An old man no longer in himself, a gaffeur, or even a pedophile. Of the Dalai Lama it has been said for years of all colors. On the other hand, known for his playful character, Tenzin Gyatso he has not failed on several occasions to commit some indelicacy: in 2019 the man, who turns 88 this year, caused a hornet’s nest for declaring that if he were reincarnated as donna “it should have been more attractive“. The year before, commenting on the problem of immigration fromAfrica, declared that it is better to “keep Europe for the Europeans”. The last slip dates back to the end of February, when during a celebrationthe Buddhist leader kissed a little boy on the lips and asked him to “suck his tongue“. The video of the scene, released online just a few days ago, has been described by many as “inappropriate”, “scandalous” and “disgusting”. Someone has gone further. Republic he interviewed Tenzin Peljor, a monk who has been denouncing sexual abuse within the Buddhist community for years. But is this really the case? Apologizing to the lad and to his familyas well as many friends around the world, the staff of the religious leader he justified what happened by recalling how Tenzin Gyatso “He loves to make fun of people which meets in the way innocent e playful”. Yet the astonished gaze of the bambino some doubts raise it.
“If the question is whether the video proves that the Dalai Lama is a paedophile, so I guess for some the answer might be yes,” he says Robert Barnettfounder of Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University New York. Heard from Fattoquotidiano.it calls the charge “one total speculation” in the absence of further evidence. The risk – according to the professor – is to create “a climate of hyperbolic media aversion”. Second Barnett it is not easy to explain the gesture of Tenzin Gyatso since Tibetans have different customs in different regions, even varying from family to family. But, as highlighted on the net by some Tibetans e scholarsin some areas of the region autonomous Chinese kissing children on the lips is considered a normal expression of affection by elders, as is saying the Tibetan phrase “suck my tongue“. Barnett admits it is difficult to find a definitive explanation, precisely because of the different perception that each family unit has that behavior. But the reaction of the Tibetan community on the web has generally been comprehension; a sign of how the gesture – apart from a few exceptions – must not have seemed too strange to those immersed in that particular cultural context.
The authoritative tibetologist it also believes it is necessary to analyze the historical dimension of the problem. Because if on the one hand the indignation of Western public opinion in some cases it is sincere, on the other it is the product of a long history of “complaints extremists e imaginative” against the Dalai Lama. A story involving the first Catholic missionaries in the Imperial China. Not all: the Jesuit Ippolito Desideri who lived in Lhasa in the early 18th century, he was fluent in the Tibetan, and was respectful of the Buddhist religion and its institutions. But he the Protestant fundamentalist evangelists they are known to have attempted rather aggressive proselytizing campaigns in the 1990s. In their accusatory leaflets they defined the Buddhism “a form of slavery spiritual and demonic.” As you remember Barnett in “Saving Tibet from Satan’s Grip: Present-day Missionary Activity in Tibet”, before invading the Tibet in 1903, it was the media and the British imperialists who spread hate speech against the figure of Dalai Lama. The practice of filing false complaints to man against the head of the tibetan lamaism was then taken up by Chinese authorities in 1959, once conquered the region manu militari. Or more precisely in 1962 when, after three years of misdirectionsthe Chinese government admitted that the escape of Tenzin Gyatso in India it had been voluntary, not a kidnapping. “As with other forms of prejudice rootedsometimes it can be difficult to distinguish the concerns sincere (but perhaps uninformed) of some foreigners from established and conspiratorial accusations against Tibetan Buddhism or the Dalai Lama,” he explains Barnett.
Not counting the political factor: since 2012 – by own choice – Tenzin Gyatso plays an exclusively religious role. But the figure of him is still associated with the movement of resistence against the ethnic assimilation carried out by the Chinese government in Tibet. And therefore inserted within that polarized narrative that has been seeing the for years now Chinese be told completely negative or paroxysmal positive. In order not to jeopardize business with the world‘s second largest economy, fewer and fewer countries are publicly welcoming the Dalai LamaThat Beijing he still considers himself a secessionist.