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

The Communist Party of China guaranteed the freedom of religious practice, albeit with certain
restrictions. For example, it was forbidden to practice “religious propaganda” outside of the
monastery walls, or to recruit monks who were under 18 years old, so as to protect children from
“religious indoctrination”. But by and large the Buddhist faith could be practiced unhampered, and it
has bloomed like never before in the last 35 years.
In the meantime hundreds of thousands of western tourists have visited the “roof of the world”.
Individuals and travel groups of exiled Tibetans have also been permitted to visit the Land of Snows
privately or were even officially invited as “guests of state”. Among them has been Gyalo Thondup,
the Dalai Lama’s brother and military advisor, who conspired against the Chinese Communists with
the CIA for years and counted among the greatest enemies of Beijing. The Chinese were firmly
convinced that the Kundun’s official delegations would not arouse much interest among the populace.
The opposite was the case. Many thousands poured into Lhasa to see the brother of the Dalai Lama.
But apparently this “liberal” climate could not and still cannot heal the deep wounds inflicted after the
invasion and during the Chinese occupation.
Up until 1998, the opposition to Beijing in Tibet was stronger than ever before since the flight of the
Dalai Lama, as the bloody rebellion of October 1987 [5] and the since then unbroken wave of
demonstrations and protests indicates. For this reason a state of emergency was in force in Lhasa and
the neighboring region until 1990. The Tibet researcher Ronald Schwartz has published an interesting
study in which he convincingly proves that the Tibetan resistance activities conform to ritualized
patterns. Religion and politics, protest and ritual are blended here as well. Alongside its
communicative function, every demonstration thus possesses a symbolic one, and is for the
participants at heart a magic act which through constant repetition is supposed to achieve the
expulsion of the Chinese and the development of a national awareness among the populace.
The central protest ceremony in the country consists in the circling of the Jokhang Temple by monks
and laity who carry the Tibetan flag. This action is known as khorra and is linked to a tradition of
circumambulation. Since time immemorial the believers have circled shrines in a clockwise direction
with a prayer drum in the hand and the om mani padme hum formula on their lips, on the one hand to
ensure a better rebirth, on the other to worship the deities dwelling there. However, these days the
khorra is linked — and this is historically recent — with protest activity against the Chinese: Leaflets
are distributed, placards carried, the Dalai Lama is cheered. At the same time monks offer up
sacrificial cakes and invoke above all the terrible protective goddess, Palden Lhamo. As if they
wanted to neutralize the magic of the protest ritual, the Chinese have begun wandering around the
Jokhang in the opposite direction, i.e., counterclockwise.
Those monks who were wounded and killed by the Chinese security forces whilst performing the
ritual in the eighties are considered the supreme national martyrs. Their sacrificial deaths demanded
widespread imitation and in contrast to the Buddhist prohibition against violence could be legitimated
without difficulty. To sacrifice your life does not contradict Buddhism, young monks from the
Drepung monastery told western tourists (Schwartz, 1994, p. 71).
Without completely justifying his claims, Schwartz links the circling of the Jokhang with the vision of
the Buddhist world kingship. He refers to the fact that Tibet’s first Buddhist ruler, Songtsen Gampo,