Monday, July 18, 2011
Dalai Lama
Not All He Is Cracked Up To Be
Michael Parenti reveals the truth about the history of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. His new book God and His Demons reveals the dark side of the Dalai Lama.
"Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs and owned by monasteries and secular landlords... The commander in chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama's lay Cabinet, owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some of its admirers as "a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma." In fact, it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarme for the landlords to keep order and hunt down runaway serfs."
Also recommended is the Forum's hour long documentary on related history as viewed from Chinese perspective.
