[New-imc] Fw: Nepal/Kathmandu IndyMedia

[dri]

Hello friends,
o just got this and would like to ask boud or anyone else to deal with this
application. unfortunately i don't have enought time to dedicate to Nepal
imc or Kathmandu IMC.
It's a shame, but i would rather not assume this responsability.
cheers,
dri
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Mikesell" <laughing_coyote at myrealbox.com>
To: <dri at indymedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 8:27 AM
Subject: Nepal/Kathmandu IndyMedia


> Dear Adriana,
>
> This is an update after a long hiatus.
>
> Although I am based in China, for the moment I am writing from Dr. Mathura
> Shrestha's place in Kathmandu, Nepal. There continues here to be interest
> in a Kathmandu IMC. The initial meetings months ago seem to have taken
> difficult turns, too much dominance perhaps by foreigners who were
> insenstitive to the dynamics. One of them had been trying to align the IMC
> with the organization with which she was affiliated and another had
brought
> two Indians, who they say might have been all right, but because local
> people did not know their background they were uneasy. I guess it was my
> own fault because I had initially caste stones, or is it a net outside
> Nepal, to look for people interested to get it going in a quick way. Now
> that I am here I can find strong interest, but it will still take some
time
> as all the activist people are so over-extended. I also found that some
key
> people, such as the founder and editor of the alternative Mulyankan
> Magazine, had not been informed about it initially.
>
> In discussions we are thinking that if a Nepal IMC should get off the
> ground that it will be done once a new library that we have started opens
> (through the donation of Harry Magdoff of Monthly Review in NYC of his
> lifetime book collection). This has been a process of a decade
> in the making which finally has come to fruition due to a few people
> putting in a lot of effort and money from their own pockets. The library,
> which is open to everyone but, considering the nature of Harry Magdoff's
> collection, will particularly be used by Left, Anarchist (if there are any
> in Nepal) and other groups involved in struggle,
> will have computers, copy machines, reading and meeting room, etc. and
will
> provide a place to manage the Kathmandu IMC and use as a meeting place for
> IMC people. We are currently waiting for the present tenants, a
progressive
> medical doctors' organization, to vacate to new premises. Probably our
main
> hurdle is finding financing for the internet line as the state telecom has
> started charging by the minute for lines, but some people don't seem to
> think this is a problem. Mainly it will then boil down to commitment on
the
> ground here.
>
> One afterthought, the problem with working through the Indian IMCs, which
> somebody suggested in the various discussions months ago, is that
> everything published on the Indian IMC seems to be tinted by
> the Kashmir conflict and the Muslim-Hindu antagonism, at least by the
> commenters. For some reason, perhaps due to Nepal's small size and the
> mobility of its people including the working classes, people here seem to
> have a much more internationalist and less sectarian orientation. The
> struggles and conflicts
> are different, or at least framed differently, even though we're part of
> the same political economy. And regarding the affiliation problem which
had
> been discussed, at the level we are working at (i.e., not the political
> so-called leaders) I get the sense that people of all different parties
and
> organizations are interacting and working together, many of the people
> involved in the library are tied up with a front organization 'manch'
> uniting all different struggling parties.
>
> Hopefully we or people here anyway will be getting back to you once the
> library is established. A Nepal IMC remains very much on people's minds.
>
> Yours,
> Stephen
>