बुद्ध जन्माउने जमिन

By: Bikal Dhungel 

जून २२ , २००५ . सायद त्यो दिन म छिट्टै बिर्सन सक्दिन होला. जर्मनी को फ्रान्क्फर्ट सहर स्थित एक बस स्टेसन मा बस कुरी रहेको थिए. म भन्दा करिब ५ मीटर को दुरी म उभिरहेकी एक महिला मलाई हेर्दै टोलाईरहेकी थिन. मैले सोचे " किन तेस्तरी हेरेको होला ". एकछिन पछि उनि मेरो नजिक आयिन र भनिन " के म तपाइलाई सोध्न सक्छु कि तपाई कहाँ बाट आउनु भयो ?" - " म नेपाल बाट आएको हु " मैले भने. " कति वर्ष को हुनु भयो, र यहाँ के गर्नु हुन्छ ". एकछिन मिठो कुरा कानी भयो. उनको नरम बोलि र मिठा आदरणीय सब्द हरुले गर्दा मलाई राम्रो महसुस भै रहेको थियो. एकछिन मा बस पनि आयो. उनि पनि तेइ बस म चढीन र मेरो संगै को सिट म बासिन. अनि ति करिब ७० वर्ष कि महिला ले मेरो हात माथि हात राखेर भनिन " तपाई सानो उमेर मा एक बिरानो देश मा एक्लै आउनु भएको रहेछ, त्यो हिम्मत को म कदर गर्छु ". जब उनले मेरो हात म हात राखेर भनिन, मलाई कसैले मुटु मै स्पर्स गरेको अनुभूति भयो, आफ्नोपन को आभाष भयो, र उनीलाई अघि भर्खर भेटेको अपरिचित व्यक्ति नभई मेरो आफ्नै मान्छे जस्तो लाग्यो. विदेश आए देखि नै कसैले आफ्नो कुरा सुनिदिदा सारै हलुका महसुस भयो. एकछिन दुख सुख का मिठा कुरा गरेपछि उनको ओर्लिने बेला भएछ. उनले भनिन " मलाई तपाई संग कुरा गरेर खुसि लाग्यो, तपाईका सपना पुरा हुन् " त्यतिकै मा उनले मेरो ज्याकेट को बगली मा २० यूरो को नोट हालिदिन. मैले भने " तपाइले के गर्नु भएको ?". बाक्य टुंगग्याउन नपाउदै उनले भनिन " राखनुस न, तपाइलाई आवस्यक पर्न सक्छ. आमा ले दिएको सम्झिनुस ". अनि उनि बस बाट ओर्लिन. म उनलाई टाढा सम्म हेरी रहे र मन मनै खुसि को आसु ले रोए. मैले उनलाई फेरी कहिले पनि भेटिन र आज उनि जीवित छिन् कि छैनन् त्यो पनि मलाई थाहा छैन. उनि मलाई जन्म दिने आमा त थियिनन तर त्यो प्रेम ले मेरो मन मा बिर्सन नसक्ने छाप पारेर गयो.

बिरानो देश मा एक अपरिचित व्यक्ति ले हात मा हात राखी मन को कुरा सुनिदिदा र एक आमा ले झैँ माया गरि पैसा दिदा मेरो मन मा धेरै कुरा खेल्न थाल्यो. आफु कुन जात , धर्म , संस्कृति भन्दा पनि मनबता र प्रेम ठुलो हुदो रहेछ. जर्मनी को बसाई को क्रम मा मैले जर्मन र अरु थुप्रै देश का मानिश हरु लै भेट्ने र संगत गर्ने मौका पाए. त्यो माया, प्रेम, सदभाव देखेर मेरो जिबन मा परिबर्तन आयो. जर्मनी मा "तिमि त्यो जात, त्यो धर्म " भनिदो रहेनछ. त्यहाँ त एक मानिस लाई मानिश कै रुप मा हेरिदो रहेछ, चाहे ऊ धनि होस्, गरिब होस्, यिसाई धर्मावलम्बि होस् या हिन्दु, सबैले उत्तिकै सम्मान पाउने रहेछन. तेसैले त उनीहरु कति बिकसित छन्. जात, रास्ट्रीयता, वर्ग, धर्म यित्यादी त मानिश हरुको बीच मा सदभाब बिगार्न बनाइएको तत्व रहेछ. तेस्को आधार मा कुनै पनि मानिश लाई चिनाउनु गलत रहेछ. ति कुरा हरु बाट माथि उठेर सबै मानब एक ठानी अघि बढ्नु उचित हुने मलाई लाग्यो. अनि मैले बिबेक श्रेष्ठ को गीत " जिन्दगि यो उत्सव हो " याद आयो. उनि गाउछन् " .... संसारै आफ्नो, आफन्त हामी , सानो छ यौटै आकाश ...... "

आज म नेपाली समाचार पढ्छु र जात का आधार मा राज्य बिभाजन गर्ने कुरा सुनेर दुख लाग्छ. म पहिले एक मानब, अनि बिस्व नागरिक, अनि नेपाली भन्नु को साटो म गुरुङ, म मगर, म लिम्बु, म बाहुन, यो मेरो राज्य हो मैले पाउनु पर्छ, त्यो तेरो भनेको सुन्दा मलाई लाग्छ कि एकदिन त्यो समय अवस्य आउछ जब एक अर्का संग काटाकाट गरि आफ्नो यितिहास आफै मेटाउने छन् र नेपाल भन्ने देश नै बाकि रहने छैन. संसार का अरु ठाउँ मा जातिय राज्य को माग गर्नाले के भएको थियो, कति हद सम्म हिम्सा भएको थियो तेस्को विचार नगरी पढे लेखेका राजनितिग्य हरुले जातिय राज्य नै चाहिन्छ भन्नु पाखण्ड हो. अहिले को परिबेस मा लागु हुनै नसक्ने सिद्दान्त खोकी तेस्को आधार मा राज गर्न खोज्नु मुर्खता हो. मार्क्स ले कहिले पनि जातीय राज्य को वकालत गरेका छैनन्. कम्युनिजम भनेको त जात, धर्म सबैलाई हटाई सबै मान्छे बराबर हुन् भन्ने सिद्दान्त हो भन्ने आम बुझाई छ. तर पनि आजको संधर्ब मा कम्युनिजम ले आर्थिक बिकाश को बाटो मा लैजादैन तर आर्थिक बिकाश नै अहिले को मूल आवस्यकता हो. आर्थिक बिकाश को लागि कुनै राजनीतिक सिद्दान्त संग जोडिनु पनि आवस्यक छैन भन्ने मेरो बुझाई हो. नेपाल का हरेक गरिब दाजु भाई दिदि बहिनि को जिबन स्तर मा सुधार ल्याउन को लागि पार्टी को स्वार्थ त्यागी बिकाश मा जोड दिनु आवस्यक छ.

