By D.M. Thapa
The road is straight ahead till it reaches its destination. Off course, it is a treacherous road and there are many obstacles and political hindrances in between, but most unfortunately for the general public of the impoverished country, the destination could also be a disaster.
Well, all signposts and indicators point toward such a destination and our visionless leaders, greedy bureaucrats and the not so clever planners are pushing us to a dangerous crevasse.
There is dissatisfaction everywhere. The business people are not happy, the bankers are not happy, those who have taken loans are not happy and worst of all, the people are not happy with the hardship they are facing just to make two ends meet, forget good health care, good access to education, good quality of life and acquiring that little ‘extra’ which they like to spend once in a rare while.
Apart from its own troubles, the country is also being shaken by to regular interference of foreign power in Nepal, on one pretext or the other. We understand the power hunger of the United States the only superpower of the world. But while it was involved in a ferocious battle with the then-Soviet Union, now it seems to have chosen China as its biggest enemy. The United States though militarily strong, it is in a neck-to-neck battle to become the largest economic superpower as well. That is why the US is showing so much interest in this far-flung country, which used to be happy receiving American telephones and old vehicles, which is now a strategically important point from where it constantly disturbs Chins.
“Heck, we already have out greedy individuals in Nepal to not only bring disturbance in Tibet but to also foil China to expand its global empire,” some top-level US intelligence officials must be saying with laughter as they sit around a semi-confidential room somewhere in Wahington D.C. others must also be smirky saying how they have some important politicians and the so-called activists who will push the policies of the US in helping Nepal widen its development and human rights works snd slyly put in the green dollars they get as ‘incentive’ from their masters. Look at the big funded INGOs, mostly where only family members are given work and others are simply shorter aside while the funder just looks the other way as their own pockets are lined and some personal favours are done.
You don’t have to go far on how some “Pandora’s Boxes were opened not caring what impact such things may have while these people try to live a normal life.” Just going to offices or other places? Yes, opening and allowing the third-gender people to come out of the cupboard was good, but does anyone care about the day-to-day problems they face? Look at the lines of third-gender people selling their bodies in the streets of Kathmandu, don’t you feel some sort of work should be given to live a dignified life? Bringing changes is easy but sustaining them for the welfare of specially the victims is difficult. But our ‘do good’ don’t feel so, not even while smugly spending the money they have earned through the misery of others.
But forgetting about this issue now, the ‘followers’ of the United States, any peace-loving citizen of the world who gains nothing from the wars and strife in many places, will automatically point their fingers at the Americans and their Western lackey, as to who are the troublemakers in the word and making not only one country or the other but the whole universe a battlefield where innocent people are killed. Take for example Israel, soldiers there are killing many people, including children and innocents, but no one speaks a word. If a so-called enemy does much less, he is thrown an arrest warrant for war crimes. Is this fair? When the same Americans and their war-mongering partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), are supplying deadly sophisticated arms and also huge funds for the cause in war-torn Ukraine others are thrown the book for lesser crimes. The impact of this war is destroying many economies of the world and poor countries like Nepal. Thus many are badly affected. It is the officials of Ukraine who must be arrested for bringing woes to their own country as well as unbearable hardship to the people with the backing of the powerful nations working to not only sell arms but also for other interests, specially the focus being to punish Russia.
Now to come back to our own country foreign interference is something we have to learn to live with for a long time to come, That many of our youths are fleeing abroad either for studies or dirty and dangerous jobs, as could be seen by the low turn out in the just concluded students’ union election. Even in a UNICEF-sponsored advertisement, a student clearly says she doesn’t want to stay in Nepal. There is a virtual complaint in almost all villages as all the youth manpower has gone abroad and there are few hands to till the lands.
The country has seen about half a dozen elections in the past few months, but the people are still dismayed because they don’t see any development for the good of the people taking place while the leaders and political parties are involved only in power grabbing and earning monetary benefit individually. Forget elections and swift transition of power with smaller parties hanging onto the coattails of the bigger established parties all we see now is more chaos and destruction and little hope of anything better happening.
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