Portishead: Sour Times

Portishead: Undenied

奥胡斯的海滩，突然想拍……

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth

*请在国外的朋友将这篇文章尽量转发，这篇文章或许有助于帮助西方普通大众了解西藏真实的历史！

af Michael Parenti

I. For Lords and Lamas

Along with the blood drenched landscape of religious conflict there is the experience of inner peace and solace that every religion promises, none more so than Buddhism. Standing in marked contrast to the intolerant savagery of other religions, Buddhism is neither fanatical nor dogmatic--so say its adherents. For many of them Buddhism is less a theology and more a meditative and investigative discipline intended to promote an inner harmony and enlightenment while directing us to a path of right living. Generally, the spiritual focus is not only on oneself but on the welfare of others. One tries to put aside egoistic pursuits and gain a deeper understanding of one’s connection to all people and things. “Socially engaged Buddhism” tries to blend individual liberation with responsible social action in order to build an enlightened society.

A glance at history, however, reveals that not all the many and widely varying forms of Buddhism have been free of doctrinal fanaticism, nor free of the violent and exploitative pursuits so characteristic of other religions. In Sri Lanka there is a legendary and almost sacred recorded history about the triumphant battles waged by Buddhist kings of yore. During the twentieth century, Buddhists clashed violently with each other and with non-Buddhists in Thailand, Burma, Korea, Japan, India, and elsewhere. In Sri Lanka, armed battles between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils have taken many lives on both sides. In 1998 the U.S. State Department listed thirty of the world’s most violent and dangerous extremist groups. Over half of them were religious, specifically Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist. ¹

In South Korea, in 1998, thousands of monks of the Chogye Buddhist order fought each other with fists, rocks, fire-bombs, and clubs, in pitched battles that went on for weeks. They were vying for control of the order, the largest in South Korea, with its annual budget of $9.2 million, its millions of dollars worth of property, and the privilege of appointing 1,700 monks to various offices. The brawls damaged the main Buddhist sanctuaries and left dozens of monks injured, some seriously. The Korean public appeared to disdain both factions, feeling that no matter what side took control, “it would use worshippers’ donations for luxurious houses and expensive cars.” ²

As with any religion, squabbles between or within Buddhist sects are often fueled by the material corruption and personal deficiencies of the leadership. For example, in Nagano, Japan, at Zenkoji, the prestigious complex of temples that has hosted Buddhist sects for more than 1,400 years, “a nasty battle” arose between Komatsu the chief priest and the Tacchu, a group of temples nominally under the chief priest's sway. The Tacchu monks accused Komatsu of selling writings and drawings under the temple's name for his own gain. They also were appalled by the frequency with which he was seen in the company of women. Komatsu in turn sought to isolate and punish monks who were critical of his leadership. The conflict lasted some five years and made it into the courts. ³

But what of Tibetan Buddhism? Is it not an exception to this sort of strife? And what of the society it helped to create? Many Buddhists maintain that, before the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society. Western news media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the Tibetan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La. The Dalai Lama himself stated that “the pervasive influence of Buddhism” in Tibet, “amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We enjoyed freedom and contentment.” ⁴

A reading of Tibet’s history suggests a somewhat different picture. “Religious conflict was commonplace in old Tibet,” writes one western Buddhist practitioner. “History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.” ⁵ In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet.

His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For these transgressions he was murdered by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high priests or other courtiers. ⁶

For hundreds of years competing Tibetan Buddhist sects engaged in bitterly violent clashes and summary executions. In 1660, the 5th Dalai Lama was faced with a rebellion in Tsang province, the stronghold of the rival Kagyu sect with its high lama known as the Karmapa. The 5th Dalai Lama called for harsh retribution against the rebels, directing the Mongol army to obliterate the male and female lines, and the offspring too “like eggs smashed against rocks…. In short, annihilate any traces of them, even their names.” ⁷

In 1792, many Kagyu monasteries were confiscated and their monks were forcibly converted to the Gelug sect (the Dalai Lama’s denomination). The Gelug school, known also as the “Yellow Hats,” showed little tolerance or willingness to mix their teachings with other Buddhist sects. In the words of one of their traditional prayers: “Praise to you, violent god of the Yellow Hat teachings/who reduces to particles of dust/ great beings, high officials and ordinary people/ who pollute and corrupt the Gelug doctrine.” ⁸ An eighteenth-century memoir of a Tibetan general depicts sectarian strife among Buddhists that is as brutal and bloody as any religious conflict might be. ⁹ This grim history remains largely unvisited by present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.

Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.” ¹⁰

Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” ¹¹

Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. ¹² Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” ¹³ In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated rape, beginning at age nine. ¹⁴ The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. ¹⁵ The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care, They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land--or the monastery’s land--without pay, to repair the lord's houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand.¹⁶ Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. ¹⁷

As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.”¹⁸ Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.¹⁹

The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery.²⁰

The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation--including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation--were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.”²¹ Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. ²²

In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.²³

Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”²⁴ As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.

II. Secularization vs. Spirituality

What happened to Tibet after the Chinese Communists moved into the country in 1951? The treaty of that year provided for ostensible self-governance under the Dalai Lama’s rule but gave China military control and exclusive right to conduct foreign relations. The Chinese were also granted a direct role in internal administration “to promote social reforms.” Among the earliest changes they wrought was to reduce usurious interest rates, and build a few hospitals and roads. At first, they moved slowly, relying mostly on persuasion in an attempt to effect reconstruction. No aristocratic or monastic property was confiscated, and feudal lords continued to reign over their hereditarily bound peasants. “Contrary to popular belief in the West,” claims one observer, the Chinese “took care to show respect for Tibetan culture and religion.”²⁵

Over the centuries the Tibetan lords and lamas had seen Chinese come and go, and had enjoyed good relations with Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and his reactionary Kuomintang rule in China.²⁶ The approval of the Kuomintang government was needed to validate the choice of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. When the current 14th Dalai Lama was first installed in Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chinese troops and an attending Chinese minister, in accordance with centuries-old tradition. What upset the Tibetan lords and lamas in the early 1950s was that these latest Chinese were Communists. It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian schemes upon Tibet.

The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.²⁷ Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.²⁸

Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never heard from again, according to a report from the CIA itself, meaning they were most likely captured and killed.²⁹ “Many lamas and lay members of the elite and much of the Tibetan army joined the uprising, but in the main the populace did not, assuring its failure,” writes Hugh Deane.³⁰ In their book on Tibet, Ginsburg and Mathos reach a similar conclusion: “As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed.”³¹ Eventually the resistance crumbled.

Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese after 1959, they did abolish slavery and the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary. They established secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.³²

Heinrich Harrer (later revealed to have been a sergeant in Hitler’s SS) wrote a bestseller about his experiences in Tibet that was made into a popular Hollywood movie. He reported that the Tibetans who resisted the Chinese “were predominantly nobles, semi-nobles and lamas; they were punished by being made to perform the lowliest tasks, such as laboring on roads and bridges. They were further humiliated by being made to clean up the city before the tourists arrived.” They also had to live in a camp originally reserved for beggars and vagrants--all of which Harrer treats as sure evidence of the dreadful nature of the Chinese occupation.³³

By 1961, Chinese occupation authorities expropriated the landed estates owned by lords and lamas. They distributed many thousands of acres to tenant farmers and landless peasants, reorganizing them into hundreds of communes.. Herds once owned by nobility were turned over to collectives of poor shepherds. Improvements were made in the breeding of livestock, and new varieties of vegetables and new strains of wheat and barley were introduced, along with irrigation improvements, all of which reportedly led to an increase in agrarian production.³⁴

Many peasants remained as religious as ever, giving alms to the clergy. But monks who had been conscripted as children into the religious orders were now free to renounce the monastic life, and thousands did, especially the younger ones. The remaining clergy lived on modest government stipends and extra income earned by officiating at prayer services, weddings, and funerals.³⁵

Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that “more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation.”³⁶ The official 1953 census--six years before the Chinese crackdown--recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000.³⁷ Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves--of which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up, hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else.

Chinese authorities claim to have put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. They themselves, however, have been charged with acts of brutality by exile Tibetans. The authorities do admit to “mistakes,” particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached a high tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls “and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades.”³⁸

In 1980, the Chinese government initiated reforms reportedly designed to grant Tibet a greater degree of self-rule and self-administration. Tibetans would now be allowed to cultivate private plots, sell their harvest surpluses, decide for themselves what crops to grow, and keep yaks and sheep. Communication with the outside world was again permitted, and frontier controls were eased to permit some Tibetans to visit exiled relatives in India and Nepal.³⁹ By the 1980s many of the principal lamas had begun to shuttle back and forth between China and the exile communities abroad, “restoring their monasteries in Tibet and helping to revitalize Buddhism there.”⁴⁰

As of 2007 Tibetan Buddhism was still practiced widely and tolerated by officialdom. Religious pilgrimages and other standard forms of worship were allowed but within limits. All monks and nuns had to sign a loyalty pledge that they would not use their religious position to foment secession or dissent. And displaying photos of the Dalai Lama was declared illegal.⁴¹

In the 1990s, the Han, the ethnic group comprising over 95 percent of China’s immense population, began moving in substantial numbers into Tibet. On the streets of Lhasa and Shigatse, signs of Han colonization are readily visible. Chinese run the factories and many of the shops and vending stalls. Tall office buildings and large shopping centers have been built with funds that might have been better spent on water treatment plants and housing. Chinese cadres in Tibet too often view their Tibetan neighbors as backward and lazy, in need of economic development and “patriotic education.” During the 1990s Tibetan government employees suspected of harboring nationalist sympathies were purged from office, and campaigns were once again launched to discredit the Dalai Lama. Individual Tibetans reportedly were subjected to arrest, imprisonment, and forced labor for carrying out separatist activities and engaging in “political subversion.” Some were held in administrative detention without adequate food, water, and blankets, subjected to threats, beatings, and other mistreatment.⁴²

Tibetan history, culture, and certainly religion are slighted in schools. Teaching materials, though translated into Tibetan, focus mainly on Chinese history and culture. Chinese family planning regulations allow a three-child limit for Tibetan families. (There is only a one-child limit for Han families throughout China, and a two-child limit for rural Han families whose first child is a girl.) If a Tibetan couple goes over the three-child limit, the excess children can be denied subsidized daycare, health care, housing, and education. These penalties have been enforced irregularly and vary by district.⁴³ None of these child services, it should be noted, were available to Tibetans before the Chinese takeover.

For the rich lamas and secular lords, the Communist intervention was an unmitigated calamity. Most of them fled abroad, as did the Dalai Lama himself, who was assisted in his flight by the CIA. Some discovered to their horror that they would have to work for a living. Many, however, escaped that fate. Throughout the 1960s, the Tibetan exile community was secretly pocketing $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama’s organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai Lama's annual payment from the CIA was $186,000. Indian intelligence also financed both him and other Tibetan exiles. He has refused to say whether he or his brothers worked for the CIA. The agency has also declined to comment.⁴⁴

In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline “Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right.”⁴⁵ In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who was visiting England. The Dalai Lama urged that Pinochet not be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

Into the twenty-first century, via the National Endowment for Democracy and other conduits that are more respectable sounding than the CIA, the U.S. Congress continued to allocate an annual $2 million to Tibetans in India, with additional millions for “democracy activities” within the Tibetan exile community. In addition to these funds, the Dalai Lama received money from financier George Soros.⁴⁶

Whatever the Dalai Lama’s associations with the CIA and various reactionaries, he did speak often of peace, love, and nonviolence. He himself really cannot be blamed for the abuses of Tibet’s ancien régime, having been but 25 years old when he fled into exile. In a 1994 interview, he went on record as favoring the building of schools and roads in his country. He said the corvée (forced unpaid serf labor) and certain taxes imposed on the peasants were “extremely bad.” And he disliked the way people were saddled with old debts sometimes passed down from generation to generation.⁴⁷During the half century of living in the western world, he had embraced concepts such as human rights and religious freedom, ideas largely unknown in old Tibet. He even proposed democracy for Tibet, featuring a written constitution and a representative assembly.⁴⁸

In 1996, the Dalai Lama issued a statement that must have had an unsettling effect on the exile community. It read in part: “Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability.” Marxism fosters “the equitable utilization of the means of production” and cares about “the fate of the working classes” and “the victims of . . . exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and . . . I think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.⁴⁹

But he also sent a reassuring message to “those who live in abundance”: “It is a good thing to be rich... Those are the fruits for deserving actions, the proof that they have been generous in the past.” And to the poor he offers this admonition: “There is no good reason to become bitter and rebel against those who have property and fortune... It is better to develop a positive attitude.”⁵⁰

In 2005 the Dalai Lama signed a widely advertised statement along with ten other Nobel Laureates supporting the “inalienable and fundamental human right” of working people throughout the world to form labor unions to protect their interests, in accordance with the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In many countries “this fundamental right is poorly protected and in some it is explicitly banned or brutally suppressed,” the statement read. Burma, China, Colombia, Bosnia, and a few other countries were singled out as among the worst offenders. Even the United States “fails to adequately protect workers’ rights to form unions and bargain collectively. Millions of U.S. workers lack any legal protection to form unions….”⁵¹

The Dalai Lama also gave full support to removing the ingrained traditional obstacles that have kept Tibetan nuns from receiving an education. Upon arriving in exile, few nuns could read or write. In Tibet their activities had been devoted to daylong periods of prayer and chants. But in northern India they now began reading Buddhist philosophy and engaging in theological study and debate, activities that in old Tibet had been open only to monks.⁵²

In November 2005 the Dalai Lama spoke at Stanford University on “The Heart of Nonviolence,” but stopped short of a blanket condemnation of all violence. Violent actions that are committed in order to reduce future suffering are not to be condemned, he said, citing World War II as an example of a worthy effort to protect democracy. What of the four years of carnage and mass destruction in Iraq, a war condemned by most of the world—even by a conservative pope--as a blatant violation of international law and a crime against humanity? The Dalai Lama was undecided: “The Iraq war—it’s too early to say, right or wrong.”⁵³ Earlier he had voiced support for the U.S. military intervention against Yugoslavia and, later on, the U.S. military intervention into Afghanistan.⁵⁴

III. Exit Feudal Theocracy

As the Shangri-La myth would have it, in old Tibet the people lived in contented and tranquil symbiosis with their monastic and secular lords. Rich lamas and poor monks, wealthy landlords and impoverished serfs were all bonded together, mutually sustained by the comforting balm of a deeply spiritual and pacific culture.