हो, यो कुरा सत्य हो कि नेपाल मा पिडित वर्ग हरु छन्, जात का आधार मा मानिश लाई अपहेलना गरिन्छ. येही संधर्ब मा एक घटना को याद आयो. केहि समय अघि एक बिदेसी मित्र २ महिने नेपाल भ्रमण गरि फर्किएका थिए र मलाई भने " नेपाली हरु त कत्ति मिलनसार, कति मद्दतिला, पाहुना लाई सत्कार गर्ने " त्यो सुन्दा मलाई खुसि त लाग्यो तर मन मनै सोचे " के यो साच्चै हो त ? हामी खैरो छाला भएका बिदेसी आउदा मिलनसार हुन्छौ, माया गर्छौ, घर मा खाना खान बोलाऊछौ तर अर्को तिर भने एक भारती नागरिक लाई गाली गर्छौ, कुटपिट गरेको समाचार सुनिन्छ. बिदेसी को कुरा छोडौ, आफ्नै देश को दाजु भाई लाई तल्लो जात भनि धारा मा पानि थाप्न दिदैनौ, मन्दिर मा पुजा गर्न दिदैनौ र अन्य प्रकार का भेदभाव गर्छौ. जात मात्र नभई धनि ले गरिब लाई, बलिया ले कम्जोर लाई हेप्ने प्रचलन हाम्रो समाज मा अझै जीवित छ. जीवित मात्र हैन, यो त जिबन को सैली नै बनेको छ. जब सम्म येस्ता प्रथा जीवित रहन्छन युरोप , अमेरिका बाट आएका पर्यटक लाई देखाएको माया झुट हुनेछ. येस्तै भेदभाब र छुवाछुत को प्रथा ले गर्दा नै जातिय सदभाब खल्बलिएको हो . तैपनि एसको समाधान जातीय राज्य हुन सक्दैन .

नेपाल मा जातीय प्रथा कानुनी रुप मा हटी सकेपनि यथार्थ मा त्यो सबैतिर फैलिएको छ . यो पाखण्डीपन को अन्त्य गर्न तिर नलागी झन् यसै लाई निउ बनायी भाड भैलो निम्त्याउनु आत्म घातक बाहेक केहि पनि हुन सक्दैन. माथिको उदाहरण दिनु को दुइ ओटा कारण छन्, एक - एउटा बिदेसी ले हामीलाई नेपाली भनेर चिनाउछ तर हामी आफै नेपाली नभई यो जात र ऊ जात भन्छौ. दुइ - जब सम्म हामी सबै प्रति मिलनसार र मद्दतिला हुदैनौ, खैरो छाला प्रति मात्र देखायिने देखावटी प्रेम कुनै न कुनै दीन अवस्य बाहिर आउछ र त्यो दीन हामीलाई संसार मा कसैले पनि विश्वास गर्ने छैन. प्रेम का प्रतिक बन्न चाहने हो भने सबै मान्छे लाई समान र राम्रो बेबहार गरिनु जरुरि छ. हामीले यो पनि बुझ्नु जरुरि छ कि सदियौ देखि शान्त संग बस्दै आएका मानिश हरु बीच जात र धर्म का आधार मा भडकाउने प्रथा बेलायेती र फ्रान्सेली साम्राज्यबाद हरुले उन्नाइसऔ र बिसौ सताब्दी गरेका थिए जसको कारण करोडौ मान्छे को ज्यान गएको थियो. अहिले तिनै मुलुक हरु यो प्रथा लाई घातक मानछन्. तर हामी त्यो थाहा हुदा पनि एकाईसौ सताब्दी मा त्यो चाहिन्छ भन्नु आफ्नो खुट्टा मा आफै बन्चरो हान्नु हो.

हामी बुद्ध को देश भनेर गर्ब गर्छौ तर बेबहार बुद्ध ले भनेको भन्दा ठिक उल्टो हुनु भएन. बुद्ध भगवान ले त कयौ देश का मान्छे लाई माया, प्रेम र शान्ति को आधार मा एकिकृत गर्नु भएको थियो, शान्ति का प्रतीक हुनु भएको थियो. आज बुद्ध जन्माउने जमिन बाट हिटलर जन्मिने आवस्था आएको छ. जात कै कारण ले भएको दृतिय बिस्वयुद्ध मा ७० वर्ष अगाडी मात्र ८ करोड मान्छे को ज्यान गएको कुरा हामीले बिर्सेउ ? जातीय दंगा मा युगोस्लाभिया , रुवान्डा, सुडान, यिथिओपिआ र अन्य देश मा लाखौ मान्छे को ज्यान गएको, करोडौ बिस्थापित भएको हामीले दिनहु समाचार मा हेरेका छैनौ र ? रास्ट्रीय अहंकार लाई छोडी अन्तरास्ट्रीय मित्रता र मानवता का आधार मा अघि बढेका यूरोपेली मुलुक हरुले हासिल गरेको शान्ति र बिकाश हामीले देखेका छैनौ र ?

