THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

As someone particularly interested in the movement of the stars (and their impacts on the mundane affairs of human beings), I was intrigued to receive a little “Nepali Christmas” booklet that started off with an astrological explanation for the circumstances of Jesus’s birth. The booklet stated that astrology was well-respected during the time of Jesus’s birth, and an astrological prediction predicted the birth of Jesus. The star seen over the sky during his birth, the booklet states, was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.  The Star of Bethlehem is the star the three wise men of the East, or the Magi, followed to find baby Jesus when he was born. The star predicted the birth of a great king of the Jews. The Magi, three wise men from non-Jewish cultures, arrive after a long journey with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrah to Jesus’s home, before departing from another route to escape the wrath of King Herod. Despite Herod’s best attempts to kill all the male newborns,...

I worked on the report on the civil conflict in Nepal with a team of researchers at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Kathmandu in 2010.   Working on this report, and working on issues of access to justice during 2004, the height of Nepal’s civil conflict, made me interested in issues of crimes against humanity. What constitutes a crime against humanity? According to www.crimesofwar.org: In 1945, the United States and other Allies developed the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis and Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), sitting at Nuremberg, which contained the following definition of crimes against humanity in Article 6(c): “Crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against civilian populations, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in co...

Watching Nelson Mandela’s memorial on TV, I realized what an extraordinary man he had been, all over again. Despite the horrors of Apartheid, and the torture and incarceration he faced at the hands of his captors, he never showed any hatred towards them. Mandela's greatest legacy was forgiveness, say commentators. Then there was the Truth and Reconciliation Committee which looked at the human rights abuses that took place under Apartheid. Both sides were brought together, and amnesties were granted along with reparations. This process, through flawed, was integral to South Africa moving forward as a nation. Mandela could have spent the next thirty years after his release taking revenge on his captors. But he didn’t do that—allowing South Africa to move on as a nation after the end of the Apartheid. Watching Mandela’s funeral made me think about the Buddha. What are the historical conditions that create certain individuals to be born and shaped in certain times? Budd...

I worked on this UNDP report on access to justice in the Asia Pacific during 2004-2005. Our Nepal team of five interviewed over 600 individuals involved in formal and informal justice in various different locations, including Nepalgunj, Biratnagar and Birjung, during the height of the civil conflict. Here's the report, online.