MYSTICAL PURITY OR POLITICAL ARTEFACT? Presentation by Gabriel Lafitte to “River waters: Perspectives and Challenges for Asia” conference of the Foundation for Nonviolent Alternatives, India International centre, Delhi, November 2011 glafitte@aanet.com.au www.rukor.org +613 59623434 ABSTRACT: Potent new metaphors are forming in the ice above India: the third pole, the water tower of Asia, the engine […]
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BURNING THE BODY
ANSWERING A LIFE MADE MEANINGLESS BY POLITICS THROUGH DELIBERATE DEATH? The meditative inner process of collapsing all categories has been interrupted. Inner discovery of the openness, clarity, sensitivity, receptivity of the heart, and its intimate connectedness to all hearts, has been violently disrupted by state power at its crudest, by technologically supercharged instruments of bodily […]
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Sunbeaten Path, Search for Drime Kunden
THOUGHTS ON A DHARAMSALA ‘FILMING TIBET’ FESTIVAL In the few movies made in Tibet a businessman uses his wealth for a road movie search for living exemplars of unconditional compassion, ready to give away even their own children, their own eyes, to those who demand them, and by demanding prove their neediness. In Tibetan movies […]
YARTSA BOOM TIME: THE CATERPILLAR FUNGUS ECONOMY OF THE GRASSLANDS Of all the medicines coming from Tibet, the most valuable, so costly it is an asset class of its own, is almost weightless, not at all suited to being measured by the ton. Yartsa gumbu is a bubble economy; a bubble that keeps on growing, […]
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Copper and gold mining in Tibet
THE GOLDEN VISION OF TIBET’S COPPER- COLOURED MOUNTAINS IN CHINA’S CENTRAL PLANS [A shorter version of this detailed analysis was published by China Dialogue on 5 September 2011] Gold and copper are at the heart of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan for Tibet. Only tourism has a similar wealth-creating potential. Like tourism, intensive exploitation of Tibet’s […]
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CRISIS? WHAT ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS?
FINDING AUTHENTIC, SKILFUL BUDDHIST RESPONSES TO THE PLANETARY DEBATE Presented to Global Buddhist Congregation, Delhi, November 2011, convened by Asoka Mission Gabriel Lafitte [DISCLAIMER: This presentation makes a case for inner transformation as the foundation for effective action in the world to deal constructively with global challenges such as climate change. The author has not […]
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Mining Tibet (in Chinese)
西藏面临矿产开采的威胁: 中国政府认为，青藏高原是解决中国日益增长的重金属需求的关键所在。然而，推动这一计划并非是市场需求，而是资源民族主义情结。
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SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER IN BEIJING
TRUTH, GREED, TRUST AND TRAIN CRASHES: NEW REALITIES OF NEW CHINA Truth will out, as the Dalai Lama has always said. Take two stories in the respected business and economics publication Caixin Weekly in early August 2011. In the guise of a film review, a professor of political science at prestigious Tsinghua University skewers the […]
2011 EU-CHINA HUMAN RIGHTS DIALOGUE AGREED FOCUS FOR 2011 IS RIGHTS OF MINORITIES A SUBMISSION PRESENTED TO THE EU DIPLOMATIC EXTERNAL ACTION SERVICE 25 MAY 2011 Interviews with nomads from all over the Tibetan Plateau, conducted in recent years by human rights monitoring agencies, show a remarkably consistent picture. Nomads are impoverished by decades of […]
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LHASA HOTEL BOOM: THE BACK STORY
CHINA IN FAIRY LAND: HUGE HOTELS, PROPERTY SPECULATORS & MASS TOURISM IN A REMOTE CORNER OF TIBET THE BACKSTORY BEHIND THE HOTEL CONSTRUCTION BOOM IN LHASA 2011 Gabriel Lafitte 2002 This is a story about the biggest tourism destination in Tibet, bigger than the holy city of Lhasa, even though few Tibetans know […]