Tuesday, December 13, 2005

NDF Owner, Stop This Nonsense, Reinstate Immediately


Nepal Democracy Forum "Moderators":
Disqualified To Particpate In Democracy Movement


In The Quest For Social Justice Feelings Are Going To Get Hurt

This hide and seek game the Nepal Democracy Forum "moderators" seem to like to play has entered its second round. I just noticed I have been kicked out again, for a second time. What happened?

Pramod Aryal, who otherwise has done some good work on the medical services project, posted a crybaby thread a few evenings before basically saying, it is me or Paramendra Bhagat, take a pick, or kick me out. Aryal decided he was going to be a martyr for Bahunbaad. He was going to sacrifice his place at the forum. He could have done it quietly. You don't need a moderator to help you do that. You can simply unsubscibe. But no, he was going to go down in style. He was instead back within hours.

Pramod Aryal and Deepak Khadka are like the Pahadi/Bahun attack dogs at the forum. Their latest attacks were directed towards Jeetendra Joshee, who just so happens to be chairing the Nepalese Americas Council which is the umbrella organization for all Nepali organizations in America. Both have at other times made some important contributions on specific topics at the forum. But they got to create the stink at the same time. Some of the most ridiculously personal attacks come from these two.

And then there are these hitherto unnamed underworld dons called moderators. There is no moderating going on at the forum. There have only been free flowing conversations. But these unnamed individuals call themselves moderators. They might have started this group, which is free of charge, and takes about 30 seconds to do, it is not exacly like climbing Mount Everest. And they have managed to compile an impressive list of individuals there who like to think of themselves as some kind of a Who's Who, many for sound reasons, several for dubious reasons.

These so-called moderators and a few who create stink come across as Girija's disciples to me. They outright get a failing grade from me when it comes to transparency, internal democracy and such within a group professing to work towards democracy.

A group that does not believe in free speech can not possibly be fighting for free speech, and free speech is the most fundamental of all democratic principles. A group that does not practice internal democracy can not possibly be fighting for democracy. And prejudiced Pahadis/Bahuns are enemies of social justice, so also enemies of democracy itself. There is to be no democracy without social justice.

These so-called moderators, I guess they could legitimately call themselves founders, but they are no moderators. Moderators are those who moderate. I seem to have been doing that. Call me a moderator, if you intend to be accurate. I have been the most voluminous contributor at the forum. This month my volume has been twice as much as the second person in line whose volume has been five times of the fifth person in line. That would make me the most active "legislator" in the "parliament."

But then I have also been the one most involved in action, in terms of helping execute the various projects. The one project I have been most actively involved with has been the one that has seen the most progress on the ground. Coincidence? You want to wish there were more people like me at the forum. But these primitive, retarded Pahadis/Bahuns stand confused. They like the sound of democracy, but not the feel of it. Their prejudice is their identity: they have no other.

I have been the origin or the conduit of some of the best ideas. The medical services idea originated in a phone conversation I had with Lilamni Pokharel. He was the first person to have blurted it. Now this group is big on the idea. But it has taken the group two weeks to produce one letter. Their social primitiveness is way behind the technology at hand. The technology says simply email to the Nepal Medical Association. But no, they want a hard copy with signatures. And it takes them about a week to collect two signatures, which they had still not collected the last I checked.

These are Pahle Aap, Pahle Aap people. Their ego comes first. They are not in tune with the movement in Nepal. Their first obeisance is to some kind of a social hierarchy they imagine to exist among the Nepalis in America: I recognize none. If anything, they come across as inferior neanderthals to me, wallowing in their thick soup of Pahadi/Bahun prejudice, unwilling to let go. These people need to grow up. That is what.

If the movement came first, this so-called letter to the NMA would have been composed and emailed within 24 hours of when the idea first originated. By now each of the 116 members would have coughed up $100 each, which is a pittance for literally every Nepali in America, even those who work illegally, below minimum wage. But these brown sahibs, they talk tall, they profess they are willing to donate $1000, maybe even "life savings." It takes literally about two minutes to send money online.

