With reference to Bhagirath Yogi's report on Western academics directly/indirectly supporting the Maoists in Nepal ("Peaceniks on warpath", #119), let me refer to an internet exchange in which the British academic David Seddon responds to a query from a concerned Westerner about a rumour of a Maoist plan to blow up the United States Embassy. Mr. Seddon replies, "All the evidence suggests that the Maoists do distinguish between government and citizens. The US Embassy is symbolic of US state power and its reach into Nepal."
Mr. Seddon offers an interesting kind of travel advisory to a tourist planning on visiting Nepal. With due respect to Mr. Seddon, I venture to point out that what he lays out about the Maoist modus operandi is a half-truth and a white lie. He says, "All evidence suggests that the Maoists do distinguish between government and citizens." Now, let us ponder about his 'evidence'. Over the past seven years, the Maoists have killed far more villagers, teachers, postmen, children, women, elders and peasants than they have killed government troops. Mr. Seddon and others like him who bring out these claims should have the moral guts to go and ask the widows and orphans of the Maoist killings if they are citizens.
Further, Mr. Seddon says "The US Embassy is symbolic of US state power and its reach in Nepal." Quite right, but the question is, if the Maoist revolutionaries are angry with the US government, why do they only kill poor Nepali civilians working for the US Embassy and not US citizens? With their formidable military might, the Maoists could have easily targeted any white US Embassy official, but they do not. The progressive revolutionaries are practicing a strange kind of racism. The death of a Nepali citizen is cheap. When a US citizen (Daniel Pearl) was killed by terrorists in Pakistan, the full resources of the US and Pakistan were expended to hunt down the killers. If the Maoists were to kill a US citizen, they would share the same fate as the al-Qaeda. The economy of terror can be summarized simply: as long as you slaughter blacks and browns, you will be praised as revolutionary heroes by progressive intellectuals like Mr. Seddon. But the moment white skin is touched, it becomes pure evil, pure terror... "There can be no meeting of minds," as Blair said of such savages.
Perhaps this revolutionary racism, the secure knowledge that no white skin will be put to a Maoist blade in Nepal, prompts enlightened and progressive elements like Mr. Seddon to defend, promote and rationalise Maoist deeds in Nepal. It is a rare luxury people like Mr. Seddon exercise-enjoying the security and convenience of living in an advanced democratic society while they bolster (intellectually, morally, financially) a murderous Pol Potish regime on the helpless citizens of a poor nation.
To people like Mr. Seddon, my only plea is, if you honestly think the Maoist revolution is such a good thing for humanity, please leave the capitalist hell hole you live in now and go to the liberated zones of Rukum and Rolpa and experience eternal bliss. If, after living there for a full year, you still say theirs is the only way for humanity, I will gladly discard my bourgeois false consciousness and join you and your comrades in the trenches (perhaps by then you will start another front against the imperial occupant of Buckingham Palace?). White Progressives of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your hypocrisy.
Sangram Limbu,
via email
