When did being “Buddhist and happy” become an excuse to stop questioning Bhutan?
I'm going to say something that a lot of people probably won't like.
Bhutan has built a very strong image around Buddhism, happiness, tradition and Gross National Happiness. That's fine. But sometimes it feels like we're so obsessed with protecting that image that we don't want to acknowledge the very real problems underneath it. The recent case where six men convicted of raping a minor were sentenced to nine years each genuinely pissed me off. And then you look at cases involving vandalism of religious objects and see serious criminal consequences for damaging property. I'm not saying religious sites shouldn't be protected. They should. But when did damaging an object become something we're more comfortable getting outraged about than destroying a person's sense of safety and potentially affecting their entire life?
A chorten can be repaired.
A statue can be replaced.
A building can be rebuilt.
What happened to a victim of serious sexual violence cannot simply be repaired with a new coat of paint.
And this goes beyond religion. There is a deeply rooted attitude in Bhutan that wealth, status, connections and titles somehow make someone's time more valuable than everyone else's. Someone important gets priority. Someone with connections gets things done faster. Someone ordinary waits. I'm tired of the idea that questioning these things somehow means you hate Bhutan, hate Buddhism, or don't respect our culture.
Tradition is not an argument.
Religion is not an argument.
“That's how we've always done it” is definitely not an argument.
If our laws or institutions produce outcomes that don't make sense in modern Bhutan, then we should be willing to change them. That's what laws are for. Bhutan doesn't need to pretend that it is some perfectly peaceful Buddhist utopia. It needs to be willing to admit where it falls short and actually fix those problems. Because if we're too afraid to criticize our own country, then all we're really protecting is the image of it.