Brendan Nelson had a meeting with the Dalai Lama yesterday. Hopefully the Dalai Lama invited the Leader of the Opposition to his meditation lectures. Brendan seems to have a bit of a problem keeping his emotions in check, so maybe Buddhism has something to offer him in the task of keeping Emo Man under control.
Bob Brown is meeting the Dalai Lama. That goes without saying. Brown is a shameless Lama groupie. Bob has probably booked out an entire meditation lecture.
Stephen Smith is meeting the Dalai Lama. Smith doesn’t need any lectures. He’s so calm he looks like he’s permanently meditating. Perhaps about what ties to wear, because he always picks exactly the right combination. Suave. Dapper, even.
John Howard met the Dalai Lama last year. So did then Opposition leader Kevin Rudd, still awaiting destiny’s call to the Prime Ministership.
Even the butchers of Beijing have said they’ll meet with the Dalai Lama. Probably to tell him that he should be thankful the Chinese bothered to rescue his sh-tty little dump of a country from medieval tyranny and that if he’s not careful the Olympic Torch might accidentally set quite a few things on fire while it’s making its way through Tibet. Still, at least they’re doing him the courtesy of telling him in person, if only so people will show up at their Olympics.
Kevin Rudd is — keen-eyed readers will spot the difference — not meeting the Dalai Lama. Diary clash, see. Funny thing about the Dalai Lama’s travels — he always seems to run into these diary clashes when wanting to meet politicians.
As Andrew Robb pointed out yesterday, the Dalai Lama and the Prime Minister will actually be in Australia at the same time, so technically they could meet. So what is Rudd playing at?
Especially when dispatching Julia Gillard to New Zealand and Wayne Swan to Europe and China looks a lot like turning out the lights and hiding when an unwelcome visitor drops by. Except, they’ve left Chris Evans around to perform the solemn duty of meeting His Holiness, rather in the manner of a child explaining to Jehovah’s Witnesses through the flyscreen door that mum and dad aren’t home right now.
Maybe Rudd, having dispelled concerns about his Sinophilia by going telling the Chinese in Beijing itself that it has a human rights problem, and that they should talk to the Dalai Lama, feels it necessary to subtly balance that by regretfully missing the chance to catch up with Tibet’s exiled leader. Maybe meeting the Dalai Lama is more symbolism, and Rudd has finally got tired of that sort of stuff. Or maybe Rudd thought he’d be exhausted after getting back from Indonesia and the last thing he wanted to do was meet yet another bloody foreign leader, one he only met a year ago anyway.
Don’t know. Strange.
Bernard Keane of course has no problem with Australia selling iron ores to China, some of which are made into knives to be used by the butchers in Beijing.
This looks like a cheap shot to me. I thought that by subscribing to Crikey, I might obtain some independent, thoughtful analysis of current affairs. This item is a prime example of how wrong I was. Your conclusions giving the reasons for the reason for ministerial travel arrangements are laughable
Methinks you are stirring the pot Bernard, being a trifle naughty…best play the ball with a straight bat.
Strange, yes, Bernard, that you should make such a tortuous effort to make so much out of nothing. What is so special about the Dalai Llama that every time he lobs into town on a money making lecture tour he is seen as some sort of ethereal being to whom the world should kow tow? It’s astonishing how people go weak at the knees before him and treat him as if he is the font of all wisdom rather than the mystically, and mysteriously, annointed head of an autocratic theocracy, whose people seem to be held in some sort of feudal bond. My take on this will tell you I have no understanding of Buddhism, an ignorance I am happy to admit. After watching the Dalai’s travelling road show at the Entertainment Centre here in Perth I was unimpressed. Tonight Kerry O’Brien joined the sycophantic chorus of interest in His Holiness who suggested that the failure of young Tibetans living overseas to speak their mother tongue was proof of cultural genocide by the Chinese. If the the Dalai Lama and his government in exile cannot ensure the survival of their mother tongue inside and out of their motherland how well are they likely to govern themselves if they really did gain autonomy?