Dalai Lama supports Taiwan democracy

On a visit to Taiwan, the Dalai Lama called on the Taiwanese people to protect their democratic institutions, saying, "You achieved democracy. That you must preserve".

The Dalai Lama went to Taiwan to visit and pray for the victims of Typhoon Morakot. The visit also had important political dimensions, since he was invited to the island by the opposition. China, as usual, protested against the visit. China and Taiwan do not disagree with each other over the status of Tibet: both the Republic of China (i.e., Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (the mainland) see Taiwan as an integral part of China (see map).

The Dalai Lama said that Taiwan "should have a very close, unique link with China".

Touring the village of Xiaoling, which suffered from mudslides as a result of the typhoon, the Dalai Lama was reminded of "Buddha's message of impermanence. It is indeed very very sad."

Hsueh Shu-Chun, who lost her entire family save her husband, said that "Praying for the victims brings relief not only to them but to survivors like me."

The mess in Xinjiang

It's profoundly saddening to see what's going on on the streets of Ürümqi these days. The more violent representatives of both communities, the Uyghurs and the Han, are following their baser instincts: blood for blood, suffering for suffering. It's pointless to engage in a game of "Who started it?" While it's true that the riots in Ürümqi appear to have been started by Uyghurs, it's also true that they are responding, however inapporpirately, to decades of subjugation, cultural denigration and religious oppression, including having the state dictate who can enter mosques and who cannot.

As Orhan Pamuk notes in his 2001 article entitled "The Anger of the Damned", an ordinary Muslim in a third-world country who may "momentarily" support acts of violence against innocent Others is driven not by "Islam or this idiocy people call the war between East and West, nor... by poverty". Rather, he is driven by "the impotence born of a constant humiliation, of a failure to make oneself understood, to have one's voice heard".

That, I have no doubt, is what drove the young Muslim Uyghur rioters in Xinjiang. The Han counter-riots, while understable, are all the more deplorable: after all, it is the Han who rule the Chinese state, and it is they who have colonised Xinjiang and continue to do so, not the other way around. It was quite revealing to see a Chinese journalist on BBC World saying that "some of them [the Uyghurs] cannot even speak proper Mandarin Chinese", and that the government sent in Han settlers to "counterbalance" the Uyghurs in their own homeland.

Every empire crumbles sooner or later. The Chinese one has held on thus far, but is it not in China's interest to transform itself into a voluntary community of ethnicities, rather than continuing to be (to use Lenin's term for the Russian Empire) a prison of nations?

[This post was written in Istanbul.]

China holds 93 Buddhist monks in Qinghai

Following a pro-independence riot in which about 100 people attacked Chinese policemen and government officials in the ethnically Tibetan town of La'gyab in Qinghai Province, the government arrested approximately 93 Tibetan Buddhist monks.

Apparently, the riot began when a pro-independence Tibetan monk escaped from prison. According to Chinese authorities, the monk is still at large. According to a Tibetan website, however, he has committed suicide. A further two laypeople are also being held under arrest (BBC).

Greyhound killer not culpable due to delusions

Vince Li, the 40-year-old Chinese immigrant who beheaded fellow Greyhound bus passenger Tim McLean, 22, near Portage La Prairie, Manitoba last year, has been found not criminally responsible for the act. Li claimed to psychiatrists who evaluated him that he had heard the voice of God tell him that McLean must be killed. When he was arrested after a standoff with police, Li reportedly told them, "I'm guilty, please kill me." Li has been found to be suffering from schizophrenia. He has been committed to a psychiatric institution in Manitoba, and can be released only once a board determines that he no longer poses a threat to the public (CBC).

This wasn't the first time Li, a Baptist, heard the voice of God; in fact, he told his wife Ana back in 2004 that he had seen God. In 2005, Li thought God's voice instructed him to walk from Toronto to Winnipeg (a distance of 1,518 km). Eventually, the police picked him up and took him to a psychiatric clinic in Toronto.

Li told a psychiatrist that "God choose me to kill him.... God choose my hand to kill, I truly believe that.... But sometimes I ask God why he picked me to do these things. I'm an average person. I still trust God. God is 90-99 percent good" (Ottawa Citizen).

What a tragic story. The Portage Daily Graphic/Central Plains Herald-Leader (seriously long-name for twin small-town newspapers) ran an editorial saying that Li should be jailed once the treatment for his schizophrenia is complete. First of all, what guarantee is there that Li will ever recover sufficiently to be released? Secondly, what Tara Seel of the Herald-Leader doesn't seem to appreciate is that Li clearly wasn't sane when he committed this horrible act. You can't blame someone for doing something unless he knew what he was doing. It's simple logic. It's also simple justice. Punishing a sick man is no solution to the pain of McLean's family, which must be deep indeed. I think the Manitoba justice system took exactly the right course of action in this case.

Abe sends offering to controversial shrine

The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has sent a potted tree as an offering to the Shinto Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead. Visits to the shrine by previous prime ministers of Japan have courted controversy among neighbouring countries, such as China and South Korea, because, among the spirits honoured at the shrine, are those of 12 World War II "Class A" war criminals.

Abe is trying to avoid straining relations with Japan's neighbours, and has not visited the shrine since taking the prime ministerial post (BBC).

World's tallest pagoda opens in China

A 154 m tall pagoda has been completed at a Buddhist temple in Changzhou, in China's Jiangsu Province. The pagoda cost 300 million yuan (Canadian $43 million) to build, and features a large bell that can be heard from 5 km away. A survey conducted in February suggested that China has about 200 million Buddhists and Taoists (BBC).

The Buddha, as far as I know, preached out in the open and shunned luxury. I wonder what he would think about this sort of expense lavished on a pagoda in his name.

Christians celebrate Easter

Christians around the world -- Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox -- celebrated Easter yesterday, on 8 April. According to Christian belief, Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ (pbuh) after his crucifixion, making this the most important of Christian holy days.

The BBC has compiled two photo series showing Christians in different parts of the world celebrating Easter. The first one focuses on Orthodox Christians, with pictures from Palestine, as well as Bulgaria and Russia.

The second series shows Christians celebrating in Belarus, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Iraq, the UK, Ukraine and Vatican City.