in Bhutan, some were bit shy (better to be) but some were supportive of the monarchy ) i had their own versions, and they also point the aggressive behaviour of some revolutionnary elements that justified a brutal reaction by ruthless members of the security forces andd part ot (small) ruling elite. They seem to be losing ground (we could add the story of the Bodo Liberation Fronf, that'll be too long - but we cabn infer in this case the long shadow of India)
Never forget that Bhutan's independance is completely dependent on India - by treaty
This was just a few hints to the complexities of the specific case of Bhutan , mentioned at the beginning of this thread - they certainly got weird when faced with a direct manace. And if you look at Bhutan's history, they're quite fierce warriors (Gorkhas too, and long ago they allied to bring the Kingdom of Sikkim - that was then including Nepal east of Everest, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Sikiguri - to its present situation of an Indian state poulated by a large majority of people of bepalese origin... world is complex and rarely nice
If you want to make the world nicer without understanting its complexities (and, of course, that people are dominated by kleshas) you may end up make it worst
There's a large agreement in the various Buddhist traditions, various trends of Greeks philosophy, Roman stoïcists, Christian philosphers (I'm thinking of René Descartes, or Blaise Pascal) on first trying ou best to uproot what we call here kleshas
Being angry against the world won't change it - or for worst
Sorry for being so long