China deploys (state controlled) religion as an opium for the masses

[egb_hibs]

Finally, the recipe for sustainable communism is arrived at - base it on capitalism and religion.
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Finding their religion

For China's communist government, tamed forms of Buddhism and Confucianism seem a means of bringing social stability to booming cities.

Peter Walker and agencies
Thursday April 13, 2006



The teenage boy hand-picked by Beijing as the reincarnation of Tibetan Buddhism's second most important holy figure made his first appearance in front of the international media today, urging patriotism towards China at its first international religious meeting under communism.
In a carefully choreographed showcase that highlighted the many contradictions between China's official atheism and its attempts to harness religion for social stability, Gyaltsen Norbu, Beijing's choice as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, made a brief speech to the World Buddhist Forum.

"Defending the nation and working for the people is a solemn commitment Buddhism has made to the nation and society," said the tall, thin 16-year-old, dressed in a yellow-and-maroon robe. He was speaking in Tibetan to the monks, nuns and scholars - and scores of police and plain-clothes security guards - gathered in Hangzhou, a city in China's economically vibrant eastern coastal region.
Norbu, who is believed to live under strict government control in Beijing and is virtually never seen in public, was chosen by the Chinese state in 1995 as the next Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy.
The current Dalai Lama, now 70, fled his Himalayan homeland in 1959 after an abortive uprising against China, which had invaded nine years earlier. The Dalai Lama, awarded the 1989 Nobel peace prize for his non-violent struggle for autonomy in Tibet, is reviled by China as a "splittist", and has never been allowed to return home.
Beijing installed Norbu as Panchen Lama after the Dalai Lama - in accordance with centuries-old tradition - had picked another boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, then six. The Dalai Lama's choice vanished and is believed to have been under house arrest ever since. Human rights activists have called him "the world's youngest political prisoner".
The notion of Chinese officials overruling the Dalai Lama on a religious matter is ridiculed by Buddhist scholars. "Reincarnation is a religious belief and it cannot be decided by an administrative office," Thubten Samphel, an official with the Tibetan government in exile, said as the conference opened.

The five-day forum, attended by delegates from 30 countries, appears to be an attempt by China to show that its rapid economic liberalisation comes with at least a slightly more relaxed attitude to social matters.

China's leaders are known to be concerned that the effective abandonment of communist doctrine in favour of all-out wealth creation over recent decades has left the nation with a cultural vacuum, bringing rampant corruption and selfishness. Some experts believe they see religion, if carefully controlled, as one answer.

Buddhism and Confucianism are seen as home-grown, and thus less threatening than Christianity and other imported faiths. Nonetheless, Buddhist monks and nuns are routinely jailed, as are Christians who refuse to acknowledge the authority of the Communist party in religious affairs.

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