[New-imc] Re: Fw: Nepal/Kathmandu IndyMedia

[Stephen Mikesell]

Dear IMC Friends,

Do not worry about replying at this point. If things start going I'll have 
the local people here do the communication. I had just wanted to give an 
update on where things stand. I'll also be meeting with the Maoist 
leadership in the coming weeks and posting whatever interviews I do with 
them hopefully on the Madison IMC.

Yours,
Stephen

On Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:20:15 -0300, dri <dri at indymedia.org> wrote:

> 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
>>
>
>
>
>
>



-- 


"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her."-Wordsworth, Tintern 
Abbey,

I would sooner expect a goat to succeed as a gardener as expect humans to 
become stewards of the Earth. -James E. Lovelock