Review of World Politics
- Sherpas Accomplish ‘Mission Impossible’
- Prithvi Narayan Shah, the Shah Monarchs & their Detractors
- Germany’s Ruling Party Has New Leader
- Trump’s Terrible Legacy
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
K2 Ascent in Winter Achieved
A team of Sherpa climbers have made mountaineering history by climbing the world’s second-highest peak – Pakistan’s K2 – in the winter season, a feat never before achieved.
At 8,611 metres (28,251 feet), K2 is the most prominent peak on the Pakistan side of the Karakorum range, to the left of the Himalayas, and the world’s second-highest after Sagarmatha [Chomolungma/Mt. Everest].
K2 located in the Karakoram Range in Gilgit-Baltistan, which is home to the second greatest concentration of high mountains in the world [after the eastern Nepal Himalayas]. Other peaks are Gasherbrum I, 8068 m. [plus II, III, IV], Broad Peak, 26,414 ft. The Karakoram Range [black stone] is separated from the Himalayas by three rivers – Indus, Gilgit and Shyok Rivers.
The secretary of the Pakistan Alpine Club, Karrar Haideri, said 10 Nepali Sherpas reached the summit about 5 p.m. local time (12.00 GMT) last Saturday. He also commented: “This was never done by anyone before in winter” (Al Jazeera, Jan. 16).
The peak is known as the “Savage Mountain” for the punishing conditions there, where winds can blow at more than 200 km per hour (125 miles per hour) and temperatures can drop to minus 60 degrees Celsius.
Haider said four international climbing teams had arrived about a month ago to try to scale K2 – the last remaining peak above 8000 meters in the world to not be scaled in winter. The group of 10 Nepalese has so far been the only successful team, he added.
No mountaineers had reached higher than 7,750 metres until Saturday when fair weather conditions allowed the climbers to push ahead.
According to the Pakistan Alpine Club, an unprecedented number of climbers, totaling some 48 members, had converged on the dreaded mountain this winter – more than all the previous expeditions put together!
The astonishing news has led to great joy throughout Nepal, long used to experiencing foreign climbers establishing records.
As Nepal’s own record-setting climber Kami Rita Sherpa, who has climbed Everest an astonishing 24 times, said: “For decades, Nepalis have assisted foreigners to reach the summits of the Himalayas, but we’ve not been getting the recognition we deserve.”
“The spotlight has always been on foreign climbers. It is wonderful that today, on K2, 10 Nepalis have made history and shown our bravery and strength,” he added.
Nepalese mountain guides, usually ethnic Sherpas from the valleys around Mt. Everest in the Khumbu region, are considered the backbone of the climbing industry in the Himalayas for bearing huge risks in carrying equipment and food, fixing ropes and repairing ladders.
The former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), Ang Tshering Sherpa said: “Sherpas are top climbers of the world, and it is a proud moment for us.”
“The impossible is made possible,” Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja, an ex-British Special Forces soldier, said on his official Instagram account after he and his team accomplished the rare feat. “History made for mankind. History made for Nepal,” he wrote.
Purja added: “We are proud to have been part of history for mankind and to show that collaboration, teamwork and a positive mental attitude can push limits to what we feel might be possible” (CNN, Jan.17).
However, it is a complete disgrace that there has been no reaction from our so-called leaders and politicians – absolutely no words of congratulations for this major exploit. This is a downright disgrace for both the leaders and their advisers, and also for those aspiring to lead Nepal.
Prithvi Narayan Shah’s Legacy Attacked!
The latest detractor to question the relevance of our Great King Prithvi Narayan Shah and the Shah monarchs, in general, is a certain Binayak Sundas. In a ridiculous write-up in My Republica, he poses the question: “Why national unification day and Prithvi Narayan Shah should not be celebrated” (Jan. 14). According to the byline, Sundas is an assistant professor at the Centre for Himalayan Studies, University of North Bengal, Siliguri. He does not seem to be a ‘native Nepali’, i.e. a citizen of the Himalayan Federal Democratic Republic (HFDR), but an ‘ethnic Nepali’/Indian citizen [or as they like to depict themselves, to distinguish themselves from us lesser mortals: ‘Gorkhali’ or ‘Gorkha’ from the Darjeeling district]. However, to come to the point straight away: neither his origins nor his academic credentials give him any right to question our historic narrative!
One must question the very premise of his essay: “The demand for the monarchy’s restoration and the desire to reinstate the importance of Prithvi Narayan Shah and national unification is a desire to revert to an era where both caste and cultural dominance had the overt backing of the state.” Fortunately [for us] or unfortunately [for Sundas] time has not stood still – even in the HFDR – and much water has flown under the Bagmati bridge.
Most Nepalese today are literate, and many generations of children even had the privilege of receiving first-class school education in the exclusive schools of the Darjeeling district. Educated Nepalese, many of whom have spent time outside of their native land, will not have any taste for a return to the ancient regime. We now have a society which is more open than most of the other countries of South Asia, even India. Social mobility, whether vertical or horizontal, is also more pronounced.