One is reminded of the idealized image of feudal Europe presented by latter-day conservative Catholics such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. For them, medieval Christendom was a world of contented peasants living in the secure embrace of their Church, under the more or less benign protection of their lords.⁵⁵ Again we are invited to accept a particular culture in its idealized form divorced from its murky material history. This means accepting it as presented by its favored class, by those who profited most from it. The Shangri-La image of Tibet bears no more resemblance to historic actuality than does the pastoral image of medieval Europe.

Seen in all its grim realities, old Tibet confirms the view I expressed in an earlier book, namely that culture is anything but neutral. Culture can operate as a legitimating cover for a host of grave injustices, benefiting a privileged portion of society at great cost to the rest.⁵⁶ In theocratic feudal Tibet, ruling interests manipulated the traditional culture to fortify their own wealth and power. The theocracy equated rebellious thought and action with satanic influence. It propagated the general presumption of landlord superiority and peasant unworthiness. The rich were represented as deserving their good life, and the lowly poor as deserving their mean existence, all codified in teachings about the karmic residue of virtue and vice accumulated from past lives, presented as part of God’s will.

Were the more affluent lamas just hypocrites who preached one thing and secretly believed another? More likely they were genuinely attached to those beliefs that brought such good results for them. That their theology so perfectly supported their material privileges only strengthened the sincerity with which it was embraced.

It might be said that we denizens of the modern secular world cannot grasp the equations of happiness and pain, contentment and custom, that characterize more traditionally spiritual societies. This is probably true, and it may explain why some of us idealize such societies. But still, a gouged eye is a gouged eye; a flogging is a flogging; and the grinding exploitation of serfs and slaves is a brutal class injustice whatever its cultural wrapping. There is a difference between a spiritual bond and human bondage, even when both exist side by side

Many ordinary Tibetans want the Dalai Lama back in their country, but it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he represented. A 1999 story in the Washington Post notes that the Dalai Lama continues to be revered in Tibet, but

. . . few Tibetans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with him in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in surrendering the land they gained during China’s land reform to the clans. Tibet’s former slaves say they, too, don’t want their former masters to return to power. “I’ve already lived that life once before,” said Wangchuk, a 67-year-old former slave who was wearing his best clothes for his yearly pilgrimage to Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of Tibetan Buddhism. He said he worshipped the Dalai Lama, but added, “I may not be free under Chinese communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave.”⁵⁷

It should be noted that the Dalai Lama is not the only highly placed lama chosen in childhood as a reincarnation. One or another reincarnate lama or tulku--a spiritual teacher of special purity elected to be reborn again and again--can be found presiding over most major monasteries. The tulku system is unique to Tibetan Buddhism. Scores of Tibetan lamas claim to be reincarnate tulkus.

The very first tulku was a lama known as the Karmapa who appeared nearly three centuries before the first Dalai Lama. The Karmapa is leader of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition known as the Karma Kagyu. The rise of the Gelugpa sect headed by the Dalai Lama led to a politico-religious rivalry with the Kagyu that has lasted five hundred years and continues to play itself out within the Tibetan exile community today. That the Kagyu sect has grown famously, opening some six hundred new centers around the world in the last thirty-five years, has not helped the situation.

The search for a tulku, Erik Curren reminds us, has not always been conducted in that purely spiritual mode portrayed in certain Hollywood films. “Sometimes monastic officials wanted a child from a powerful local noble family to give the cloister more political clout. Other times they wanted a child from a lower-class family who would have little leverage to influence the child’s upbringing.” On other occasions “a local warlord, the Chinese emperor or even the Dalai Lama’s government in Lhasa might [have tried] to impose its choice of tulku on a monastery for political reasons.”⁵⁸

Such may have been the case in the selection of the 17th Karmapa, whose monastery-in-exile is situated in Rumtek, in the Indian state of Sikkim. In 1993 the monks of the Karma Kagyu tradition had a candidate of their own choice. The Dalai Lama, along with several dissenting Karma Kagyu leaders (and with the support of the Chinese government!) backed a different boy. The Kagyu monks charged that the Dalai Lama had overstepped his authority in attempting to select a leader for their sect. “Neither his political role nor his position as a lama in his own Gelugpa tradition entitled him to choose the Karmapa, who is a leader of a different tradition…”⁵⁹ As one of the Kagyu leaders insisted, “Dharma is about thinking for yourself. It is not about automatically following a teacher in all things, no matter how respected that teacher may be. More than anyone else, Buddhists should respect other people’s rights—their human rights and their religious freedom.”⁶⁰

What followed was a dozen years of conflict in the Tibetan exile community, punctuated by intermittent riots, intimidation, physical attacks, blacklisting, police harassment, litigation, official corruption, and the looting and undermining of the Karmapa’s monastery in Rumtek by supporters of the Gelugpa faction. All this has caused at least one western devotee to wonder if the years of exile were not hastening the moral corrosion of Tibetan Buddhism.⁶¹

What is clear is that not all Tibetan Buddhists accept the Dalai Lama as their theological and spiritual mentor. Though he is referred to as the “spiritual leader of Tibet,” many see this title as little more than a formality. It does not give him authority over the four religious schools of Tibet other than his own, “just as calling the U.S. president the ‘leader of the free world’ gives him no role in governing France or Germany.”⁶²

Not all Tibetan exiles are enamoured of the old Shangri-La theocracy. Kim Lewis, who studied healing methods with a Buddhist monk in Berkeley, California, had occasion to talk at length with more than a dozen Tibetan women who lived in the monk’s building. When she asked how they felt about returning to their homeland, the sentiment was unanimously negative. At first, Lewis assumed that their reluctance had to do with the Chinese occupation, but they quickly informed her otherwise. They said they were extremely grateful “not to have to marry 4 or 5 men, be pregnant almost all the time,” or deal with sexually transmitted diseases contacted from a straying husband. The younger women “were delighted to be getting an education, wanted absolutely nothing to do with any religion, and wondered why Americans were so naïve [about Tibet].”⁶³

The women interviewed by Lewis recounted stories of their grandmothers’ ordeals with monks who used them as “wisdom consorts.” By sleeping with the monks, the grandmothers were told, they gained “the means to enlightenment” -- after all, the Buddha himself had to be with a woman to reach enlightenment.

