McCain stopped in Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist kingdom nestled high in the Himalayas between IJohn McCain visited Bhutan on Thursdayndia and China, while on a tour of South Asia.

He was joined by Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, two frequent companions during his campaign for president.

Bhutan, known for its unique index that measures its citizens’ Gross National Happiness, is a beautiful place. It’s not a bad place for McCain to hang out while Washington is aflutter with the impending presidency of his former Democrat rival, Barack Obama.

The country was in the news earlier this year for its first-ever democratic elections, bringing an end to a 100-year-old monarchy. In 2002, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck voluntarily gave up absolute power and called for a constitutional democracy.

While in Bhutan, McCain, Lieberman and Graham met with the newly-elected officials, including the prime minister and chief justice. They also met with the new king, 28-year-old Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who functions mostly as a figurehead (he’s pictured with the senators above).

According to the Bhutan Observer, McCain praised the “extraordinary quality of leadership” in Bhutan at a press conference yesterday.

“We intend to encourage our friends and colleagues to get to know Bhutan better because I think it can serve as an example to many other parts of the world that have either tried and failed or are struggling towards freely electing democratic governments,” McCain said.

Graham was equally effusive. “We’ve travelled all over the world and I don’t think I have met a group of people that are more informed and have a more sophisticated view of the world and the region than the people here and the officials of Bhutan,” he said.

The senators then gave the Bhutanese a little advice.

“You can lose the election in America but not lose your voice, not lose your property; so I would encourage the government and the people to make sure that you have honest and fair judges, that the judiciary be above politics,” Graham said.

“I think it will serve this country well to have a strong legal system that will set people and property apart from politics,” he added.

Los Angeles Times

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck became the world’s youngest reigning monarch when he was handed the Raven Crown by his father, the former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in an elaborate ceremony in Thimphu, the capital. The former King, who is 52, abdicated two years ago as part of a plan to reform the hermit-like Buddhist nation of 635,000 people, which had no roads until the 1960s and allowed television only in 1999.

The “Land of the Thunder Dragon” held its first democratic elections in March in an effort to avoid the kind of political trauma that led to the abolition of the world’s last Hindu monarchy in nearby Nepal this year. Court astrologers told the Wangchuk dynasty, which has ruled Bhutan for a century, that it had to wait until yesterday for an auspicious date for the coronation of the fifth Druk Gyalpo, or Dragon King.

Officials say that the astrologers deemed 2007 a “black year”, but others suggest that the royal family simply wanted to wait until Bhutan’s first two-lane highway, from the airport to the capital, was completed.

Hundreds of foreign guests, including Sonia Gandhi, the head of India’s Congress Party, attended the day-long ceremony in the golden throne room of Tashichho Dzong, a white-walled, 17th-century fortress. Also present were the former King’s four wives, who are sisters.

Jigme Khesar is the oldest son of the former King and his third wife, and was educated at private school in the United States and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied political science and diplomacy.

The ceremony began at dawn, when three giant tapestries were unveiled, each depicting Buddha and the gurus who took his religion to Bhutan. At 8.31am — exactly — Jigme Khesar received a satin and silk crown, topped with an embroidered raven’s head, from his father before taking his seat on a golden throne.

Thousands of Bhutanese have flocked to Thimphu, among them nomadic yak herders. “We have walked for more than a week to come to the celebrations,” said Dema, 32, a woman herder. “The King is like our father.”

Most Bhutanese credit the Wangchuck kings with ensuring the survival of their nation and its culture. The former King is also credited with inventing the concept of Gross National Happiness, which seeks to balance material progress with spiritual wellbeing. “We have enjoyed progress, sustained peace, security and growth,” Jigme Thinley, Bhutan’s new Prime Minister, said. “These are all attributed to the great kings, benevolent kings, selfless kings, that Bhutan has had.”

