Parakhi.com is now introducing 7 new bloggers, writing everyday for Parakhi Blogs!

Our first new blogger, Alok writes about the current Facebook movement in Nepal. We have posted the full text so that we comply with Sajha's rules on posting in forums. Thank you!


http://www.parakhi.com/blogs/2011/07/04/all-aboard-the-patriot/


All Aboard The Patriot - Alok / Parakhi.com


You know something is fashionable when it hits the net and comments come in countless columns on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. So it’s official. Patriotism is the flavor of the season and is now as fashionable as Pizza Hut in Kathmandu. No wonder everyone from bank CEOs to students, celebrity singers, rickshaw drivers to tourism wallas are jumping on the band wagon albeit it took some time for virtual activism to breach the treacherous political boundaries of landlocked Nepal.
 
If movements that gathered momentum virtually, i.e. through social networking sites, could topple decades old regimes in the Arab world, how much longer can this fetus republic’s tormentors reign? And there is more than one reason to call Nepal’s current rulers tormentors because while the last rulers claimed right to reign by conqueror’s or unifier’s right, divine authority, solar lineage et all but were shielded from the peoples reality by dark glasses, high palace walls and circles of sycophants, the ones in power now are from amongst us, sent by us and for us, yet refuse to recognize the problems of the common citizen and instead keep fighting for power. Continue fighting and you too will be replaced soon.
 
While positive, the Facebook activists conducting the online kranti-and hopefully soon to be on the street too-are however coming across their first hurdle. Among them is of course the issue of brand ownership. Even patriotism or its radical cousin nationalism cannot be non-competitive, and non-branded or so it seems. No wonder one group can’t agree with another because one’s name outshines another’s although we’re all demanding the same thing. This is market forces at its best. Like that old and wise Nepali proverb goes, “he who talks can even sell his shit, he who doesn’t can’t even sell his food.” And believe me you, whether its shit or rice, its selling. Our rulers and political leaders have been selling us delusions of grandeur since the last 60 years and more and we’ve bought it word for word. So then why can’t the common people sell each other’s dreams too?
 
Perhaps sloganeering always does have that effect. But what one finds mystifying is if we are all trying to say the same thing, what difference does it make if we people say it differently in different voices? The attention should be given to those whom we are directing our voices so they drown in the sea of demands made by the public so they at least try to fulfill one. So while we all have our different demands, at its base we are all asking for the same thing, accountability from those appointed, and responsibility from our  side.
 
Another major weakness amongst us is the lack of trust. No matter how united we feel we want to be, Nepalis always end up fighting each other, living up to our global image of the brave Gurkhas. History tells us we were fighting ourselves long before we fought others. So while in between we did manage to hold the East India Company off almost two centuries ago, earning our way to the global hall of fame of the valiant, and then sent countless lives to fight against the Japanese, the Germans, and even the Argentineans, in the world wars, so our rulers then could get a few million richer, we haven’t really given up our old habits and continue to fight each other as well.
 
The last fight though took quite a toll. 13000 and more. Fortunately those who bravely gave away their lives “for the country” on the orders of the fierce one, and those who fought against the then “terrorists” called it a truce that fateful day on 21 November 2006. We had hoped their fight would be better off if it remained within the confines of the Constituent Assembly, but it looks like the people are not getting any respite, from the fighting within either.
 
Why can’t we trust each other like we used to in the grand old days when strangers were welcomed into our hearths and treated like gods? Or was that too a Himalayan myth? Is it because we were naïve then and are only beginning to see that the seven sins are inherently human due to which we are all sinners but me less than you are? Or is it because we’re a nation of such complexly mixed up ethnicities and castes that we have to resort to age old human weaknesses to carve out a niche for ourselves?
 
Regardless of what it is causing this lack of trust, what is clear that if the voices of the silent and the not so silent majority are to be heard and justice not delayed, we must move forward and united. Because what is clear is that the political parties are using the colonial era tactics of divide and rule. They feed us different ideologies to divide us and then rule over us with agreements that range from 3 point to 12 points. God only knows how many points they’ve agreed on but still disagree on the simplest of things, like how to fulfill their duty that we have assigned them and which they willingly agreed to.
 
If Nepalis want change, we must change ourselves. Our mindsets, our characters, our lives and the way we live our lives. Only then can we justify our demand for change. And we must do it as one. All aboard The Patriot!

http://www.parakhi.com/blogs/2011/07/04/all-aboard-the-patriot/