Boston Globe: The Dalai Lama yesterday brought his message of nonviolence and religious tolerance to the FleetCenter, declaring to a full house of 14,578 that “disarmament is our only hope.”
But he gave a mixed message on war, acknowledging that the Second World War and the Korean War had made positive contributions to human society, and he said that only time will tell whether the war in Iraq was justifiable.
And he sounded notes of simultaneous pessimism and optimism on the situation in Tibet, his home country, which is controlled by China. The Dalai Lama is not only the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, but leads the Tibetan government-in-exile, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his advocacy of nonviolence as he leads his people in a struggle for cultural autonomy.
“From my perspective, I am optimistic,” he said, speaking just days after meeting with President Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in Washington. “But if you look at the developments, sometimes it feels hopeless.”
The Dalai Lama said that a growing number of Chinese intellectuals are sympathetic to the plight of Tibetans…