Exploration 11

     The most interesting article I found about Myanmar/Burma was at huffingtonpost.com. The article was written October 17, 2012 so it is a little over a month old. It talks about how much Burma has changed over the past two years. They have lifted bans on foreign visitors, got rid of media and press censorship, political prisoners have been released, former leaders have resigned,  and by-elections have been held. These are substantial steps of progress but as Aung San Suu Kyi said, "We are not yet at the end of our struggle, but we are getting there." The military still has strong power over the people of Burma but reform needs to continue being encouraged to promote a Burma democracy. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-bandow/burma-democratic-hopes-ve_b_1973437.html)
   According to the dalailama.com, the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of the people of Tibet and is guided by three major commitments in life: the promotion of basic human values in the interest of happiness, the fostering of inter-religious harmony and well being of the Tibetan people, and focusing on the survival of the Tibetans' identity, culture, and religion. I found it interesting when in his profile before his speech in our book it said that he was recognized as being the reincarnated 13th Dalai Lama. The main conflict with Tibet and China was that they both have very different styles of government and the People's Republic of China wanted to take over Tibet but the Dalai Lama and Tibetans didn't want that. This all forced the Dalai Lama into India, from where he travels around spreading the word of his religion and established a Tibetan government. It is surprising that he could make a Tibetan government without even being in Tibet, but that goes to show how much of a respected figure he is in Tibet.

Above is a cover of Time magazine from when the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize.