२०६९: दुखान्तको वर्ष

नयाँ वर्षलाई स्वागत गर्दै गर्दा पुरानो वर्षलाई बिर्सिहाल्नु हुँदैन किनकि त्यसले आउने वर्षका लागि थुप्रै सन्देशहरु दिइरहेको हुन्छ । यो छोटो आलेखमा २०६९ का केही महत्वपूर्ण घटना र विकास क्रमको चर्चा गरौं ।

दुखान्त १ः माओवादीको कायाकल्प

नेपालको राजनीतिक परिदृश्यको कुरा गर्दा २०६९ मा सबैभन्दा बढी गुमाउने दल एमाओवादी रह्यो । दश वर्षे सशस्त्र युद्धको औचित्य पुष्टि गर्नका लागि उसले २०६३ यताका वर्षमा उल्लेख्य राजनीतिक पुँजी जम्मा गरेर राखेको थियो । त्यो पुँजी के भने बहूदलीय प्रतिस्पर्धाकै राजनीतिमा भए पनि ऊ काँग्रेस र एमाले लगायतका पहिलेका संसदीय राजनीतिक दलभन्दा फरक देखिन्थ्यो । कतिसम्म भने राज्य पुनर्संरचना लगायतका विषयमा उसको धारणा र अरु स्थापित दलको धारणामा आकाश पातालको अन्तर भएकाले पनि देशमा हुने कुनै पनि ठूलो स्केलको परिवर्तन उसकै बलबुतामा मात्र हुन सम्भव भएको भन्ने धेरैलाई लागेको थियो ।

तर २०६९ सालभर जब संविधान सभाको अवसानपछि राजनीतिक मूद्दा ओझेलमा परेर मानिसले माओवादी नेतृत्वको सरकारको शासनसत्तामार्फत् उसका व्यवहारिक आर्थिक र अन्य पाटाहरुलाई मिहीन रुपले हेर्न थाले, पुरानो माओवादीको खोलमा एउटा नयाँ, कुरुप र भद्दा नयाँ एमाओवादीको रुप देखा पर्यो । मुस्ताङ चढेको बाबुरामको धमिलो छविलाई हिसिला यमीको डरलाग्दो र दुस्साहसी पाराको भ्रष्ट छविले पूरै ओझेल पार्यो । मान्छेले चोभारनेरको बाग्मतीको पानी र हिसिला कम्पनीको स्वचछतालाई उस्तै देख्ने अवस्था आयो र भ्रष्टाचारी भनेर चिनेका काँग्रेस र एमालेका हरेक नेतालाई साधूजस्तो देखायो यमी र गच्छेदारको गठबन्धनले ।

Contents: New year special issue

Debunking the myth of (past) communist regimes

Understanding South Asia through Fiction: Sea of Poppies Book review, by Jiwan Kshetry

"Regimes in USSR and China were far from communism" Interview with Anonymous

The U.S. backs Israel's criminal policies financially, diplomatically, and militarily but doesn't want it highlighted Interview with Jeremy R Hammond, editor of Foreign Policy Journal

Regimes in USSR and China were harsh forms of State Capitalism Excerpts from Interview with Prof. Chaitanya Mishra

Of Hope and Pain: Rachel Corrie’s Rafah Legacy Opinion piece by Ramzy Baroud

Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Opinion piece by Jeremy R Hammond

‘समावेशी, बहुजातीय र बहुभौगोलिक संघीयता नै नेपालका लागि उपयुक्त’ -प्रा. चैतन्य मिश्र Exclusive interview

हत्या Short story by Avaya Shrestha

Combating stress and seeking happiness: A monologue Reflections, Jiwan Kshetry

Construction of Beauty: a post-colonial and neo-Marxist discourse Opinion piece by Indra Dhoj Kshetri

Metamorphosis Short story, Jiwan Kshetry

Future of Nepali communists: through the lens of upcoming polls Opinion piece by Subhas Lamichhane

Understanding South Asia through Fiction: Sea of Poppies

How Amitav Ghosh uses a plot from early 19th century India to capture the essence of South Asian societies over the centuries in 'Sea of poppies'.

Books: the noble reflections of society and people

How do you understand a society, and a people? Apparently, there are many ways of doing so. A year back when I shared a typically provocative article by Arundhati Roy in Outlookmagazine titled 'Capitalism: A Ghost Story' in twitter, a friend from Egypt was astonished. Apparently, he had much more pleasant impression of India as a democratic and just society. I have similar experience with other foreigners who have romantic ideas of Nepal and get easily disappointed once they are physically here. As such, a comprehensive understanding of societies is possible with multiple approaches to understand different aspects of them and each such medium has its own merits and demerits. 

