(March 10, 2015 at 10:53 am)Chuck Wrote:(March 10, 2015 at 10:19 am)Brian37 Wrote: Not in an influence standpoint no. Just like the Pope is the head of the Catholic church but only has verbal influence worldwide. The Dali Lama is still the top dog of the religion like the Pope is with Catholics. You still have those below that live in different countries with competing views.
Oh and yea, ultimately this is a political tactic, religion is simply a comic book form of politics.
No they are not equivalent. You underestimate the power of the Dali lama. The Dali lama's hold over tibetians is closer to the hold of the self styled caliph al Baghdadi over ISIS than that of potent Francis over Catholicism.
From the influence stand point, the Dali lama could call the equivalent of a jihad and tens of thousand if tbetians will do something similar to what islamic extremists would do. If Dali lama tells them to commit suicide by self immolation en mass to protest Chinese occupation, tens of thousand will do so. If the Dali lama tells them to charge Chinese tanks armed with hatchet, tens of thousands will do that too. China is aware of this, which is why they are determined to control who will be the next Dali lama. The reason why Dali lama has not called a jihad is because there is not a large reservoir of jihadists from overseas that he could rally to his cause. Instead vast majority of potential jihadist live under the control of the Chinese surveillance State. China has repeatedly demonstrated that if their authority is threatened, they Will happily out escalate any terrorist in violence and brutality in order to restore their control. So if the Dali lama calls a jihad, the Chinese will see it coming, able to quickly identy a good portion of the jihadists early, and would be willing and able to institute the prompt repression and exact the price in blood needed to defeat it, and the result would be further isolation of Tibet from the Dali Lama, and further strengthening of Chinese control.
Dali lama is a would be jihadist caliph who is smart enough to know unless jihad has a world wide reservoir of jihadist with which to deploy against a single state, jihad has little chance against an efficient modern state willing to use the necessary violence and oppression to crush it. so out of necessity he has followed other more subtle courses.
They are the same religion, thus the title "Buddhists". The details and power structures may be different but the core label is the same, the same way Catholics and Baptists are Christians.
The same way you can have one atheist who likes Ayn Rand economics and then find another atheist who supports Che economics, both are still atheists.
This is a battle in one religion between competing sects, the separate boarders doesn't change anything. The Buddhist of Tibet certainly have no shot against Chinese Buddhist in an all out war. But this bucking tradition by the Dali Lama is an attempt to put cracks in the political system of China.
I don't underestimate his power, just like I don't underestimate the power of the Pope. But the Pope also is limited to words, just like he cant dictate to our political system. He can only talk. What others outside the Vatican do is is a separate issue and not all Catholics agree with him, just like Chinese Buddhists don't agree with the Dali Lama.
