Culling the Lama

Culling the Lama



 

Lama



Author



 

I’ve never had any time for the Dalai Lama and not just because of his terrible dress sense. The only religious leader acceptable to the liberal middles is a former slave owner and onetime spiritual figurehead of a brutal, feudal regime, who in the past has received millions of US Dollars from the peace loving CIA. That the Lama is more a brand than anything else was shown by him receiving the Nobel peace prize for nothing in particular; a bit like that given to Barak Obama.

That’s why I was amused at the fuss caused by former TV celebrity Dave Cull and author of the seminal text, A Toast to Martinborough and the Wairarapa: Stories from the Vineyards, refusing to meet the sometime Tibetan resident in his role as Mayor of Dunedin. Not so funny was the implication that Cull didn’t want to upset Chinese investors by meeting him though I’d quite like the Chinese to be upset enough to take back the pointless Chinese Garden and not build a 28 storey hotel on the waterfront.

Despite my dislike of the Dalai Lama and his refusal to support outright national independence for Tibet, the Chinese state’s treatment of Tibet has been vicious and longstanding  and ought to be brought up as often as necessary as should the former’s fake piety. Perhaps Jinty MacTavish, the council’s third choice to meet the Lama could wear a t-shirt with the slogan, ‘Free Tibet – No to the Dalai Lama, No to China’.