This incredible interview yesterday on important Danish Radio program Debat was shared by Kelsang Nordin: Transcript below.
http://www.dr.dk/radio/ondemand/p1/p1-debat-747#!/30:20
Debat P1 Start at 29.00
Host: Anne Henderson
Politicians: Nikolaj Villumsen Zenia Stampe Søren Espersen
Host: We are talking about whether Danish politicians should meet with the Dalai Lama. We have ( 3 politicians) and now I have the pleasure of introducing Tim Larcombe who is the spokesperson for the International Shugdan Community in Denmark. Welcome to Tim Larcombe. You are an organisation of particular political, I mean Buddhist tradition.
Tim: Yes that’s right. We are a collection of individual Shugdan buddhist followers from the whole world.
Host: We in the west support the Dalai in his quest to give Tibetans democratic rights. He also got the Nobel prize in 1989. But you think he is not a democrat, so is that completely wrong?
Tim: I think we have forgotten to look at something - and that is Dalai Lama’s own society - and how he behaves there. Dalai Lama talks about peace and tolerance for all, but in his own society he has created a hateful atmosphere amongst the different Buddhist traditions.
Host: And you come from a tradition that the DL has himself practiced but moved away from?
Tim: No, I haven’t shifted.
Host: No, he has.
Tim: Yes, he practiced the same tradition until he was 50
Host: And now he can’t accept it.
Tim: He has forbidden this tradition in the Tibetan Exile Community, and has got them to sign an oath that they won’t practice this any longer. He forces them to do this. It’s completely grotesque what he does. But we haven’t seen this in the West yet. We haven’t looked at it.
Host: So we have been blindsided by, he wishes to cut himself away from Chinese dictatorship, and we haven’t looked at what kind of man he is himself?
Tim: What I am talking about is his human-rights record, and that is, as I say, grotesque. He has created a society of discrimination. His own society is completed segregated from one another - along the lines of religious belief. And this, we haven’t investigated yet.
I don’t have anything to say about whether politicians meet him this time, about China etc., but next time he comes, I wish that the politicians wouldn’t meet him because of his human rights record.
I have signs I can show you that say “If you practise this tradition, you can’t have access to this clinic, this shop, restaurant. You may not travel. It’s just like Germany in the thirties.
Host: He is practising a sort of apartheid. That he makes his followers implement in the Tibetan Exile Community.
Tim: That’s right - we are talking about the exiled Tibetan Community in India and the rest of the world. And what we want him to do is to write to that society that there has to be a complete stop to discrimination towards Shugdan Buddhists.
….. Talk about how Tibet was in the 50’s. A small upper class and 95% of society illiterate.
Host: Tim Larcombe isn’t it true that for many years he has been the religious leader but also fought a political battle for all Tibetans right to a completely basic right to not be put down by the Chinese regime?
Tim: I don’t understand that “religious “ leader. I have listened to your programs and you are talking only about politics.
Host: Exactly
Tim: And what he does, and it’s terrible what he does - is that he uses his political power, I mean his spiritual power to implement his political ambitions. And that’s why we protest in the Shugdan community. And we would be very happy to illuminate this to Danish politicians, with evidence of what actually is happening there.
Host: Zenia Stampe -Are Danish politicians being misled by a man who abuses his religious power to practice political power?
Zenia Stampe: I don’t believe so, but I don’t know the details of what we are hearing now. I don’t think so. But I do think it’s important to always look at the general point of human rights. If we fight for human rights in China, then we must also fight for human rights in Tibet if that comes.
…. I don’t know much about this suppression in the Tibetan Exile Community we are hearing about. That we also have to look at - but at the Press Conference today, I thought he came with a much wider message than just China.
Host: A final short comment from Tim Larcombe. Are the Danish politicians simply naive?
Tim: No they are not naive - they just haven’t had the opportunity to look at the situation yet. And that’s why we demonstrate here because in Denmark there is freedom of speech and religious freedom, but it doesn’t exist in the Tibetan Exile Community.
Host: That you for coming today and best of luck with your fight.
