[New-imc] Intro: Stepen from the proposed Nepal IMC

[dri]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Trickster Coyote" <coyotl at subdimension.com>
To: <dri at indymedia.org>
Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 12:06 AM
Subject: Re: [New-imc] Proposed Nepal IMC


> Dear DRI,
>
> This is in answer to the letter from gekked at blackflag.net. I'll let you
> communicate this information to him/her as gekked's letter was addressed
to
> you and I received a cc.
>
> The IMC group in Nepal is made up of independent individuals of various
> backgrounds, none are involved with the Moaists nor are they members of
the
> other Communist Parties,
> although many may have certain sympathies with the Left. None of course
> have anything to do with the Congress Party, which is the party of
> corporatization
> and commercialization. I asked them to make a formal application, and I
> presume that they will disclose themselves in it. I'll fill in here a bit
> of what I know.
>
> Dr. Mathura Shrestha, for example, was minister of health as the
> "independent" Left member of the council of ministers--which I
> think he now realizes was an attempt to coopt the popular support and
> influence he garnered through his activities as medical doctor during the
> people's
> movement--he's had time to reflect and has learned a lot since them. There
> is the Gauri Pradhan, editor of Mulyankan, a Left leaning (towards the
UML)
> but
> independent of any party control. There is Bela Malik (an active member of
> Martin Chaudari--a group of independent intellectuals involved in social
> criticism--who is interested in doing some editing for the website)from
the
> Martin Chaudari group, who are a group of intellectuals involved in a
> weekly
> critique of the current political situation. There is Shobha Gautam (who
> has been publishing material on the conflict with a focus on women and
> children).
> There is a young journalist from the Kantipur, the mainstream newspaper,
> who is independent of any parties. There is Pratyoush Onta, a freelance
> journalist
> and one of the founders of a socially critical academic journal along with
> others in his group. An anti-globalization anthropologist and journalist
> from
> the UK and a freelanc journalist from Holland. There is another person who
> I am not familiar with, but who is a friend of the anthropologist, so I
> presume
> he has nothing to do with the Maoists. There are others and I am sure that
> they will introduce themselves in the up-coming application.
>
> I myself have always been independent of all the parties, but because my
> wife's mother was a prominent activist from the 1930s through the 50s,
when
> she
> refused to take a ministership in government following the 1950-1
> revolution, and because her family hid the founder of the communist party
> for 7 years in
> their Kitchen and because I've been working on a book on the history of
the
> communist party, I know the leadership of all the parties, but my writing
> has
> always been against Leninist centralized model and towards a community
> based political-social organization such as the Workers Party in Brazil
> (the U.S.
> ambassador doesn't seem sensitive to this subtlety and said in a party, as
> reported by a journalist to me, that I am the guru of the Maoists", which
> is a
> joke since I doubt they learned anything from me. My work with
> organizations in Nepal has been with groups involved in women's literacy
> and building
> consensually based grassroots community organizations. And it is in this
> direction that I have my deepest belief and commitment, towards a
> "dismantling of
> the state" (including corporate power), as I have sometimes put it, by
> developing the consciousness, initiative, organization, direct control,
and
> radical
> democracy among local organizations. I've also been a strong critic of
much
> of the NGO activity in Nepal which I have seen as another form of the
> penetration of the same "development", commercial and banking interests
> into the country, but in a new form. My own writing has been somewhat
> outspoken and
> because of its anti-Lenist notions, probably it makes the CPs a bit
> uncomfortable with me despite my personal friendships with their
> leaderships--and my
> friendships are not limited to them, but are wide ranging, in villages,
> among school teachers, with journalists, among select NGO people, in the
> university, and so forth. My closest friends are those working in literacy
> and village level work.
>
> Yours,
> Stephen
>
> 7/18/2002 4:50:13 PM, "gekked at blackflag.net" <gekked at blackflag.net> wrote:
>
> >dri <dri at indymedia.org> said:
> >> Hi Stephen,
> >> glad to know that there is a group of people getting started in Nepal
;)
> >> I'm not sure if someone else from the new imc working group was helping
> you,
> >
> >dri, in the past we have discussed full disclosure from IMCs which are
> >starting around the world. can you provide disclosure of the nepal
> >imc's politics in relation to the maoist revolution happening there?
> >thanks
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Esta mensagem foi verificada pelo E-mail Protegido Terra.
> Scan engine: VirusScan / Atualizado em 17/07/2002 / Versão: 1.3.4
> Proteja o seu e-mail Terra: http://www.emailprotegido.terra.com.br/
>
>