This highly controversial book created an instant firestorm when it was originally published in France as Dalai Lama: Pas si Zen (Dalai Lama: Not so Zen). Maxime Vivas, a French journalist, blogger, and political commentator, goes where no other journalist dares to go by showing how, over the course of the last half century, the 14th Dalai Lama's writings and teachings cannot be reconciled with his behind-the-scenes political maneuvering. On the one hand he is the spiritual leader to millions; on the other he has played a masterful game with western media in swaying public opinion in his favor while glossing over the facts of history and leaving China with egg on its face in a decades-long public relations war.
Fascinated by the discord, Vivas traveled to Tibet in 2010 where he delved into the genesis of the China-Tibet split and the how the 14th Dalai Lama himself was transformed from a 19-year-old "living god" at the center of one of the world's most isolated and repressive theocracies into a Nobel Peace Prize winner and pop culture icon.
Compelled to look into the other side of the story, Vivas re-contextualizes Tibet's many historical links: its relationship with China, with Hitler's Germany, the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy, with Reporters without Borders, the International Olympic Committee, and numerous other NGOs in the U.S. and in Europe. He reveals how the Tibet issue is a complex weaving-together of government and non-government interventions, policies, and tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Behind the Smile is likely to provoke strong reactions on issues of human rights, legitimate government, invasion, occupation, and succession. It is a must-read for understanding the Tibet issue.
Maxime Vivas is the author of La face cachee de reporters sans frontiers: de la CIA aux faucons du Pentagone.
