Richard Gere calls China “largest hypocrisy in the world”
US actor Richard Gere speaks at the unveiling of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s new book ‘Beyond Religion’ during the last day of the Kalachakra Festival in Bodhgaya on January 10, 2012. Kalachakra 2012, a festival of teachings and meditations will take place from January 1, 2012 for ten days in the northern Indian state of Bihar and will be attended by Tibetan Spiritual Leader The Dalai Lama.
Leave it to Richard Gere to not mince words on China and Tibet.
Gere, a longtime outspoken supporter of the Dalai Lama and critic of China's repressive rule of the region, called China "the largest hypocrisy in the world right now," in an interview with Indian television.
The Hollywood Reporter has the choice bits of the actor's takedown of China.
“Are we more interested in money or are we more interested in the truth?", Gere said during an interview with English-language channel NDTV 24×7.
"Eventually you have to bow to the will of the people and especially as their progress as an economy, education also gets higher; their interactions with the world and other people's functioning in the world, and the openness of self-expression. No one wants to live in hypocrisy, and China is the largest hypocrisy in the world right now. ”
On Tibet, Gere was somewhat optimistic, saying he doesn't believe China can destroy Tibetan culture. From his NDTV interview:
China is a very difficult place to live if you are a free thinker, if you are an artist, if you are a religious person, but especially in Tibet. I think they [China] have so wrongly gauged the Tibetan people, thinking they could subvert the deep, deep, deep religious beliefs and make them true Communists. It's never going to happen. Their whole lives have revolved around Buddhism, around their teachers, around their gurus … the high ideals of Buddhism. They are not going to change that in a hundred years, two hundred years, a thousand years, that will never go away.
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