About the Dalai Lama’s tongue

How would you feel if an 87yearold spiritual leader playing with your son stuck his tongue out and asked the boy to suck it What if that person was the Dalai LamaLike millions of people all over the world you revere him His words move and inspire across borders And yet here he is in front of the public and the worldrsquos cameras openly asking a child to perform what looks and feels creepy Almost an act as journos did not hesitate to claim of paedophiliaThe incident took place on February 28 at the Dalai Lamarsquos temple in Dharamsala where the religious leader had been greeting some students The video that went viral shows a boy called Tutu asking if he could hug the Dalai Lama After the request is translated into the Dalai Lamarsquos functioning right ear he welcomes Tutu with hugs He then points to his cheek saying ldquoFirst hererdquo the boy kisses his cheek Pointing next to his lips he says ldquoI think here alsordquo he kisses the boy onthe lipsThen he puts his forehead to the boyrsquos sticks out his tongue and says in his clumsy English ldquoAnd suck my tonguerdquo The boy comes close and then both of them pull back No tongue was suckedMy question goes to you looking horrified at the back of the hall do you think the Dalai Lama has been outed as a pervert who preyson childrenThe religious leaderrsquos four words sparked a global tsunami of moral outrage One newspaper called him either senile or a closet paedophile Another opinionista stridently dismissed the Dalai Lamarsquos apology as feeble saying ldquoWhat is relevant is why he thought it was appropriate to do that to a young impressionable child in a room full of adults and mediardquoBut that itself should tell you something he did it in a room full of people and TV cameras The childrsquos mother was sitting to his right This is not how paedophiles do their dirty workA strong statement of defence came from the incest and child abuse survivors of the RAHI Foundation who did not think the Dalai Lamarsquos behaviour predatory or sexual Sexual abuse they wrote ldquotends to be insidious It thrives in silence and secrecy it is normally premeditated and often the child is groomed to be abused It happens when the abuser finds an opportunity to be alone with the childrdquoStill the language of our outrage boundaries and violations is English and the westernised cultural norms it carries Suck unfortunately is an irredeemable word in English Something sucks when it is worse than rotten Being asked to suck something is insultingAlso read Citizens need to be proactive about their own safetyItrsquos called western ethnocentrism the belief that whatever western culture deems pleasurable or offensive must be universally soYou might wonder what a Tibetan might have thought about the famous thing Monica Lewinsky sucked in her day And why so many Americans may be heard from time to time inviting someone to kiss their assI found myself thinking about a truly disgusting habit of western cultures sucking each other lips and tongues to show how much they love each other I was utterly mortified by the first kissing scene I saw as a boy But countless steamy Hollywood films later I like you believe that drooly lip and tonguesucking is how our species expresses deep loveIt is not A study of 168 cultures in American Anthropologist found that smooching is common in only 46 per cent 77 of the cultures sampled The remaining 54 per cent 91 simply did not practise romantic kissingThere is nothing universal about all that passionate lipsuckingSouth Africarsquos Tsonga people donrsquot hide their disgust When they saw Europeans lipkissing they said ldquoThey suck each other They eat each otherrsquos saliva and dirtrdquoThe Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia noted that white people ldquowill sit will press mouth against mouth mdashand seem pleased with itrdquo But they thought it was rather insipid and sillySaliva isnrsquot bad news universally either Among the Nuer of Sudan men spit on their childrenrsquos heads when returning from long travel Spitballing shows warmth and affection Two girls who have not seen each other for a while will spit on each other when they meet againTurns out that in Tibetan culture therersquos a loving history to the sucking of tongues especially in the Amdo region that is home to the Dalai Lama A grandfather playing with a beloved grandchild will sometimes between kisses and horseplay pass candy to the child mouth to mouth No one is offended When the cuddling is over he will stick out his tongue and say ldquoChe le sardquo literally ldquoEat my tonguerdquoThe old man is saying ldquoChild I have given you all my love as well as a piece of candy and now I have nothing more left You can eat my tonguerdquoThe Dalai Lamarsquos big mistake it turns out was translating Tibetan to English and picking that terrible terrible word mdash suckYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper