I Say it Again: Maoists Must Go!

Ready for peace? Not a chance.

We just saw the Maoist's attempt at a mini-coup yesterday when they held up parliamentary debate and made threats from the podium demanding action. Can we now finally cease the debate about persuading Maoists to give up violence and join the mainstream? They just won't do it. Witness the good article below. It frames the ideological problem with Maoism nicely.

Reprinted from Kantipur online, of all places. A good realistic take on the debate (or failure of) with Maoism. -=BD
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Time For Some Soul-Searching
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By Akhilesh Tripathi
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At a recent casual debate between a few students affiliated with ANNISU-R, the student wing of the CPN-Maoist, and students affiliated with the Nepali Congress at Patan Campus, the pro-Maoist students were defending Sunday’s beating of a hotelier by Maoist cadres. “He is against workers’ rights and is a royalist. A jali-phataha like him deserved it. There is no effect of sweet-talking to these people, you know. They need special treatment,” passionately asserted a youth in his early twenties who was apparently leading the Maoist students in the debate.
His opponents, as expected, disagreed with him. “See friend, this is not the first incident of its kind from your party which is going to join the government soon. You should mend your ways, at least now. You don’t have the right to coerce, intimidate, extort or thrash anyone. What if everybody starts beating everybody they don’t like?”
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The obstinate ANNISU-R activist again defended. “It is because of this very thinking of yours and your leaders that nothing has changed in this country for all these years. You guys never did anything to discourage those who have been blocking our society’s and our country’s progress. And again, we are not going around beating just about anybody. You know that. But why are you acting as if you don’t know. See, it’s easier to wake up those who are really sleeping, but much difficult to those who are pretending to be sleeping,” he said in an ever-rising voice, agitatedly pointing his index finger at his opponent.
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“Please don’t shout. Your arguments don’t convince me. Instead, they smack of militaristic thinking. You have no right to go around kidnapping and beating people, whoever they are. Why don’t you realize this simple thing?”
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“What did you just say? Militarist thinking? What is militarist thinking? What is a military or an army? What do you know about all this? You know nothing. Why are you talking about something you don’t know? Don’t you know a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?” said the unbending pro-Maoist student activist, as if ready to pounce on his opponent any moment.
Then somebody from the pro-NC students said that they were wasting their time over a debate which was going nowhere. “Let’s go to class guys, there is no point in wasting any more time. Will talk later,” they said and were soon gone.
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The above little dialogue shows the kind of attitude the Maoist cadres carry on the streets. It goes a long way to show their bullish nature. The Maoists still haven’t learnt to admit mistakes. They defend anything and everything against them as if they can never be wrong. “Say yes, or else…”
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From the premises of Patan Campus to the eight-party meeting rooms, to the rest of the country, it’s the same situation. The same attitude- I am above and beyond criticism! When the business community announced an indefinite strike (which was withdrawn on the third day) in protest of the “kidnapping and torture” of the above-mentioned hotelier by the Maoists “for refusing to cough up 10 million rupees in donation”, the pro-Maoist trade union took out protest rallies in the capital- in protest of the business community’s protests! The Maoist-affiliated hotel and restaurant workers’ union ordered workers to leave hotels in advance “as the hotel industry, too, was contemplating halting services for some time in support of the business community’s strike.”
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When the glaring disparity in the registered number of Maoist arms and combatants is questioned, Prachanda can blame a fire destroying them or a river sweeping them away. And if you question these unique reasons, then you are either “conspiring” against the Constituent Assembly elections by “blowing out of proportion something very trivial and unimportant,” or you are “against a democratic republic.” Or even you are a “royalist.”
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When you raise the issue of the Maoists not returning the belongings of those forced out of their homes and villages during the last 10-11 years even after expressing commitment for the same in the historic peace agreement, you are again “raising a non-issue.” Similarly, when lawmakers of other parties draw government attention towards Maoist MPs and their bodyguards entering Parliament with arms, a Maoist MP growls, patting his waist, “Here I have a gun. Do what you can!” A brazen display of the same attitude.
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This belligerent attitude was also put on show last week when dozens of Maoist activists, including cadres of the seven parties, attacked a gathering of RPP-Nepal, a pro-royalist party, in Jhapa. The monarchists were severely beaten up and their faces were blackened. RPP-Nepal Chairman Rabindra Nath Sharma was forcibly draped with a string of shoes around his neck. Here if you say the monarchists, too, have the right to put forward their voice in a peaceful way, you risk being labeled a royalist. A free and fair atmosphere (one catchword being oft repeated) in which to conduct any business means just that, free to be allowed to express different opinions and to be fairly treated in regard. This is what is Loktantra.
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If one set of rules is allowed for just one set, then you can just throw democratic principles out the window. Because it will smack of discrimination.
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With the Maoists now on the threshold of joining the interim government and their top brass bargaining hard for maximum ministerial berths inside the eight-party meeting rooms, it’s time for some soul-searching. Outside these decision-making corridors, their cadres must stop their excesses. Those who are selling the dream of transforming the country within a few years should first transform themselves, rejecting what is in effect bigotry and accepting and practicing the culture of tolerance and co-existence.
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Who knows better than the Maoists themselves about the consequences of not being listened to. After all, they themselves had started their People’s War when their 41-point demand was turned down by the then government in 1996.
Posted on: 2007-03-21 12:58:29