The women also mentioned the “rampant” sex that the supposedly spiritual and abstemious monks practiced with each other in the Gelugpa sect. The women who were mothers spoke bitterly about the monastery’s confiscation of their young boys in Tibet. They claimed that when a boy cried for his mother, he would be told “Why do you cry for her, she gave you up--she's just a woman.”

The monks who were granted political asylum in California applied for public assistance. Lewis, herself a devotee for a time, assisted with the paperwork. She observes that they continue to receive government checks amounting to $550 to $700 per month along with Medicare. In addition, the monks reside rent free in nicely furnished apartments. “They pay no utilities, have free access to the Internet on computers provided for them, along with fax machines, free cell and home phones and cable TV.”

They also receive a monthly payment from their order, along with contributions and dues from their American followers. Some devotees eagerly carry out chores for the monks, including grocery shopping and cleaning their apartments and toilets. These same holy men, Lewis remarks, “have no problem criticizing Americans for their ‘obsession with material things.’”⁶⁴

To welcome the end of the old feudal theocracy in Tibet is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in that country. This point is seldom understood by today’s Shangri-La believers in the West. The converse is also true: To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. Tibetans deserve to be perceived as actual people, not perfected spiritualists or innocent political symbols. “To idealize them,” notes Ma Jian, a dissident Chinese traveler to Tibet (now living in Britain), “is to deny them their humanity.”⁶⁵

One common complaint among Buddhist followers in the West is that Tibet’s religious culture is being undermined by the Chinese occupation. To some extent this seems to be the case. Many of the monasteries are closed, and much of the theocracy seems to have passed into history. Whether Chinese rule has brought betterment or disaster is not the central issue here. The question is what kind of country was old Tibet. What I am disputing is the supposedly pristine spiritual nature of that pre-invasion culture. We can advocate religious freedom and independence for a new Tibet without having to embrace the mythology about old Tibet. Tibetan feudalism was cloaked in Buddhism, but the two are not to be equated. In reality, old Tibet was not a Paradise Lost. It was a retrograde repressive theocracy of extreme privilege and poverty, a long way from Shangri-La.

Finally, let it be said that if Tibet’s future is to be positioned somewhere within China’s emerging free-market paradise, then this does not bode well for the Tibetans. China boasts a dazzling 8 percent economic growth rate and is emerging as one of the world’s greatest industrial powers. But with economic growth has come an ever deepening gulf between rich and poor. Most Chinese live close to the poverty level or well under it, while a small group of newly brooded capitalists profit hugely in collusion with shady officials. Regional bureaucrats milk the country dry, extorting graft from the populace and looting local treasuries. Land grabbing in cities and countryside by avaricious developers and corrupt officials at the expense of the populace are almost everyday occurrences. Tens of thousands of grassroot protests and disturbances have erupted across the country, usually to be met with unforgiving police force. Corruption is so prevalent, reaching into so many places, that even the normally complacent national leadership was forced to take notice and began moving against it in late 2006.

Workers in China who try to organize labor unions in the corporate dominated “business zones” risk losing their jobs or getting beaten and imprisoned. Millions of business zone workers toil twelve-hour days at subsistence wages. With the health care system now being privatized, free or affordable medical treatment is no longer available for millions. Men have tramped into the cities in search of work, leaving an increasingly impoverished countryside populated by women, children, and the elderly. The suicide rate has increased dramatically, especially among women.⁶⁶

China’s natural environment is sadly polluted. Most of its fabled rivers and many lakes are dead, producing massive fish die-offs from the billions of tons of industrial emissions and untreated human waste dumped into them. Toxic effluents, including pesticides and herbicides, seep into ground water or directly into irrigation canals. Cancer rates in villages situated along waterways have skyrocketed a thousand-fold. Hundreds of millions of urban residents breathe air rated as dangerously unhealthy, contaminated by industrial growth and the recent addition of millions of automobiles. An estimated 400,000 die prematurely every year from air pollution. Government environmental agencies have no enforcement power to stop polluters, and generally the government ignores or denies such problems, concentrating instead on industrial growth.⁶⁷

China’s own scientific establishment reports that unless greenhouse gases are curbed, the nation will face massive crop failures along with catastrophic food and water shortages in the years ahead. In 2006-2007 severe drought was already afflicting southwest China.⁶⁸

If China is the great success story of speedy free market development, and is to be the model and inspiration for Tibet’s future, then old feudal Tibet indeed may start looking a lot better than it actually was.

Notes:

1. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, (University of California Press, 2000), 6, 112-113, 157.
   
2. Kyong-Hwa Seok, "Korean Monk Gangs Battle for Temple Turf," San Francisco Examiner, 3 December 1998.
   
3. Los Angeles Times, February 25, 2006.
   
4. Dalai Lama quoted in Donald Lopez Jr., Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1998), 205.
   
5. Erik D. Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling: Uncovering Corruption at the Heart of Tibetan Buddhism Today (Alaya Press 2005), 41.
   
6. Stuart Gelder and Roma Gelder, The Timely Rain: Travels in New Tibet (Monthly Review Press, 1964), 119, 123; and Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (University of California Press, 1995), 6-16.
   
7. Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 50.
   
8. Stephen Bachelor, "Letting Daylight into Magic: The Life and Times of Dorje Shugden," Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, 7, Spring 1998. Bachelor discusses the sectarian fanaticism and doctrinal clashes that ill fit the Western portrait of Buddhism as a non-dogmatic and tolerant tradition.
   
9. Dhoring Tenzin Paljor, Autobiography, cited in Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 8.
   
10. Pradyumna P. Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet: The Impact of Chinese Communist Ideology on the Landscape (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1976), 64.
    
11. See Gary Wilson's report in Worker's World, 6 February 1997.
    
12. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 62 and 174.
    
13. As skeptically noted by Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, 9.
    
14. Melvyn Goldstein, William Siebenschuh, and Tashì-Tsering, The Struggle for Modern Tibet: The Autobiography of Tashì-Tsering (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1997).
    
15. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 110.
    
16. Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet 1913-1951 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 5 and passim.
    
17. Anna Louise Strong, Tibetan Interviews (Peking: New World Press, 1959), 15, 19-21, 24.
    
18. Quoted in Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 25.
    
19. Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 31.
    
20. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 175-176; and Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 25-26.
    
21. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 113.
    
22. A. Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet rev. ed. (Armonk, N.Y. and London: 1996), 9 and 7-33 for a general discussion of feudal Tibet; see also Felix Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), 241-249; Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 3-5; and Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, passim.
    
23. Strong, Tibetan Interviews, 91-96.
    
24. Waddell, Landon, O'Connor, and Chapman are quoted in Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 123-125.
    
25. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 52.
    
26. Heinrich Harrer, Return to Tibet (New York: Schocken, 1985), 29.
    
27. See Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA's Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2002); and William Leary, "Secret Mission to Tibet," Air & Space, December 1997/January 1998.
    
