Over a dinner of naan and curried vegetables in a small, hole in the wall restaurant in Kathmandu’s Jawalakhel neighbourhood, exiled Bangladeshi journalist William Gomes once told me, “I feel like a prisoner here, in my room, in Nepal… I cannot go home. I don’t have my own money, or anything. I have enough to cover food every day, but that is it. Once my allowance runs out, then what? Then where?”

William and his legion of other exiled South Asian journalists are paying the ultimate sacrifice for being critical, and speaking up for injustice. They are from countries where reporting and researching abuses inflicted by the state can get one imprisoned, tortured, and even killed. They are from regions where those fighting for their countrymen’s rights in burgeoning young democracies are risking their lives, or at least lives as they knew it – forced into perpetual exile from family, friends, colleagues, and country, never to return home. They’re forced to live in countries of foreign customs, language, food, and people.

William, and later Dipal Baruwa, both from Bangladesh, have crossed my path recently. William first arrived at my guesthouse four weeks ago, shipped out of Bangladesh courtesy of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). While working with the AHRC as a journalist, documenting cases of human rights abuses and disappearances in Bangladesh, he was picked up by the Bangladeshi military in a black jeep near his home, shuttled to a government prison facility. Stripped, blindfolded, submitted to cold temperatures, drugged, threatened, and verbally abused, a clear warning was made by the Bangladeshi authorities to cease his activities, or else retribution. He was dumped in the same place of his abduction near his home.

(Dipal on the left, William on the right)

Two weeks later, Dipal, a Buddhist monk, arrived in Kathmandu at my guesthouse, courtesy of the AHRC again. His story was similar to William’s – a Bangladeshi human rights activist tortured and threatened by the Bangladeshi authorities, warning him of serious personal harm if his activities continued.

Two weeks ago, William rushed into my room in the morning, “Corey, hurry upstairs, there is an emergency with Dipal.” And there was Dipal, lying beside his bed, not talking or answering to us. He had tried to hang himself during the night, and William had found him just in time, returning from the bathroom.

My colleague Prakash Mohara from the Jagaran Media Center (JMC), who also works with the AHRC, soon came over. We agreed to not leave Dipal alone, and would get him to a hospital. As Prakash and I were downstairs, making coffee and discussing the situation, William joined us to quickly grab a coffee. We rushed upstairs, as Dipal was left alone. He had bolted the door shut, and wouldn’t answer our calls. Three strikes with my shoulder, and the door fell, to Dipal again trying to hang himself. Medical staff soon came, and Dipal received the treatment that he needed. He has since been released, doing much better, and smiling again.

And that is the plight of some of those who are sacrificing their lives for the rights and dignities of their compatriots. Some are suffering the same traumas of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as war veterans – depressed and disturbed by what they have experienced, and traumatized from their terrible treatment inflicted on them by state officials.

In South Asia, independent and critical journalism is a precarious enterprise, with those questioning governments’ official narrative risking persecution and personal safety. Over the past several years, numerous South Asian journalists have disappeared, been killed, or forced into exile – most reporting on national security issues. Most recently, William’s friend Saleem Shahzad was found dead in Pakistan – a journalist researching the Pakistani military’s links to Al Qaeda.

In Karachi, only weeks ago, captured by video and widely circulated on YouTube, a young man was shot and left for dead by the Pakistani military, in broad daylight. Clearly, parts of the state apparatus have different ideas when it comes to meting out justice and valuing life. Reforms towards more respectable democracies have ways to go in some countries, but publicizing these instances of injustice are an important part of the reformation.

William and Dipal want to continue their advocacy work, but are now unsure where they’ll land, to continue their lives. Visa applications to foreign countries are pending, and scholarship applications for postgraduate work have been submitted, and their waiting games continue.

In the meantime, William and his friends in Bangladesh have started a Facebook campaign, “Demand justice for journalist and human rights activist William Gomes” . It now has over 1600 members, and Bangladeshi journalists and law students have been spreading posters throughout the country, and have marched in Dhaka, demanding accountability and transparency for what happened.