Caste discrimination is still present, but not to the extent as in say, India or Pakistan.
Above all, there is no religious discrimination. Is that the case in the other countries of South Asia?
However, we can concede that we are a bit backward as regards domestic political development. And our present crop of leaders is unable to hold their own vis-à-vis the sophisticated foreign policies of the two largest civilizations of Asia. Moreover, they are too weak-kneed when confronted with superior and overwhelming ‘Rupee’ and ‘Yuan’ diplomacy. As St. Matthew wrote: “The spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak.”
Sundas forgets to place Prithvi Narayan Shah’s achievements in historical perspective and to understand the global dimensions. What he did was indeed remarkable. After conquering the ‘Nepal Valley’, he gave the newly unified country not the name ‘Gorkha’ but ‘Nepal’, i.e. this name even overshadowed his ancestral home! Thus, he was no narrow nationalist, putting the ‘Thakuri’ stamp on the whole country.
It is also relevant to note that at the time of Nepal’s unification, China and Japan were examples of ‘oriental despotism’. The thirteen American colonies had not yet declared their independence and the United States had not yet come into existence. There was also no united Italy or Germany. The German Confederation first came into being in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna.
Prithvi Narayan Shah and his successors were very much aware of the acute dangers of British imperialism. Bahadur Shah even sent emissaries to the Sikhs and Mahrattas to propose joint alliances against the British.
Sundas also has a cock-and-bull narrative that the whole idea of promoting Prithvi Narayan Shah’s legacy is to cement ethnic Khas, i.e. Bahun-Chhetri-Thakuri dominance of Nepalese society. He forgets or ignores the Great King’s vision of a united Nepal of a diverse garden where many flowers blossom!
Germany’s New Leader of the Christian Democrats
After a marathon contest to lead the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), one of the party’s most powerful state premiers, Armin Laschet, prevailed at the finish. The 59-year-old is now the new chairman of Berlin in a grand coalition with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Laschet has been the ‘Minister-President’ or state premier of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. He has stood most strongly for a continuation of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s course and a ‘CDU of the center”.
Whether Laschet will also be put forward as the party’s candidate for chancellor will be decided in autumn, probably after two state elections. He has two likely rivals for that role, and both are performing well in opinion polls: Health minister Jens Spahn and Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder, the leader of the CDU-aligned Christian Social Union (CSU). If the latter makes the running, it will be the first time that a CSU- and the Bavarian leader becomes chancellor!
What happens in the world’s fourth-largest economy is of great interest to the world at large. For a start, the destiny of Germany’s ruling party is in very good hands. Laschet “has a warm and jolly character, and his approach is one of togetherness and openness. In North Rhine-Westphalia, he built a cabinet of specialists, and this has helped his popularity” (DW/Deutsche Welle: Katharina Kroll, Jan.16).
Trump’s Disgraceful Legacy
History may judge the Trump presidency to have been a consequential one, but this will be more for its destructive effects than for its achievements. This was the major assessment of Richard N. Haass, one of America’s leading national security pundits (Project Syndicate/Council on Foreign Relations: “Donald Trump’s Costly Legacy,” Jan. 11).
Like many other U.S. political pundits, Haass sees Trump as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, if not the worst ever.
He does concede that Trump accomplished some useful things domestically and fewer ones in external affairs, but these were completely dwarfed by what Trump got all wrong.
Haass highlights three major failures:
- The damage Trump has done to American democracy is incalculable. The siege and occupation of the U.S. Capitol [the Congressional buildings of the House of Representatives and the Senate] on the dark day of January 6, 2021, were “the culmination of the president’s efforts to demonize the media, violate established norms, promote lies, question the authority of the courts, and reject the results of a presidential election that passed every serious test of legitimacy.”
2. The second defining issue was Trump’s inept and inadequate response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has resulted in 400,000 American deaths during his watch. The flawed US response also caused the loss of millions of jobs and businesses, millions of students to fall behind, and governments and people around the world to lose respect for America.
3. His flawed foreign policy undermined America’s position in the world. This resulted directly from the reasons noted above, but also on its own grounds.
He failed miserably with his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign vis-à-vis Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.
Generally, the US withdrawal from international agreements and institutions became the hallmark of Trump’s misguided foreign policy. His toxic mixture of ‘America First’ nationalism, unilateralism and isolationism demolished the nexus of relationships, alliances, and institutions that, however imperfect, had after the Second World War created a rules-based international order that had avoided great-power conflict, expanded democracy and increased health, wealth and living standards.
When Trump assumed the presidency, the world was already in disarray and U.S. influence in the world at large was also already declining. Trump’s malignant contribution was that he accelerated both trends. He has left a country and a world in a far worse condition than he had inherited. That is his terrible legacy!
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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