हो, भॆदभाब को अन्त्य पूर्ण रुप मा कहिलेइ नहोला. त्यो युरोप मा पनि छ, अमेरिका मा पनि छ, सबै ठाउँ मा छ तर येदि हाम्रो इच्छा शान्ति स्थापना गर्ने, दिगो बिकाश गरि सिर सगरमाथा झैँ उच्च राख्ने हो भने हामीले आहंकार, स्वार्थ, मेरो धर्म र जात ठुला, र मै खाऊ मै लाऊ भन्ने जस्ता विचार हरु त्याग्नु पर्ने हुन्छ.

हाम्रो मूल एक हो, हामी सबै एक हौ, जात भन्ने कुरा मान्छे बाटै आविस्कार गरिएका चिज हुन् जुन आजको युग मा कुनै अर्थ छैन. हाम्रो यात्रा एक आपश को माया, सदभाब र मनबता ले डोर्याउनु उचित हुनेछ. एक महान रिदय भएकी सम्पन्न देश कि एक महिला ले बिरानो ठाउँ मा आल्मलिएको एक बालक लाई माया देखाई प्रेरणा को स्रोत बन्न सकिन भने, बिस्वो को एक कुना मा जन्मिएकी अर्की महिला अर्को कुना मा गइ दीन दुखि को सेवा गर्दै मदर टेरेसा बनिन भने, एक सुखी सम्पन्न परिबार को ठिटो सबै कुरा त्यागी शान्ति का प्रतीक गौतम बुद्ध बने भने, हामीले यो जात भन्ने कुरा बाट माथि उठी म एक मानब अनि एक बिस्व नागरिक तेसपछि नेपाली भनेर एक जुट भइ अघि बढ्न किन नसक्ने ? म फेरी बिबेक श्रेष्ठ को तेही गीत को अर्को अंस सम्झनछु - " बाडिए मानिश किन जात को सरंग मा, मनबता को खै त चर्चा नबयुग को तरङ्ग मा, युद्ध ले हैन बुद्ध ले, भोलि को दीन हाक्नु छ, सन्तति ले शान्ति ले, अनन्त सम्म बाच्नु छ....”

No To Patriotism and Nationalism

By: Bikal Dhungel

“ Nationalism is an infantile disease, its a measles of mankind “ Albert Einstein


“ A Nation is a group of people living in a certain boundary who might share common language or culture with you, nothing above and over that to worship blindly “ Milton Friedman ( Capitalism and Freedom )


“ Where liberty dwells, there is my country “ Alexander Hamilton

Those people who love their “country “, few of them also ready to die for, it is an absurd statement that their love ends in the border that was drawn by unknowns. The border of countries changes time to time. In the year 1900, there were only 57 countries in the world (source: Democratic Leadership Council ). Under one nation, Ottoman Empire, there were many sovereign nations of today. Austria-Hungary was one country. Weimar Republic ( today Germany and large parts of Poland ) was one country. Under the umbrella of British Empire, there were many independent countries of today.

After World War I, the map of the world was redrawn, the looser lost many of their territories and colonies. Four great empires collapsed namely the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, German Empire and the Russian Empire which was overthrown by a Bolshevik Revolution where the autocracy of Tsar was dismantled. In the year 2000, there were 192 countries registered in the United Nations which implies that since 1900, there were many other countries that became sovereign nations. The patriots of these empires had to limit their patriotism into smaller regions and boundaries. Gist of this point is, you cannot love a land or territory. You can only love people.

When people form a separate nation out of your country, do you still love them ? Sure, you can love them as human beings but if you don't love them anymore because they belong to a different country, you love was not real. True love can never be conditional.

There is an election in Scotland in September and the Scots will decide if they want to stay within the United Kingdom or not. Today they take pride saying “ British “, tomorrow if Scotland goes, the 'Britishness' will not be there anymore. But if the English always liked the Scots for their friendliness, openness or culture, they will continue liking them even though they are a separate nation.

A boundary is not a living being, its fictional. We have one Earth and it only makes sense as a whole. If you cut down the earth, no life might exist here. The mountains, the hills, the plains, oceans are all inter-dependent but yet one country whose border is drawn by man might consist of only mountains, other only hills and another hills and plains. I am not saying that the whole world should have open border, it might bring problems at the moment but the long term goal of international community should be a border-less world. It is indeed possible. In regional level, borders are dismantled in some places like Europe and America. Also countries should exist in order to administer rules and regulations and to let our systems to function properly. But nation-states should only be minimally important. I will give the example of European Union later.

For most part of human history, there were no borders. There were no restriction on freedom of movement, hence there was no patriotism or nationalism as a result of which there was no war for territories. Only when people started to say “ This is mine and that is yours”, they started to fight for it, and this was the exact beginning of conflicts for the cause of land, possession, power etc. This type of conflicts caused millions of death and there were rarely any time since few thousand years that there was peace all over the world. Some time somewhere on earth, they were always fighting going on for possessions. If we look at the history of all big and small wars, almost all was for land (possession), power and money. Cause of remaining few were women.

Under the feeling of Nationalism, the Nazis killed 6 million Jews and almost 80 million people died as a result of the war and countless of others affected ( National Geographic ). Hundreds of thousands were killed in Yugoslavian war which was triggered by nationalistic feelings. Hutu Rebels killed almost a million Tutsis in Rwanda within 3 months. Wars due to nationalism have taken place in other countries recently, in Greece (Cyprus), Sri Lanka,  Kurdistan, Kashmir, Sudan, Morocco, Congo and many other places where there are ongoing sectoral violence. Any form of belonging to a certain place, religious groups or political philosophy will lead to conflict that always posses danger of escalation causing deaths. These toxic feeling of belongingness is dangerous if its misused. 

The feeling of patriotism and nationalism is not natural, it is instilled by the few who profit from it. The ones who aim to rule a place or country manipulate the minds of people by pressing them the feeling of patriotism so that these people will fight for them and the clever elites will continue rule them. That is why in most of the countries, the nationalists are mostly the ones with lowest level of education who are prone to mind manipulation.

Today's world is a different one. In comparison to any time in the past two millenniums, there are less number of wars. It has become peaceful. Globalization is the major factor that contributed to make it peaceful because countries trade with each other, and when they trade and do business with each other, they are less likely to go to war because it would harm them both. We use products from other countries. We read books written by other people from other countries, we travel, we make friends and do many other things. The level of prosperity today is highest in history. Never in history we had this level of income, quality of life, knowledge and development. This was only possible because we acted in global level, because we shared knowledge and experiences disregarding that the other person is from a different country. This shows that, together we can achieve anything we like. It is not through solitary works that brought us here. The writers of great books did not say that they wrote these books for people of their own country. We are inter-dependent with nature and with other people who live in this world. Directly or indirectly we are connected to them. So, the point here is, there should be international solidarity. Sayings like “ I will do this and that for my country “ might not be more logical than “ I will contribute my part in this world wherever it is necessary “

Patriotism and Nationalism is the root of all evils, it gives birth to arrogance and aggression. The first step towards international citizenship is love thy neighbour. In the first step it seems impossible. France and Germany, that went to war so many times in history never thought that they will ever be like one country. The continent of Europe had the most wars in history among all places in the world. However, after the destruction of first and second world war, people in Europe realized that it cannot go forever this way and after the atrocities caused by Nazis, two heavyweights, Germany and France came forward and formed “European Coal and Steel Community”. Its aim was to monitor the production of both sides by both countries because coal and steel were used to build weapons. Few other countries joined. Later after the Treaty of Rome, European Economic Community was formed which ended in today's European Union. Through many other treaties, systems within countries were pooled. Today there is Schengen Agreement, which allows people from one member states to another to move freely to the other, there is common agricultural policy, there is common fishery policy, security policy and they are even discussing for a common european army. It did not happen over night but took more than six decades. The greatest achievement of European Union is peace. No war is possible in Europe anymore. If there is a common army, there can be no war between member states. It was made possible because people of the EU agreed to sacrifice national interest, national values. They agreed on European value. They stopped saying “ we are …. country, we are the best” instead, they said “ we are Europeans, we are one people “. The EU is the most successful story of peace. The member countries continued to be more, today there are 27 nations. Few of the criteria of joining the EU is, a democratic government, human values, independent justice system, free press and others. Hence, more countries in the EU means more peaceful states which sacrifice their nationhood.

On the passports of any country, there is written “ European Union “ on top and then only the name of the particular country. This implies that before a citizen of a country, one is the citizen of Europe. This should be the ultimate goal of whole world, to be one, to sacrifice the feeling of nationalism and the first step towards this is now. We should place humanity and love before patriotism.

The genius and the good people we honor today, all campaigned for a world government and for global citizenship. John F Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, did not show arrogance by telling “ this is mine “ based on either religion or country. Einstein was a well known world citizen, John F Kennedy established Peace Corps (Peacecor) to strengthen world peace and friendship. Gandhi never wanted to possess anything anyway. When the future father of Pakistan “ Mohammad Ali Jinnah” expressed his worries that in independent India, there might be no place for Muslims, so he called for a division of India and form a separate nation called Pakistan, Gandhi offered him to be the Prime Minister of India and choose all the ministers himself but do not call to divide a nation. Gandhi wanted to coexist because he knew that a division of a place in two countries based on religion would cause huge conflict. The partition really resulted in million deaths and 14 million people were displaced ( UNHCR )

Not only these people, when we go back even more, we can read the literature of Johann W Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Hermann Hesse, we can find many elements of world citizenship.

Hence, humanity, love, ethics and morality should be above patriotism. They should never be traded for a love of one country. A country does not exist, its only a fictional body. Love or like a person for what he/she has done or how he/she is instead of his/her nationality. Give your best in whatever you do for good for the world, not for a country. Our origin is one place and it might not be the place where you live now or have lived in the past. We have only two choices, either to live as global citizens loving people independent of their nationality or taking proud on our country being arrogant and fake. The former will lead to a peaceful world.

Commonwealth: For A Better Future

By: Bikal Dhungel

This article focuses on issues that are important for every human: environment, health and sustainable development. It starts with a short review of human civilization and connects it with environment and health. Finally, I mention few things which we can change. It is a combination of information and opinion and aims to make the reader think about these critical issues. 

Till today, humans have achieved extra-ordinary things. We have far better lives today than our ancestors. This achievement did not happen overnight. It was a slow and long process. Unfortunately, our inventions also came up as our destruction. Let us have a short look at these achievement and analyse how it should go further.

Our Earth is considered to be 4-7 billion years old. Humans are there only since 200,000 years. About 40,000 years ago earliest remaining of humans was found in Australia. Among different species of humans namely Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo Erectus, only the Homo Sapiens survived. What happened to other species of humans and why they extinct, there are many details still to be confirmed but what is true is that Homo Sapien was/is an intelligent creature. From hunting an gathering society to the discovery of agriculture, building settlements, civilization, and until recently the process of industrialization, we have come a long way forward. But still, the major change in our way of life mainly took place after the year 1800. This 200 years in comparison to the last 40,000 is a tiny fraction. Yet, the change is so drastic that it has fundamentally changed the human way of living from the last thousands of years. A person who wakes up after a 15 years of sleep will be completely lost in today's culture because the pattern of change is way too fast.

Looking back to history, to understand these process of development for example, when you plant a seed in the ground, nurture it, and someday there comes a corn it took a long time. Similarly, it also took a long time to understand what grows where under what condition and to build a settlement there to practice that further. Development of agriculture was one of the most important turning point in human history that marked an end to hunting and gathering. It is the starting point of building a society. A nomad species turned into a sociable creature. This process might have happened in several places in the several times. Farming was probably done around 10-13 thousand years ago for the first time. As a result, it also gave birth to animal husbandry. When people lived in a certain place, they could store food and keep animals for a longer time instead of eating them like the hunters and gatherers did. Some animals were used to extract milk like buffaloes, goats etc others were for meat, feathers or their skin for clothing. However, the question goes how did humans know which animal to keep and which not because we know that there are so many species but why do humans just domesticate few of them. We can name them: cow, goat, buffalo, sheep, chicken, pig, horse, camel and few others. The American evolution biologist Jared Diamond claims that there are probably not more than 15 animals out of hundreds that humans domesticated. My point is, humans might have studied the behaviours of these animals and there might be reason why they domesticated some and why not others. For example why didnt the human domesticate deers, zebras, girrafs, leopards, cats, monkey, antelopes or hippo? Jared Diamond further claims that one or few of the behavior of these animals were either not suitable or deadly for the humans. Zebras for example look good, is herbivorous but when it bites, it never let go for a long long time which can be life threatening. Antelopes are too nervous when there are other animals or humans. Cats are the species that cannot live in a group, leopards obviously are too dangerous. These are few reasons but we have to accept the fact that it took long time for early humans to understand this all what we take today for granted due to the information we have from them.

Agriculture also gave birth to feudal society. It was the beginning of classes, hierarchy and also inequality. Under direction, humans also built incredible things many of which we honour today as world heritage namely the Pyramids of Egypt, Great Wall of China, Macchu Pichu of Peru, Taj Mahal of India and many other monuments that were built before or after. It is true that these things are extra-ordinary. Great Wall alone took 14 years initially to built and many additional years in the future to expand and maintain. The length of the wall, estimated 13,500 miles is more than the distance, from London to Delhi , back from Delhi to London and then to Moscow. Only to take the archiological survey, it took several years. Isnt this a huge achievement ? Similarly, the pyramids of Egypt took over 20 years for probably 100,000 workers to build it. Other extra-ordinary monuments took lots of effort and time and these are the symbol of human achievement in the past few thousand years.

When we come to the last millennium, humans achieved other incredible things like the printing press, electricity, steam engine, penicillin, telephone, television, radio, washing machine, automobile, aeroplane, x-ray, computer, internet etc. Achievement in different fields have been done, in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Astronomy, Economics, Engineering, Medicine and in Social Sciences which made our life easier. Humans also started trading goods. They searched for resources and while searching, also found new lands untouched before. Resource-hungry countries also colonized other parts, moved people to work from one place to others, and suddenly "Industrialization" was born. 

In the areas where industrialization took place, the wealth of nations increased drastically. Before that period, for all the time, the whole world was more or less equal. China used to be the richest country in terms of per-capita for over thousand years and since the beginning of global trade, the Netherlands was probably the richest country. After industrialization, Asia and Africa lagged behind and Europe took a giant leap.

To power the industries, more and more coal was burned which gave birth to human induced climate change. The discovery of oil marked another great change that improved lives of people as it could be used in industries and in vehicles later for transportation. Horse-pulled carts slowly started to be out of business. The development of transportation marked an end to the monopoly of ships as the sole means of transportation. Trains or even cars could be used for internal transportation. Chemical processing on the other hand improved the way of life further especially the discovery of washing power and later washing machine. All of us who has watched a famous TED video of Hans Rosling, a medical doctor, philanthropist and statistician from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm about the magic of washing machine, we are convinced that it is the discovery of Washing machine that caused a revolution in women's lives. Prior to its discovery, women used to have long washing days that gave them no time to do other things than household activities. Thanks to washing detergents and washing machine and of course electricity, they could now use their time reading books, going to school or participating in social life. School attendance has increased ever since and today at least in many western European countries, more women have university degree than men.

The introduction of internet marked another revolution. We can easily know what is going on in another corner of the world, we can make friends from other countries, we can book a ticket online to fly from Frankfurt to Tokyo, we can send pictures to friends living in other countries, we can learn to cook from internet, we can even gain university degree totally online without going to the university for a single day. This means, the whole world is connected. Technologies made it possible. Similarly, knowledge has also globalized which is a good thing in one hand but might have some drawbacks as well.

But exactly due to few things like chemical processing and advances in other technologies, our world is also in danger due to the possibilities of chemical weapons that could destroy the whole world within few minutes. Two world wars showed that technology is not a good thing when it is used against humans. Imagine that the president of USA or Russia go crazy and use chemical weapons towards civilians to kill them. Imagine a chemical weapon in the hand of a person or country that want to destroy the whole world. Similarly, imagine somebody using a biological weapon that spread virus in massive scale that there will be a pandemic and billions of people die. The story of Anthrax already warned us about the danger of biological weapons. This will destroy the whole world in a short time. Why I mentioned the example of internet is, of course its a fantastic thing but what if any person or authority spy on you and get your information? This already takes place. There is no privacy anymore. Did you know that your bank knows that your wife is pregnant before you? We have a money-less society and we love to use credit cards but your bank will then know which product we buy, where we go for vacation, which brand we like, which book we read and many other information. Private companies can know about you hence manipulate your choices through the use of advanced marketing tools and make you buy their products and increase profit. Is that what you want ?

Why I explained the story of human being, their process of learning skills in the last thousands of years and the process of development until today very short is that, while marching forward towards development and prosperity we created our own destruction as well.

Albert Einstein said “ The human made Atom Bomb, however a mouse would never build a mouse trap” and implies the same thing as the paragraph above. Atom bomb was used in World War II in Japan, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds in first and second Gulf War and many terrorist organisations threaten constantly about their will to use it against anybody they think enemy. So, there are dangerous thing and dangerous people. Experts say that the chemicals used during Gulf War will remain on earth's surface for another 4-5 billion years, equal to the total age of earth. On the places where it was dropped, nothing will grow or we cannot use the land for anything. This will have a negative impact on the environment or to be precise, it will kill the fertile lands and hence our earth.

On the other hand, it is also a well known fact that there are too much human intervention in the natural process of earth, whose consequence is unknown. We dont know how much land we can use for agriculture, what will happen when we take too much water from the ocean and desalinate it, what will happen when we divert the rivers for industrial purpose and disturb its natural flow. We also dont know how many people this earth can sustain. So, my point is again, for prosperity, first we brought ourselves into a dangerous position, then we started doing things whose consequences we dont know. Arent we destroying our home by intervening too much in natural processes ?

Looking back in the past, the world population for example used to be constant, around 500 million in the last 2000 years but in 1800 it grew to 1 billion, in 1920 grew to 2 billion, in 1960 increased to 3 billion, again to 4 billion in 1975, in 2000 it reached 6 billion and took another 10 years to hit 7 billion record ( Population Bureau) At the end of this century, according to a medium projection by the UN, it will reach 10 billion but a high projection, it can be as much as 16 billion. These are people, but people are not only one creature that live on earth. There are also other creatures. The Economist magazine estimates that there are also 1 billion or more sheeps, 1 billion pigs and 1.4 billion cattle, three main ones. There are others wild animals that share this universe with us whose number is widely unknown. The number of domesticated animals was artificially set by the humans for massive scale farming to generate profit. This creates additional burden on earth and its capacity to feed. Environmentalists warn that such a high number is unsustainable and environmentally unfriendly as animals like cow are also the major imitators of methane.

Whatever it was done, the reason was either for profit or for increasing prosperity for us. But it makes no sense when we exploit the nature in such a degree and gain the prosperity we wanted but the other day, we have any form of natural catastrophe that will wipe off everything that was built or done till date. So, it is a general agreement that we should continue with economic development but without violating the rule of nature. Either we are directly affected or not, indirectly we, the people of the whole world are affected due to climate change. For many people living on Island nations, the rising sea level means the end to their existence there. People of mountainous region will be affected by the pattern of ice fall or melting ice and people living in low lands will face floods. Other places might face heat waves and yet others heavy rainfall and so on. Till today, we are more or less able to predict the climate. This is extremely useful in the field of agriculture. The unpredictability of weather/climate due to climate change will cause failure in planning or simply cause crop failure. If we dont know this before and in the case of decreased harvest, the result is massive hunger in some parts of the world. The recent case of food price hikes can be attributed to climate change as well. A massive heat wave in the US and Australia led reduction in crop harvest that sky-rocketed food prices and suddenly the poorest countries that used to be dependent on food aid found themselves in a position of not being able to feed their citizens. As a consequence, there were deaths, hunger, under-nutrition and all the effects it caused in their health for a longer term. However, the hikes in food prices was not only caused by climate change but also by the increasing population which need more and more food and the use of Ethanol, i.e. using agricultural products like corn for fuel instead of food. This shows that, in the process of economic development, we brought problems as well. It is necessary to answer either this is viable, and either we can sacrifice the environment for a long term for our short term prosperity or greed. It took billions of years for the earth to be what it is today and we have fundamentally changed its natural way in the last 200 years. This is simply wrong what we are doing. It cannot go on in this way.

Moreover, our development is also not fully credible. Ethically, it is again not sustainable that some parts of the world is so wealthy whereas the other is not. Well, this is a separate topic in itself why some countries are rich and some are poor. Let us ignore this fact for a time being. Even when we see within the richest countries, there is vast inequality. I am not telling that everybody should have equal amount of wealth, but there should be an opportunity for everybody to come up. The richest country on earth, the United States is also one of the most unequal among the rich countries. According to Forbes magazine, there are 492 billionaires in America but at the same time 45 million people living in poverty, means those earning less than half of the average income. At the same time, one in seven American lack even a basic coverage of health insurance. Crime is rampant, the US has highest number of prisoners in the world, and equal opportunity is absent especially in the field of higher education. Not everybody can afford to go to the University. Inequality is also a big problem in western Europe and especially since the crisis that broke out in 2008, situation has worsened in southern Europe that led to mass immigration to the west. The crisis of 2008 has also changed few things for better. The managers of big companies or banks had millions in salary and bonus whereas the cleaning staffs were fighting for a minimum wage of several Euros. These people justified this by saying that a manager also performs better in terms of productivity and does specialized job that not everybody is able to perform and use economical theories to justify the earning. However, no economist in the world would agree that the manager performs 500 times more than the cleaning staff. So, new laws were brought that strongly restricts such a high payments of managers and taxes higher for the income more than a certain limit. At the same time, in Europe's heavyweight Germany, minimum wage was set at 8.50 Euros per hour. Even though a person with family cannot sustain with a wage of 8.50 per hour, this is a good first step. Some pro-business politicians and experts condemn this by saying that in a globalized world, companies will be forced to move to countries where labour is cheap but this argument is hollow. There are enough examples of countries where there are much higher taxes and higher wages but still a fantastic economy that is at the same time also green. These countries are Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland and they present an extra-ordinary story of success about how everything can be done better without much inequality, without environmental degradation and with sustainability. Denmark for example has a completely free education for all levels which means equal opportunity for everybody. Mothers who are on maternity leave are guaranteed the job after coming back and the society is one of the most equal. Their economy is extremely successful. The beer lovers will know them for example Carlsberg, Tuborg but also other big companies like Nordisk, Maersk etc. Danish environmental policy is exemplary. If you travel from northern Germany to Copenhagen you will be thrilled by the number of wind turbines on the way. These turbines have become the part of nature. In social and economical policy, Denmark is a success story. This caused an old term “American Dream” to migrate to Denmark. They say “ if you want to live American Dream, you have to go to Denmark. Similarly, Sweden also has fantastic system. Sweden used to be a poor country until the World War II. Even industrialization came late to Sweden. However, when the social democrats took over the country, they chose a middle way, a pro business as well as a socially just. This, like Denmark caused low inequality, provided the people with all basic services like education, healthcare and at the same time gave rise to private businesses and companies that are major actors in global level today. We know well about IKEA, Erricsson, Hannes & Mauritz (H&M), Nordea ( Swedish-Finnish ), Saab, Scandia, Vattenfall etc. Scandinavian countries top the Human Development Index (HDI), the Human Rights index and have lowest Gini-coefficient ( which measures the difference between rich and poor )Why I gave example of these two countries is because they are models. They are a live example that the middle way is indeed possible. Their development is sustainable and this should be the way how it should be.