It is clear that William and Dipal’s lives are fractured, and their consciences tormented by what happened. They’ve paid the ultimate sacrifice in standing up, and have to begin their lives anew. But I suspect that William and Dipal and his fellow exiled colleagues would not change the past, and would continue on in their fight knowing the risks involved.

A recent U.N. commissioned report ranks Nepal sixth of Least Developing Countries (LDCs) for illicit capital outflows. The report, titled “Illicit Financial Flows from the Least Developed Countries: 1990-2008”, states that US $9.1 billion (NRs 657.93 billion) was shipped out of the country illegally during that 10 year period. Other highlights of the report, courtesy of The Kathmandu Post, are:

- Trade and commercial mis-pricing accounts for 65-70 percent of the capital flight;
- 20-30 percent is from corruption or kickbacks;
- For every dollar of official development assistance (ODA), 1.1 dollars leaves Nepal – i.e. 1:1.1 ratio of ODA to capital flight;
- The US $9.1 billion in capital flight during the 1998-2008 period amounts to 8.07 percent of Nepal’s GDP for that period.

Obvious questions on Nepali international development arise: How much of that siphoned money was intended for development aid? Has international aid itself encouraged some of this financial (mis)behaviour? How effective has aid been, or can be, considering the corruption? Or is it just part of the process, and one must take the bad with the good?

Now working with Nepali NGOs, I can see some evidence that supports the conclusions of this study. Many NGOs are excellent, delivering quality projects, are accountable and transparent, and provide genuine hope to those they help. Others, however, are inefficient, poorly managed, sometimes corrupt, and their chase for international grants is job number one. It appears to be a product of local capacities, and quality and respectable human capital running the operations. The promising shining lights are encouraging and making substantial differences on the ground, but they are not the rule.

So does aid need to be reconsidered? The works of Dambisa Moyo and William Easterly say it does. Development has not materialized with so much being spent, and it has mostly produced corruption and wasted resources. Where aid has produced local capacity and leadership growth, some successes have been achieved. Die hard international aid supporters like Stephen Lewis will never make such an outright admission, and state that aid, however imperfect, is necessary and saves countless lives, no matter the side effects and poor record.

To see more on this international development debate, see Dambisa Moyo and Stephen Lewis’ exchange in the Munk Debate in Toronto. For what it’s worth, the crowd voted in favour of Lewis’ position.

What are your thoughts?

You can see it in Kathmandu’s rivers, clogged of garbage and the occasional carcass. Slum kids play and bathe in these waters, sometimes directly below riverside pastures of buffalo, with their leaching refuse and all. If lucky, you can sometimes read it in the papers and hear it on the radio, with word of increasingly erratic monsoons, flash floods, and breached glacial lakes. You can also see it on these river embankments, where marginalized communities and castes are ghettoized into slums – forced to live at nature’s mercy, borrowed time, and within humanity’s excrement. The Dalits, and other untouchable castes, ghettoized to the margins of Kathmandu’s rivers, where nobody else dares to venture – a guaranteed location of untouchability.

What you can see is the environmental crisis hitting Nepal and South Asia, and the pressures of economic development. Development begets consumption, and consumption begets pollution. As Asia’s population rises, so goes its pollution levels. And with an atmosphere being pumped full of greenhouse gas emissions without restraint by the global community, despite the dire warnings, an unfolding climate crisis is emerging. Social, political, economic, and environmental troubles await, requiring creative thinking by analysts and policy makers of every stripe.

Bagmati Slum

And that is the unfortunate part of articles like David Malone’s recent piece in The Globe and Mail, “India’s and China’s uncomfortable dance.” It neatly summarizes the usual issues of South Asian development, along with the security and political implications of two regional powers located in a volatile region full of nukes. Economic interests bind China and India’s foreign policy, so co-operation will likely emerge, albeit with some degree of competition. A demographic bulge is helping to fuel each country’s growth, which is helping them ease past this global recession. Malone concludes optimistically that, “[t]he continent and the rest of the globe are large enough to accommodate the peaceful rise of both.” Optimism and simplicity are always cherished in political analysis, but they cannot be stuck in a politico-social-economic and ecological environment of yesteryear, uninterested in thinking outside of the “International Relations 101” box. The huge elephant in the room that Malone ignores is the region’s environmental pressures.

