Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

suppression of the freedom of the press are no longer supposed to exist in the new Tibet. On June 15,
1988, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama announced to the European Parliament in Strasbourg that upon his
return a constitutional assembly would be formed in the Land of Snows, headed by a president who
would possess the same authority as he himself now enjoyed. Following this there would be
democratic elections. A separation of church and state along western lines would be guaranteed from
the outset in Tibet. There would also be a voluntary relinquishment of some political authority vis-àvis
the Chinese. He, the Dalai Lama, would recognize the diplomatic and military supremacy of China
and be content with just the „fields of religion, commerce, education, culture, tourism, science, sports,
and other non-political activities” (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 234).
But despite such spoken professions, the national symbols tell another tale: With pride, every Tibetan
in exile explains that the two snow lions on the national flag signify the union of spiritual and worldly
power. The Tibetan flag is thus a visible demonstration of the Tibetan Buddhocracy. Incidentally, a
Chinese yin yang symbol can be found in the middle. This can hardly be a reference to a royal couple,
and rather, is clearly a symbol of the androgyny of the Dalai Lama as the highest tantric ruler of the
Land of Snows. All the other heraldic features of the flag (the colors, the flaming jewels, the twelve
rays, etc.), which is paraded as the coat of arm of a democratic, national Tibet, are drawn from the
royalist repertoire of the Lamaist priesthood.
The Strasbourg Declaration of 1989 and the renunciation of autonomy it contains are sharply
criticized by the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), the European Tibetan Youth Association, and the
Dalai Lama’s elder brother, Thubten Norbu. When the head of the Tibetan Youth Congress came
under strong attack because he did not approve of the political decisions of the Kundun, he defended
himself by pointing out that the Dalai Lama himself had called upon him to pursue this hard-line
stance — probably so as to have the possibility of distancing himself from his Strasbourg Declaration
(Goldstein, 1997, p. 139).
This political double game is currently intensifying. Whilst the god-king continues to extend his
contacts with Beijing, the TYC’s behavior is increasingly vocally radical. We have become too
nonviolent, too passive, declared the president of the organization, Tseten Norbu, in 1998 (Reuters,
Beijing, June 22, 1998). In the countermove, since Clinton’s visit to China (in July 1998) the Dalai
Lama has been offering himself to the Chinese as a peacemaker to be employed against his own
people as the sole bulwark against a dangerous Tibetan radicalism: “The resentment in Tibet against
the Chinese is very strong. But there is one [person] who can influence and represent the Tibetan
people [he means himself here]. If he no longer existed the problem could be radicalized” he
threatened the Chinese leadership, of whom it has been said that they want to wait out his death in
exile (Time, July 13, 1998, p. 26).
Whatever happens to the Tibetan people in the future, the Dalai Lama remains a powerful ancient
archetype in his double function as political and spiritual leader. In the moment in which he has to
surrender this dual role, the idea, anchored in the Kalachakra Tantra, of a “world king” first loses its
visible secular part, then the Chakravartin is worldly and spiritual ruler at once. In this case the Dalai
Lama would exercise a purely spiritual office, which more or less corresponds to that of a Catholic
Pope.
How the Kundun will in the coming years manage the complicated balancing act between religious
community and nationalism, democracy and Buddhocracy, world dominion and parliamentary