Johannesburg - South African Twitter users have reacted to what some have described as “disturbing” behaviour by globally acclaimed Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, with a young devotee in a viral video.
Video footage of a recent encounter where the small youngster requested the Dalai Lama “give him a hug” has gone viral. The boy was then instructed by the Dalai Lama to “suck his tongue” in front of a sizeable crowd and the boy’s parents.
At a Buddhist event, the Dalai Lama was seen on camera kissing a young child on the lips before asking him to “suck my tongue”.
In a response to the video, on the Dalai Lama’s Twitter page, a statement said the Dalai Lama wished to apologise to the boy and his family, as well as his friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused.
“His holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras. He regrets the incident,” read the statement.
This created waves, even prompting outrage on social media, and raising questions. For some, this is akin to paedophilia.
Twitter user @VusiSambo said that to him it looked as though the Dalai Lama was soliciting a kiss, and instructing a minor to suck their tongue sounds “very calculated, if not habitual”.
“One wonders how far His Holiness would have gone had this happened in private, away from rolling cameras. Sick, sick, sick, these godly, saintly men,” read the tweet.
@Tessa_Dooms wrote: “The comfort he felt doing this in public makes me shudder at what he is comfortable with in private.”
@ScrrreamingPink, reacting to the incident, said given the scandal and countless cases of child abuse by Catholic clergy and recent arrests of evangelical pastors, it would appear that the biggest risk factor for paedophilia is a formal role in a religious organisation.
@naicker_pat also pointed a finger at clerical leaders. “I am deeply suspicious of men who profess to be celibate and surrounded by people of the same sex,” said the tweet.
Another scathing tweet came from @priscillaharker, who tweeted: “(They) hide their perversity behind holiness. Disgusting people. Pretty much like the Catholic priests.”
While @SameeraKhan was responding to a statement on the Dalai Lama’s Twitter page, she said: “You didn’t just hug the boy though, you asked him to ‘suck your tongue’.”
However, his followers and sympathisers claimed that the elderly Buddhist monk was “joking around” with the boy.
The Star