A quick 60-second Google search, or any two-minute phone conversation with an expert on the Asian or global environment will throw ones typical political and economic thinking into the dustbin. In Thomas Friedman’s recent piece “The Earth is Full,” he cites how civilisation’s consumption patterns are using the resources of 1.5 Earths, and growing. Most of the Himalyan glaciers that feed Asia’s rivers are melting faster than expected with global warming, and a water crisis in the region appears to be inevitable. The region’s water aquifers are also being drained at unprecedented rates due to growing agricultural and commercial demands, and nobody quite knows how much water is left. Sana, Yemen – that revolutionary hotbed and host to many Islamic extremists – could become the first major city in the world to run out of water, which could happen in the next few years.

A recent report by the Norwegian Refugee Council states that 42 million people were displaced by sudden natural disasters in 2010, 90% of which were climate related. Over the past few years, the onslaught of natural disasters has increased substantially, as has the amount of climate refugees. Most of these refugees are unlikely to return home to their devastated and forever changed geographies, and will place their burdens on whichever country they land. And as for the Arab Spring – it’s widely acknowledged that one of the revolutionary sparks were high food prices, in part caused by climate change.

So with the growing economies in India and China, with all their new factories, cars, clothes, television sets, and food, and consuming more water from the increasingly polluted rivers flowing from faster-than-previously-thought melting Himalayan glaciers and the Tibetan plateau, the world cannot accommodate a rise of both at current levels of growth, unless some miracle technologies present themselves. And for the rest of the region, a growing and consuming China and India present many problems. Many South Asian rivers are but a trickle as they reach some Asian country borders, with upstream dams, agriculture, and cities consuming most of the bounty.

Malone is right when he says, “[w]hat happens over the coming decades in Asia, as its geopolitics undergo tectonic shifts, could affect us all, not least by either enhancing or disrupting international trade and hence our prosperity.” He’s right for reasons that his imagination dared not to think. They are the reasons why U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently warned of a creeping “new colonialism” in Africa, warning its people and leaders that foreign investors and governments are taking advantage of its natural resources. She warns of unsustainable projects by the Chinese, pillaging Africa’s natural resources, that will leave behind a scarred and empty environment. It’s a “tectonic shift” of transferring the burdens of ecological limits from one country to another, from one people to another.

Most people in Nepal now talk about it. “Oh yes, climate change and the environment. Big problem in Nepal.” Yet nobody appears to be writing or doing anything seriously about it. In Nepal’s best bookstore, Vajra, I asked the manager if he has anything on the environment and climate change and politics in Nepal or South Asia. “Oh no, nothing has been written. Many people come in, asking about climate change. I know two French researchers are studying it right now, but that’s it.” Books on elephants, Nepali cultural dance, and books on just about anything else can be found at Vajra. But for that elephant in the room, dancing and screaming for attention, whose name dare not be mentioned in certain circles, no such luck in this bookstore. The same goes for most Nepali, and for that matter international, news outlets.

And so it goes. Our inputs for analysis need to expand to include the ever increasingly polluted and abused ecological world.

(Recorded from my rooftop, June 6)

Oh, these wild dogs. Keeping me up, barking all night long. I’m a light sleeper, and a dripping bathroom faucet is enough to keep me awake. A lot of Kathmandu’s dogs are without an owner or home, and they roam the streets – some in packs, others alone. Sleeping all day in the summer heat, they spend their restless nights barking to one another, cross-city. Just howling. Are they trying to assert some sort of neighbourhood toughness or dominance, a midnight power struggle? Or is it a battle of attrition of who can keep up the loud racket the longest?