The other major factor in our well being is health and healthcare. From the development of medicine to today's medical technologies and treatment, there is no doubt that this is phenomenal. The medical researchers have reached so far that they even found out the gene that is responsible for ageing. We have this secret now why we age and soon, it could lead us to be immortal, and continue living on if we want to. Either this will come out to be a topic of discussion, I am not sure but what sure is that such developments will make the life of people longer. Due to the advancement in healthcare, average life expectancy has increased from 50 years in 1950s to over 70 today according to World Health Organisations. Diseases that caused millions of deaths few centuries back cause no longer a threat today. From the development of Aspirin in 1899, to other achievements like blood transfusion, development of vaccines against diseases like tuberculosis, diptheria, polio, titanus, meningitis, pneumonia etc are incredible things. The WHO announced the complete eradication of Smallpox in 1980, a major killer in the past. Recently, many countries announced being Polio free. Moreover, the treatment methods have improved, quality of medicines has improved and number of people receiving care worldwide have also increased.

Still, we cannot forget that, despite all these development, large portion of people are still untouched by these innovation. Due to the lack of primary health care, millions of people around the world should die prematurely. In the absence of health centres and professional health personnels, over 300,000 women die yearly worldwide (WHO) while giving birth, also called maternal mortality. The WHO also reports that 5 million children die within the first year of birth worldwide, mainly in developing countries. In countries like Sierra Leone and Chad, the rate is as high as 113 and 131 respectively per 1000 children born ( WHO ). This means more than one in every ten child will die. Did you know that for people in these countries and many others, the most dangerous day in their life is the day when they were born ? In addition to this, easily curable diseases kill millions of people in developing countries. There are over half a million deaths worldwide by Malaria alone. Matter of concern is not the total mortality caused by diseases, the issue here is the causes that we can easily cure. Malaria can be cured easily but we need financial resources. Richer countries can and should support poor countries in health sector if not in other sectors because if the prevalence of communicable diseases are high in any country, it should warn the whole world because diseases do not know the border. From the AIDS epidemic and even current Ebola Virus epidemic we see that they can spread to any country. So, it is necessary to fight for it globally instead of locally in individual countries.

For the first time in human history, the level of our prosperity is so high that if we want, we can provide all the people in the whole world with at least basic health care. We are even capable to feed the whole world and no child should suffer from mal-nutrition and no human should go to bed hungry. Even a single nation, the United States of America is capable to do so. We also have many other countries whose prosperity level is equal or roughly equal to that of the US but obviously we need a will to do this. It is true that you hear daily in the news about budget constraints, high government debts etc etc and might disagree with me and say that we are not capable of providing basic healthcare and basic nutrition for the whole world. Of course there is budget constraint but if we figure out unnecessary expenditures for example on military or nuclear weapons or unnecessary security expenses etc, we have more than enough money to spend there where we really need it. In 2012, the whole world spent 1750 billion dollars as military expenses ( SIPRI military expenditure database ). This means, approximately 250 dollars for everybody. This implies that, for the desperate 1 billion people who live under extreme poverty, this money is enough for their food for whole year, for their education and healthcare. Hence, we have no problem of money, we only have a problem of spending in a right way. For sure, it is not possible to cut the military budget completely, but it is possible to reduce the spending and use the money somewhere else, in health, education or infra-structure. No matter how good it is for business or industries, poor countries sending multi-billion dollar satellites in space is equally unethical. Investment in weapons like enriching uranium or building other atomic weapon will only cause moral dilemma and as a result, other countries end up building that as well so at the end of the day, resources for daily needs will be missing but we will have sophisticated weapons to destroy each other.

So, the question goes, what should we do now ? I think when we, the people of the world are determined to take small actions, we can make a huge change in a short period. We should see a bigger picture and start thinking from the globe as a whole. There is no other option than to go green. Resources we use are limited. Sooner or later, we must switch to green sustainable way of life. The sooner the better. So, do small things, switch off the lights when you leave your room, switch off electrical devices if you dont use them, share your car instead of travelling alone, use public transportation if possible, reduce food waste, buy things that you really need and ignore the ones that you dont, prioritize locally grown foods, buy from environmentally friendly suppliers or companies and tell the people in your surrounding to do the same. This will have a huge change in a short time. I am not telling to reject materialism. Be materialistic but know your needs and dont over-consume. It is a positive news that technology is helping to gain environmental efficiency therefore, investment in new technology should not be interrupted. Just 20 years ago, there were separate devices for telephone, camera, watch and radio. Today we have all in one, in iphone which is much efficient. Similarly, coal fired trains that were polluting the environment are being replaced by efficient electric powered trains. Better technology is the best solution.

In the health sector, first of all we need a better policy that does not discriminate people when it is about providing care. Secondly, in personal level when we change our lifestyle towards healthy living, the healthcare costs for us as well as for the government will be reduced. Most people have a kind of job that does not require much physical activity today. So, they sit on the chair all the time while working. At home, people spend more time in front of television or computer or video games. This kind of sedentary lifestyle is not what humans had in the past. Even though we have such lifestyle, the health professionals advice to do at least 30 minutes of any physical activity daily. It can be more. Consuming healthy foods, more vegetables and fruits, taking care of mental health, laughing a lot and most importantly not eating junk or processed foods can make us healthy. Especially junk foods are responsible for the obesity that are increasing at alarming rate in western world but also in few poorer countries. The WHO reports that 74% people are overweight in America. In the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, it is well over 60%. Overweight is connected with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and many other diseases. Apart from poor health, there are vast economic consequences on the person but also on the healthcare providers. Lost working days, waste of time due to illness etc are few drawbacks of having a poor health. As health is directly connected with environment, a joint policy would help to improve both. For example a high tax on processed meat would cause less consumption of unhealthy meat and at the same time is environmentally friendly. There are issues with animal rights too. Due to our appetite for chickens, the situation in poultry farms are terrible. Number of chickens per square metres, their handling, their foods etc are all other than an ethical treatment of animals. This has caused a massive uproar among the animal rights activists. Moreover, the extensive use of antibiotics in animals will have direct impact on human health when we consume their meats. The gist of this message is: take care of your health and take care of the environment.

