Why Sabotage Your Own Country And People

By: Wong Kim Seng

The opinion piece below was sent to dorjeshugden.com for publication. We accept submissions from the public, please send in your articles to [email protected].

In February 2014, the Tibet Autonomous Region Party Committee Office made an official statement about the Dorje Shugden conflict that the Central Tibetan Administration’s (CTA) unpopular ban created. As the Chinese government clearly identified, the anti-Shugden campaign is actually an attack against Chinese unity, causing divisions amongst Tibetans in the autonomous region which is a big problem for the Chinese government. Since then, the Shugden issue has split Tibetan Buddhists in India, China, America, Europe and everywhere it is being played out.

The Chinese government is taking these attacks seriously and have made the move to officially warn against those who use this religious conflict to create disharmony within their own country. And as it turns out, the Chinese government is right to be worried. On April 7, 2015, the ‘International Campaign for Tibet’ which is controlled by the CTA translated the Chinese statement and twisted it into yet another piece of anti-China propaganda, using the Shugden ban to keep anti-China sentiment high. (View the International Campaign for Tibet’s statement here).

The CTA’s strike would not be effective outside their immediate circle, so they have to use ‘agents’ to carry out the CTA’s smear campaigns. These agents bring the CTA’s campaign against China into their own countries and communities, and try to get bystanders to pick sides and in that way, draw numbers into supporting the CTA. Those who are unaware are tricked by these agents who tell them that if they are good dharma practitioners, then they must oppose Dorje Shugden, which also means that they oppose China since China is accused of promoting Dorje Shugden. By this method, Tibetan Buddhist practitioners around the world are drawn into CTA’s fight with China and they become unknowing participants and supporters, at the heavy cost of their own country’s social unity.

Recently, this conflict has been brought into the peaceful countries of Singapore and Malaysia. Both Malaysia and Singapore are countries whose citizens comprise of multiple races and religions, and it is very important for them to maintain peace amongst all religious and ethnic groups. The Malaysian and Singaporean governments and their citizens have worked hard to ensure that all religions are respected to avoid disharmony and social unrest due to religious differences. Yet, Thekchen Choling, a Buddhist centre based in Singapore, and the Vajrayana Buddhist Council of Malaysia (VBCM), a self-appointed Buddhist council, have done the opposite and carried the CTA’S hate messages into their own countries.

Both Thekchen Choling and the VBCM are supposed to be spiritual centres that practice and uphold peace, understanding, acceptance and other similar values in line with Buddha’s teachings. And yet, opposite to what they claim to practice, Thekchen Choling openly forbids Shugden worshippers from associating with them and their members. In addition, the Principal of the centre known as ‘Lama Namdrol’ has given public teachings that defame the 360-year-old practice and as a result, created much unhappiness and ill-will towards Dorje Shugden worshippers. Lama Namdrol and Thekchen Choling have also distributed anti-Shugden literature, which was extracted from the Tibetan administration’s websites and translated into Chinese, to ensure Chinese-literate Singaporeans and Malaysians are informed of what the CTA wants them to believe.

On their part, the VBCM have issued public statements openly calling for not only their members but also the general public to shun and reject Shugden believers. The VBCM claims to represent all Vajrayana Buddhists in Malaysia and promote goodwill amongst all people; instead they serve as an agent for the political manipulations of the CTA.

The Vajrayana Buddhist Council of Malaysia’s statement on Dolgyal (Shugden) practice (Click on image to enlarge)

Both Thekchen Choling and VBCM’s actions not only harm the unity of Malaysians and Singaporeans, but also undermine both Malaysia and Singapore’s relationships with a very important trade partner, which is China. The economies of Singapore and Malaysia depend on good relations with China and in turn, the citizens’ livelihood and wellbeing depend on well-performing economies. Therefore, when Thekchen Choling and VBCM undermine this relationship, they in fact harm the peoples of Malaysia and Singapore by advancing the politics of the CTA which do not concern Malaysians and Singaporeans.

What Thekchen Choling and VBCM may not realize is that they, and the people they rope in to spread anti-Shugden sentiment, are destroying the national unity of their host countries. What starts off as an attack against one religion will create an excuse and reason to attack other religions. So, in fact they place themselves and their members/volunteers at risk of breaking the law, for instance as provided by the Malaysian Sedition Act 1948 which was recently amended to include the creation of disunity via religion, in an effort to maintain the country’s peace and harmony.

