Bhutan: Model or Monster…Both?
Bhutan is an interesting country. A small Buddhist kingom situated between India and China, many know it for its flouting of the GDP standard in favor of GNH (Gross National Happiness) as its economic indicator. Still others might know it as a famous tourist destination. Indeed, the tiny Himalayan kingdom has been lauded for its controlled tourism policy, which only allows a certain number of visitors per year to reduce the environmental and social impacts that come with huge waves of tourists.
Few, however, know the side of Bhutan that created a huge refugee crisis, one that has serious ethnic (almost racist) implications, or, as recent news shows, the side that strips the rights of newspapers to publish freely. Some know that the government of Bhutan has decreed that all Bhutanese citizens must wear traditional dress, and that it takes great pains to preserve its cultural heritage, but I wonder how many seriously question the idea that a government that dictates the very clothes you can wear is all that wonderful.
The only reason this is that interesting to me (there are plenty of other repressive governments to look at, after all, many of whom are far more repressive) is this: When I hear many people talk of Tibet, the Himalayas, etc, (Bhutanese are very closely related culturally to Tibetans) they do so with this argument that had China not invaded Tibet in 1949, and had the Bhuddist theocracy that preceded the takeover been left to its own devices, Tibet would still be a wonderful place where monks and lamas cultivate spiritual mana from the roof of the world for the greatness and benefit of all mankind, pouring rivers of enlightenment down to the soulless masses of the industrialized world below.
Ok, now I’m getting condescending, sorry.
Anyway, I guess to me Bhutan is simply a lesson that while Bhuddism may be a great philosophy, a Bhuddist heart can still wield unbelievable hypocrisy and do things just as dirty as the rest of the members of the human race (yeah, “duh”, I know, seems really elementary). There is no reason to think that simply because a government professes to be Bhuddist that it somehow would intrinsically be on a moral high ground above all others. But then, in my experience, many Western converts to Buddhism embrace it with just as much unquestioning blindness and newly rose-tinted glasses as those who fervently embrace any other of the worlds many religions. I’ve listened to many a student of Bhuddism criticize Christianity, while simultaneously ignoring the pitfalls of Bhuddism. Some like to think that Bhuddists are somehow incapable of doing evil, though even Bhuddists have had their share of nasty warlike periods (in certain periods of Japan’s feudal history monks were just as fearsome as any Shogun or Samurai). The unabashed Orientalism that I’ve been witness to sometimes embarrasses me, though I will admit that I too had that period in my studies where I thought anything Eastern was just the bees-knees.
Perhaps that is why the government has added a stipulation that forbids Bhuddist monks to run for elections after the new democratic reforms get into swing.
I jest, of course. The goal seems to be more to protect Bhuddism from politics, rather than to protect politics from Bhuddism. Maybe in that sense some fervent religious types in this country could take some pointers.