28. On the CIA's links to the Dalai Lama and his family and entourage, see Loren Coleman, Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti (London: Faber and Faber, 1989).
    
29. Leary, "Secret Mission to Tibet."
    
30. Hugh Deane, "The Cold War in Tibet," CovertAction Quarterly (Winter 1987).
    
31. George Ginsburg and Michael Mathos Communist China and Tibet (1964), quoted in Deane, "The Cold War in Tibet." Deane notes that author Bina Roy reached a similar conclusion.
    
32. See Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance, 248 and passim; and Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet, passim.
    
33. Harrer, Return to Tibet, 54.
    
34. Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet, 36-38, 41, 57-58; London Times, 4 July 1966.
    
35. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 29 and 47-48.
    
36. Tendzin Choegyal, "The Truth about Tibet," Imprimis (publication of Hillsdale College, Michigan), April 1999.
    
37. Karan, The Changing Face of Tibet, 52-53.
    
38. Elaine Kurtenbach, Associate Press report, 12 February 1998.
    
39. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 47-48.
    
40. Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 8.
    
41. San Francisco Chonicle, 9 January 2007.
    
42. Report by the International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet, A Generation in Peril (Berkeley Calif.: 2001), passim.
    
43. International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet, A Generation in Peril, 66-68, 98.
    
44. im Mann, "CIA Gave Aid to Tibetan Exiles in '60s, Files Show," Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1998; and New York Times, 1 October, 1998.
    
45. News & Observer, 6 September 1995, cited in Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, 3.
    
46. Heather Cottin, "George Soros, Imperial Wizard," CovertAction Quarterly no. 74 (Fall 2002).
    
47. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 51.
    
48. Tendzin Choegyal, "The Truth about Tibet."
    
49. The Dalai Lama in Marianne Dresser (ed.), Beyond Dogma: Dialogues and Discourses (Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 1996)
    
50. These comments are from a book of the Dalai Lama's writings quoted in Nikolai Thyssen, "Oceaner af onkel Tom," Dagbladet Information, 29 December 2003, (translated for me by Julius Wilm). Thyssen's review (in Danish) can be found at http://www.information.dk/Indgang/VisArkiv.dna?pArtNo=20031229154141.txt.
    
51. "A Global Call for Human Rights in the Workplace," New York Times, 6 December 2005.
    
52. San Francisco Chronicle, 14 January 2007.
    
53. San Francisco Chronicle, 5 November 2005.
    
54. Times of India 13 October 2000; Samantha Conti's report, Reuter, 17 June 1994; Amitabh Pal, "The Dalai Lama Interview," Progressive, January 2006.
    
55. The Gelders draw this comparison, The Timely Rain, 64.
    
56. Michael Parenti, The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories, 2006).
    
57. John Pomfret, "Tibet Caught in China's Web," Washington Post, 23 July 1999.
    
58. Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 3.
    
59. Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 13 and 138.
    
60. Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, 21.
    
61. Curren, Buddha's Not Smiling, passim. For books that are favorable toward the Karmapa appointed by the Dalai Lama's faction, see Lea Terhune, Karmapa of Tibet: The Politics of Reincarnation (Wisdom Publications, 2004); Gaby Naher, Wrestling the Dragon (Rider 2004); Mick Brown, The Dance of 17 Lives (Bloomsbury 2004).
    
62. Erik Curren, "Not So Easy to Say Who is Karmapa," correspondence, 22 August 2005, www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=22.1577,0,0,1,0.
    
63. Kim Lewis, correspondence to me, 15 July 2004.
    
64. Kim Lewis, correspondence to me, 16 July 2004.
    
65. Ma Jian, Stick Out Your Tongue (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006).
    
66. See the PBS documentary, China from the Inside, January 2007, KQED.PBS.org/kqed/chinanside.
    
67. San Francisco Chronicle, 9 January 2007.
    
68. "China: Global Warming to Cause Food Shortages," People's Weekly World, 13 January 2007

Ordsprog

1. Gammel kærlighed ruster ikke.
2. Ude af øje- ude af sind.
3. Tyv tror, hver mand stjæler.
4. En fugl i hånden er bedre end ti på taget.
5. Brændt barn skyr ilden. 一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳
6. Den, der kommer først til mølle, får først malet.
7. Skik følge eller land fly.
8. Mange kokke fordærver maden. 三个和尚没水喝
9. Hvor der er hjerterum, er der husrum.
10. Hvad der kommer let, går let.
11. Man skal krybe, før man kan gå.
12. Øvelse gør mester. 十年磨成针
13. Ingen roser uden torne.
14. Enhver er sin egen lykkes smed.
15. Tab og vind med sammen sind. 失败是成功之母
16. Troen kan flytte bjerge. 愚公移山
17. Når man rækker fanden en lillefinger, tager han hele hånden.
18. Højt at flyve, dybt at falde.
19. Lige børn leger bedst.
20. Når enden er god, er alting godt.

丹麦语学习一

løst og fast 各种各样（的题目）
rende og hoppe: udtryk for en afvisning

9年的终结，又是一个不幸

对于丹麦的影迷来说，这不是一个好消息，对于像了解丹麦电影的影迷来说，这同样不是一个好消息，在的DFI的前总裁在今年6月离职后，这本由他创办的免费杂志也随之告终。9年时间，60期杂志，其中18期是英文，这些资料不仅为丹麦，还为其他国家了解丹麦电影提供了宝贵的第一手资料，现在随着第60期杂志的问世，也最终告别了DFI。

第60期下载地址：FILM 60.PDF

“一个突然死去的人是残忍的！“

这一刻，我突然想落泪。这种感觉很久没有了 ……

余地的诗歌：《一个突然死去的人是残忍的》

一个突然死去的人是残忍的，就像一场迅速到来的暴雨
淋湿了我的身体。来自另一个女人的痛哭
开始使一切变得更加可笑，也使我
怎么也笑不出来。因为我拥有的一切
已经被一个死者毫不犹豫地抛弃
什么也没有留下。一具令人难以容忍的尸体
此刻，它躺在冰冷的地上
犹如一个幼稚的童话，省略了过去和现在
剩下的只有未来。一切躲在一张面具后面
除了一根细线，我看见的只有空气
它从我的脸上傲慢地跨过去
然后把一个死者的瞳孔不断地放大
终于对准了我，就像一把子弹上膛的手枪
然而我的眼睛里面一无所有：一个硝烟散尽的战场
剩下的只有一些残败的野草，以及
沾满了鲜血的泥土
一张白布就轻易地覆盖了一切
而一具尸体被紧紧地包裹在里面
犹如一枚坚硬的果核，在黑暗中
梗住了我的喉咙
令人窒息的是他的双手，仿佛已经抓住
那些最重要的东西。却只是为了
不让任何人看见，以便可以和他的肉体一起腐烂
除了假装一种毫不相干的镇静，我知道
所有的问题都不会得到答案
在他彻底地进入黑暗之前，我的一切已经轰然倒塌