Last night, I had enough. With surprisingly little shame or guilt, I took care of my local leading hound in the alley behind my house with my jump rope. He was a white ugly thing, with an accompanying loud ugly bark. My sleep was sound afterwards, and I’m fine with my decision – someone had to do it, for the sanity of us all.

Yikes. That’s been a recurring dream of mine for the past two weeks. I mostly awake from it to barking dogs, ashamed of myself that I could think such things. I’m a dog lover, and once had an annoying dog named Sam, who barked at everyone that came to the door, and would hump their leg most times on their way out. Once he got used to you, he was cool and fun and quieter, but still humped. A good-looking dog too – even modeled for a box of dog cookies. The point being, I shouldn’t be dreaming of strangling dogs in the middle of the night so I can get some rest, no matter how annoying. I’m better than that, I think?

These wild dogs of Kathmandu are killing me… Serenity now. Serenity now.

The lead article in yesterday’s (June 2, 2011) Kathmandu Post begins with, “The UCPN (Maoist) on Wednesday unilaterally decided to end the two-layer security being provided to its leaders – a key demand of the main opposition, Nepali Congress (NC) – amid opposition from the party’s hardliners.” It goes on to explain that the security detail’s unregistered vehicles, which were once illegally seized during the Maoist insurgency, will be given up to the main government, that security will now be provided by the country’s established security forces, and concludes by providing details of political negotiations and Maoist meetings.

Another leading article from the same paper, “NC negotiators under CWC scrutiny,” reveals how NC party leaders’ performance in recent constitutional writing negotiations is under review by a NC party committee. Some insiders believe its leaders were too stubborn, while others think they compromised too much. Another, “Yadav in a tight corner in Sunsari,” is about a group of 12 hard-line lawmakers splintering from their once popular Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Nepal (MJF-N) party. The MJF-N is not as powerful in the Constituent Assembly as it once was, and worries are rising that its leader, Upendra Yadav, is being deserted.

Outside of these political brouhahas, few other stories get ink. One, “Babai valley, once an ‘ideal’ habitat, now a haven for poachers,” states that this valley remains a poaching ground for rhinoceroses and tigers, despite conservation efforts. And in another, “Swelling Saptakoshi still a threat,” the out of control Saptakoshi river is said to be eroding its shores and threatens nearby villages and settlements. Quoting Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar district, he’s all over the problem and has instructed people to work harder. Great advice.

Yesterday’s newspaper is not unique, and most Nepali news outlets follow a similar pattern of allegiance to the political hierarchy and pay little attention to on the ground and behind the scene stories. Understanding ordinary Nepalese struggles, concerns, and views is difficult to find in the Nepali press, as is a contextual framework from which to analyze the news and compare contrasting views. What is the social significance of certain political statements and events? How have certain policies affected ordinary Nepalese, and have they been a waste of capital? What of the failing constitution writing process on Nepali society, and how have minorities in a fledgling democracy without a constitution been affected by the ongoing political impasse? What of Nepal’s environmental problem and its social effects? These questions, and others, are rarely posed in Nepali media, let alone answered.

An Al Jazeera commentator was recently quoted in GQ magazine as saying, “If other networks are interested in the politician… Al Jazeera will always be interested in the politician’s driver.” The article goes on to say how Al Jazeera equally irks Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Western leaders. It seeks to find out how lives are lived and affected by national and international events, and intends to provide a voice to most sides. Al Jazeera is not perfect, and has been criticized for editorial bias in the past. The point being is that its journalism’s focus is bottom-up, not top-down.

The role of media is not to present a reality removed from average citizens’ lives and interests. It is to peer behind the social and political curtain and to reveal a social fabric at times uncomfortable with itself, to understand the machinations at work that are shaping society, and to try and understand and explain where society is going, and has been.

For these reasons, advocacy organizations and media centers like the Jagaran Media Center are so vital in weak media markets. They provide a voice for the voiceless, representing marginalized peoples who are under- or unrepresented in political and social hierarchies, businesses, and media. They aim to expose stories of ordinary lives and communities affected by ancient superstitious practices, and the hypocrisies at work within government. Where democracy is but a budding idea and practice, on the ground organizations serve to get unreported stories out, helping the transition, however long, towards a more functioning representative democracy.

