"My point is, hurray, we too are concerned about sheer poverty and destitution that millions of Nepalis face. And we believe that can be resolved ONLY through strenthened democracy, not autocracy. We experienced autocracies of one form or the other for decades, and they never resolved the problem of poverty. They never can. Social and poltical ills are resolved ONLY by empowering the PEOPLE, not by empowering the King, or the few army generals, and dictatorships only do the latter. "
Poonte, my question is: How can you empower the people? What specific steps do you have in mind? We can always talk in vague broad abstratc terms and that's what everyone does in Nepal, what we - non-democrats who are inferior to the democarts- are looking for is your- democrats- step-by-step appraoch. Just what sort of implementable programs you have for Nepal to empower the people?
"As for what should be the next step, I can probably write a whole book on it. However, in the limited time and space capacity, here is what i would like to happen:
1. Full, complete and non-negotiated restoration of people's rights.
2. Resignation of the political leaders to make room for newer, cleaner faces.
3. Disarmament of the Maoists in exchange for a new GENUINELY pro-people constition, and the constructive weakening of the monarchy. "
1. How? Its a million dollar question. How under the present situation you can restore people's rights?
2. How? Do you think Girija and KPB and MKN and SBT will read Sajha and say-- hmmm.. maybe we should pack our bags and go to Kashi? I don't think so. Also, any new young generation leader that you think has the leadership capabilities? I don't see any. All have been curropted by the old leaders, so even if they replace the existing ones, they will be no different than their npredecessors.
3. This is very unlikely to happen. Let's not raise our hopes too high. Let's be realists here, Poonte. There is a rebel group which is- if yesterday's news reports that BRB is in Delhi are to be believed- now gaining some "international recognition" and legitimacy, and has shown no signs to sit down for talks unless you hand them their "naya satta", and you expect them to disarm at this crucial time? No way. They will play the parties and the kings against each other to create more instability, which will be to their advantage. To make the long story short: they are not likely to disarm anytime soon, no matter what incentives you provide, even constitutional reforms.
"However, first and foremost, democracy must be restored. Without people's voices being allowed to be heard, and peopel praticing their full rights, ANY attempts to reform the political parties and to reign in the Maoists will have neither the effect, nor the legitimacy. Peopls'e rights are NOT, and SHOULD NOT BE, a matter of negotiations, Now, the roles that the respective conflicting parties can play in a democratic framework of governance, then can be negotiated. The intricacies of such details of negotiations can be dealt with with professional help. "
How, how do we restore the democarcy? Hold elections? Or reinstate the dissolved house and bring back the same idiots to power? How do you think the King is supposed to restore democracy? This is my question.
"14 years is definitely NOT enough time for any kind of social and politcal transformations. Despite many difficulties, the general trend towards empowering the people, especially the ones from rural areas who were buitterly neglected by the autocratic regimes in the past was growing. We had 30 years of panchayat, give democracy atleast the same number of years top prove itself. A generations' time would have begun to reap the fruits of democracy in Nepal. "
I asked you this on some other thread too: Just exactly how you know that people were being empowered? What sort of empowerment are you talking about? If they were empowered (or politically aware), they wouldn't have joined the Maoists nor they would have elected/chosen people like DB Lama unooposed from Rasuwa. You saw the people being politically active and or empowered, I saw them being exploited by cunning (or sheer stupid?) leaders by capitalizing on their misery. What we saw for the last 15 eyars can be described as a total breakdown of law and order, and to some extent, national unity. Recent studies on democarcy say one thing: Democarcy just doesn't work in poor divided societies. First bridge the gaps through economic reforms and equal economci oppurtunity, make people rich, then democratize. Of course, you can dismiss this argument outright as it does not correspond to the ideology you subscribe to, but if you look at many neo-democracies, they are not doing well, preceisely because of this raeson. Its only when people are poor, they want to know what/who is keeping them poor and be politically active, when they have enough to eat, people worry about other things, not politics. For example, in China, the likelihood of another Tiananmen happening is next to none. People don't care about politics. It could happen in 1989 but not today. Why? Because 1989 was the first decade of reforms, people didn't have jobs, and to make the matters worse, inflation was at all time high. People were not benifiting from the reforms then and that anger caused the whole turmoil. Now, people are getting rich, unemployment is low, prices are stable and the economy is doing great. People don't care about politics.
Anotehr example is Singapore. The majority of Singaporean doesn't care about polirtics. In the 60s and 70s they used to have race riots- Malays against Chinese etc. but today, you don't see that. Why? Because everyone is making enough money.
Poverty, not political rights and all that, is the main reason for the problems in Nepal. And its not only in Nepal, its in every third world country. People are heavily politically charged because they want to know why they are poor. In that situation, anyone can go and spread propaganda and ideology and convert them to maoism or christianity.
So the real solution lies in economic reforms. And how we go about achieving economic development? Its only through political stability. We can have democracy and be always politically unstable, and be deprived of economic development, or we can choose to have a stable governmnet which does embraces selective liberal democratic values, but guarantees stablity, peace, security and economic development? Which one would you choose? I'd choose the latter.
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