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

such eco-paradisiacal-vegetarian retrospection now on offer in the “scholarly history” of the exiled
Tibetans.
But by now the Tibetans in exile themselves gladly believe in such ecological fairytales. For them it is
alone the brutal Chinese (whose behavior towards Mother Earth is no better nor worse than any other
capitalist country, however) who are the villains and stand accused (in this instance rightly) of
destroying the ancient forests of the country and because they pay high prices for aphrodisiacs won
from the bones of the snow leopard. But there are also some factual objectors to the opinion that the
Tibet of old was an eco-paradise. The Tibetans were never more ecologically aware than other
peoples, writes Jamyan Norbu, co-director of the Tibetan Culture Institute in Dharamsala, and warns
against dangerous myth making (Spiegel, 16/1998, p. 119).
Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian
In this section, which we introduced with the two German “Greens”, Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian, we
would like to draw attention to some interesting speculations in the Buddhist scene concerning the
reunification of Germany. The Dalai Lama rarely becomes directly and openly involved in world
politics aside from the issue of Tibet unless calling for peace in general. There are nevertheless
numerous occult rumors in circulation among his followers that suggest him to be the political
director of the world who holds the strings from “another dimension” in his hands. For example, there
has been talk that the fall of the Berlin Wall was to be attributed to him. Among other things, the fact
that at the exact point where the first break in the wall was created (a scene broadcast all around the
world) there stood a graffiti reading Long Live Dalai Lama is offered as proof of this.
In fact, six months before the German reunification the Kundun had stood praying before the “wall of
shame” with a candle in his hand. The pacifist, opponent of atomic energy, environmentalist and
committed campaigner for the freedom of Tibet, Petra Kelly, had been able to motivate him to cross
the East German border together with his entire retinue in December 1989. After the candle ceremony
mentioned, the group were ferried to a Round Table discussion with citizens’ rights groups by the
GDR state security service (the infamous Stasi, or secret police). [2]