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.
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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?”
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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…”.
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“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.
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Asks a foreigner,”Where is the dissent
in this country!?”
Co-written with Richard Bull for
the Facebook Group “Die Nepal Bandh
Die”
We have a group that works on dissuading others from calling the bandh.
DIE NEPAL BANDH DIE
please join us !