Protests

Dear Charlie

Email To Charlie Szrom
Email From Charlie Szrom

I had my first phone conversation with Charlie Szrom last night. We have been meaning to touch base for a while now, and we have over email, and we were supposed to get on Skype, but it did not happen. I was also thinking maybe there will be a negotiated settlement. But now I am convinced the king is not even looking at that option. So there has to be a showdown, a confrontation. The movement will need funds to get people out in the streets in hundreds of thousands.

Charlie asked me to write a one page memo. And so here goes.

Dear Charlie.

It was very nice talking to you last night: it was a call fron Bryant Park to Bloomington. I thought that was kind of poetic.

I think very highly of your organization, Students For Global Democracy. And I am appreciative of efforts you have already put into Nepal. I work closely with Somnath Ghimire in New York City who I believe is already part of your network. He leads the leading Nepali student group in North America and is a significant presence within Nepal's ongoing movement for democracy.

I present Nepal as the Ukraine for 2005. And I need funding. That is it. Nepal has the advantage of being part of the Global South. And so movement tools perfected in Nepal could be put to later use in many other countries, starting with several in South Asia. All details are to be documented online for ready reference by democracy movements later on in other countries.

Nepal offers the SFGD an opportunity like no other country right now. The Nepal effort could also be a great way for you to expand your organization into many more colleges, to expand your existing chapters. Fund-raising drives could become membership drives. Contributors will see results on their own computer screens.

The movement in Nepal is on. But it needs help to take itself to the next, decisive level.

300 individuals contributing $100 each, or 600 individuals contributing $50 each, or 1000 individuals contributing $30 each. That is all it would take in my estimate. The grassroots nature of such a drive I find particularly appealing. And the fundraising can go off campus. It does not have to entirely be students giving money. It can be students helping raise money off campus also: the color is still green.

I will keep all book-keeping transparent and online.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks.

Mary Joyce, Demologue