In an interview following Arundhati Roy’s Come September speech, she concluded by stating her views on how best to live a life: “To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget…” For now, power and authority is respected far too much in Nepal, and those excluded from the hierarchy exhibiting strength of character are most often ignored. Affecting change is difficult here, but some dedicated strong few are on the ground, refusing to look away, and not allowing injustices of the past and present to go unreported. With time…

The banda is Nepal’s version of a strike, and a uniquely Nepali one at that. This is not your London or Madrid student protest, Greek civil servant strike, or French air traffic controller strike. Here, depending on the type of banda called, whole cities, regions, and country itself, shutdown. Enforcers, linked to whichever group or cause organized the banda, roam the streets, forcing most vehicles off the roads. Citizens respect the call. There have already been two this week, one last week, and more ambitious national ones are planned in the coming days and weeks. Since January, Nepal has witnessed just over 100 bandas.

Nepal’s Constituent Assembly’s (CA) yearlong fruitless extension to finalize the country’s new constitution expires May 28, and internal political bickering and civil strife is mounting as the date approaches. Nepal’s constitution is far from complete, and more time is required to finalize this bedrock piece of democracy. On banda days, businesses and government offices are shut, taxis and buses don’t run, cars are parked at home, with some street vendors and food stalls open. Civil society and the Nepali economy come to a standstill, granting media headlines and dubious status to whichever group(s) (and their affiliated cause) organizes the banda. As May 28 looms near, bandas are on the rise.

Last Sunday, the banda was organized by the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN), demanding indigenous rights and inclusion in the new constitution. This most recent Sunday, it was the ethnic group Chetri Samaj, demanding recognition as an indigenous community. Today, it was the CPN Maoists Matrika fraction, promoting the “people’s rights”. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday bandas are being prepared by what seems like every political party and cause under the Himalayan sun.

How much do they influence the average Nepali? Who pays attention to the actual group that organizes them? Are their issues actually raised or debated in the media because of the banda, discussed in teashops and public squares? Not really. Society goes on, enjoying the day off, working on projects.

The Nepali banda is the definition of a civil society in disarray, not ready for the mature compromises required in a functioning democracy. Unflinching demands permeate Nepali political parties’ platforms, including the Maoists not wanting to give up their 1000s of weapons in arms depots scattered across the country. Yes, a history not completely familiar with democratic norms and compromise is partially to blame, but that excuse only goes so far – just like the never dying idea that continues to squarely blame post-colonialism on Africa’s continuing woes. Nepal’s media generally does a poor job in exposing the hypocrisy of the political establishment (more on that in a later post), but once again, that excuse is limited.

So, what to do? Like most things in life, act like an adult and take responsibility.

I must say, though, that a great bonus of the banda is that peace and tranquility sweeps over this crazy city. Traffic is quiet, horns honk less, kids play in the streets, the air is cleaner, and my beloved holy cows can roam the streets and munch on garbage in relative safety. On these days off, Nepalese head to their ancient squares and temples to hangout. Women and men sit on the steps and ledges of the squares’ Hindu and Buddhist temples, gossiping as the days go on, while kids play below on old red brick terraces. If you’re lucky, glimpses of Nepali beauty will catch you off guard on these slower days (see the banda spectacle below). Perhaps I shouldn’t be so critical then, but that would be too selfish of me to ease up on this silly political ill.

In anticipation of the monsoon, the Rain God Rato Machhendranath‘s chariot is pulled through the Lalitpur neighbourhood by his ethnic Newari devotees. Two chariots are pulled, with the community electing who gets to conduct the chariot and who gets to ride high on the chariots tall (20 meter) bamboo and pine spires. Festivals past, the chariots have been known to topple over, without any deaths, so I’m told. The Rato Macheendranath Jatra (chariot pulling festival of the Rain God) lasts about two months, and began May 7th. No doubt, one of the most extraordinary spectacles I’ve ever come across.

