Violence, disturbance and war saddens people but what makes that grief ironic is the accompanying guilt and apathy toward oneself, the country, society and history during such troubled times. Indeed, this should have been when we are more careful, aware and determined.

Has the situation become that hopeless in Nepal? Have we all become so feeble and apathetic? Will we ever be free from this spiral of violence? Is there nothing positive in Nepal that we can be proud of?

We are South Asia's oldest nation-state that withstood wars, terrorism and sweeping changes for 235 years. We are not going to crumble that easily. The lack of socio-cultural, geopolitical and linguistic knowledge of our own country is the reason why there is a general sense of fatalism. The Swiss geologist and Nepalophile Toni Hagen had this to say: "Nepalis who say they are depressed because there has been no development in socio-economics and politics must know where they came from, their genesis. Only then will they realise how fast Nepali society is actually advancing."

Today, the country reels under the most trying period in its history because of Maoist violence. What ideas and concepts can extricate us? How did the country tackle such situations in the past? Don't we have a national identity, achievements, visionaries like other countries? What do we have that makes Nepalis from Mechi to Mahakali proud? Why is it that the educated ones, those who seek comfort and luxury, are more negative, hopeless and labour under an inferiority complex?

We have found that Nepalis are successful when they take the initiative after identifying their needs. Take the success of our community forestry-an idea made and nurtured in Nepal. The engineers and doctors from the BE, ME and MBBS courses from Tribhuban University can take their place in country in the world. No one had to tell hydropower producers like Dambar Nepali how to generate afforable electricity for Nepalis. No one taught us how to draft the constitution, prepare models for national and local governments, carry out elections and transfer state power peacefully. We did all this on our own.

There is proof enough that Nepalis themselves, and nobody else, are capable of solving our own problems.