The Dalai Lama blames “greed” for financial crisis

Author: Tejinder Singh
8 December 2008 - Issue : 811


A fter addressing an overflowing house of European Parliament December 4, the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, appeared at a joint press conference with Hans-Gert Poettering, the President of the only directly elected European institution, the European Parliament. Wit, humour, serenity and positive vibes were present in the packed environs of the Anna Politkovskaya European Parliament press room, named after the slain Russian journalist, as the Dalai Lama was at ease with international journalists.

Answering a question about economic crisis, the spiritual leader explained the ongoing market crisis around the world. Saying, “Market itself is a creation of human beings,” the Buddhist leader asked, “What is the real cause of this sort of economic crisis?” Citing answers from his business friends, the Dalai Lama told journalists: “Too much speculation and ultimately greed,” adding, “The pot - ential to help is: reduce greed and (increase) self-discipline. “Economic crisis is something urgent so it will be helpful to reduce some other conflict (that are going on) in the name of faith and nationality.”

Going down memory lane, the Dalai Lama listed the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, and Burma and North Korea as some of the instances that could not have happened or are still happening without China nodding its approval. Citing the “uncomfortable people of Hong Kong,” “reunification of Taiwan,” and the separatist factions in the southwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang as areas where such a moral authority should be displayed, the Buddhist leader insisted he only wants meaningful autonomy for Tibet under Chinese rule.

The leader from Tibet told journalists, “actually the whole world knows we are not separatists and also many Chinese writers and thinkers and many Chinese students if they have the opportunity to know the reality really support it and are in fact very critical of their government policy. “If Chinese government still accuse us of being splitists, we ourselves are confused. We are not ‘splittists,’ but the Chinese government still accuses us of being ‘splittists,’” he said.

China cancelled the annual EU-China Summit slated for December 1 when French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced he would meet the Dalai Lama in Poland. Sarkozy also represents the EU Presidency as France holds the rotating EU Presidency till the end of the year before handing it over to the Czech Republic for next six months.

When asked to comment on his meeting with Sarkozy, the Dalai Lama, with a cheerful smile said, “I have met the wife (Mrs. Sarkozy) and will be meeting the husband.” Praising the Chinese people for their diligence and perseverance and citing “manpower, economic and military power” as positive desired contributors for China to becomes “a superpower,” the Dalai Lama pointed out, “Now one important factor is moral authority and that is lacking. “Because of its very poor record on human rights and religious freedom and freedom of expression and freedom of the press — too much censorship — the image of China in the field of moral authority is very, very poor,” he said.

“The sensible Chinese realise China should now give more attention to this field to get more respectability in world affairs,” the Nobel peace laureate said, adding, “My faith in Chinese people has never shaken,” while the top echelons of Chinese leadership is divided into hard liners and soft approach advocates.

The Dalai Lama called the Chinese regime a “capitalist totalitarian regime,” and urged the importance of trust and transparency telling journalists, “trust is the key factor and for that transparency (is) really very much needed.” Calling upon the Chinese authorities to “adjust to new reality,” the Buddhist leader suggested that the Chinese authorities also can change to fit into the changing world scenario. Earlier, he addressed the European Parliament during his second day in the Belgian capital, where he was greeted by loud applause and Tibetan flags.

President Poettering, assured that the parliament would “continue to defend the rights of the Tibetan people to their cultural and religious identity.” He called on Chinese leaders to hold meaningful talks with representatives of the exiled Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, and has sought “meaningful autonomy” for Tibet since he had to leave his homeland following a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, nine years after Chinese troops invaded the region. Ruled by China since the 18th Century, Tibet became independent in 1911, but the new Communist regime in China reasserted control in 1951, and installed a Communist government in 1953.

Silencing the Truth: Russian style

Slow but steady, journalists face systematic annihilation


“I survived! Now I am a Dissident! Don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I already wrote here that at one newspaper in the Dagestan, journalists struggle with the founders. Those, in the words of journalists wanted to use them as information killers. Potential killers strike. But that case too serious and strange to my mind... Founders gave the list of people who can not be printed in this newspaper, and even... communicate with them inside the walls of editorial offices. And here I am, there is at the forefront of! At the head of the list!The most ridiculous that the newspaper... notes about their travels, where I did not touch the political situation in Zimbabwe, and a current describe where I went... I do not write anything seditious. In politics, or even about... I do not, because I have laziness... Can founders know something about me that I do not know what I did? Maybe I need to “suitcase-station- Israel” (and) not become the second Khodorkovsky?”

The above quote is a roughly translated March 20, 2008 blog entry of Ilyas Shurpayev at http://shurpaev.livejournal.com/ on the website of Odnoklassniki, a Russian social networking site.

What makes the quote to be quoted here is that it’s the last quote from the Russian television journalist who was found dead in his flat in Moscow only hours after posting this blog entry in which he joked that he had become a dissident.

Something somewhere is not right in Russia and its getting more and more dangerous to report, as Shurpayev had reported from all the most dangerous parts of Russia, including Chechnya and his native Dagestan. Found strangled with a belt around his neck and multiple knife wounds, Shurpayev, 32, had recently moved to Moscow from Dagestan, a violence- ridden republic neighbouring Chechnya, the war-torn part of Russia.

Local media reports cited the concierge in his building saying that Shurpayev apparently knew his killers because he called down for two young men to be let in. As usual, the prosecutors told media a criminal investigation has been opened into the case and the possibility that the killing might be related to his work was not ruled out.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) issued a statement calling on the Russian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the case, saying the journalist appeared to be a target of media repression. “We fear that this has all the hallmarks of a targeted attack on a journalist who was reporting from the frontlines of conflict on Russia’s borders,” the IFJ’s head Aidan White said in a statement in Brussels.

As the media was still coming to grips with this murder of a fellow journalist, the Interfax news agency citing the Russian state prosecutor Yuri Chaika reported that Gaji Abashilova, the head of the state radio and television in the same Dagestan region was shot dead in the capital Makhachkala. Abashilova, who was shot on the street in Makhachkala by assailants who fired from a car, according to the Interfax report, which added that Chaika would personally take over the investigation into the murder. Abashilov, 58, had also been deputy information minister in the Dagestani government in the past.

With dozens of journalists killed, some like Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, wellknown through their work against well-known figures, others not so well-known on international, or even national levels as they are reporting on local corruption and power-abuse, one fact gets reported crystalclear: that the Russian state is systematically failing to protect journalists with its failure to prosecute these crimes.

On one hand, Russian ex- KGB leaders are striving to bring back the glory of a superpower to Moscow, but on the other, with today’s Russia being allegedly labelled as the most dangerous place to work as a journalist, the modus operandi of their ambitious project is quite murky.

In a war-zone, journalists are aware of the dangers, while in Russia, death stalks in “safe” residential areas. Shurpayev, who was of Dagestani origin, survived the former in Caucasus to die in the latter arena of Moscow as his employer Channel One pointed out in its statement: “His CV includes all the hotspots in the Caucasus... And very often he would work in practically combat-like conditions.”

It’s not the murder of one journalist that kills free media but the failure of society to bring to book the culprits, emboldens the repressive forces to repeat the offence and slow but steady silence the voice of truth.