Are you looking forward to this 3-day bandh, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday? (Total shutdown of Nepal)
What say to the sorry fact that a few big egos with no-one’s interests at heart but their own, will oppress you for three long days with the threat of some cheap several-hundred-rupee-per-day-hired-goons. Who benefits from this? Can bullying create lasting change? After 15+ years of bandhs, does it have the power of ‘shock and awe’ any more? This stinks. This is terrorism on the street corner and the masses lie down and swallow it as a part of life in :New Nepal. But wait a minute…. Are you thinking….
- Its not my job to stop it ?
- I am helpless to face up to it myself, what can I do?
or - So what, its just a few days, I can wait it out?
- I am lazy, I am a coward, I am average….?
Is there really *nothing* we, you, I, me, he, she, they can do? Aren’t you feeling helpless, pathetic, angry? What? You don’t care?
Visualize this,
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito.” Someone wise person said that. You all know its true.
Here’s a suggestion. Instead of looking for the nuclear bomb that will wipe bandhs from the face of history tomorrow, let’s take it slowly, be creative, be surprising, reject the shouting, chest beating old-school ways, and have a lot of sneaky fun. Sounds like an ideal romance, no? Let’s start by giving a hint of the steam in this youthful pressure cooker. Start by making small cracks in the wall of nonsense. Lets find new ways to deal with this mob.
Here are some ideas floated by fellow activists in the Facebook Group “Die Nepal Bandh Die”. Join it if you believe in the cause and recommend others.
START THINKING!
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“What about ‘Flash Mob'”?, asked a few people – showing the strength of the silent majority without violence. Know what it is? An sms alert brings a huge mass of people together at short notice at a specific location with secret instructions. Then disperse immediately after the action is over.
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“Exposing faces behind the mob”, suggested another. Get snapping pictures of bandh enforcers now, and start posting pictures on this and other forums. This is one small way of empowering ourselves and see the faces behind this destructive forms of protests.
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Phone jamming – “if you get 1000 people to call every party head office and express their one sentence opinion on bandh, and then hang up. would be fun no?”
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Email the editors – Another suggested, “Mass send emails to the editors of the mass media in Nepal. ‘Please publish on letters page: Dear Sir/Madam, I am 23 from Lalitpur and I want to express my view on the bandh culture which is a hand at the throat of this nation…”.
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“A bandh day football tournament on tundikel, mass random cricket competition in the streets, a cycle rally for the hard-core orwhat the hell – let’s just get people, lots of people together. Otherwise its pathetic, isn’t it?”, emailed yet another.
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Asks a foreigner,”Where is the dissent in this country!?”
Co-written with Richard Bull for the Facebook Group “Die Nepal Bandh Die”
We have a group that works on dissuading others from calling the bandh.
DIE NEPAL BANDH DIE
please join us !