Business Day, March 25

It is strange how support for the Dalai Lama is part of the package of beliefs that is regarded as "correct".

Although he has adopted the persona of a mythical figure symbolising all that is good, and has had that image accepted by the politically correct, and endorsed by namby-pamby organs such as the BBC, the Dalai Lama has in fact no democratic credentials and in spite of his soulful look has no policy for the wellbeing and development of Tibet (unless you call ever-smiling hands-pressing a policy).

Tibet was a backward feudal country. With a people enslaved to religion, the only employers were the monks in their numerous temples. The religious story that the Dalai Lama was a reincarnation was used to obfuscate the fact that he was merely nominated as a figurehead by the priesthood as a political prop for themselves.

The Chinese government, using what some call benign dictatorship, has been responsible for bringing more people out of poverty in the shortest period of time that has ever been achieved, and has continued the development of the country into Tibet.

The cost of China's heady rise has been the suppression of political rights but when comparing the results with other developing countries with suffocating constitutions and trade unions, many may think the route chosen by China was not wrong.

Those who use the unworldly Tibetan peasants to further their own agenda have orchestrated the current unrest to coincide with the Olympic Games, knowing they can rely on Hollywood personalities and western institutions to make Tibet this year's fashionable cause.

S Kaye

Cape Town

Cape Town