Day three: Constitution, Consensus and Maoist army chiefs in Kathmandu.
This just keeps getting better! The sun is shining and we are getting the hang of Nepali life (…or the life of a nice touristy Nepali hotel). Day three has definitely been diverse. We have covered both the Nepali constitution and the Danish administrative structures, we debated and reached a consensus on what to include in the new constitution and last, but not least, we mingled with local politicians at an informal get-together. Oh, and met a real army chief!
Nepal is facing the drafting of their 7th constitution in little over 60 years. An impressive account, only further emphasizing the utmost importance of drafting a durable, long lasting constitution this time around. A task which, according to Dr. Bhimarjun, might prove impossible within the given time frame of 2 years. Many different interests and ideological approaches are battling for influence in the Nepali Constitutional Assembly and compromise and consensus does not always come around easily.
But that consensus is possible was proven by our participants in the “Create your own constitution”-workshop. Being given a list of 23 different things which could all be included in a new constitution, they were asked to prioritize and agree on a list of the 5 most important things. Fierce debating followed, but consensus was actually reached – even though almost every part of the political spectrum was represented. Way to go, there is really hope for Nepal with these people as the future leaders of the country.
After finishing the seminar program, we all set off for a restaurant where we met with politicians, both publically elected, student politicians as well as central persons from some of the parties. This was really a great experience. Not only for the participants who got to engage directly in dialogue with people they had only read about in the newspaper, but definitely also for the Danish delegation!
Up until now we had been really puzzled by the popular support for the communist movements in Nepal, since communism in our understanding has very little to do with neither development nor democracy. However, last night – new understanding came to us in the shape of some of Nepal’s provocative communists. As we were sitting at the table eating and debating, a variety of top communists came by. One of the lovely communists, a representative from the United Marxist Leninists sat and discussed with us for quite some time – and as we were debating he seemed more and more reasonable. Another cool communist was the army chief of the Maoists, mr.Barsha Man Pun. This cozy fellow sat down with us, smiled and answered all possible questions we had regarding the size of the maoist rebel army and why he as a young boy got into politics. As we reached time for dessert, we had really bonded with the nice army chief. Afterwards as we, the Danes, reflected on the events of night we could conclude, that these communist parties really weren’t communists in a European perspective. As none of the parties want a communist republic, nor wishes to act through militant actions(as we first perceived) – we decided for ourselves that perhaps the Maoists were more like social democrats than anything else in our book of ideologies. Who would’ve expected that we would conclude, that the Maoist army chief turned out to be more like Danish Social Democratic leader Helle Thorning than any of History’s aggressive communist leaders.
/Christine Gyldenhof