Walking the streets of Kathmandu for the first time is an intimidating and baffling exercise. Intimidating for the sheer madness and pace of the city, and baffling for what seems to be a method in the chaos.

The morning taxi ride to my guesthouse from Kathmandu’s airport was my first and maybe most important lesson in the method: honk. As a driver, honk when swerving, honk when turning, honk when in a traffic jam, and honk when entering an intersection. Without a traffic light or stop sign to speak of in my southern Lalitpur neighbourhood, or lanes on the road, the car and motorbike’s horn becomes the director of traffic.

Back at the guest house in southern Lalitpur, ready for a nap after 35 hours of travel, and the first lesson of this city plays an annoying game: the honk is loud and piercing. The nap must wait.

On the streets, the honk now serves a dual lesson – act as a car and be confident, or else you’ll never cross the street. Families cross from one side to another with ease, cows roam the center lanes and sidewalks without a worry, munching on the street-lined garbage, and wild dogs snake through the traffic like veterans - looking both ways before crossing.

Taking a break from the chaos and catching my breath from the choking pollution, I stand a few steps up on a corner shop and just watch. Vivid purples, greens, reds, pinks – saris of every kind – pass below me. A scooter rolls by with three people squished on a tiny seat, with the back passenger somehow reading a newspaper while seated sideways. A tiny old man in sandals lumbers by, carrying a heavy cupboard bigger than himself jerry-rigged to a leather strap wrapped around his forehead. And a wedding procession marches on (see 2:00 of my earlier video), all dancing and celebrating in the streets to loud drums and horns (a custom adopted from India).

It seems that I stood on this one random street corner and saw more variety in life’s hustle and bustle in 20 minutes than I would have otherwise seen over the course of a day, week (month?) in Toronto. Life here is happening, on the streets, raw, in plain view without shame and apprehension.

Kathmandu’s madness is in its loudness, speed, smell, and lack of formal coordination. But somehow, synchronicity flourishes in its people, and all is taken in stride – epitomized by the Nepali saying “khe garne?”, or “what is there to do?” Like a Jackson Pollock painting, there is flow and beauty in the discord. It all works, and is wondrous.

My first day on the mad streets of Kathmandu, with my host Prakash of the JMC leading the way.

The plane departs shortly, and I really have no idea what my work in Nepal will be like. Friends and family ask what exactly I’ll be doing over there? I can only say that I don’t entirely know apart from the job description, and brief conversations I’ve had with Prakash, program manager at the JMC. Talking and working with local journalists and people on the ground about Dalit caste human rights, traveling around Nepal, writing, taking pictures and videos – sounds about right.

Am I nervous or scared? No. I’m ready to jump into this assignment headfirst and immerse myself in the work – whatever it may be. I have no real fears or trepidations. Yes, reporting on human rights abuses will have its interesting and unexpected moments, but none that are worrying. Nepal is a safe and inviting country, and whatever challenges I may face will be overcome, strengthening my resolve and character.

I’ve read a few of Nepalese author Samrat Upadhyay’s novels in preparation – a somewhat cultural and mental introduction to Nepalese society. His stories are laced with allusions to Hindu gods and Buddhist shrines, and always sure to emphasize the importance of family and caste on the Nepalese way of life. His characters interact with Kathmandu’s streets, business, and politics – dodging in and out of teahouses, bars, and temples. For Upadhyay’s Nepal, like any society really, history is alive and inescapable, haunting and influencing the present. The public face of the family presented to the neighbourhood is often a mask to a darker and more complicated reality… One I hope to penetrate as my time in Nepal goes on.

So time to depart the heavy rains of Toronto’s spring, and arrive as monsoon season prepares it’s lashing of Kathmandu. Suitcases are packed, preparations have been made, but my mind and body remain in Toronto. The work of past Peace Fellows at the JMC helps serve me as a mental guide, but it can only be that. I expect a sensory overload upon arrival in Kathmandu, but until that time, I’ll be going about my business day by day, saying goodbyes. Six months in Nepal. More to come…