Paramendra Bhagat's Blog
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Recently I received an e-mail from a fellow Madhesi: we are the southerners in Nepal. Cyberspace can do that for you. People reach out and sometimes get to go to their roots. The cards are stacked against us in Nepal, ethnically speaking. And so we had a little to and fro over e-mail, two strangers in the U.S. digging up common roots. And the conversation reminded me of how vocal I used to be on the topic, but as of recent I have been too preoccupied with other things, like my growing online marketing business for one. It has also led me to visit an array of related topics of ongoing concern.
When I think of issues like the ethnic divisions and subdivisions in a country like Nepal, or India, for that matter, or sexism on the global scale, or racism in the western context, and other isms, like casteism in South Asia, I find myself drawing graphs in my mind. Take sexism for one. If you were to draw a graph there, you will realize a country like India is not as progressive as a country like America, not that America is that far ahead itself. And the Arab world falls way behind. Think racism and you realize America used to be much more racist in the past. Similarly, one hopes heterosexism will get drowned out over time by voices of social progress.
Growing up Madhesi in Nepal, I have come to conclude, from pesonal experiences at my high school and beyond as well as from observations of social reality I grew up in, from my studies, and political involvements, that a federal form of government is the only cure to our plight, and to that end I hope to contribute the best I can over the coming years. Similarly my experiences in racism, at college and beyond - in the form of racist comments, or expressions of racist attitudes, of social segregation, attacks on different forms of your collective identity, like your family, faith, your history, your country of origin, your language, attacks on your person in the form of demonizations - have led me to believe a reorganized United Nations will be the only true cure for it: http://www.petitiononline.com/un21/.
I pride myself in being able to come up with political and policy conclusions based on personal experiences, observations, studies and agonizing. But how do I hope to respond to the social prejudicdes of the day personally? I got an insight into that while driving through the vast landscapes out west. I was looking at the mountains, the desert landscape, sometimes for hours at end, the best "television" I ever saw, out the windscreen. And I was thinking at one point: these mountains have not been here forever, they will not be here forever, if you think long term enough. And I drew a parallel between that and social processes. Just like mountains are never really standing still, the same can be said of social attitudes, prejudices. Perhaps we are prisoners of the times we live in. That does not excuse racist comments, for example, but the perspective helps you feel a little more compassionate of those you disapprove of, be it some white male who might have made a racist comment in the past, or a South Asian male who is so sexist in his orientation he does not even realize it: his sexism is coated with a false sense that family values are stronger "back home!"
Mahatma Gandhi, the loudest voice for non-violence in world history, has said non-violent protest is best, but it is better to protest violently than to not protest oppression at all. My compassion talk is not to suggest we should accept the prejudices of the day, be it in our own person, or those of people around us, but that it does not make sense to stop enjoying people just because our standards for race and gender relations are so high that noone qualifies to sit at our table, and we end up practicing the ultimate segregation: isolation of the self.
The social divisions and subdivisions are less acute in America than in Nepal or India. And that gets much better in that new country called the Internet. And hence, as I said in my last blog entry, I am one happy netizen. One looks for a sanctuary, one finds it.
