A Maoist muscleman meets a CPN-UML toughie at one of the heavily politicized campuses of Tribhuvan University. Displaying the newfound companionship between the leftwing forces of the country, Comrade Kick begins the banter, “Tell me Comrade Slap, who is the Paramount Leader of the People´s Republic of China?” True to his name, Comrade Slap smacks himself on the face, admits his ignorance, and claims that the party policy forbids him from answering any political questions without prior clearance. For the correct answer and the official position of the party on such matters, he calls Balkhu Palace from his ‘original fake’ Chinese cell phone.
Apparently, Comrade Slap is not satisfied either with the telephone connection—fully dependent on Chinese communication equipment—or the response from the other end. Frustrated, he admits to his mate, “Comrade Kick, these days our people know no names other than that of the Indian ambassador. Our in-house intellectual was asking me instead that Hu was the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China!”
The dialogue is imaginary of course, but symptomatic of the narrowing worldview of a politically conscious community like activists on university campuses. If such is the state of leftwing union leaders, the lack of awareness among democratic students can only be imagined. Communist parties call their student’s body ‘union’—a political unit by definition, which believes in the principle of collective bargaining—and pride themselves on their ideological combativeness. By that yardstick, Comrade Kick and Comrade Slap should have known about office-bearers of a fraternal party in China like one of their own. This was not always like that. Not too long ago, Nepali students were more internationalists than their counterparts almost anywhere in South Asia.
A world apart
In 1993, political anthropologist Stephen L Mikesell wrote with genuine amazement, “The London staffs of the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Abimael Guzman, the imprisoned leader of the Shining Path guerrillas of Peru, has been astounded by the volume of mail received from Nepal in support of him. From nowhere in the world has such a large number of letters been sent by so many members of a national legislature, to say nothing of common citizens. Why should a country on the far end of the globe from Peru, known through the international press, travel brochures and anthropological monographs more for its mediaeval romance and mysticism than for militant political movements, suddenly gain notoriety through support for Comrade Gonzalo?”
Nepal is a “poor” country in per capita terms, but that has nothing to do with limiting the horizon of its people. A dog’s life—bone, bark, bite, mating season and the occasional lamppost—is not worthy of a human being. We are the world and the world is us. There is no other way to be a member of the human civilization common to all humanity.
Prof Mikesell had then concluded somewhat prophetically that Nepal was perhaps ripe for a Peru-like violent eruption. The possibility of emergence of a local edition of Alberto Fujimori in the Himalayas was left unexplored. Rise of the socialists in Brazil, and the way social democrats are turning the country into a global powerhouse, however, finds little resonance in Nepal.
Solidarity for Gonjalo may have been an opportunity for Nepali communists to establish or strengthen their links with Revolutionary International Movement (RIM), but Nepali Congress (NC) had become a member of Socialist International (SI) much before many of Maoists leaders were born. B P Koirala believed in the fraternity of social democratic movements all over the world and extended a helping hand to political counterparts in India much to the chagrin of Jawaharlal Nehru. Solidarity with Indian socialists, however, extracted a heavy price from B P. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty neither forgot nor forgave NC or the Koirala family for their closeness to Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayprakash Narayan and their acolytes. Internationalism does not come cheap; advocates of unity between forces of social justice across international borders have to be ready for all consequences.
In the spring of 1979, the execution—political murder is perhaps a more appropriate term for the way military regime in Pakistan enacted the charade—of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Rawalpindi sparked political protests in Kathmandu and created conditions for a stillborn revolution in Nepal. Had it not been for the ‘active boycott’ of the plebiscite—analogues of UML’s vigorous neutrality and energetic inactivity during 16 rounds of contest to elect a prime minister—history of Nepal would have taken a different course in the 1980s itself.
Popularity of parochialism can partly be attributed to the practice of globalization. Universalism is based on the belief that some fundamental ethical principles are universal and unchanging and human values are valid regardless of the context or situation. Sanctity of human life and dignity, supremacy of laws and democratic spirit are common aspirations of all humanity. Even internationalism places more emphasis on common interests of different nations than apparent differences between them. Globalization, however, limits itself to the process of increasing the connectivity and mobility of the world´s markets and businesses. Politics is anathema to the very idea of globalization; it messes up with the purpose of turning the world into a big bazaar where cash is king, credit costs money and human relationships have little or no meaning. When a person becomes a mere instrument of production and a unit of consumption, fraternity loses all meaning.
We are the world
People have to speak out on behalf of one another not just out of concern but to save their own humanity. When founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange is hounded, harassed and threatened by military-industrial complex of the West or conscientious physician Binayak Sen is equated with Dara Singh (the maniacal Hindutva fanatic who burnt a Christian priest and his two children alive) and given life sentence, citizens everywhere in the world have to speak out for justice. It is not a voice of help but that of conscience, which saves the sanity of the person speaking in solidarity with the victim of injustice.
Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is clearly a prisoner of conscience. Of course Nobel is political—which prize is not, local, regional or global? But here is one person, a writer at that, defying the regime backed by the biggest army and the biggest lender of the globe. He may be mediocre, misguided or plain wrong, but his courage can be shining example for dissenters all over the world for a long time to come. Speaking ‘truth’, in all its diversity, to power is not just the privilege of the intellectual—everyone has a duty to do so for humanity.
Nepal is a “poor” country in per capita terms, but that has nothing to do with limiting the horizon of its people. A dog’s life—bone, bark, bite, mating season and the occasional lamppost—is not worthy of a human being. We are the world and the world is us. There is no other way to be a member of the human civilization common to all humanity.
Related story
Gold price drops after a week reaching Rs 221,300 per tola
