Thursday, December 19, 2013
Nepali Mandela?
The following piece was published in Republica on December 19, 2013 under the title "Nepali Mandela?". The direct Republica link is here.
Nelson Mandela died on December 5, and newspapers worldwide—including in Nepal—have been plastered with what we can learn from his life and death. Many in Nepal feel that the country needs someone like him.
But why do we need an extraordinary individual like Mandela to let us know what is right, what is needed, and what is to be done? Why can’t we as a society, as a thinking group of people, come up with solutions? Why are we always waiting for a demigod-like figure to come along and rescue our conscience? It is this wistful desire for demigods that hurts Nepali progress. Our struggles for democracy gave us idealist heroes like BP and Ganeshman. However, those experiences spoiled us.
In every successive movement, we now wish and look for their replacements—other individuals we can worship and follow. Girija Prasad and Prachanda immediately come to mind. But the truth is, leaders who have achieved a demigod like reverence in Nepal seem to take us from one dire situation to another.
The country needs to be taken out of the current kerfuffle and towards the next Constituent Assembly. There are forces like Maoists and Madhesis that claim to be victims; NC, UML, and even the Election Commission have been accused of a conniving plot. Parties with different needs, interests and options are in conflict. If mediation literature and practices teach us anything, it is that these conflicting forces need three things for a meaningful resolution of disputes: understanding, right attitude and skills.
Lack of skills has not hindered the dialogue because various donors, well-wishers and facilitators have provided technical expertise and personnel to political parties for negotiation. However, the need to produce homegrown Nepali experts with mediation and negotiation skills is quite obvious. Dearth of such experts has forced us to rely on international experts who, despite their best efforts, do not have complete understanding of the nuances of Nepali conflicts.
Some common understandings have already been achieved through the CPA, and through negotiations and compromises in the last CA. However, attitudes have diverged recently. Maoists are not supportive of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) because they fear being dragged into criminal tribunals. To make matters worse, from a human rights perspective, other political forces do not seem to be in a hurry to form the TRC, either. They may have political motives and ambitions to avoid the issue, but this avoidance deprives victims of justice. TRC is the only way to improve relationships between victims and victimizers of the decade-long conflict. NC and UML have to consider the formation of TRC as one of their mandates of the recent election. They should realize that justice delayed is justice denied.
Nepali political parties and actors are engaged in the peace process aiming at a “final” solution. This is a problem for two reasons. First, achieving a standard final solution when there are diverging and diverse agendas and actors is next to impossible. Second, a final solution should not even be the focus of dialogues in a peace process. The focus should be the “interests” of the parties at the negotiation table. Various interests do not necessarily have to align perfectly. However, if these interests are compatible, parties need to talk and find one or more common solutions. A new solution or multiple solutions should always be on the table as long as everyone’s interests are met.
Current objections to election results from losers, be it Maoist supremo Prachanda or numerous Madhesh movement leaders, pose a problem. The ruckus these parties have created is not genuine, and they know that. A big loss in election, like the one the Maoists faced recently, should have had Prachanda resigning from his post as party chairman. Instead, he is engaged in discrediting the Uprety-led Election Commission and Regmi-led government. Did Prachanda forget that he lobbied to place those individuals in those positions? Of course not. The ruckus is a distraction to stall and possibly avoid a resignation from his current position. The same applies to other political actors who head their respective parties and suffered defeats in the election.
And therein lies the fundamental reason our leaders cannot be Mandelas. Girija Prasad got trapped in human emotions and wanted to promote his daughter within party hierarchy. He succeeded in making her deputy prime minister. But Sujata could not manage a nomination on her own once her father passed away. Prachanda finds himself trapped too, and is busy “creating” artificial enemies. His followers are finding it difficult to trust him and rally against these artificial enemies. This is understandable because the artificial enemies are not as evident as apartheid was for Mandela’s followers.
The lesson is that we should consider ourselves fortunate that we aren’t confronting something of the scale and magnitude of apartheid. Because if we were, we would have no true Mandela to bail us out.