In my experience, books are one thing whose importance can be matched by no other means of knowing a society and a people. Authors are thus people whose expertise on a particular domain of the society gives us the opportunity to learn many things in little time and at a small cost. In the list of people who have helped me understand India and the subcontinent, Jawaharlal Nehru comes at the top and his voluminous book 'Glimpses of World History' is one book that profoundly helped me grasp history, not as a discipline that you merely study but as something that you study and relate with your present life so as to understand the world around you better. I have read the book more than once and recommend the book for those who do not dread a book looking at its size. (In fact, I first read the book when I was yet to abandon the idea of authoring a book and have written a couple of lengthy articles inspired by- and rather copying from the book!)

When I fetched 'Sea of Poppies' by Amitav Ghosh from a small book stall behind Hotel Taj in Mumbai along with Vinod Mehta's 'Lucknow Boy', I had no idea what exactly I was expecting from the two books, and the authors. Nearly frustrated with my failure to understand Mumbai better with the physical presence there and dragging the not-exactly-enthusiastic feet, thanks to sleep deprivation, I was looking for an alternative way of understanding India. Neither of the two authors let me down and moreover, I discovered more in each than I could have ever expected.

"Regimes in USSR and China were far from communism"

For 'Interview' part of the New Year issue, I mailed the questions about relevant issues of the day to some prominent people whom I trusted and admired. The experience was not disappointing altogether; rather I was delighted when some of the least-expected people promptly replied. 

In the following conversation, I pose some essay-length questions and the responder gives brief and to-the-point answers. While knowing well that the relevance of the conversation gets reduced drastically in absence of identity of the responder, I keep my words to the responder not to display his/her identity. All I can say about the responder is that he/she is a renowned thinker of our time and the insights provided on the issues in question are relevant to understanding today's world. Please note that, I have slightly edited the original exchange so as to obliterate the identity of the responder, of course, without changing the meaning or context of the conversation.

The U.S. backs Israel's criminal policies financially, diplomatically, and militarily but doesn't want it highlighted

 An interview with Jeremy R Hammond

Jeremy R. Hammond is an independent political analyst and a recipient of the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. He is the founding editor of Foreign Policy Journal . He has written extensively about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that include the overwhelmingly popular and widely discussed article The Myth of the U.N. Creation of Israel.

Despite his busy schedule, he promptly agreed to answer some questions through email for this blog. In this interview, he openly speaks about issues ranging from potential solution of Palestinian problem to his predicaments related to Foreign Policy Journal. 

• Printing more currency now to stave of crisis will only make the long term pain all that much worse
• The communist regimes in the USSR and China were disasters in terms of the cause of humanity.
• Two-state solution, for the US and Israel, means whatever it is that Israel wants
• For US, Israel violating international law by building more settlements was not a problem; only timing was unacceptable
• Finding a business model that works has been difficult for mainstream media, much less alternative outlets
• Our purpose should be to educate ourselves and others and to pursue the higher goals of justice and liberty.

Regimes in USSR and China were harsh forms of State Capitalism

(This is the translation of a part of interview with Prof. Chaitanya Mishra, compiled for its relevance to the theme of this issue. The complete interview can be read in Nepali here).

Regardless of their vices and virtues, the fact is that when the communists throughout the world today look for a model of the state they would lead, USSR and China inevitably come into picture. Marxism gives a philosophical and theoretical framework but for practical issues they have to depend on the model of communist regimes that were once viable.

At the time of formation of USSR itself, Rosa Luxemburg had argued that one-party state was likely to promote absolute centralism and not democratic centralism. Without doubt, she was right. When all the power is concentrated in the party, the dissenting voices become fewer and fewer for fear of retribution from the high command. When some people in the party dare question the leadership, they are suppressed, often brutally. This process had taken hold during the tenure of Lenin himself but it was amplified and perpetuated throughout the long tenure of Stalin. Things went so far that the central committee of Soviet Communist Party did have to order  killings of people. That process is the result of a system in which democratic ethos are absent. That was a situation in which the society was dominated by a party for a long time and the party was in turn dominated by a single leader who ruled the state until his death.

