|
Dalai Lama Warns against Generalizing Islam
[An Nahar] Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, warned Wednesday not to generalize Islam as a negative force and called on believers of different faiths to reach out to one another.Should the Dalai Lama show up in Pakistain somebody with a turban would be guaranteed to try and kill him within three days, just on general principles... On a lecture tour of the United States, the world's best-known Buddhist monk said that every religion including his own had "mischievous" people and that he has made efforts to reach out to Mohammedans since the September 11, 2001 attacks. But they don't all have organized movements that try to kill members of other faiths. In fact, I can't think of another religion besides Islam that does... "Due to some mischievous action or destructive action carried out by some mischievous Mohammedans, due to that, to generalize the whole of Islam as something negative is totally unfair, unjust," he said to applause. "We need more effort to reach out to other faiths," he said at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Historically, in most cases of conflict in the name of religion "the real reason is not religious faith, but economic reasons" or power struggles, he added. The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since fleeing Chinese rule in Tibet in 1959, said that Buddhists had suffered under Mohammedan rule in India but that he believed "the past is past." He voiced admiration for the ability of different religious communities to live together in India. "I think, really, a thousand years religious harmony (is) already there. So I think the rest of the world should learn from India's experience like that," he said. Posted by: Fred 2012-10-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=353694 |