President Obama to Confess to the Dalai Lama?
There is a tradition particularly among Catholics that a person should confess to his/her priest if they commit sins. The person will begin by saying “Forgive me father for I have sinned”. The priest will then listen to the sins and once it is concluded the priest will give the person penance (prayers). Confession gives the individual a clean slate (until the next confession!) and also allows the individual to go straight to heaven after death.
This practice is not limited to the Catholic Church alone. American politicians have used confessions effectively not just in the church but also on television (remember Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal?) and in the White House. President Obama is getting ready to confess. US officials have confirmed the President Obama will meet the exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama later this month.
Obama joins a long list of American Presidents in the past twenty years who have met the Dalai Lama either officially or on a less formal level. But during the same period America’s relationship with China has deepened to a point where the US-China trade relationship is the most important relationship on the planet.
America unlike any other country on the planet talks a lot about liberty, freedom and democracy. The United States also use these concepts as a part of its foreign policy when it is convenient. There is no question that the United States is the best democracy in the world today (there are great democracies in Europe like France and Britain but they always come up short compared to America when it comes to openness to and treatment of immigrants).
One of the valid criticisms of American foreign policy is that America always puts its military and economic interests above other interests like freedom, democracy and equality. This is understandable if you are an American but sends contradictory message to other countries that take the American rhetoric on democracy and freedom seriously. Many people in India have wondered for decades why America was so concerned about Pakistan and not about India.
Many people all over the world are also perplexed as to why the United States does not use the enormous leverage that it has had for a long time to force the Chinese to open up their society and allow more freedom to the almost 1.4 billion Chinese. Both the American government and the public have so far not shown the resolve to use whatever means available to force changes in China as they have with the former Soviet Union.
America has used meetings with the Dalai Lama and some generic statements about human rights violations as a way of showing the rest of the world that they still care about what is going on in China and in Tibet. Most often after a few days of the meeting everything will go back to “normal”.
The issue of Tibet like Kashmir is a very complicated problem. Irrespective of what the Chinese government thinks of the Dalai Lama the fact is that he enjoys tremendous support in his adopted country (India) and also all over the world. Buddhism is a very fast growing ideology in the West and many Buddhists all over the world (including China) consider the Dalai Lama to be their spiritual leader. Beijing’s strategy of labeling the Dalai Lama as a “dangerous separatist” has not worked. The Chinese government has recently met with a few top ranking members of the Tibetan government in exile in India that might indicate a shift in their stance.
China has also found it very difficult to keep a tight lid on the happenings in Tibet. In this day and age it is very difficult to control information flow. The borders between India, China, Tibet and Nepal are very porous and it is very difficult to prevent people and information from moving back and forth. The Dalai Lama is now fine with Tibet being a part of China as long as the “Tibetan region” is autonomous. The Tibetan region is almost one third of China and the Chinese government will have a difficult time agreeing to this concept.
The question for the Dalai Lama is whether governments like the United States are helping him in his cause or just using him and his people for exercising their own inner demons. In a major sign of support India allowed the Dalai Lama to visit the disputed state of Arunachal Pradesh and also open a museum at the 400 year old monastery in Tawang (a place where he briefly stated when he was fleeing from Tibet in 1959). What does he have to gain from his meeting with the President?
The appropriate question might be what does the President and the United States of America gain when the President meets the Dalai Lama?
Related posts:
- The Heat Is On President Obama
- President Obama Reinforces Indian Stereotype?
- Does Democracy Curb Growth?
- India Should Not Arrest the Avatar of Sai Baba
- Barack Obama: Inspiration From Mahatma Gandhi?
Category: Culture & Religion