Red Heretic
14th September 2005, 02:21
I fucking miss you guys. Hopefully I'll have net again soon. In the mean time, I got a couple new articles.
Rolpa, Nepal: Building the road to the future
5 September 2005. A World to Win News Service. Rolpa, Nepal. With political power in
their hands, today tens of thousands of people of Rolpa in Western Nepal are
building a major road in difficult terrain. Rolpa is a backward area of the country
far away from the capital of Kathmandu and the country’s other main economic and
tourist centres. Ever since this region was incorporated into the kingdom of Nepal
by force in the mid-18th century, the central authorities have done nothing to raise
the living standards of the people. At the heart of this region is the district of
Rolpa, home to 70,000 peasants who eke out a living in subsistence farming in the
foothills of the Himalayas. While Rolpa includes people of several nationalities,
most of the people are part of the Magar nationality. Their language has nothing in
common with the official language Nepali. Since their fields can’t grow enough grain
to feed the people all year long, many men must spend half the year working in
neighbouring India for little more than a dollar a day, from which they must deduct
their expenses. Women do most of the cultivation of maize, wheat and barley.
In recent years Rolpa has become more known around the world as the centre of the
insurgency led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Although the people of
Rolpa have had to bear the brunt of the Royal Nepal Army’s attacks, the atmosphere
among the people is exciting and uplifting. The women and men in Rolpa are aroused
in a way far too rare in today’s world, standing tall and daring to take their
future into their own hands. For many this means participation in the revolutionary
war that has grown by leaps and bounds since it started in 1996. But as the
revolutionaries in Nepal stress, the insurrection they are waging is not just a
military battle – it is a People’s War, an all-out mobilisation of the peasants,
workers, students and others to fight in every sphere against a decrepit semi-feudal
regime headed by a king who claims to be god’s incarnation on earth.
Now all observers agree that the great majority of the Nepalese countryside has been
liberated from the control of the king’s regime. Already major transformations have
taken place in the lives of the people. Two of the most important of these are the
uprooting of the barbaric, age-old caste system and enabling women to take an active
part in all aspects of society, abolishing child marriage, and so forth. The
revolution now is facing a great challenge: to begin to construct an economic system
based on the self-reliant actions of the people, an economy that is not tied into
the world system of imperialism, and which begins to break down the inequalities and
injustices that have long existed in Nepal.
One factor that has kept Nepal backward both economically and culturally has been
the inability of the peasants in areas like Rolpa to communicate and trade with any
but their most immediate neighbours. There are virtually no roads in the hill
regions of Nepal, and this lack is one of the most deeply felt needs of the people.
Previous governments in Nepal have done almost nothing to build roads. This means,
for example, that peasants can’t trade their apples, which grow well in the
hillsides of Rolpa, for much needed grain. It makes it very difficult to get sick
people to a hospital. It means that except for those who are forced to travel to
India for work, many people have never been to neighbouring districts.
Rolpa is the centre of the Magarat Autonomous Region, so named because the majority
of the population are Magars, one of the many nationalities in Nepal that have long
been oppressed by the central authorities. Under the party’s leadership, the
Autonomous Region and a people’s government were formed in a mass meeting of 75,000
people in this area in January 2004. Things are beginning to change. A bold decision
was made to build a 92 km road through the heart of Rolpa. AWTW News Service had a
chance to interview the leader of the Magarat Autonomous Region, Samtosh Buddha
Magar, a long-time leader of the people’s resistance in Rolpa.
Samtosh explained that the road is being built relying on the peasantry itself.
Families are mobilised to send one person to work for fifteen days, or for ten days
in the case of those living in districts further away where it can take several days
of walking just to reach the construction sites. The people have no earth-moving
equipment and the one and only jackhammer broke down. Instead they are using picks
and shovels and occasional dynamite to dig the road out of the hills. In particular
there is the challenge of building about a hundred bridges, including fifteen major
ones. The road is wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other comfortably. While
motorised vehicles have already started on 14 kilometres of the gravel-surfaced
road, the most immediate benefit will be the ability to use horses more extensively,
not to mention that even foot traffic is much easier than on the hillside trails.
Samtosh stressed that, in addition to the immediate economic benefits of the road,
it
will serve to “change people’s concepts. The feudal outlook still exists. Anything
new changes people’s outlook. The road is the main connection to the city, which is
a vehicle of culture.”
The fact that the people are building a road with little more than their hands and
backs is a source of great pride throughout the region. The people have named it
“Martyrs Road” in honour of those who have fallen in the revolutionary war. While
previous governments have done nothing for the benefit of the people, the phenomenal
progress of the road – 35 percent was built in the first six months, when
originally the Maoist leaders had thought three years would be needed for the whole
project – is an example of what can be accomplished once the enthusiasm and
capacities of the labouring people have been unleashed. It is living proof that
there is another road of development that does not require the aid or supervision of
the imperialist countries and which can really serve the interests of the people.