Bhutan, the world’s youngest democracy, hands Raven Crown to 28-year-old King – Times Online

Most Americans are probably not thinking about Bhutan right now. Sure, some are aware of that tiny Buddhist nation sandwiched between China and India. But Bhutan can seem a universe away. It didn’t have television until the late 1990s. Its main export is electricity. Instead of focusing on gross domestic product (GDP), Bhutan measures gross national happiness (GNH).

Jigmi Y. Thinley, Bhutan’s first democratically elected prime minister, describes his five-year term as “a period within which we will have to prove to the people that democracy itself is worthwhile.” That sounds like a lot of pressure. But when I meet Mr. Thinley at the Bhutan Mission in New York City, he seems quite calm. “I’m not losing sleep,” he admits. Mr. Thinley, born in 1950, is wearing a Western suit. He studied in the U.S., and his English is so articulate that it borders on poetic.

Bhutan’s road to democracy was paved by the fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who decided that the country’s destiny should not be left to accidents of birth. Bhutan is now a constitutional monarchy, and its fifth king was coronated this month.

Many Bhutanese were initially squeamish about democracy. But the election, comprising of two parties with fairly similar agendas, was remarkably peaceful.

“What we have proven is that peace and stability are prerequisites to the establishment of democracy,” Mr. Thinley says. In Bhutan, “without having to worry about their daily security, survival, these basic things — people were able to reflect on the philosophy itself.”

He adds that in many so-called democracies, “you trade your vote for a square meal. . . . The Bhutanese didn’t have to do that.” He draws a contrast to countries where “democracy has been the child of a convulsive process . . . instability, war and revolution. And then, those people who came to power knew how to create revolution, how to stir people, and how to fight against despots and authoritarianism — but did not know how to govern, how to serve.”

Mr. Thinley outlines his idea of good governance: “We have to ensure that in the first five years of our governance we act completely within the confines of the constitution . . . that the rule of law prevails under any circumstance. . . . We will respect and ensure the absolute separation of the three branches of government, that’s the judiciary, executive and the legislature.”

He describes the process of drafting the constitution — there was a committee that referred to the constitutions of the world. Mr. Thinley says the U.S. constitution “defined the conceptual framework within which all other constitutions have been drafted. And so the United States Constitution was certainly a major document that inspired and that was referred to by the constitution committee.”

He rejects the argument that some cultures are not wired for democracy. If there were “any culture where democracy would not be appropriate, then perhaps it was Bhutan!” When he was a little boy, he says, the idea of a democratically elected prime minister was “out of the realm of possibility.”

Bhutan has had its share of problems. In the early 1990s, tens of thousands of people of Nepalese origin fled Bhutan, many accusing officials of driving them out. Thousands are in refugee camps in Nepal. Today, Bhutan may still be far from a full-fledged democracy. But considering other turbulent states in Asia, it seems off to a good start.

Democracy, according to Mr. Thinley, boils down to “the empowerment of the people, the freedom of the voter. . . . giving the capacity to the individual citizen to determine his or her own destiny,” he says. “Now if these are what democracy provides, then I would say that regardless of what culture you belong to, democracy is essential.”

Some will make the (basically pro-authoritarian) argument that some cultures don’t want to determine their own destiny. “People can be made to think that way.” Human beings are a “very interesting species . . . as intelligent as we are we can act and we sometimes appear to prefer to act in the most foolish ways. As much as we inherently search for, yearn for, freedom, we very willingly submit ourselves to subjugation and tyranny. And then find ourselves saying: This is how we like it.”

Mr. Thinley will continue to implement the government policy of GNH. Happiness is not hedonistic, “it is not the kind of fleeting pleasures that we seek.” It has to do with “being able to balance material needs of the body and the spiritual needs of the mind.”

He says the conditions for the pursuit of happiness have four pillars: Equitable and sustainable socioeconomic growth; conservation of the fragile Himalayan economy and environment; cultural preservation and promotion — and good governance.

Mr. Thinley admits that there’s a limit to what the government can deliver. It can try to create the right conditions, but “the individual himself and herself must pursue happiness.”

WSJ.com

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