THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

Sushma Joshi, Kathmandu Post, 5/22/09 One longterm expatriate, who'd recently read an op-ed in the papers advocating the chopping down of trees along the roads, complained to me: butchery is in Nepal's genes Two friends of mine took me on a midnight jaunt through Valencia, Spain, last winter. What stunned me was not just the rows of beautiful houses in the old city, and the rush of water from the fountains, but the rows and rows of orange trees that bloomed white flowers in the moonlight. "Do people eat these fruits?" I asked. The trees, which lined the main thoroughfares, were studded with big orange fruit. "No, I think they're just for decoration," my friend answered with a laugh. Sevilla, known as the City of Oranges, was even more heavily covered with orange trees than Valencia. No doubt the city was inspired by Arab architecture and gardens, vestiges of which still remain in the form of the Alcazar, where the romantic and ancient gardens were filled...

Sushma Joshi Republica, May 19, 2009 “Oh, you’re going to see Jhamak?” says the older man as we sit drinking tea in a tea house in Dhankuta Bazzar in the early morning chill. “I’m her uncle.” Jhammakkumari Ghimire, the writer who’s triumphed despite her disability, is apparently known by this androgynous name, I soon figure out. Then he proceeds, in those causal but fortuitous coincidences that take place in Nepal all the time, to tell me about how Jhamak became the writer that she did. “Her parents bought her little sister a book. And Jhamak turned round and round in a rage for two days. She can’t talk, you see. So finally her father figured out, after a day or two, what was bothering her. And he said: would you like a book as well? And then she tapped her foot with joy. That’s how she talks, with her foot.” Jhamak, says her uncle, was always expressive. Once she drew him a rabbit that looked like it could run. He took her to Kathmandu once. Carried her down there. Once down, the poet...

Sushma Joshi, Kathmandu Post Perhaps the answer lies in the conversation my travel partner is having with a man he's just met in the airplane. "The man was run down right here. The truck backed into him and killed him even though he was only injured slightly," says the old man. "Yes, it's that law," says my friend. "It's cheaper to run down somebody in an accident than pay compensation for their medical expenses." Herein, I think, lies the clue to Nepal's poverty. In Nepal, it is cheaper to run down a human being dead than follow the course of universal humane behavior and treat somebody who's been injured through a manmade accident. And the accidents here are many. The most tragic accident, of course, is that done to the Dalit community. Fifty lakh live in Nepal, and eighty percent of them are landless. Rather than pick them up and heal the historical injury, Nepal prefers to run them down, putting the state machinery in reverse...

Kathmandu Post, 4/28/09 Sushma Joshi The idea of an interlinked world whose security rests on each other is clearly a new idea for most The United States government recently put out a call for help to the most unlikely group -- computer hackers. Hackers, normally hounded for their ability to enter computer systems, were now recruited for one reason -- cyberattacks on government networks were occurring persistently, but the government was not prepared to deal with all these attacks. Hence the hackers, who could “think like the bad guy” but also had a sense of ethics, would help to create security systems that will protect valuable national information, including data on the stock market, taxes, airline flight system, and nuclear launch codes. The US had no plans for a digital disaster, David Powner, director of technology issues for the Government Accountability Office, told Congress last month, according to an AP report. The US government promptly promised $60 million to raise the numb...

Sushma Joshi Published in the Kathmandu Post, April 19, 2009 What does the United States of America have in common with St. Kitts (68 square miles wide), a small island in the Eastern Caribbean? Both countries, it appears, follow the federal system. Despite the naysayers who have been saying federalism won't work for Nepal due to its small size and multicultural and multiethnic nature, there is evidence that multicultural countries perform quite well within a federal system. The United States is federated. So is Switzerland, another European country that Nepalis often use as a model of what Nepal should be like. So is India, the world's biggest democracy. None of them are falling apart at the seams, as we are. So why do Nepalis fear the idea of federalism? After listening to a lecture by advocate Dinesh Tripathi, it appears to me that people are afraid of federalism because they don't quite understand what it is or how it's going to work out. Federalism is not the c...

By Sushma Joshi It is sad that Nepal is unable, when it comes to its own internal borders, to recognize the vulnerability and concerns of other victims The government of Nepal has no doubt signed every piece of legislation and international law there is in existence to fight trafficking. All the big political leaders have at one point or another pledged to help end trafficking. Activist networks and institutions receive millions of dollars in the name of anti-trafficking. And yet, when it comes to practice, we fail shamefully. The case is illustrated starkly by 72 Somalis who have been stranded in Nepal by traffickers who promised to take them to Naples, Italy, and who brought them to Nepal instead. They have been in Nepal for five years. And yet the Nepali government insists they are “illegal immigrants”, and requires them to pay an exit visa for overstaying their visit. At $6 a day, some of these folks owe more than $6000-$7000 to the Nepali government. They are now stuck in lim...

Sushma Joshi In about forty years time, the monsoon may be the only source of water for much of the Indian subcontinent's one billion plus people “Are you eating meat again?” says my nephew to me disapprovingly each time he sees me eating fish or chicken. “Don't do that. You'll get bird flu.” My nephew is five years old. He is brought up by parents who are both vegetarians. His mother is pretty cool about childrearing -- she decided that he should make his own choice about meat or no meat, and that forcing children to follow a certain path would certainly lead to them doing the exact opposite. So the upshot is that besides a few brief episodes of rebellion when my nephew was in his terrible twos, when he stuffed his face with chicken at wedding feasts and embarrassed his parents, he seems to have accepted, voluntarily, the lifestyle of a committed vegetarian. After opening a FAO website in which they talk about how many liters of water is needed to produce one hamburger (2...