Oped»
Of surprises and shams
- WORDS & ECHOES
APR 27 -
Some recently projected visuals, printed items and linguistic noises have surprised me a great deal. To be honest, some of them have also frightened me a little. I am befuddled by the semantics, speech acts and pragmatics of these projections, if I may use some linguistic terminologies that I have often inconsequently repeated in the classroom. One senior graduate student once asked me what was the use of discussing at length the verbal battles between a Francophone philosopher Jacques Derrida and an Anglo linguist John Searle. I had taken recourse to yet more jargon to answer his question. But when I saw Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, Maoist leader Prachanda, Nepali Congress leader Sushil Koirala, CPN-UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal, Deputy Prime Minister Bijaya Gachhadar and read their press reports, I knew I was coming closer to answering the question of my student, but yet again inconclusively.
To understand the problem better, I desperately searched for some cool analyses written by writers and columnists. The brilliant op-ed pieces written by Pramod Mishra and C.K. Lal about the symbolism of the suicide of an old UML cadre Degendra Rajbanshi on April 17 outside the party headquarters in Balkhu spoke eloquently about the absurdity surrounding the ideological and revolutionary principles of the political parties of Nepal. I read some other brilliant analyses of the present situation, and knew that there were many cool and brilliant minds around.
A peculiarly irate Madhav Kumar Nepal was shown on TV screens speaking like the former king Gyanendra who, declaring the takeover on Oct. 4, 2002, had expressed his choice for prime minister and had called Sher Bahadur Deuba incompetent for that post. Ironically, Nepal declared that he would accept anybody but Prachanda for the post of the prime minister of Nepal. I think that is a provocative and absurd statement to come from a prime minister whose level of tolerance and responsibility is expected to be higher than that. I wished he could have saved his rhetoric for other private occasions. Or he could have said it to Prachanda himself to his face over tea if he must.
Among the many deterrents of Nepali politics today is the ghost of the institution of the monarchy that through coercions, agreements, infringements, temptations and fake rhetoric of power and pelf had created quite a broad sphere of psyche that becomes expressive through the occasional actions and speeches of some republican politicians and obscurantist forces who want to put the republican achievements “under erasure”.
The other disturbing factor is a state of fear mutually architected by those who are in power now and the Maoists themselves. The present government ministers and leaders of the main political parties understand history as a shifting phenomenon and a mere flow of events that comes and goes. They see the May 1 Maoist preparation of protest as the Maoist party’s politics of what is termed as an exercise to grab power; this rhetoric is given some credence by a few Maoist leaders’ fiery rhetoric also. But all the parties should know that this difficult situation has been created by the irresponsible behaviour of government leaders and politicians and their rhetoric showing their lust for power over the last several months raising suspicion in the minds of the people that perhaps they do not want to draft a constitution at all.
The irresponsible remarks about security and power structure made by government ministers and politicians and failure to rise to the occasion after the demise of Girija Babu on March 20 have brought the situation to this pass, and it could be worse in the coming days. Nepali politicians fail to understand the positive and subtle aspects of a history they themselves have created mutually. The government, coalition partners and the Maoists will be responsible for anything that may happen as a result of their actions, and that will betray their miserable failure to understand the challenges posed by history.
The Maoists, whatever their detractors may say, have played a very significant role to keep the voice of the people alive. They have shown great restraint and exhibited great statesmanship in different difficult situations in the past. Their leaders have admitted their mistakes in their glowing obituaries of Girija Babu. They have proved to those who wanted to provoke them by turning their protests into violence by resorting to peaceful methods earlier. Now more than ever, the onus of making political protests peaceful lies on the Maoists’ shoulders. They are a big force of change and popular movements. But a large section of the media and popular noisemakers have created a psyche in the capital that the Maoists are responsible for everything that is wrong and violent.
This propaganda has helped the government, which has miserably failed to rule the country properly, to hide its face and justify its continuity. Therefore, the Maoists by turning their protest programmes into peaceful actions can prove that they represent a valued dynamics of democratic opposition. Protests against the government actions in the streets carried out peacefully are integral parts of a loktantric system. Make no mistake about that. The Maoists have a chance to prove that. But by forcing people to donate money, doling out fiery rhetoric about taking over power and beating up cadres of other parties will not help the Maoists; that will help those who need that for propaganda purposes.
The other disturbing visuals are of the schools shut by the revolutionary students union. Though I agree with the logic that the schools have been recklessly clamping a fee structure on the guardians, paralysing the entire educational structure does not bode well for the future of this country whose main problem is making its citizens educated. Agree or not, Nepal’s main problem is non-education. Educational protest actions should not shut down schools but open up other modes of dissent and negotiations.
If we look at the behaviours of the politicians and analyse the irresponsible, dangerous and militaristic rhetoric of the ministers, we find that a psyche of grabbing power cuts deeper. The Maoists may be blamed for churning out rhetoric to grab power, but those who are running the country are jointly and tacitly grabbing the resources of the country. If you look at the financial sector, its gloomy predictions and the tottering industrial and entrepreneurial regimes, you can see that power is tacitly grabbed by those who do not appear to be working for the interest of the people of this country.
The prime minister summoned the security chiefs and called them to be in a state of alert as if for a war, and the Maoists have been overplaying the idea of training cadres for physical confrontation. I think both moves are quixotic, which will help those who are eagerly waiting to fuel the crisis and take tremendous advantage of the situation. This is the time to show statesmanship, magnanimity and make an all-party government. The present government should quit. If you need somebody to sit between you like Girija Babu did, I would humbly advise you to go to the humble residence of Subash Nembang and talk immediately.
Abhi Subedi
abhi@mail.com.np
Posted on: 2010-04-28 07:50
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