2001.3.30

余地的博客：http://blog.sina.com.cn/yudi

施袁喜博客文章内容：

余地简介
余地，本名余新进（1977~2007），湖北宜都人，居云南。有诗歌、小说等发表于《人民文学》《诗刊》《星星》《山花》《青 年文学》等报刊及各类网站，并有作品入选《2003中国最佳诗歌》《2005中国年度诗歌》等选本。主要作品有长篇诗性随笔《内心：幽暗的花园》等。
如有朋友对其作品感兴趣，可直接去http://blog.sina.com.cn/yudi阅读部分作品，也可留言此处，留下信箱。目前，余地生前好友们正在整理其作品，初步选编出《谋杀》（中短篇小说）、《毒血》（长篇小说）、《内心：幽暗的花园》（长篇诗性随笔）、《浪漫的老虎》（诗集）等。如有朋友愿意出版，最好。

联系信箱：xiangwuzh@163.com（张翔武）　jixu@vip.sina.com（张京徽）　shiyuanxi@hotmail.com(施袁喜）

JBS之痛

(有着明显职业指向的旧广告)



（没有职业指向的新广告）

丹麦最大的男子内裤生产商JBS开始叫喊着需要“言论自由”了，不过商业的言论犹如卖笑女，谁也不能得罪，更何况媒体，更何况公众。刚刚花了巨资制作的最新广告由于职业指向性太强，导致了修女、护士等一干在广告上被色化的职业工会的强烈反对。JSB坚持了没有多长时间，最终还是撤下了这几幅广告，取而代之的是色味更浓，只是不再有强烈职业指向性的广告。

有趣的是，我想起了丹麦前年轰动世界的穆罕穆德漫画事件。尽管承受了全世界穆斯林的强烈压力，但是丹麦首相拒绝就漫画事件公开道歉，因为“丹麦宪法明确规定，政府不能干涉新闻媒体的言论自由。”漫画事件让丹麦企业在中东市场遭受了惨重损失，不过最终还是挺过来了。

一个是媒体的言论自由亵渎了宗教感情，一个是商家的言论自由伤害了职业女性，前者决不低头，后者委曲求全。可见言论自由也是相对的。在政治和金钱市场的权衡中，言论自由除了是一种武器，也是一处药方。

言论自由之罪?

对于一个“民主”国家和政府而言，单个生命犹如蝼蚁，在权力角逐和政治游戏之间可以任意践踏？这或许本不是一个所谓西方民主社会的做法。但是当荷兰 政府决定放弃对荷兰女作家Hirsi Ali的保护的时候，很多人还是保持了理性的支持，尽管不可避免地这种做法也得到了文化界严厉的批评。2004年阿姆斯特丹街头的一幕至今还是让很多人无 法忘怀，荷兰电影导演Theo Van Gogh在光天化日之下被穆斯林青年杀害。他的合作伙伴和朋友、至今仍受死亡威胁的Hirsi Ali即使能够安全的度过三年，又该如何去面临以后的人生？荷兰政府发表声明，在支付三年之后，将不会继续为她支付在美国避难的每年高达200万美元的安 全费用。

这位来自索马里的拥有荷兰国籍的女作家因为对伊斯兰教的妇女政策的强烈批评而遭罪，而2004年她和导演Theo Van Gogh合作拍摄的反映伊斯兰教妇女生活的短片电影Submission则直接让她面临整个伊斯兰社会的死亡威胁。谋杀Theo Van Gogh的凶手在被捕前曾经试图进入到她在荷兰的公寓。之后开始她在荷兰一直隐姓埋名，处于荷兰警方的严密保护之下，直到2006年5月她来到美国，继续 由荷兰政府为她支付在美国的保安费用。现在，荷兰放弃了，美国不愿意接收，而一直善待Ali的丹麦政府现在正在考虑是否接受她的庇护申请。她该何去何从？ 自由言论之罪？抑或是宗教信仰之罪？

于是有个问题，荷兰人需要为一个人的言论自由而支付巨额安全费用吗？每年200万美金，可以没有期限得为Ali提供保护吗？即使丹麦愿意为Ali提供庇护，可是能够维持几年？丹麦人愿意为一个荷兰人的言论自由支付自己的巨额税金吗？ 到底怎样才是最终的解决之道？

2004年荷兰导演Theo Van Gogh光天化日之下遇害

Blinded Angels的预告片

《绿牙齿》？我的故事怎么成了别人的小说？？

或许还有朋友记得我曾经在这里发表过的恐怖小说《绿牙齿》，那是2005年开始在自己的第一个博客动力上简单写的，本想作为以后扩充为长篇小说的雏形，想不到今天偶尔在网络上搜寻了一下，竟然找到一本同名的已经出版的小说《绿牙齿》，奇怪的是故事大概也几乎完全相同！！这个故事本是我十几年前和大学同学讲故事时候编的，但是现在这位名叫赵括的作者竟然会有一模一样的故事概括！！我的故事内容可以点击下载PDF文件阅读。再次感谢朋友们帮忙！

我还没有看到小说，目前因为身在丹麦也无法在近期看到小说，但是希望有看过小说的朋友请对照下我博客的原文内容，看是否有相似之处，因为在小说介绍的故事概括基本上和我写的这部分一样。

下图是小说的封面，说不定在书店中也可以购到！希望有看过小说的朋友回复下。

"看我是怎样的魔鬼！"

1952年的一天,摄影师Richard Avedon在家中接到一个电话，电话里的声音说：
“是Richard Avedon吗？”
“是我。”他回答说。
“我是查理·卓别林。”那个人说。
Richard Avedon回答说，“哦，那我就不是Richard Avedon,我是罗斯福总统。”说完后，他就把电话挂了。
五分钟之后电话重新响了起来，Richard Avedon拿起了电话：
“我真的是查理·卓别林！”

两个人约定了一个时间见面。查理·卓别林选择来到Richard位于曼哈顿的摄影棚。当摄影师在完成了他的准备工作之后，卓别林提出，他希望能在镜头前留下一些特殊的画面。他弯下腰，把食指竖在自己的前额上，像两只角一样，带着愤怒的表情站了起来。不过他立刻恢复常态说，“不行，我重新来一次。”他又做了一次，不过这次是带着狂笑的表情。
“这是一份礼物。这就是那些瞬间之一：完美的灯光、自然的流露。对于一个摄影师来说，这就是一份上天赐予的礼物。”Richard回忆说。
第二天，美国的报纸纷纷报道查理·卓别林迫于麦卡锡议员的“共产党法案”的压力离开了美国。“他离开了我的摄影棚跳上了一艘开往他乡的船。这成了他留给美国的最后一句话。”

——“看我是怎样的魔鬼！！”

