Are you looking forward to this 3-day
bandh, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday? (Total shutdown of Nepal)
What say to the sorry fact that a few big egos
with no-one’s interests at heart but their own, will oppress you for three long days with
the threat of some cheap several-hundred-rupee-per-day-hired-goons. Who benefits from this? Can
bullying create lasting change? After 15+ years of bandhs, does it have the power of
’shock and awe’ any more? This stinks. This is terrorism on the street corner and
the masses lie down and swallow it as a part of life in :New Nepal. But wait a minute….
Are you thinking….
- Its not my job to stop it ?
- I am helpless to face up to it myself, what
can I do?
or - So what, its just a few days, I can wait it out?
- I am lazy, I am a coward, I am average….?
Is there really *nothing* we, you, I, me, he,
she, they can do? Aren’t you feeling helpless, pathetic, angry? What? You don’t
care?
Visualize this,
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito.” Someone wise person said that. You all know its true.
Here’s a suggestion. Instead of
looking for the nuclear bomb that will wipe bandhs from the face of history tomorrow,
let’s take it slowly, be creative, be surprising, reject the shouting, chest
beating old-school ways, and have a lot of sneaky fun. Sounds like an ideal romance, no?
Let’s start by giving a hint of the steam in this youthful pressure cooker. Start
by making small cracks in the wall of nonsense. Lets find new ways to deal with this
mob.
Here are some ideas floated by fellow
activists in the Facebook
Group “Die Nepal Bandh Die”. Join it if you believe in the cause and
recommend others.
START THINKING!
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“What about ‘Flash Mob’”?,
asked a few people – showing the strength of the silent majority without
violence. Know what it is? An sms alert brings a huge mass of people together at
short notice at a specific location with secret instructions. Then disperse
immediately after the action is over.
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“Exposing faces behind the mob”,
suggested another. Get snapping pictures of bandh enforcers now, and start
posting pictures on this and other forums. This is one small way of empowering
ourselves and see the faces behind this destructive forms of protests.
——————————————
Phone jamming – “if you get 1000 people
to call every party head office and express their one sentence opinion on bandh, and
then hang up. would be fun no?”
——————————————
Email the editors – Another suggested,
“Mass send emails to the editors of the mass media in Nepal. ‘Please
publish on letters page: Dear Sir/Madam, I am 23 from Lalitpur and I want to express
my view on the bandh culture which is a hand at the throat of this
nation…”.
——————————————
“A bandh day football tournament on tundikel,
mass random cricket competition in the streets, a cycle rally for the hard-core
orwhat the hell – let’s just get people, lots of people together.
Otherwise its pathetic, isn’t it?”, emailed yet another.
——————————————
Asks a foreigner,”Where is the dissent in this
country!?”
Co-written with Richard Bull for the Facebook Group “Die Nepal Bandh Die”
Tags: business environment, nepal bandh, politics, violence
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