So 24 hours to compose and send a letter, another week to prepare the budget and the plan at the other end in Kathmandu, and that much to raise the money at this end. But we are still at the letter writing phase. Enough egos have not been massaged. These people are not revolutionaries raring to contribute to the cause of democracy in Nepal. These are homesick people who want to talk endlessly about Nepal, as a way to connect among themselves. If not, they would be interested in producing results.

They get a failing grade on social progressive thinking. They fare even worse on group dynamics, and effective project implementation, and things like that. Look at some of the ideas these geniuses have come up with recently.
  1. Take two weeks to write a one page letter to be sent to the NMA: You would think they are about to write something of the same gravitas as the Communist Manifesto or the Declaration Of Independence.
  2. Expect most of the fundraising to be done in Kathmandu: And so you are going to contribute exactly how? You think they can't come up with ideas for first aid back there in Kathmandu? Or that they need to be prodded before they will do it on their own? It has been my experience it is these armchair intellectuals who need all the prodding, who are bereft of concrete ideas to help the movement.
  3. Have donors send money directly to Kathmandu, one at a time: That makes no sense. You will not have any way to tell if the money is being raised or not. That bank transfer is much harder than the one over PayPal. You lose a lot of money in transfer fees. It makes so much more sense to collect money in one pool and then send the big chunk all at once. But this is what I call one of those x-ray ideas. This idea helps you measure the anti-Madhesi prejudice among the neanderthals. I am the one taking the lead on fundraising so far. I am the one who first brought the PayPal idea. I am the one who cut the deal with MoneyToNepal.com to reduce the transfer fees to near zero. I am the one who has basically agreed to literally every fundraising idea that anyone ever raised. But then all that makes it look like I am the leader, doesn't it? That really causes some serious heartburn among these neanderthals.
  4. No to book keeping: This is sheer genius. You don't want to keep track of money at this end, and you don't want to keep track at the other end. This idea is mainly being propagated by those who have specific individuals from their personal circles in mind. You want to send money to them and keep them unaccountable. That is alarming, to say the least. We are talking about serious amounts of money here. You owe it to the movement and to the donors to keep track of all the money. I can understand you can not disclose all the names. But that does not apply to the money raised and spent. And there can be various levels to the transparency. If seven individuals get together and come around a mini project and contribute $1000 each, and they want to keep all the book keeping among themselves, is that okay? Sure. The rest of us just get to see the end product. But that does not apply to money raised $20, $100 at a time from many individuals, and spent Rs 1000, Rs 2000 at a time in Kathmandu.
Other than the Pahadi/Bahun fog of prejudice, the biggest roadblock is the technology says cloud model, but these neanderthals want to keep bringing back the pyramid model, the only model of organizing they ever learned. These so-called moderators imagine themselves to be chairing the whole thing, even when their contributions are near to nil to date. They imagine themselves the constitutional monarchs of the Nepali diaspora.

They just don't get it. They don't get the cloud model. I explained it once: The Cloud Model, Not The Pyramid Model. It is simpler than the pyramid model. But I guess habits of mind die hard.

Let me try again.

There is no leader. There are five specific projects with no barriers to entry at any level. The more the merrier. All discussions and book keeping are to stay transparent, some to the whole world, some to only members of the projects. Any person's glow is directly related to that peson's activity level. The most active will glow the brightest. It is possible there will end up five, or six or 10 very bright stars in the galaxy. It need not be one. There is absolutely no hierarchy.

The third roadblock is plain jealousy. These are all amateurs. They are literate politically, but they are not sophisticated. The number one symptom of their ignorance is for them to think politics is just common sense. The truth is politics is way more complicated than chemistry. Of every Nepali in the diaspora, I am number one in the field. For them it might be hobby, for me it is career. That really seems to upset them. The last straw might have been this post: Nepal Message To Top Democrats.

This latest kickout has been the unity of the dumb.

Curiously, very few of the people active with the five projects are active at this forum. This group is not even good at issuing press statements, the only thing it has been doing so far. The heck with them. It is about three loudmouths talking to each other endlessly in circles.

Progressive Nepal

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