The 14th Dalai Lama

by Tetsu Saiwai

A friend suggested that I read The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography and I'm glad I did.  I've always had a passing interest in Tenzin Gyatso and the struggle of his people, and I was familiar with his story, but I'd never read a biography of him before now.

Tetsu Saiwai's manga begins with the death of the previous Dalai Lama, and the search for his resurrected spirit.  Once he was recognized as the new Dalai Lama, Gyatso was moved to Lhasa where he began a life of study.  Unfortunately, world events did not allow the young Dalai Lama time to ease into his role, as at the age of fifteen, he had to begin to deal with the expansionism of neighbouring China, which was undergoing the Cultural Revolution, and set its eyes on Tibet.

This book follows the Dalai Lama through a period of attempting to appease and work with Mao's China, until the sad realization that were he to stay in Lhasa, he would surely be held prisoner or killed.  He and a small group of family and advisers escape to India, where they continue to act as the legal government of Tibet, although they have no say over what has happened at home.

The book covers its material quickly (it didn't take very long to read this), but with enough detail that the reader can walk away from this book with a good understanding of what has happened.  Saiwai tells his story simply, but very effectively.  This is a good place to start a study of the current, post-anti-Olympics demonstrations in Tibet, and raises the question of what will happen to Tibetans, and Buddhism in general, when the aging Gyatso passes.

The Apostate

by Lawrence Wright

This has to be one of the best articles I've read in the New Yorker in months.  Lawrence Wright, in twenty-six full pages, thoroughly examines Scientology.  The article is centred on Paul Haggis, a filmmaker who has recently decided to leave the church after some thirty-four years in the organization.

Wright does not limit his reporting to Haggis's story though.  Instead, he digs into the history of the religion, the myths surrounding its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and layer upon layer of hypocrisy and deception.

Again and again, we read stories of Scientologists being assaulted by David Miscavige, the head of the organization.  We also learn about people held in confinement for years on the Gold Base, the headquarters of the Sea Org, the militant branch of the faith (where teenagers sign billion-year contracts to work for slave wages).

Much of what Wright reveals about Scientology is deeply bizarre, even to someone who has seen the episode of South Park where Scientology is eviscerated.  The intergalactic cosmology of the faith is ridiculous, but even stranger is the willingness of educated, talented people, to buy in to this stuff.  At the same time though, Wright makes some of the tenets of the faith, such as the way people can apply Scientology to disagreements and debates, fully credible.

I'm sure that the New Yorker is going to receive a lot of flack from the Church for printing this article, but I feel that in addition to being a stunning piece of reportage, it is important to expose this 'faith' for the cult that it is.

Be On Your Way

by Gideon Lewis-Krause

This was one of those news magazine articles that I start reading, with the expectation that I won't get more than a couple of pages before I skip over it and move on to the rest.  The prosaic landscape photos and lead-in copy about a pilgrimage being a 'life-changing experience' didn't grab me, but I've been having a lot of luck reading the San Francisco Panorama - the McSweeney's newspaper one-off, so I figured I'd give it a try.  I found the article, which clocks in at nineteen oversized magazine pages (not counting full-page photos), accompanied by a sidebar article that is another five pages, to be riveting.

Apparently, since medieval times, people have been walking the Camino de Santiago, an almost 800 kilometre (500 miles) journey across Spain, ending off at Santiago.  The author was invited by his friend (and author of the sidebar) Tom Bissell, to accompany him on the trip, which he was undertaking as part of his research for a book on the apostles.  Neither pilgrim has any religious leanings, and so the trip was more of an exercise in endurance and novelty.

Endurance is what it took.  Walking 20 - 30 kilometres a day can be very taxing, as Bissell quickly learned when his new hiking boots skinned his heels of all flesh.  Lewis-Krause writes of the journey, with it's endless hiking and nights in noisy, crowded albergues (think monastic hostel), in a series of diary-like entries, demarcating the events of each day in linear fashion.  The reader is able to see the two go through many different levels of despair and enjoyment, and gets to meet with them the other pilgrims on the journey.

The profiles that Lewis-Krause writes of his fellow travelers became the parts of the article that I read most eagerly, as I tried to figure out what kind of person would do something like this.  Of course, by the end of the article, I started to wonder if it was something I could survive.

The writing in this article is unfailingly honest, and frequently very funny.  The contempt that our two heroes had for people more fit than them was only overshadowed by their growing hatred of John Brierley, the man who wrote the guidebook they were consulting, and his tendency to wax poetic in a most irritating fashion.

At its core, this is a long piece of writing about enduring friendship, and I found it touching.

Glad to be Canadian: Like I Was Jesus

by Rachel Aviv

Okay, so the article clearly says that the Child Evangelism Fellowship is at work proselytizing to little kids in 158 countries, but I still felt that this article helped to add a little to my sense of geographical superiority.

Aviv spent time last summer with the young evangelists of the CEF, as they ran camp-like activities for children in poor Connecticut neighbourhoods, with the express purpose of 'saving' kids as young as six years old. They have a few tools, such as the EvangeCube, designed to help them in this purpose, and they have lengthy discussions about how to simplify the basic tenets of Christianity into statements consisting of single-syllable words.

Aviv questions, of course, whether or not the children have any real understanding of what is going on when they work through their ABC's (A: Admit you are a sinner; B: Believe that Jesus went on the cross and died for your sins; C: Choose to accept Him). The proof, as provided by missionary-free follow-up visits she conducted, is that the efforts are largely wasted, or at least, not as valued as the young missionaries seem to think.

What always amazes me about stories like this is how many people seem to be willing to dive into a project that effectively replaces a person's system of belief with another, because the volunteers assume they know better. I suppose this article makes me 'Glad to be Canadian' because it's a world view I almost automatically associate with Americans.

Jesus Killed Mohammed

by Jeff Sharlet

Reading What Is America? recently, I was struck by Wright's examination of faith's place in American expansionism. His section on how the Mormons were known to slaughter (perceived) enemies while dressed like Aboriginals was in stark contrast to the carefully managed image that the LDS's project today.

This article, which examines the semi-hidden Evangelical element within the United States military is not really surprising, it's just not something I've thought much about before. Sharlet describes a large network of soldiers and officers who view the War on Terror in the same light as many in the Middle East do - that it IS a modern day crusade perpetrated against Muslim people.

This is a very well-written article, making use of a great deal of research and providing insight into an often closed institution. Something more for Obama to fix....