No safe ground - Nepali Times

Editorial
No safe ground

FROM ISSUE #542 (25 FEB 2011 - 03 MARCH 2011) | TABLE OF CONTENTS

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KIRAN PANDAY

Only last week, we re-published an interview with Bob Parker, the Mayor of Christchurch in New Zealand. His city having come through unscathed (in terms of loss of life) in last September's quake, Parker reflected on the differences in the levels of preparedness between Christchurch and Kathmandu.

Tuesday's repeat quake in Christchurch, at the time of going to press, has killed 96 people. This doesn't of course mean that Parker was making empty claims. It does mean that no amount of preparation can guarantee that you are on safe ground when the ground beneath your feet moves.

In some sense this must be how it feels to be a dictator whose time is finally ending. You think you have all bases covered through your control of the organs of the state. But then the tectonic upheaval of people power blasts through the rotten edifice that you have set up, and before you know it you are calling in favours with friendly despots-in-arms ("Hugo? I gotta go"). Mubarak, Ben Ali, and now Gaddafi are finding out the hard way that hoarding unimaginable sums of wealth while the majority of your population struggles to even land a job is a slow train to nowhere.

Dictator or no, revolution-weary or no, Nepal would have been a prime candidate for a similar upheaval had it not been the case that three million Nepalis have left the country for, ironically, the Middle East. But future rulers would do well to recognise the consequences of indulging in corruption, making a farce of democracy, and ignoring the difficulties the people at large are facing.

By the same token, if our rulers can learn from what is happening across the Arab world, the brave citizens who have risen in protest there and here can learn from Nepal's example. Revolutions come and go, but it's what follows that matters more. Each of Nepal's revolutions � 1951, 1990, and 2006 � were realised through a combination of political and popular protest, and each subsequently fell prey to prolonged periods of uncertainty resolved (temporarily) by the reinstatement of autocratic rule.

Whatever happens in the days ahead, we must keep our focus on thwarting attempts from any quarter � left, right or centre � to take back in the name of the people what the people have seized from the hands of despots.

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1. slarti
What would I not give to understand the reality behind the rhetoric.

The common denominators in all the three countries where these revolutions occurred was the fact that they were considered revolutionary themselves, underpinned by a broad socialist ideology, and ruled by dictators who consistently garnered over 90% votes in faux elections.

Secondly, another factor which was common among these countries was that they had recently opened their economies to the outside world. New, and new types, of jobs were increasingly becoming available to the people of the country.

Thirdly, the revolution in all these countries were led by what are called the upper class elite of the country. A Google executive in Egypt, the city residents in Tunisia, and similar characters in Libya.

All of these factors reveal something but I am not sure what.

The events may have erupted only recently, but the ferocity of the people's anger, the speed of change and the radical shift in global politics and the upheaval in power equations, and the blow to international alliances would require more deliberate study.

What can however be concluded without any doubt is that democracy is irreplaceable. The type of stability that it generates within its apparent chaos is priceless. It can allow a shift in policy and respond to peoples expectations like no other system of governance.

There is another benefit of democracy, or the existence of a democratic skeleton, no matter how inefficient. Like we see in Nepal, it allows the containment of anger because different political groups are able to articulate the anger of disparate constituents.

It is this fact that has stopped Nepal from erupting like the Middle-East. The millions who have gone to the Middle-East have nothing to do with it.

Furthermore, it is a simple fact that if you indeed do rise up, what are you going to get, and out of whom, in this gloom.

Posted on: 27 FEB 2011 | 11:27 AM NST

2. slarti
I think the revolutions falter because of two factors. Topmost is the diversionary tactics adopted by the intellectual, and essentially ineffectual, elite of every country.

These are characters who make a living out of jeering. To them anything that is not exactly according to their precise expectations deserves a humiliation. These characters abhor reality. To them the entire society must undergo a character shift, and a reality leap, towards their own social fantasies.

Completely unable to understand that the entire society, made up of individuals and families, takes its own course not in response to sermons but in response to signals given by policies, and events.

In their attempt to shift the tide in their favour, these extraordinary clowns contribute to a rapid descent into confusion.

The second set which contributes to the failure is the political leadership. These people are so entrenched in rhetoric and so befuddled by its distinction from reality. They are so steeped in the culture of backstabbing and treachery that completely forget, and are absolutely incapable of understanding that at the end of the day, all that a common individual asks for is freedom to earn a living, live without fear and threats, and clarity of what the state's expectations from the individual are.

What a rhetoric-based and mostly pointless state, such as the present Nepali governance, does is to make people wonder, where exactly does the state's responsibility end and mine begins?

If I have earned and saved is it fine for the finance minister to suggest that all property should be nationalised? For whose purpose were so many murdered if the communist party talks of the mixed economy, sans private property? What is the point of the intellectuals making fun of my gods? Whose religion should I follow? Whose rhetoric, and whose dream? Would I have as much fun in that dream as the dreamers have?

I know, these are useless and pathetic questions.

But hey, who said anything about things being reasonable and all that in the current environment where the debate is over who is the cat, transforming into a tiger, eating the dog, in sheep's clothing?

Posted on: 27 FEB 2011 | 11:46 AM NST

3. Rob
Whats the point of democracy is there is no peace and security? Because of this situation we had to leave our country as we cannot feed our family.

Posted on: 28 FEB 2011 | 7:23 AM NST

4. Slarti
Understandable sentiments Rob, and not only do I have sympathy for people who left, I know precisely how being forced out feels.

But here is the thing. What has gone wrong with the country is not democracy, but under whose leadership it took its current shape. Koirala & Co brought the country to this condition and its useless to discuss the contribution that the Maoist made to the present anarchy.

Nevertheless, hope is not lost. Change will be swift, we may have to wait for a couple more years, but change will come. Nepal can't forever lament its losses to the losers.

Posted on: 28 FEB 2011 | 7:03 PM NST