The tens of thousands of volunteers who are taking turns building the road is itself
a major political event in the life of the whole region. Most come as part of a
group from one or another village or mass organisation. They are asked to bring
their own food to keep from overwhelming the resources of people in the immediate
area. Food is provided by the home local organisations for those they send who are
too poor to provide their own.
One middle-aged poor peasant of the Tharu nationality in the Dang Valley, a fertile
farm area south of Rolpa near the Indian border, had just returned from working on
the road for eight days (and spending several days walking to get there and return).
It was the first time in his life he had been in the hilly region of the country. He
commented on the great experience of working with different nationalities from all
over western Nepal. “It was so much fun, it didn’t feel like work at all.” His
group had included several dozen people from the local peasant association who had
organised their food collectively.
It seems that most of the volunteers are men, reflecting the fact that women with
children have less mobility. Despite this, many women participate in different ways
in the road project and are no less enthusiastic over the importance of the project.
Already simple signs of commerce are seen along the road – a small country store,
people transporting goods, renting out horses and so on. Transportation is crucial
to economic and cultural development, which was long undermined by the reactionary
system. It is easy to see how this kind of economic development could facilitate the
emergence of capitalism in a backward, semi-feudal country like Nepal. At the same
time, the road project is a profound illustration of Mao Tsetung’s description of
the “new democratic revolution” aimed at feudalism, imperialism and bureaucrat
capitalism (meaning the largest capitalists linked to foreign imperialists and
landlords). Mao points out that the new democratic revolution “opens the door for
capitalism. But it opens the door for socialism even wider.” In other words, by
sweeping aside the backwardness of feudalism and the chains of imperialism a
national capitalism can develop, but the leadership of the communist party and the
working class can
lead the energy unleashed by the masses in a different direction – toward the
construction of a socialist society and eventually to a communist world. It is easy
to read in the faces of the road volunteers that they are motivated by more than
just the promise of immediate economic benefit. The possibility of building an
economic and social system based on cooperation and self-reliance, without
exploitation, is coming into closer focus.
For the revolutionary leaders, the road is also “a self examination”, as Samtosh put
it, “to see if the people come when we call them. To see if we can fulfil a plan.
What can we do if we have total power?”
The first results of this “examination” are more than satisfactory. As Samtosh said,
“We have great confidence that we can do something if we have power. There is the
confidence of the masses themselves. Even without full nationwide power, look what
we are doing.”
- end item-
Rolpa, Nepal: Building the road to the future
5 September 2005. A World to Win News Service. Rolpa, Nepal. With political power in
their hands, today tens of thousands of people of Rolpa in Western Nepal are
building a major road in difficult terrain. Rolpa is a backward area of the country
far away from the capital of Kathmandu and the country’s other main economic and
tourist centres. Ever since this region was incorporated into the kingdom of Nepal
by force in the mid-18th century, the central authorities have done nothing to raise
the living standards of the people. At the heart of this region is the district of
Rolpa, home to 70,000 peasants who eke out a living in subsistence farming in the
foothills of the Himalayas. While Rolpa includes people of several nationalities,
most of the people are part of the Magar nationality. Their language has nothing in
common with the official language Nepali. Since their fields can’t grow enough grain
to feed the people all year long, many men must spend half the year working in
neighbouring India for little more than a dollar a day, from which they must deduct
their expenses. Women do most of the cultivation of maize, wheat and barley.
In recent years Rolpa has become more known around the world as the centre of the
insurgency led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Although the people of
Rolpa have had to bear the brunt of the Royal Nepal Army’s attacks, the atmosphere
among the people is exciting and uplifting. The women and men in Rolpa are aroused
in a way far too rare in today’s world, standing tall and daring to take their
future into their own hands. For many this means participation in the revolutionary
war that has grown by leaps and bounds since it started in 1996. But as the
revolutionaries in Nepal stress, the insurrection they are waging is not just a
military battle – it is a People’s War, an all-out mobilisation of the peasants,
workers, students and others to fight in every sphere against a decrepit semi-feudal
regime headed by a king who claims to be god’s incarnation on earth.
Now all observers agree that the great majority of the Nepalese countryside has been
liberated from the control of the king’s regime. Already major transformations have
taken place in the lives of the people. Two of the most important of these are the
uprooting of the barbaric, age-old caste system and enabling women to take an active
part in all aspects of society, abolishing child marriage, and so forth. The
revolution now is facing a great challenge: to begin to construct an economic system
based on the self-reliant actions of the people, an economy that is not tied into
the world system of imperialism, and which begins to break down the inequalities and
injustices that have long existed in Nepal.
One factor that has kept Nepal backward both economically and culturally has been
the inability of the peasants in areas like Rolpa to communicate and trade with any
but their most immediate neighbours. There are virtually no roads in the hill
regions of Nepal, and this lack is one of the most deeply felt needs of the people.