德国之行杂记之一

车子穿过边境的时候，妻子提醒了一下。不知不觉我们已经驱车一百多公里，进入了德国境内，我甚至还来不及细看丹德边境的情况。早就听说申根国家之间来往穿梭的便利，但是这个瞬间还是比我想象的更为简单——甚至，连个岗哨都没有。边境的概念在很多中国人（特别是我等还没有开过眼界的）心里还是铁丝电网，荷枪实弹，戒备森严。想当初在国内从宝安进入深圳市内还需要三申五请的，更何况两国之间的边境。只是已经来不及了，德国给我的第一个印象就是瞬间被抛在脑后的近似丹麦语欢迎的Velkommen。

我们的目的地是德国北部的波罗的海小镇Gelting。今年1月份预订的度假屋就在海边，从度假网站的介绍来看，自驾游可以让我们有机会去周边其他城市看看，比如汉堡，比如基尔。新买的GPS一路上为我们减少了很多麻烦，特别是从高速下来在不同的小镇间摸索的时候。我甚至无法想象如果没有了它，我们该何去何从，到时估计是瞎子摸象，撞到哪是哪了。而这个细心的向导还能够在忍受妻子的不耐烦中继续对行驶速度进行隔三岔五地提醒，不做丝毫的懈怠，这足以让我有些揶揄的快感。

一路上丈人手持摄影机不停地拍着“公路电影•德国之行篇”。逆行的小镇、树林、丘陵和风车并没有为丈人“公路电影”平添“丹麦篇”之外更多的素材。北德始于冰河世纪和丹麦相同的地质结构让两者之间的乡间风情几乎相同，而18世纪前从属于大丹麦帝国的征服历史则足以消磨两者之间的文化区别，于是依旧时有“风吹草低见牛羊”的丘陵风光，依旧还是红砖一式的乡村建筑。临行前知晓的天气预报是从明天开始持续到下周二，Gelting一直是下雨。对于远道而来的岳父母来说，这未免有些天公不作美的遗憾。还好出行时候丹麦已经连续多日的雨天突然放晴，倒似乎有了一丝好征兆。

进入德国境内没有多长时间，我们还在垂涎着路边茂密的玉米地，讨论着如何在夜晚组织玉米“敢死队”不让丰硕饱满的天珍暴敛，GPS已经用一种坚定铿锵的语气告诉我们目的地已经到了。尽管房子前面的标牌明确地告诉我们这就是Danland旅游公司的合作伙伴，只是空气中并没有尝到一丝潮湿腥膻的海洋味道， 而私家住宅的房子格局也让我们有些怀疑。按照合同标明的地址我们应该是在这里取度假屋的钥匙；或许是来早了，约定的时间是下午4点。犹豫了一会，我们还是希望能找到人询问一下。前门没有门铃，只好走到后门花园旁的玻璃门。大人不在，主人家的孩子 不太懂英语，只是大概指示了下一站的方向。我们无计可施，也就直接将GPS的目标设置成度假屋的所在地：还有将近1.5公里。

继续驱车前行。开阔的视野逐渐让远处飘飞的风帆色彩逐渐明朗，海离我们越来越近了！我们在错落有致的度假村中很快找到自己的房子（我们享有一周的使用权），15号。刚停下车，一个胖女孩从车后跟过来，原来她正准备再看下我们的房子：四点就快到了。我们的交流在指手划脚中完成，她的动作语言表明她很快就重新回来，让我们在这里进行钥匙手续的交接。几分钟之后她的母亲出现了，遗憾的是她依旧不会英语或者丹麦语。但是还好对交流没有障碍，在交了100欧元押金后我们顺利入住了。房子比我们想象得更为清爽整洁，更重要的是并不风尘仆仆的我们也急需坐下小憩一会了。窗外的不远处就是大海，风帆快要接近我们的房子了，而开窗之后急涌而进的海风则让房子瞬间弥漫着潮湿和清新。摆好了东西收拾好橱柜，我们开始准备“生火”做饭。尽管网站上介绍度假屋里厨具炊具很齐备，不过我们还是带了自己的开水壶和电饭煲。

稍作准备之后，我们决定去看看周围的环境。海风很大，还有些刺骨。海风似乎在一个夏末的瞬间刮尽了残留的炎夏余热。不过对于那些冲浪爱好者来说，这个周末或许是他们美好假期能够抓住的仅有的尾巴。海上滑板冲浪者抓住风帆的绳索，迎着缤纷多彩卷舞的飞帆在海浪中迭转起伏。云层开始堆积起来，厚重而又沉蕴，太阳光扯开的缝隙为远处暗灰色的背景增添一些油彩重墨似的光亮，栈桥上的人和停泊的船只则从明媚转而暗淡，只剩阴影残留可见。波罗的海的黄昏似乎来得很快，阴冷直钻入颈领让人顿生寒颤。冲浪者们纷纷偃旗息鼓，准备撤退。我们也该回去准备温热的饭菜，在烛光的温馨中倾听海风日渐狂傲的呼啸了！

记于2007年9月8日，德国Gelting

（下面的照片是度假屋旁边的景色，最后一张是我们的车子和入住的房子：）

奥胡斯周照片一

丹麦影评人眼中的《黄金甲》

《满城尽带黄金甲》上周末在丹麦上映，尽管不是全国大院线联映，只在七个影院放映，估计票房不甚理想，但是丹麦影评人难得一见的全部给了高分。

Berlingske Tidende：★★★★★☆

Ekstra Bladet: ★★★★☆☆

Kristeligt Dagblad：★★★★★☆

JP: ★★★★★☆

EKKO：★★★★☆☆

Cinemazone：★★★★☆☆

Nyhedsavisen：★★★★☆☆

Sondagsavisen：★★★★☆☆

GERA：★★★★☆☆

Kærlighed på film

丹麦本年度到目前为止最值得一看的电影！

Ole Bornedal五年沉寂之后，今年携两部电影回归丹麦影坛。6月份上映的《Vikaren| 代课教师》明显就是模仿好莱坞早年的科幻片，或许是科幻片题材在丹麦太为少见了，至少观众还比较捧场。而8月24日上映的《Kærlighed på film|爱情电影》才是磨剑之作。电影从一个死者的讲述开始，又用三个电影中具有冲击力的关于爱情的片断讲述电影中的爱情。独特的立意开端趸现了Bornedal的野心。这本就不是一部普通电影！
平凡的家常生活，无聊的工作，让Jonas梦想着生活中出现另外一种生活。在一次车祸之后，他去向事故的受害者道歉，结果还没有来得及说明缘由就被对方家人张开双手拥抱。他被错当成了躺在病床上失明并失忆的Julia的男友Sebastian。出于帮助治疗的初衷，他没有点破真相，但是他开始沉浸在另外一个男人的生活中，并且真的觉得自己爱上了Julia。“爱情在哪里？”电影里他那愤世嫉俗的同事问一个正在解剖尸体的法医，“就在大脑这里，欲望和想象在这里相遇。这是两种无法相容的大小尺寸，所以一切都会见鬼去的！”法医举起一个死者的大脑指着具体部位回答说。但是这种冲突已经发生，Jonas开始完全投入这种梦想的生活，成为另外一个男人，可是他需要同时在三种场景中进出：日渐厌烦的家庭，隐约可见的危险，还有就是Julia逐渐恢复的记忆。他最终选择放弃了自己真实的身份……而真正的Sebastian开始了要Julia殉情的追逐之旅。