Of Hope and Pain: Rachel Corrie’s Rafah Legacy

by Ramzy Baroud

Author during a recent TV interview

“Hi Papa .. Don’t worry about me too much, right now I am most concerned that we are not being effective. I still don’t feel particularly at risk. Rafah has seemed calmer lately,” Rachel Corrie wrote to her father, Craig, from Rafah, a town located at the southern end of the Gaza Strip.

‘Rachel’s last email’ was not dated on the Rachel Corrie Foundation website. It must have been written soon after her last email to her mother, Cindy, on Feb 28. She was killed by an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003.

Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Author

by Jeremy R. Hammond

Myth #1 – Jews and Arabs have always been in conflict in the region.

Although Arabs were a majority in Palestine prior to the creation of the state of Israel, there had always been a Jewish population, as well. For the most part, Jewish Palestinians got along with their Arab neighbors. This began to change with the onset of the Zionist movement, because the Zionists rejected the right of the Palestinians to self-determination and wanted Palestine for their own, to create a “Jewish State” in a region where Arabs were the majority and owned most of the land.

For instance, after a series of riots in Jaffa in 1921 resulting in the deaths of 47 Jews and 48 Arabs, the occupying British held a commission of inquiry, which reported their finding that “there is no inherent anti-Semitism in the country, racial or religious.” Rather, Arab attacks on Jewish communities were the result of Arab fears about the stated goal of the Zionists to take over the land.

‘समावेशी, बहुजातीय र बहुभौगोलिक संघीयता नै नेपालका लागि उपयुक्त’ -प्रा. चैतन्य मिश्र

फ्रान्सेली क्रान्ति र बोल्शेभिक क्रान्तिदेखि नेपालको पहिचान र संघीयताको मूद्दासम्मको मिहीन विश्लेषण

प्रा. चैतन्य मिश्र

विगत तीन दशकभन्दा बढी अवधिसम्म प्राध्यापनरत प्रा. चैतन्य मिश्रलाई नेपालको एउटा प्रखर समाजशास्त्री तथा अर्थशास्त्री र राजनैतिक विश्लेषकको रुपमा चिनिन्छ । हाल त्रि वि केन्द्रीय क्याम्पसको समाजास्त्र संकायमा प्राध्यापनरत मिश्रलाई उहाँको पुँजीवाद र नेपाल लगायतका पुस्तकहरु तथा विभिन्न विषयमा उहाँले गर्नुभएका शोधहरुले पनि चिनाउँछन् । पछिल्लो समयमा समाजशास्त्रका शोधमा ज्यादा समय बिताउने गर्नुभएका मिश्रको चाबहिल स्थित घरमै पुगेर लिइएको यो विस्तृत अन्तर्वार्तामा उहाँले विश्वका केही महत्वपुर्ण ऐतिहासिक परिघटनाहरु देखि लिएर नेपालको पहिचान र संघीयताको प्रसंगसम्म खुलेर आफ्नो धारणा राख्नुभएको छ । 
 

हत्या

 अभय श्रेष्ठ

       यो कथांश रामायणको उत्तरकाण्डबाट साभार गरिएको हो । मूल कथा बाल्मीकिकै भए पनि भाषा र प्रस्तुतिका कारण यो मेरै कथा हो । उत्तरआधुनिक साहित्यको युगमा यस्तो चल्छ भन्ने तपाईँलाई पनि थाहा छ । कथा त्यहाँबाट सुरु हुन्छ जब राम शिवालिक तराईमा कुनै ऋषि आश्रममा यात्रा गरिरहेका हुन्छन् ।

ध्वजाले सुशोभित स्वर्णरथमा बसेर टाढाटाढासम्म फैलिएको पर्वत शृंखलाको सुन्दरता नियाल्दै राम अघि बढिरहेका थिए । अचम्मको आन्तरिक आनन्दले उनको अनुहार फुलेको गुलाबजस्तै उज्यालो थियो । शीतल हावाको झोकाले उनको आत्मालाई बारम्बार स्पर्श गरेर जान्थ्यो । क्या आनन्ददायक हावा थियो त्यो < रामले भने, ‘सेनापति, हामी नारदमुनिले संकेत गरेको भूमितिर त आइपुगेनौ, ख्याल गरे है<’ सेनापतिले चारैतिर आँखा डुलायो । उसका आँखा सुन्दर प्राकृतिक दृश्यले चञ्चल भइरहेका थिए । ‘महाराज, यी पर्वत र शान्त वनको सौन्दर्य स्वर्गको भन्दा कम छँदै छैन । यहाँ त महापापीलाई पनि तपस्या गरुँगरुँ लाग्दो हो <’