Previous governments in Nepal have done almost nothing to build roads. This means,
for example, that peasants can’t trade their apples, which grow well in the
hillsides of Rolpa, for much needed grain. It makes it very difficult to get sick
people to a hospital. It means that except for those who are forced to travel to
India for work, many people have never been to neighbouring districts.
Rolpa is the centre of the Magarat Autonomous Region, so named because the majority
of the population are Magars, one of the many nationalities in Nepal that have long
been oppressed by the central authorities. Under the party’s leadership, the
Autonomous Region and a people’s government were formed in a mass meeting of 75,000
people in this area in January 2004. Things are beginning to change. A bold decision
was made to build a 92 km road through the heart of Rolpa. AWTW News Service had a
chance to interview the leader of the Magarat Autonomous Region, Samtosh Buddha
Magar, a long-time leader of the people’s resistance in Rolpa.
Samtosh explained that the road is being built relying on the peasantry itself.
Families are mobilised to send one person to work for fifteen days, or for ten days
in the case of those living in districts further away where it can take several days
of walking just to reach the construction sites. The people have no earth-moving
equipment and the one and only jackhammer broke down. Instead they are using picks
and shovels and occasional dynamite to dig the road out of the hills. In particular
there is the challenge of building about a hundred bridges, including fifteen major
ones. The road is wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other comfortably. While
motorised vehicles have already started on 14 kilometres of the gravel-surfaced
road, the most immediate benefit will be the ability to use horses more extensively,
not to mention that even foot traffic is much easier than on the hillside trails.
Samtosh stressed that, in addition to the immediate economic benefits of the road,
it
will serve to “change people’s concepts. The feudal outlook still exists. Anything
new changes people’s outlook. The road is the main connection to the city, which is
a vehicle of culture.”
The fact that the people are building a road with little more than their hands and
backs is a source of great pride throughout the region. The people have named it
“Martyrs Road” in honour of those who have fallen in the revolutionary war. While
previous governments have done nothing for the benefit of the people, the phenomenal
progress of the road – 35 percent was built in the first six months, when
originally the Maoist leaders had thought three years would be needed for the whole
project – is an example of what can be accomplished once the enthusiasm and
capacities of the labouring people have been unleashed. It is living proof that
there is another road of development that does not require the aid or supervision of
the imperialist countries and which can really serve the interests of the people.
The tens of thousands of volunteers who are taking turns building the road is itself
a major political event in the life of the whole region. Most come as part of a
group from one or another village or mass organisation. They are asked to bring
their own food to keep from overwhelming the resources of people in the immediate
area. Food is provided by the home local organisations for those they send who are
too poor to provide their own.
One middle-aged poor peasant of the Tharu nationality in the Dang Valley, a fertile
farm area south of Rolpa near the Indian border, had just returned from working on
the road for eight days (and spending several days walking to get there and return).
It was the first time in his life he had been in the hilly region of the country. He
commented on the great experience of working with different nationalities from all
over western Nepal. “It was so much fun, it didn’t feel like work at all.” His
group had included several dozen people from the local peasant association who had
organised their food collectively.
It seems that most of the volunteers are men, reflecting the fact that women with
children have less mobility. Despite this, many women participate in different ways
in the road project and are no less enthusiastic over the importance of the project.
Already simple signs of commerce are seen along the road – a small country store,
people transporting goods, renting out horses and so on. Transportation is crucial
to economic and cultural development, which was long undermined by the reactionary
system. It is easy to see how this kind of economic development could facilitate the
emergence of capitalism in a backward, semi-feudal country like Nepal. At the same
time, the road project is a profound illustration of Mao Tsetung’s description of
the “new democratic revolution” aimed at feudalism, imperialism and bureaucrat
capitalism (meaning the largest capitalists linked to foreign imperialists and
landlords). Mao points out that the new democratic revolution “opens the door for
capitalism. But it opens the door for socialism even wider.” In other words, by
sweeping aside the backwardness of feudalism and the chains of imperialism a
national capitalism can develop, but the leadership of the communist party and the
working class can
lead the energy unleashed by the masses in a different direction – toward the
construction of a socialist society and eventually to a communist world. It is easy
to read in the faces of the road volunteers that they are motivated by more than
just the promise of immediate economic benefit. The possibility of building an
economic and social system based on cooperation and self-reliance, without
exploitation, is coming into closer focus.
For the revolutionary leaders, the road is also “a self examination”, as Samtosh put
it, “to see if the people come when we call them. To see if we can fulfil a plan.
What can we do if we have total power?”
The first results of this “examination” are more than satisfactory. As Samtosh said,
“We have great confidence that we can do something if we have power. There is the
confidence of the masses themselves. Even without full nationwide power, look what
we are doing.”
- end item-