个人评分：★★★★★☆

一个60万

瑞典演员Rolf Lassgård在丹麦导演Susanne Bier 的电影Efter brylluppet(2006)

题目很直接，对于丹麦电影摄制组来说事实正是如此，但是这个“人”并不是指丹麦人，而是瑞典人。根据瑞典国家支持电影工业的相关规定，只要在电影中出现瑞典演员的身影（当然应该是指主要演员），就会得到瑞典电影机构60万克朗的资金支持。正是由于丹麦国内有限的资金，丹麦电影人纷纷在自己的电影中引进瑞典演员，以此获取瑞典电影机构的资金支持，资金一般来自Svenske Filminstitut和Nordisk Film og TV Fond。与此同时瑞典演员参演的电影一般也很容易得到瑞典国内片商的青睐从而可以赢得一定的瑞典票房。

现在丹麦的编剧在编写电影剧本的同时就会开始考虑安排瑞典籍演员。“事实上编剧在编写剧本的同时并不应该考虑经济问题，但是现在我们都清楚这是个事实。”新上任的丹麦电影机构主席Henrik Bo Nielsen说。

Helle Ryslinge就是直接将瑞典演员写进剧本的丹麦导演之一。她执导的2002年上映的Halalabad Blues选用了瑞典演员Peter Perski，尽管这个角色完全可以用丹麦演员代替。“对我的电影来说他是个幸运儿，因为他会为我从瑞典带来60万克朗。”她还补充说,"如果人们想要制作电影，那么在剧本里直接写进瑞典演员会很快变得成为一件必须的事情。但是这并不意味着需要对原有剧本做很大的改变，因为人们可以说这个瑞典人原本就在丹麦住了很多年了。"

*Rebcka Hemse Ole Bornedal Kærlighed på film(2007)
*Tua Novotny Lasse Spang Olsen Den sorte Madonna(2007)
*Rolf Lassgård Susanne Bier Efter brylluppet(2006)
*Per Oscarsson Jesper W. Nielsen Manden bag døren(2003)
*Maria Bonnevie Christoffer Boe Reconstruction(2003)

“等”是何意？

Ingmar Bergman目前在国内出版发行的书不多，据我所知只有广西师范大学出版社“电影馆”系列中的一本根据Bergman1990年出版的Bilder翻译的《伯格曼论电影》。这本书的中文版权归台北远流出版社所有，2003年在大陆出版。我刚好前段时间在旧书摊找到一本1990年由丹麦Cinematograph AB出版的，丹麦文版本。前段时间花了一点时间看完了中文版本，现在正在看丹麦语版本。由于丹麦语和瑞典语在语法和用语上甚为接近，所以基本可以看出Bergman用文的痕迹。说实在话，在我目前阅读的外文原本和中文译本的对比中，这本书的翻译该是最为完美的，尽管很多句子段落基本上是意译，但是绝对堪称达到翻译中“雅”的境界。而在用词择句中中文词汇的丰富和韵意也是绝对值得称道。只是我有一点不太明白，为什么在译者一栏中只有“韩良忆等”字眼。

我该可以确定译者的名字决不会是叫做：韩良忆等。用一个字“等”来进行涵括其他译者的功劳，这不知道是不是台北远流的作风？抑或是广西师范大学出版社擅自作主的省略？不管如何，对于一个写字翻译的人来说这样的一个字该是一种何等的蔑视和轻侮。出版商难道就此轻易地否定掉一个人或者一些人推敲文字的苦劳。出版商或许确实在翻译出书的时候享有主动权，但是不知道汉语出版界是否可以在出版人文著作，推广人文精神的同时多些时间学习下尊重个人劳动的基本为人准则？

当然，这又只是一个小牢骚而已！！

Dreyers uforglemmelige ansigt

90 i dag .

Skuespillerinden Lisbet Mvins karriere begyndte med Dreyers "Verdens dag".

Hun er evigt forbundet med en af dansk films helt store, internationalt hyldede klassikere. Hendes brændende øjne er svære at glemme, når først man har set Carl Th. Dreyers mesterværk fra 1943, "Verdens dag", hvor hun spiller den unge, terroriserede præstefrue, der omtrent hypnotiseret udstråler "ondskabsfuld" troddomskraft og ender på bålet.

På det tidspunkt havde hun gået på Det Kongelige Teaters elevskole i tre år. På tertret forså nationalscenen hende med de første opgave i et par sæsoner, men det førblive på Det Ny Teater, hun kom til at fungere som en slags ung primadonna i sidste halvdel af 1940'erne, f.eks. i den amerikanske succeskomedie, " Kære Ruth". Senere blev der også til en enkelt bemærkning hos Stig Lommer ude på ABC i midten af 50erne, hos hvem hun havde været "mimose" i en af 1940'ernes Hornbæk-revyer. Men ellers var det filmen, det skulle blive hendes domæne. Andre titler er Besættelsestidsdramaet, "Det røde enge", en af det bedste frihedskæmperfilm, hvor hun også kunne benytte sig af den kontrollerede alvor, der var hendes primære force - bl.a. i samspil med Poul Reichhardt.
Lisbeth Movin i " Verdens dag"

Lisbet Movin fik siden lov til at prøve talentet af i en række meget forskelligartede tonearter, skønt hun i 1950'erne skruede kraftigt ned for karrieren. Hun var nemlig i 1945 blevet gift men den særdeles produktive og indflydelserige filminstruktør, Lau Lauritzen jr., der var dirktør for ASA-studierne.

Sammen fik parret tre børn- herunder den senere revyskuespillerinde Lone Lau- og Lisbeth Movin koncentrerede sig stedet om at passe hushholdning og børneopdragelse, selv om hun lejlighedsvis medvirkede på film og endog aflastede sin syge mand bag kameraet og hjalp ham med at instruere tre titler.

På teatret blev det til et comeback i Edward Albees "En utryg balance" i slutningen af 1960'erne, ligesom hun optog sig flere sceneroller efter Lau Lauritzen død i 1977, herunder den som en af de stride, aldrende primadonnaer i Hvidover Teaters udgave af Noël Cowards "Sidste akt" i festligt samspil med Karen Berg. I tre år var hun konservativt medlem af byrådet i Hørsholm Kommune, men fandt ud af, at politik ikke lige var hende.

På film har Lisbeth Movins seneste rolle været som en af middagsgæsterne i "Babetters gæstebud", i øvrigt smukt genforenet med elevskolekammeraten Preben Lerdorff-Rye, der spillede hendes stedsøn og elsker i "Verdens dag".