LOS
ANGELES - In reporting on remarks of the Dalai
Lama during his visit to the University of
Southern California (USC) on May 3, the LA Times
ignited something of a media firestorm.
Under the headline, "Dalai Lama suggests
Osama bin Laden's death was justified", Mitchell
Landsberg wrote:
[I]n an appearance Tuesday at USC,
[the Dalai Lama] appeared to suggest that the
United States was justified in killing Osama bin
Laden.
As
a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved
compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama
said in answer to a question about the
assassination of the al-Qaeda leader. But, he
said, "Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what
happened ... If something is serious and it is
necessary to take
counter-measures, you have
to take counter-measures." [1]
That started the
ball rolling:
NPR: A Symbol Of
Compassion, Dalai Lama Hints Bin Laden's Killing
Was Justified. [2]
Stephen Jenkins
at the Guardian: It's not so strange for
a Buddhist to endorse killing; the Dalai Lama's
attitude to Bin Laden's death should not be too
surprising - Buddhism is not as pacifist as the
West fantasizes [3]
AFP:
Dalai Lama 'says bin Laden killing justified'
[4] Jeffrey Goldberg at the
Atlantic: Dalai Lama Suggests Approval
for Bin Laden Killing. [5]
Michael
Crowley at Time: Clearly, the precise
legalities involved in killing bin Laden are
murky ... But unless you are opposed to capital
punishment in the absolute, or believe that we
are compelled to put on trial any terrorist we
are able to capture, the morality is less
complicated. Heck, even the Dalai Lama isn't
bothered. [6]
Jay Leno's
monologue: This is my favorite thing; in
an address at USC the other day, the Dalai Lama
seemed to suggest that killing Bin Laden was
okay. That's when you know you're a bad guy,
when the Dalai Lama's going, "I didn't see
nothing." [7]
Actually, the real
story was less-than-stellar reportage.
Landsberg did get one thing right:
The audience, which included some
3,000 USC students, responded to his message
respectfully, even adoringly. Afterward,
however, some complained that they had trouble
understanding him; the Dalai Lama often speaks
about thorny concepts in accented English,
sometimes relying on a translator to fill in
gaps.
Include Landsberg as one of the
audience with an understanding problem. I know,
because I was there.
During the question
and answer following his remarks at the Galen
Center, the Dalai Lama responded to an submitted
question as to whether "ensuring justice was more
important than being compassionate" in the case of
the death of Osama bin Laden. Specifically, was it
OK to celebrate his death because, in the official
US formulation, he had been "brought to justice"?
This was not a particularly difficult
question for the Dalai Lama, and he responded:
Now here must make distinction
between actor and action. His actions of course
destructive ... they must bring him into justice
way. But actor - as human being, as human
brother, we must show compassion, sense of
concern for his well-being.
In other
words, something along the lines of "love the
sinner but hate the sin".
The "justice
way", in this context, looks like the working of
the criminal justice system in dealing with Bin
Laden's actions, not some kind of morally endorsed
retribution on Bin Laden's person.
Once
the "justice way" formalities were out of the way,
the Dalai Lama was definitely not suggesting that
shooting Bin Laden in the head was a suitable
exercise of compassion.
The Dalai Lama
continued on in this vein for a couple minutes,
saying:
The basis of forgiveness does not
mean forget what happened ... but because of
that action, keep ill-feeling toward that
person, wrong.
So, celebrating Bin
Laden's death, definitely wrong.
Things
then got somewhat more ambiguous, at least for
some listeners.
The Dalai Lama moved on
from the actor to his or her actions, to clarify
that compassion for Bin Laden didn't mean doing
nothing about his destructive actions:
So towards action - destructive
action - we must take appropriate action to stop
that...if something serious and necessary to
take counter-measures, you have to take
countermeasures.
It was clear that the
Dalai Lama considers flying airplanes into
buildings filled with thousands of people as the
kind of "destructive actions" that should be
stopped with "counter-measures" if possible.
Presumably, if Bin Laden had taken up a weapon and
the SEALS had shot him in self-defense and in a
"more in sorrow than in anger" kind of way, the
Dalai Lama would also have approved.
However, it can be stated with a high
degree of confidence that the Dalai Lama did not
consider the killing of Bin Laden to be
"justified" - ie deserved and appropriate
punishment for his crimes. In fact, the
Dalai Lama addressed the Bin Laden issue in 2006.
In an interview in Dharamsala, India - home to his
exiled Tibetan government, he told the Alice
Thomson of the UK's Daily Telegraph that
terrorists must be treated humanely:
"Otherwise, the problem will
escalate. If there is one Bin Laden killed
today, soon there will be 10 Bin Ladens.
Awesome. Ten Bin Ladens killed, the hatred is
spread; 100 bombed, and 1,000 lose members of
their families." [8]
After the
kerfuffle, the Tibetan government in exile issued
a flash news item summarizing the Dalai Lama's
remarks. Concerning the Bin Laden question, it
stated:
The first question was on His
Holiness' emphasis on compassion as a basis of
ethics. It asked whether in some situation
ensuring justice is more important than being
compassionate to the perpetrator of a crime. It
referred to the news of the death of Osama Bin
Laden and the celebrations of it by some, and
asked where compassion fit in with this and
ethics. In his response, His Holiness emphasized
the need to find a distinction between the
action and the actor.
He said in the
case of Bin Laden, his action was of course
destructive and the September 11 events killed
thousands of people. So his action must be
brought to justice, His Holiness said. But with
the actor we must have compassion and a sense of
concern, he added. His Holiness said therefore
the counter measure, no matter what form it
takes, has to be compassionate action. His
Holiness referred to the basis of the practice
of forgiveness saying that it, however, did not
mean that one should forget what has been done.
[9]
Not good enough for the
Margherita Stancati of the Wall Street Journal's
Chinarealtime blog, who sniffed:
The question explicitly referred to
Osama bin Laden, who was killed Sunday night
during a US raid in Pakistan's town of
Abbottabad.
This placed the Dalai Lama -
a man who famously frowns at the idea of killing
mosquitoes - in the position of either having to
compromise his unflinching commitment to
non-violence or publicly declaring his
compassion for the world's most wanted
terrorist. In a poorly-orchestrated PR move, he
managed to do both. [10]
Actually, the
Dalai Lama made a point of stating he squashed an
occasional mosquito as a way of saying that human
forbearance has its limits, even for living
Buddhas. Violence is an inevitable element of
human existence; the goal is to understand its
roots, appreciate its karmic costs, and take
measures to reduce it.
Depending on one's
degree of pessimism, one can either view the
affair as evidence of further decline in standards
of stenography and reportage, America's alarming
need for enthusiastic, universal validation of its
killing of Bin Laden, or a demonstration of the
admirable efficiency of the world's press in
exploiting the Dalai Lama's global popularity to
create a faux controversy and fill a news hole.
Fortunately, the University of Southern
California has now posted the Youtube video of the
Dalai Lama's remarks, so interested viewers can
judge for themselves.
The Bin Laden
question appears at around the 45:00 mark. [11]
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