Nepali Mandela?
Nelson Mandela died on December 5, and newspapers worldwide—including in Nepal—have been plastered with what we can learn from his life and death. Many in Nepal feel that the country needs someone like him.
But why do we need an extraordinary individual like Mandela to let us know what is right, what is needed, and what is to be done? Why can’t we as a society, as a thinking group of people, come up with solutions? Why are we always waiting for a demigod-like figure to come along and rescue our conscience? It is this wistful desire for demigods that hurts Nepali progress. Our struggles for democracy gave us idealist heroes like BP and Ganeshman. However, those experiences spoiled us.
In every successive movement, we now wish and look for their replacements—other individuals we can worship and follow. Girija Prasad and Prachanda immediately come to mind. But the truth is, leaders who have achieved a demigod like reverence in Nepal seem to take us from one dire situation to another.
The country needs to be taken out of the current kerfuffle and towards the next Constituent Assembly. There are forces like Maoists and Madhesis that claim to be victims; NC, UML, and even the Election Commission have been accused of a conniving plot. Parties with different needs, interests and options are in conflict. If mediation literature and practices teach us anything, it is that these conflicting forces need three things for a meaningful resolution of disputes: understanding, right attitude and skills.
Lack of skills has not hindered the dialogue because various donors, well-wishers and facilitators have provided technical expertise and personnel to political parties for negotiation. However, the need to produce homegrown Nepali experts with mediation and negotiation skills is quite obvious. Dearth of such experts has forced us to rely on international experts who, despite their best efforts, do not have complete understanding of the nuances of Nepali conflicts.
Some common understandings have already been achieved through the CPA, and through negotiations and compromises in the last CA. However, attitudes have diverged recently. Maoists are not supportive of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) because they fear being dragged into criminal tribunals. To make matters worse, from a human rights perspective, other political forces do not seem to be in a hurry to form the TRC, either. They may have political motives and ambitions to avoid the issue, but this avoidance deprives victims of justice. TRC is the only way to improve relationships between victims and victimizers of the decade-long conflict. NC and UML have to consider the formation of TRC as one of their mandates of the recent election. They should realize that justice delayed is justice denied.
Nepali political parties and actors are engaged in the peace process aiming at a “final” solution. This is a problem for two reasons. First, achieving a standard final solution when there are diverging and diverse agendas and actors is next to impossible. Second, a final solution should not even be the focus of dialogues in a peace process. The focus should be the “interests” of the parties at the negotiation table. Various interests do not necessarily have to align perfectly. However, if these interests are compatible, parties need to talk and find one or more common solutions. A new solution or multiple solutions should always be on the table as long as everyone’s interests are met.
Current objections to election results from losers, be it Maoist supremo Prachanda or numerous Madhesh movement leaders, pose a problem. The ruckus these parties have created is not genuine, and they know that. A big loss in election, like the one the Maoists faced recently, should have had Prachanda resigning from his post as party chairman. Instead, he is engaged in discrediting the Uprety-led Election Commission and Regmi-led government. Did Prachanda forget that he lobbied to place those individuals in those positions? Of course not. The ruckus is a distraction to stall and possibly avoid a resignation from his current position. The same applies to other political actors who head their respective parties and suffered defeats in the election.
And therein lies the fundamental reason our leaders cannot be Mandelas. Girija Prasad got trapped in human emotions and wanted to promote his daughter within party hierarchy. He succeeded in making her deputy prime minister. But Sujata could not manage a nomination on her own once her father passed away. Prachanda finds himself trapped too, and is busy “creating” artificial enemies. His followers are finding it difficult to trust him and rally against these artificial enemies. This is understandable because the artificial enemies are not as evident as apartheid was for Mandela’s followers.
The lesson is that we should consider ourselves fortunate that we aren’t confronting something of the scale and magnitude of apartheid. Because if we were, we would have no true Mandela to bail us out.
Labels: Mandela, maoists, mediation, NC, Prachanda, TRC, UML
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