Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 10 – On Monday, “Die
Welt” published an interview with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the
world’s Buddhists, in which he sharply criticized Vladimir Putin for being “egocentric”
and for seeking to isolate Russia from the rest of the world by rebuilding a
Berlin wall, something the Dalai Lama said was “suicidal.”
His words attracted attention around
the world but nowhere have they had more immediate and serious consequences
than in Kalmykia, a Buddhist republic in the North Caucasus. There, as “Nezavisimaya
gazeta” reports today, politicians are scrambling to find a way not to offend
Putin or the Buddhist electorate (ng.ru/regions/2014-09-10/1_buddists.html).
Their efforts in this regard are all
the more obvious because of the elections for the head of the republic and the legislative
assembly in its capital, Elista, that will take place this Sunday, according to
Andrey Serenko, who serves as the Moscow newspaper’s correspondent in Volgograd
Oblast and Kalmykia.
Kalmyks learned about the Dalai Lama’s
words from the Internet, and Sanal
Lidzheyev, a Kalmyk political expert told him that their appearance “have put
both the party of power and the opposition in an uncomfortable position”
because they don’t want to offend the Kremlin or “speak out against the Dalai
Lama who is an absolute authority for the majority of Kalmyks.”
Only two of the four candidates for
head of Kalmykia have been willing to say anything. Communist Nikolay Nurov
said that he is “certain” that the Dalai Lama’s words were “taken out of
context” because “he would hardly speak so sharply about our president. [His]
attitude toward Russia was always warm. But in any case, his statement is his
personal view.”
Petr Vyshkvarok, the LDPR candidate,
said that he thinks that “the policy of our president is correct. Russia must
be strong. As concerns the statements of spiritual leaders, they have the right
to any point of view while remembering that politics and religion in our
country are separate from one another.” He added that “it is completely
possible that the Dalai Lama is offended by the fact that his visit to Russia
has still not taken place.”
Green Party candidate Khongor
Marilov refused to comment saying that he was not familiar with the Dalai Lama’s
text, and backers of the incumbent head, Aleksey Orlov, said that he couldn’t
be reached because he was travelling. “Yesterday,” Serenko reports, “Orlov’s
mobile telephone did not answer.”
A
whole series of other Kalmyk politicians, both those who are part of the
party of power and those who are its opponents, also refused to comment,
apparently having concluded that saying nothing is the best way to avoid
offending either Putin or Buddhism.
One who at least was prepared to
speak on the record was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the former head of Kalmykia. He said he very much doubted that the Dalai
Lama had in fact said what “Die Welt” quoted him as saying given that he
Ilyumzhinov had met with him often “and had never heard from his mouth anything
like this about the Russian president.”
The
former Kalmyk head said that one reason that the Dalai Lama might have said
what he said is that he hasn’t been allowed to visit Russia since 2004, and “for
the last ten years,” he has had to learn about the country from the Western
press. Were he to be allowed to come and see “with his own eyes” the changes
that have been made, he would feel differently.
In this
way, Ilyumzhinov has found the best of all possible ways out of the dilemma of
Kalmyk politicians regarding the Dalai Lama. He has essentially dismissed what the
Buddhist spiritual leader has said but has used the occasion to push for a
visit by the Dalai Lama to Kalmykia and Russia, something both the Dalai Lama
and Russia’s Buddhists very much want.
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