[Buddha-l] Re: Bhutan & Whose happiness? [WAS: Bhutan & happiness]

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Alberto Todeschini schreef:
>
> This is all well, but some fundamental problems with the Bhutanese 
> government remain.
> At the risk of sounding repetitive, once again, I wish to point out 
> something that the Red Cross, the UN, Human Rights Watch and others 
> have already pointed out.
> There are over 100000 Hindu Bhutanese presently living in refugee 
> camps in Nepal because of new citizenship and immigration laws 
> implemented in Bhutan by the Buddhist government.
>
> From the UN Refugee Agency:
>
> "The [Bhutanese] authorities increased their intimidation of the 
> Lhotshampas in southern Bhutan by destroying their property and 
> arbitrarily detaining and torturing activists. Individuals were forced 
> to sign 'voluntary migration certificates' before being expelled from 
> the country. In December 1990 the authorities announced that 
> Lhotshampas who could not prove they were residents of the country 
> before 1958 must leave. Consequently, tens of thousands of Lhotshampas 
> were made stateless and fled to Nepal and the Indian state of West 
> Bengal."
>
> http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c93e 
>
>
> Now, what would we say if the USA or a European country did the same?
> Is the Bhutanese government putting the happiness of these refugees in 
> the equation to calculate the Gross National Happiness?
Appearantly helping others or maybe just a non-Buthanese citizens is not something that makes a Buthanese person very happy. 
I don't care so much about the positive psycho-thing, there are zillions of dr. Phils around, but to call this ancient Buddhist philosophy is just weird. I mean, some people think having a swimming pool makes them happy others think not having a swimming pool makes them happy. To me Buddhist philosophy is neither: the Middle Way. 
Besides, if he'd thought an administration could make people happy, Buddha had become a sociologist.

Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
weblog http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950
products: http://stores.lulu.com/jehmsstudio