the Dalai Lama and "too many Muslims"

The headline at right-leaning Breitbart reads: "Dalai Lama Warns Against Taking Too Many Migrants, Arab Domination: ‘Migrants Should Return’"

The article says in part:

SUBHEAD: The Dalai Lama has said there are too many migrants pouring into Europe, warning against the continent becoming Arabised, and claiming the solution is the eventual repatriation of migrants.

MAIN TEXT: Agence France-Presse has reported that the leader of Tibetan Buddhism said: “When we look at the face of each refugee, but especially those of the children and women, we feel their suffering, and a human being who has a better situation in life has the responsibility to help them.

“But on the other hand, there are too many at the moment… Europe, Germany in particular, cannot become an Arab country, Germany is Germany”.

“There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult.”

The Dalai Lama added that “from a moral point of view too, I think that the refugees should only be admitted temporarily”.

“The goal should be that they return and help rebuild their countries.”

His comments are almost the same as those made by Europe’s anti-Islamisation PEGIDA movement, and similar to comments made by groups like France’s Front National, Germany’s Alternative Fur Deutschland, and to a lesser extent, Britain’s UK Independence Party.

I'm not sure how comfortable the Dalai Lama would be to know he's being associated with Pegida, FN, AfD, and UKIP. But what he seems to be saying strikes me as more enlightened than anything that has come out of the mouth of that addled old Latin Marxist in Rome.

There's another side to this story, of course. The Huffington Post has an article titled, "Did the Dalai Lama really warn about refugees and 'Arab domination' in Europe?"

The article says in part:

The publication of an interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the German media has led to some sensational headlines derived from an interview that included questions on the refugee crisis in Europe.

These representations, focusing on the Dalai Lama apparently warning against ‘Arab domination’ and Europe taking in ‘too many’ migrants are ultimately inconsistent with the well-known and compassionate approach of the Dalai Lama, who has been a refugee himself for more than half a century, and the longer-term perspective he seeks to convey.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate the Dalai Lama has for decades advocated tolerance, inter-religious dialogue and has rejected the concept of a clash of civilizations, calling it “false and dangerous.” It is ludicrous and clearly out of context to assert that the Dalai Lama would seriously state that Germany is at risk of becoming ‘Arab’ as a result of the refugee crisis.

What's interesting to note is that the HuffPo article doesn't quote from the actual interview, and it doesn't directly rebut the rightie spin on the matter. I read the HuffPo article all the way through, looking for a direct refutation, but the part I quoted above is as good as it gets: "These representations...are ultimately inconsistent with the well-known and compassionate approach of the Dalai Lama..." In other words, this is little more than assertion and speculation, not an attempt to do actual journalism with actual quotes.

So I went to some European sources. Interestingly, when I started typing "dalai lama trop de" in Google, the auto-complete immediately came back with "dalai lama trop de réfugiés en europe" (Dalai Lama too many refugees in Europe). Of the top nine French-language search results for French news, at least eight say something like "The Dalai Lama judges that there are too many refugees in Europe."

I'm writing about this turn of events now because it suddenly became an issue on Gab AI, my new social-media roost. In fact, it's old news that somehow passed most of us by. The original German interview happened in May of 2016; the above-linked HuffPo article dates to June 2016, and the Breitbart article comes from the very end of last May.

The Dalai Lama, being a realist and a pragmatist (as Buddhists are supposed to be, even if not all of them are), is only stating the obvious. Were he to grow some balls and go further, he'd point the finger at Angela Merkel and note the insanity of opening the floodgates—as a matter of governmental policy—to cultures that refuse to assimilate—a problem visible in France, where even third-generation Muslims prefer to remain in their banlieues, learning French but not becoming French. (And speaking of banlieues, you may have heard or seen the recent news about the Korean tourists who were assaulted and robbed while sightseeing in Paris. I'm not sure whether this is true, but it seems their hotel was in or near one of those banlieues, which strikes me as insane. The linked article says this: "An official at the embassy urged caution in the suburbs north of Paris where the [assaulted tourists'] hotel is located, citing safety concerns."—emphasis added)

Anyway, I'm sure you'd like a link to a translation of the actual interview with the Dalai Lama, but I'm having trouble finding that link. For the moment, and if you read French, let me distract you with this link to a French Slate article that quotes a good bit of what the Dalai Lama said. (Upon rereading it, though, I don't think it adds anything to what you can gather from English-language sources.)

If I find a link to a decent English translation of the Dalai Lama's interview, I'll add it in a postscript. If you find the link before I do, please place it in the comments, and I'll add the link in a postscript, along with due credit to you.

ADDENDUM: a Google-translated quote from the Dalai Lama found here:

"We know that many immigrants are fleeing from difficult situations at home, but a good heart alone is not enough to keep them all, so you have to muster the courage to say that there are now too many. Rather, [people] should intervene in the countries of origin in order to build up better corporate structures there. Simply welcoming the people here is not enough to solve this problem. We need to think in the long term to achieve a truly effective solution."

If you have a better translation of the original text, feel free to supply it in the comments. Here's the German original:

Wir wissen, dass viele Immigranten vor schwierigen Situationen daheim flüchten, aber ein gutes Herz allein reicht eben nicht aus, um sie alle unterzubringen, und man muss daher den Mut aufbringen zu sagen, dass es mittlerweile zu viele geworden sind. Man sollte vielmehr in den Herkunftsländern intervenieren, um dort bessere Gesellschaftsstrukturen aufzubauen. Einfach die Leute hier willkommen zu heißen reicht nicht aus, um dieses Problem zu lösen. Wir müssen langfristig denken, um eine wirklich effektive Lösung erzielen zu können.