Wisdom from the Dalai Lama - personal experiences with politics through the years.

When I see our politicians opposed to eachother, I look for an answer to the question : "How could they do it better?". The Dalai Lama has proven that he is a non-violent spiritual man, who is able to build bridges. He states:

"Dialogue means compromise; respecting each other’s rights; in the spirit of reconciliation there is a real solution to conflict and disagreement. There is no hundred percent winner, no hundred percent loser—not that way but half-and-half. That is the practical way, the only way."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I hope that everyone in our local, national and international political arena at least take a few moments to implement this wisdom into their policies for the future. Ken Wilber once said: "Everybody is (partially) right". I hope from the bottom of my heart that these words will have their effect, especially in politics in Belgium, where opposites fight eachother over and over. We can always evolve, a part of my family is from the far-right, and tended to be openly racist. After fights with people from a Maroccan origine, I ended up in fear for being beaten up and robbed as a young boy, and in a state of being slightly drunk at age 15, my uncle convinced me to join the extreme far-right party, who later appeared for court because of being racists. I soon left the party at a young age after reading their newspaper and pamplets. I choose a different approach. From a very early age I played as a child with a Maroccon boy and we always respected eachother. Only very few gangs made me end up in a racist party at age 15. After I left the party because I couldn't agree with their narrow-minded worldview, I met people from different races, backgrounds and classes. I learned from the Turkish, the Polish, the Maroccan, the British, the English, the Croatian, and so on, and realised the reason for some bad behaviour: cultural differences where people from other cultures grew up in a society without learning how far one can go with certain behaviour. In African countries, the community punishes younger people and take care of their moral upbringing and correct them when they do something wrong on the streets. We Belgians are very indiviualistic and our society don't correct the behaviour of other people. Only when young people end up in jail or face judgement in court, they learn the limits and values of our culture, but on the streets it is totally different than in other countries. I evolved towards a pluralistic, integral way of thinking and opened myself from all cultures, races and worldviews. If I look back at who I was at age 15 politically, I realise that a combination of fear, anger and a narrow-mind, made me a racist for a while. I am glad that I became wiser. I realise that foreigners still suffer problems considering poverty, getting educated, finding a job and finding enough self-esteem to make it in a culture that is different than your own background. By widening my consciousness and opening myself to others, I became a wiser, better and richer person inside. There are still folks who damage the integrity of others, but the majority of the people from other countries do it well. Our politicians sometimes decide in a strange way, those who are integrated are sometimes forced to leave the country, while those who end up end jail are allowed to stay. So stupid.

I hope, regarding to my experience that we collective dare to embrace the differences between cultures and races, whilst at the same time respecting your own values and the integrity of others. Those who end up in criminal behaviour, wether it is an act of rebellion or a way of surviving, I don't know, we need to dare to say : "Stop, we don't allow this", and try to help people understand that you just don't do that. If we respect our differences and learn from what we still have in common : the sharing of the same blood, we can still make this multicultural society survive. With the opening of the boundaries in Europe and because of the globalisation we all are evolving towards global citizens in a global village. Our societies can still do a lot more if we look at the poverty rates for people from other racial backgrounds.

May we not choose for fear in times of conflict, and never repeat the wrong doings that happened in the world wars (as in ALL wars) considering the destruction of the unwanted and the so-called inferior people, according to Hitler in nazi-Germany. The ideology I saw in my environment in the far-right party and amongst the people involved, was based on the same ideology and the fear of a minority who end up in a criminal life. Fear is never a good emotion to work from. We must protect our personal and collective limits and personal integrity; but I believe that good-will and looking through the eyes of the other can solve a lot.

Let us not choose fear and policies of discrimination, but learn from the Dalai Lama.

Hitler was seen as a hero for some people in nazi-Germany. He created jobs and it seemed that he was the solution for Germany's problems. For some foreign countries he was seen as a liberator, for some Russians who suffered from the Communist regime, as well as for some folks from Croatia, but the racial policy and the ideology that the Aryans were superior to all others (In fact he confused the Teutons with the Indo-Aryans, and forgot that we today are all mixed races and in one way or another all family) ended up in the opposite of his promised Utopian New World Order. His acts against the Jewish people and the Holocaust ended up in a disaster and serious war crimes. Hitler's paranoia was based of conspiracy theories that believed in a conspiracy between Jews, freemasons and Communists to take over the world, wether they are right or not. Fact is that ideologies where some are seen as superior to others lead to disasters on the long run. In Hitler's days I would be seen as the perfect Aryan, blond hair and blue eyes (Teutonic in fact), but I know that Aryan (meaning 'noble' in Sanskrit) can be applied to people from all races and cultures. It is a way of life, and a true noble man wants to become better than his former self, instead of superior to others. That is what Aryan means in my opinion. My narrow-minded political views at age 15 were based on fear and anger, because of being attacked and robbed before by criminal gangs with Maroccan people involved, but I learned soon that not all of them are bad and evolved towards a pluralistic mindsed, including everyone.

May our politicians transcend fear and anger in politics and learn from the Dalai Lama - based on ethical integrity and maturity.

"Dialogue means compromise; respecting each other’s rights; in the spirit of reconciliation there is a real solution to conflict and disagreement. There is no hundred percent winner, no hundred percent loser—not that way but half-and-half. That is the practical way, the only way."

I wish the best for all worldleaders and diplomatics. They must never forget that peace is the future, not the opposite.


The LIGHTFRONT of Antwerp - honoring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Treaty of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [in Dutch].