Time Traveling

The Spectrum ran a cartoon last week depicting a student selling his Dalai Lama ticket for $79 on eBay. Across the hall someone shouts, "I only got $40 for mine." A third student holds up a Dalai Lama poster, wondering how much he will be able to get for it.

Jokes aside, the Dalai Lama's three-day visit to UB is a momentous moment in UB's history. Whether you are a fan of his or not, he is inarguably the most important figure to come to Buffalo, and the biggest speaker of the decade.

His visit has created an international stir, and people from all walks of life are flocking to see him speak. A crowd of over 30,000 is expected.

With the imminent arrival of the 14th Dalai Lama Monday, I turned to the Spectrum's archives dating back to January 1950 to see the place he will be taking among the past speakers at UB.

There is a great myth that time machines do not exist, but within those pages I managed to engineer my own. Over the past week I stepped back in time, experiencing what it was like to walk the buildings of UB over the last five decades.

In the 50s, I attended sock hops until I became sick of the slogan, "Frosh! Wear your dinks!" so I traveled to the late 60s and early 70s to observe the infamous protests that speckled South Campus, one of which ended with violent police enforcement. I found the students to be the same as they are now, only tired of death and the Vietnam War.

In the late 70s, students were a wee bit obsessed with sex, nudity and marijuana, once even burning former UB President Ketter in effigy. In the 80s, there was a return to accusing students of apathy, but the big hair and large clothes became tiresome, so I decided it was time to come home.

It became apparent to me that some things never change. Parking was always an issue, the food was always unsatisfactory and tuition was always on rise. There was always something to fill the front page, be it a scandal with the Student Association or in US government, a rape on campus or murders and theft.

The Dalai Lama comes to speak to us about peace, while our campus is an historic place of unrest. If you pick up any newspaper in the world, or any piece of writing since the creation of language for that matter, it tells the story of violence and struggle.

The history of the human species is anything but peaceful, but this man appears to believe it is an attainable goal - not just a cheesy expression for a Miss American Beauty Pageant.

Like UB, the Dalai Lama also comes from a history of unrest. He was forced to flee from his country of Tibet in 1959 after it was taken over by the Chinese government, and his people who remain are forced to practice their Buddhist faith under the watchful eye of the government.

As a result, the Dalai Lama will be making a special effort to reach out to the Chinese students while he is here in an invitation only seminar.

With the hubbub surrounding the Dalai Lama's visit, I wonder what students attending UB ten years from now will think if they take a time machine back to the year 2006. Who will be the distinguished speaker headlining their current papers? Queen Elizabeth II or Prime Minister Tony Blair? Saddam Hussein? Pope Benedict? The Dalai Lama may seem like chump change in comparison.

In an article in The Buffalo News about the Dalai Lama's arrival it said that his holiness does not want to be seen as a rock star. For our MTV generation, a rock star, someone like Tom Cruise and his new baby girl, might be preferable. The Dalai Lama is a religious icon many students may not know a whole lot about, but if they look at his visit in an historical perspective, they may not be so quick so dismiss his visit.

UB is ranked 11th in international enrollment among American universities, and it is here that he chose to come. There is something about the way this campus presented itself to the world that draws him to the has-been city of Buffalo.

His visit is not a part of a tour to other colleges within the US, only to UB. He must see value in speaking to the diverse audience waiting to receive him.

If anything, his visit is a mark of how far UB has come. Buffalo may not be the vibrant, economically thriving city that it was in the days of Mark Twain, but the people are. As a community we seek strive for improvement and growth.

In the end what you put into the Dalai Lama's visit is what you're going to take away from it, make the effort to learn even a little bit about what this whole thing is about, and you will not be disappointed. You may even have a story or two to tell to future generations of UB students, just like the students who were a part of the protests of the late 1960s.