I just visited the Alliance page, the Youth Council page and finally the NAC page hoping to find details for the symposium to be held this Saturday at Columbia University. The information has not been displayed. I wonder if the event is an in thing. Only a few people will get invited. I did get an info email from a friend in Texas a few weeks back, and I had an e-correspondence with one of the key organizers soon after. I got the impression it was an open meeting.
But then at the NAC page I noticed something of interest: Letter to President Jimmy Carter. I got told I got expelled from the Nepal Democracy Forum for going public with that letter. I knew that could not have been the reason, and now I stand proven by none other than NAC itself, not that I miss the Forum. It is too closed for me. I like things more open.
I proceeded to check out a few more items at the NAC page. This is vastly interesting: Exploratory meeting with HE Ambassador, Mr Kedar Bhakta Shrestha. This apparently happened a day or two before the royal coup. You got to notice the timing of it all. I sometimes wonder if the diaspora Nepalis are just a bunch of homesick people who talk of Nepal not necessarily with a service motive, but so as to bond among themselves. Because sometimes the attitudes, actions and comments are so off the mark. Look at some of the stuff.
He emphasized that the Diaspora, should forcefully communicate to the political entities of
Golley, what is this supposed to mean? I am at sea.
The Nepali diaspora social organizations are like America when only white men with a ton of land could vote. Some of the professionally accomplished individuals have formed a few clubs. Something is better than nothing, but one wishes the organizations would get more mass based.
Yesterday I got to spend some time with Dinesh Tripathi. This guy is so highly accomplished. He has been called the Arthur Kinoy of Nepal by the National Lawyers Guild, USA. But no Nepali organization in the city bothered to organize a talk program around him like for so many other lesser visiting Nepali dignitaries. (Dinesh Tripathi In New York, Dinesh Tripathi: In Person) To me this is so obviously a Madhesi-Pahadi thing. He is so totally in the lead for the most important thing the diaspora could do for the movement in Nepal. If and when there is a need, he will be taking the lead for global legal action against the king and the army top brass. He has been doing the homework for it in concert with several of his Ameican colleagues. But it is like blacks fought on behalf of the US during World War II and came home to segregation.
Me? I fall in a slightly different category. I have no ambitions to climb the leadership ladders in the so many Nepali social organizations in the US, not my cup of tea. I am only interested in the democracy movement. And my work goes on through specific projects. But the occasional slights I do take offense at on behalf of the 13 million Madhesis in Nepal. If not me, who? I think more Madhesis need to feel that way.
All Nepalis in America are non-white, which is half way to black. But some of the most racist comments I ever heard have been from Nepalis, and I actually went to school in the South. What are you supposed to think, that these Bahuns are white! Golley.
I think a concerted effort has to be made to reach out to the tens of thousands of Nepalis in the US. Let people donate $10 and pose for group photos to express solidarity to the movement in Nepal.
At some level the organizational dysfunctions are also amusing, like biologists watching lizards or something. The Nepalis are a colorful bunch.
But the work of democracy is on, in both Nepal and in the US. That is the good news.
Mr. Krishna Nirola, President of ANA (Association of Nepalese in
I wish the NAC did some fundraising also for the various projects. So far mum has been the word.
Nepal Needs To Be Hitting The World Headlines: Write To The Media
Advisors, Doers, Donors, Supporters, Cheerleaders, Spectators, Whiners