This Karl Marx aphorism translated into poetic Mandarin was Mao Zedong's favourite: "Seek truth from facts." Politics is a fleeting thing. The good guys don't seem so good after a while, and the bad guys in retrospect look like they were acting in enlightened self-interest. Just like there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies in politics, maybe there are no permanent good guys and no permanent bad guys either.

Nothing extraordinary, therefore, about Chairman Prachanda's 180 degree turn after the royal massacre to state that the Shah dynasty was the epitome of Nepali nationalism, and that King Birendra had Maoist sympathies. This week, the Chairman announced that his group will henceforth only bump off supporters of the "fascist Gyanendra-Girija clique". Everyone else is free to live. Was this a message targeted at local Maoist cadre who were getting a bit carried away lately setting fire to school principals in Surkhet, killing VDC chairmen in Jhapa and sabotaging an ambitious district education project in Dailekh? Or does this represent a phased strategy that could ultimately bring the insurgents out into the mainstream without losing face? We don't know.

There is no one in Nepal who has any quarrel with the Maoists' demands for streamlining education, for gender equity, for land reform, or for their other 40 original agenda points, barring one or two. The only difference is over the method used. After all, despite all its shortcomings, this is still a democracy that is striving to install the checks and balances needed for majority rule, minority rights and elected governments to get on with the job of reducing poverty, providing basic services and tackling inequities. We have a parliament that has passed the local self-governance act to devolve powers to communities, it is in fact cracking down on graft in high places, and it will soon pass a bill to grant property inheritance rights to women and citizenship to the disenfranchised. There is a vibrant free press which allows at least eight newspapers sympathetic to the Maoist cause to be printed in the
capital alone.

Does political power only come from the barrel of a gun? Is armed struggle just a brilliant military strategy borrowed from Yanan, 1939 and slightly modified by our comrades to serve as a shortcut to power in Nepal, 2001? This week in the Sri Lankan parliament, the JVP party is about to bring down the government of Chandrika Kumaratunga by threatening to withdraw from the coalition-proving that if they so wish there is a powerful parliamentary role for Maoist parties.

True, in the past 12 years we have elected leaders who have destroyed themselves and nearly destroyed the country by ignoring aspirations, squandering mandates and abandoning accountability. The way to correct that is to ensure democracy is more effective and efficient, and to make it unbearable for elected crooks to cling on to power.

All open and free societies face a dilemma when dealing with political violence by extra-constitutional forces. It is a clash of two moralities, a psychological struggle over ideas. Those who have taken up arms fervently believe in a new Nepal that is equitable, just and fair. They are impatient, and they believe violence is the only way to get to their goal. But even if their means are violent, a liberal society cannot treat them like terrorists. Violence is unacceptable, but we have to accept that desperate people have throughout history used desperate means. A free and democratic government on the other hand cannot use the same tactics as those who want to end freedom and democracy.

Ultimately, the battle is over ideas. The only way to counter support born of fear and intimidation is through an even freer and fairer society that fosters greater public debate and forges a truly representative democracy. Gagging the press and reviving draconian laws are sure to backfire. Democracies must ensure their people a free press: censorship just plays into the hands of those who remain outside the constitution, and will undermine the very democratic value system that we need to nurture.

When faced with seemingly irreconcilable differences, then, can democracy come up with a solution? Unlike the dialectics of totalitarianism, democracy does not have ready, cut-and-dry answers. All democracy does is give competing ideas a legitimate forum so that the people can decide which way to go.

At some point the Maoists, too, will have to contend in the arena of free ideas. In love, in war and in politics it is all about winning hearts and minds.