Lama vs. Papa

The Dalai Lama's visit to Canada is receiving a lot of media attention. Yesterday I saw CTV's Robert Fife interview the holy man, after which, in trying to explain the experience to Mike Duffy, he said it was like meeting Nelson Mandela.

That Mandela line brought to memory a funny Youtube video featuring Australian tv personality John Safran. There is a certain unambiguously heroic aura that, for Westerners, only leaders of the "third-world's" oppressed can now obtain, given the centrality of guilt-ridden anti-Western ideology today. As Safran shows, the Dalai Lama has an image that "progressives" love, even though he happens to have views on sexuality that would shock them, the kind of thing for for which many would condemn the Pope.