4. We, the Nepali People An American doctor who worked in Nepal (he continued to work in various places in Western Nepal until his life was threatened by the ever bolder Maobaadi extortionists), in his blase assessment, once coughed up to me, "You know with the standard of hygiene and sanitation you people maintain, the level of health services you have, the (technical) medical know-how and expertise you can muster, I am really surprised the Nepali people did not become extinct 300 years ago." Uneasy, I laughed, but it was a lugubrious laughter. I have thought about that a lot since. It speaks of the difficulties we face, of our ineluctable circumstances. But it also speaks volumes about our resilience, our fight for life. We, the Nepali people, have throughout our history faced daunting tasks and have managed to survive. But then I wondered, how come we have not really made progress in moving past survival? Only to be reminded that oh, we have actually done more than survive. Just look at the Nepali cross-section today. From the "expat" communities in some of the richest nations in the world, to the legions of people working in various countries, to the urban, to the rural, to the poor, to the rich. That is our character. By whatever means we have, we've shown that we can achieve, if we want. So, why not believe in ourselves? Why not believe and forcefully assert that yes, we want to live our lives the best we can? That we want and we can handle freedom to be the masters of our own destinies, make our own decisions, and seek progress, prosperity and fulfillment in life? That we will not be impeded by social challenges? That, if it really comes down to this we will seek security by boldly addressing, working with, working for, and embracing God's forgotten children? That we will take the responsibility for our lives and conquer our apathetic pathos? That we don't need strong-men to dictate our lives? That if we want peace, security and the riches, we will work for it? Can't we do it? Of course we can. How best to do it? Let's find out! Let's take charge of our lives and not leave it to strong-men. Strong-men can't take care of us even if they really wanted to. How can one man lift all the weight in our shoulders? We can lift and can carry the weight ourselves. We can help the ones who are barely managing to do it. Besides, if we charge strong-men - be it in the form or a local political leader, a minister, a prime-minister, a president or a monarch - with doing our work and let our muscles atrophy why will the strong-men do our work? Maybe, we haven't been clever enough to warn those who've betrayed our trust. But we learn. We learn. And we take part in the democratic exercise. That is how peoplecracies are built, isn't it? I mean, it;s not going to be here you have democracy and we have everything in place in the blink of an eye. We have to build the house. We can! We can establish democracy with a rule of law. It will take time and effort and determination. But, let's throw our inaction, apathy and the desire to find someone to pick up our shit. At the same time, let's make sure that it is we who are in charge of our destinies, not a strong man. Going forward, we have a good (if not fantastic) future. 5. Looking ahead There is no denying that each and everyone of us is responsible for the critical state of Nepal today. And there is no denying that until we, the people, rise nobody can take us out of this mess. The politicians were not good for us because we were too apathetic to exercise our right of foresight. Let's correct that. We can make the system work for us. But otherwise we have no chance. Will giving the King a chance help? I don' think so. If this is our shit, we go to clean it up. Sure, a tyrant has made his move and tried to usurp our power, our dreams, our voices. But Gyanendra does not have the power to take the country out of our crisis, even if he wanted to. Does he have a magic wand, that he can just wave and poof! the Maobaadi will disappear and there will be peace in Nepal? Is the suppression of Maobaadi cadre using brute force the solution? Aren't we just inviting a more disastrous encounter with history in that case? After all that we have gone through, do we have the courage to be responsible? To work for our own peace? To work for our freedom to live, to progress? To get out of our languishing? It can be done, of course. Let us all do it. Looking for the way out without taking the responsibility, without putting in any effort is only going to land us in hot water. Why surrender our liberties, our essense of life just because a problem comes up that seems so hard to conquer? We have conquered such demons throughout our history, heck, for a lot of us we do it everyday. If we, the people, don't work today to conquer both the oppression from the crown and from the Maobaadi, we don't deserve to demand peace, prosperity or progress. Not that we will get it anyways. So, let's get up and shake the apathy. Let it be known that we don't want oppression or rule of fear. More importantly, let it be known that we are our own masters, that we will stand up for ourselves and our brethen. let's talk. let's act. wake up and live.