प्राकृतिक सुन्दरताले सबै जना मोहित थिए । कति बेरसम्म त घोडा दौडेको र रथको पांग्रा गुडेको बाहेक केही सुनिएन । पर्वतको काखमा फैलिएका स–साना सुन्दर आश्रमतिर देखाउँदै राजपुरोहित वशिष्ठसित रामले भने, ‘गुरुजी, ती सुन्दर लहरा र फूलहरुले ढाकिएका आश्रम कसका होलान् हँ <’

‘पक्कै कुनै महान् ऋषिको आश्रम हुनुपर्छ महाराज ।’

Combating stress and seeking happiness: A monologue

Life has its own mechanism for approximately balancing the desirable and undesirable virtues in life. While an everlasting bout of happiness is an impossibility, a period of agony with no end is equally impossible. The factor of approximation in the equation lends us a precious space to manipulate the balance in our favor: shrewd people do everything in their capacity to rationally multiply the moments of happiness in their lives and vice varsa.

Somebody has said: “I was born intelligent but education ruined me”. I was born a mere child, as everyone is, and grew up as an ordinary teenager eventually landing up in youth and then adulthood. The extent to which formal education helped me to learn about the world may be debatable but it definitely did not ruin me.
 

There were, however, things that nearly ruined me. There came moments when I contemplated some difficult choices. And there came and passed periods when I underwent through an apparently everlasting spell of agony. There came bends in life from which it was very tempting to move straight ahead instead of following the zigzag course.

Construction of Beauty: a post-colonial and neo-Marxist discourse

By Indra Dhoj Kshetri  

Author

It may be very difficult for the people to understand that Beauty is a myth. But, it is indeed solely a myth. Myths differ according to the cultures and beauty can differ from one’s eyes to the others’. So why, Wordsworth said beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. However, even our eyes are deceived. We are preoccupied by myths. Everything we see is framed by these myths and our sights are also guided, even without knowledge. There are important myths about the beauty of both male and female in the contemporary world. In this write-up, I would like to observe beauty myth created by media in light of colonialism and Capitalism.

First of all, let me answer the first question if beauty is a myth. During my preparation for this article, I had a nice discussion with one of my friends. She exclaimed - you mean there is nothing beautiful and everything is constructed? She was right.

Metamorphosis

It was already past midnight as the old man cathartically told me the entire story of his family's misfortunes. Looking at the window from outside where we were conversing, I noticed the lamp in the room had not gone off. I slowly moved to the window and peeked inside. The girl was sitting half-squatting in a wooden 'Pirka', right ear pointed to the window, face buried between two knees and head covered by a thin shawl. The lamp atop a dirty brown tin box had been much fainter and was fluttering as if about to be doused after exhausting the oil. Everything was peaceful and tranquil. Dozens of insects could be heard producing a peculiar sound in the background.

I had been aware of the odd glance given by everybody else in the crowded jeep. Was it my attire or was it my face that was drawing attention of so many people? Either way, I chose the spot where I would get off and asked the driver to stop the vehicle. Everybody looked startled: much of the day had passed and this part of road lay in the middle of the jungle. Even the driver looked me through the rear-view mirror with doubt in his face. When I firmly said this was indeed where I wanted to get off even though I had paid fare for much more distance, no one could really object.

Future of Nepali communists: through the lens of upcoming polls

By Subhas lamichhane

 In face of repeated betrayals by the self-proclaimed communist parties of Nepal, the question of where will they stand in the upcoming elections is worth pondering.

Author

Ours is the part of world where people are easily swayed by communism. No wonder, no other ideology appeals to the youths left out in the cold as do the red letters of communism. The abject poverty and neglect with which our ‘working class’ is afflicted works as a perfect recipe for the communist parties (CPs) to drag them to their folds. So, it’s not altogether surprising that we have witnessed the phenomenal rise of hotheaded revolutionary parties in our recent political history. It’s partly because of the fact that projecting oneself as the messiah of the oppressed lot requires no more than distributing false hopes of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ and ‘a utopian society free of all injustices’. The ‘red books’ and the ‘great quotes’ are so designed as to make those hungry and half-clad hapless men completely indoctrinated so that from then onwards, communism becomes their only religion and the party their only savior. It thus comes as no secret that what makes this country’s people underprivileged is also what makes them so vulnerable to communist appeals: the feudal landscape.