Global Post: Look at that face. You’re suddenly a bit more serene, a bit more contented than you were a minute ago, aren’t you? Maybe you’re remembering the year — was it 2002? 2003? — when you gave every single one of your friends and family a copy of “The Art of Happiness” for Christmas.
On the other hand, if you’re the president, prime minister, or foreign secretary of any country in the world, then this face is giving you serious angina right now.
We learned on Sept. 4 that South Africa had denied a visa request by the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism and symbol of Tibetan freedom, who’d been planning to attend the 14th world summit of Nobel peace laureats in Cape Town. (He won the prize in 1989.) It’s widely assumed — and the Dalai Lama’s representative to South Africa claimed — that the decision had to do with South Africa’s economic ties with China, a country that considers the Dalai Lama a separatist.
From reading headlines around the world today, you’d think this was a major event in geopolitics.
It’s not. The Dalai Lama is losing friends all over the place as the world undergoes a geopolitical realignment.
The Dalai Lama used to be the guy everyone wanted at their party. But since China’s emergence as an economic superpower, he’s become an awkward guest to invite.