The Sedition Act is not just for Muslims; it is for the protection of all Malaysians. It is aimed at preventing any person who promotes feelings of hostility between persons or groups on the grounds of religion – whether the religion attacked is Christianity, Hinduism, Islam or any of the other faiths Malaysia is proud to be home to … We will not and cannot stand for the incitement of racial or inter-ethnic conflict. We have come too far to harm the progress that we have made.
~ Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia
[Source: http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2015/04/09/Najib-Sedition-Act/]

The revised Malaysian Sedition Act promises greater inter-religious harmony and respect

Not only are Thekchen Choling and VBCM’s anti-Shugden activities dangerous to the community, they are also extremely irresponsible to involve their members in dangerous activities. Malaysia and Singapore’s foreign policy regards China as a friend, and so Thekchen Choling and VBCM should support their government instead of undermining national interest with their anti-Shugden activities. Whilst Thekchen Choling’s Lama Namdrol may be a Singaporean national, he has not hesitated to interfere with Malaysia’s close ties with China, using his Buddhist centre in Malacca (a city in Malaysia) to launch the CTA’s anti-Shugden (anti-China) attacks.

It is important to note that, for all the accusations levelled at China by the anti-Shugden people, the statement issued by China in February 2014 made it clear that China only wants to protect unity within the Tibet Autonomous Region and Greater China. For example, China’s position on the Dorje Shugden issue states without doubt that,

… they [the CTA] immediately launched a new evil action by reviving the dispute over the propitiation or non-propitiation of ‘Gyalchen Shugden’ by relying on opposition to it, with the evil hope to promote discord among believers within our borders… using religion to continue misleading the masses, and… as a pretext for stirring up discord among ordinary believers, creating disagreements and incidents, with intent to breed chaos in Tibet and other Tibetan areas…

And interestingly, contrary to the image of China that the CTA seeks to spread, China actually practices religious freedom:

The basic principle of our Party’s policy on religion is to respect and protect the public’s freedom of religious belief. Freedom of religious belief is an important policy in Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas.

What is also important to note is how the CTA’s actions actually corrode the Chinese government’s efforts to promote freedom for Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The CTA directly harms Tibetans in China by inciting them to create trouble in the Tibet Autonomous Region because when the Chinese authorities respond to the troubles, as any government would have to do, it is the Tibetans who suffer, not the CTA who started the troubles.

All these schemes work against the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people’s hopes and hard work in trying to return to their homeland, and it is extremely foolish. If the Chinese government is seen to be ‘aligning itself’ to Dorje Shugden, it is in fact trying to neutralize the CTA’s campaigns of false information using Shugden as the reason to cause trouble. It is not that the Chinese government is pro-Shugden, it is that they are anti-conflict. Thus, if the Shugden practice is the CTA’s basis for causing disharmony and the more anti-Shugden propaganda they seek to spread, then the more the Chinese government will counter it with positive notes. In fact, if the CTA intends to wipe out the Shugden practice, they are instead creating its positive growth.

The CTA’s dirty tactics also directly hurt the Dalai Lama in more ways than one. For example, in 2014 the Dalai Lama had expressed interest to make a pilgrimage to Wutai Shan in Northern China, a request the Chinese government rejected because of the CTA’s ‘separatist’ activities such as using the Shugden issue to split the Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Clearly, before the CTA can hope to have meaningful discussions with China, it has to meet China’s condition of stopping all ‘splittist’ activities. Thus, the longer the CTA continue in foolishly using Dorje Shugden as a political weapon, the more they take away the Tibetan people’s chances of achieving their lifelong goal. Whatever the CTA had hoped to achieve by propagating the Shugden ban, it has hurt the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people more than anyone else.

China has proven that it will not back down to defend the harmony and wellbeing of its citizens – Chinese and Tibetan alike. The more the CTA attack China with the Shugden ban, the more China will do to ensure that the CTA’s efforts of destabilization are neutralized and the Dorje Shugden practice is promoted. Likewise, the more the CTA’s agents like Thekchen Choling and VBCM attack, abuse and threaten Dorje Shugden practitioners, especially those who are not involved in Tibetan politics, the more Shugden practitioners will be pulled into understanding the true nature of this so-called religious conflict. They will realize that, unlike the CTA’s propaganda, it is in fact the CTA that is doing the attacking and eventually, support for the CTA and the Tibetan cause will cease.

Logic will tell anyone that the CTA has seriously damaged its objectives and its credibility by continuing with the Dorje Shugden ban. What can be gained by getting more and more supporters to attack an economic giant that even super-powers need to be friends with? What can be gained by attacking innocent Shugden worshippers all over the world and calling them all kinds of derogatory names and labels only to draw their support away from the Tibetan cause? The CTA is only creating more enemies around the world. It is time the CTA wakes up to the nightmare they have created and stop damaging their own people. If the Dorje Shugden ban is not removed, the Tibetans will not achieve their goal and all their efforts and sacrifices would have been for nought.

Further reading

• China gives Tibet religious freedom
• Singapore and the Dalai Lama
• Obama, the Dalai Lama and China
• CTA, Stop Irritating China
• Who’s the hypocrite?
• Dalai Lama and China: A Disturbing Trend