In the case of developing countries, the use of medical technologies should be intensified. In a current situation, the problem of accessibility is dire. Rural areas are untouched by any health facilities. Telehealth has contributed to minimize the problem. A patient in a rural area can talk to his/her doctor via internet and get appropriate consultation. In case of basic sicknesses or health problem, it is a genuine solution. Telehealth is also being used in developed countries with vast rural areas like the United States or Australia. While preparing a report about challenges of primary healthcare, I read a paper that reported that falling from a tree while collecting firewood is one of the major cause of disability in rural Nepal. People should cook food by burning woods so they spent time going to the jungle, cutting trees or branches and when they fall down and break their legs, they have to live with broken leg due to unavailability of health services. Due to the lack of roads, it would be impossible in many cases to bring these people to the places where treatment is available. Telehealth wont help here either but there are many other cases where even a general consultation will help. In this example again there is both health and environmental aspect. As an economist, I notice that this system of collecting firewood to cook food is the most inefficient method. A person should spend a lot of time going to the jungle, cutting the woods, climbing trees risking his health, and bring it home to cook where he burns these woods. Burning woods cause indoor pollution where all the family member will breathe the smoke. It is like smoking many cigarette at a time. The smoke is very bad for the health of children and especially if there is a pregnant woman, it will have many negative effects on her and her child's health. It can cause cognitive deficiency in the child. So, giving a stove or electric heater for such people for free is one of the best economic policies. A poor family will save a lot of time, the risk of falling from tree will be mitigated and there will be no bad impact on their health. As they will save time, they can even send their children to school. In the current situation, we cannot tell these people to send their children to school because they should work in the fields and perform household activities otherwise there is nothing to eat. So, technologies are good for the poor.

Moreover, priorities should be in prevention rather than cure. Teaching healthy living in school, enacting public health law to fight the major issues like air pollution, tobacco use, food safety, waste management, sanitation etc will improve the health of people, decrease the pressure on hospitals and save money. Health policies in developed countries are based mainly on prevention but developing countries are still struggling to do this. Hospitals are over crowded, there is lack of doctors and other specialized health professionals and the health infra-structures they have today were built in times when the level of population was much lower. Population growth in developing countries are terribly high but the health facilities havent increased so this will certainly cause a decrease in quality of care. The percentage of GDP spent in health sector should also be increased. Even a one percent increase will cause better health hence better productivity hence better growth and this means prosperity.

So, after changing these few things in the environment and in our health, we can start taking care of other people. Then we can see the societal problems and think about how we can solve them. Few things that are rampant these days are again inequality, poverty, discrimination, racism, nepotism, domestic violence, human rights etc. We will not talk about all of them but these are the most important ones. Before we talked about reducing military spendings but we should keep in mind that unless the society is not safe, unless the people dont feel safe to go to schools, markets or whereever, we cannot cut in security spendings. If people are peaceful, only then there will be no need of police or security spending. So, this process begins with ourselves. When we are violent and cause threat, the problem will continue to exist. Recently I read a news that in the Netherlands, many prisons are being shut down as there are no prisoners. If there are no prisoners why bother to hire more policemen or build prisons. So, we the people have power to bring change in the society by changing ourselves for better. Discrimination of any kinds based on skin colour, class, ethnicity, religion should be tackled by proper laws and their implementation. All social problems have one answer and that is inclusive Economic Development. Unless there is development, social problems like inequality, violence, human rights will never go away. However, this development should be non-discriminatory, it should be inclusive and should be sustainable without postponing the externalities to the future generation. This development will generate peace and prosperity. Without talking about development, no-matter how long we talk about reducing poverty, inequality, violence etc, it will only be a waste of time.

One success story I cannot miss is about Professor Mohammad Yunus who got Nobel Prize in Peace in 2006. He is actually the founding father of Micro-credit and started lending from his own pocket. Micro-credit is a lending scheme that give minimal amount of money to the people with no financial collateral so that they can invest in micro businesses like selling toys, repairing shoes etc. This scheme was so successful that it provided a way of living for millions of poor in Bangladesh. They could feed themselves, feed their families and send their children to school. In the absence of this, they could have ended up stealing things in order to survive or participate in other illegal activities. There can be no peace with hungry stomachs. A job stopped people from being violent and hence generated Peace. That is why Professor Yunus was not awarded Nobel prize in Economics rather in Peace. Micro-credit was copied by development agencies in other countries and micro-credit today is the part of curriculum in programmes related to development. Elite universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and London School of Economics teach about Micro-Credit in their classrooms.

Moreover, moral values like democracy, freedom, human rights, animal rights, tolerance, love etc should always be maintained. Better rules and their implementations can create a world worth living.

Hence, considering all the issues I mentioned above namely environmental sustainability, good health, sustainable development, learning this ourselves and teaching this to future generations, we will have better people for this earth who will take care of it.  

How to deal with Crimes Against Humanity

By: Bikal Dhungel

Terrorism is the most prominent threat to world peace and humanity. It is hard to estimate how many terrorists and terrorist groups are there in the world as most of them do not provide the actual data. They either overstate or understate. Experts point that terrorism is a business, otherwise it wont survive. As it grow in numbers, the business should grow as well. People involving in such acts should feed themselves, cover the costs of travelling and the equipments needed to make exploitive materials or buy weapons. They do not work in a conventional way so money should come from somewhere. Terrorism is business also means that they run some form of illegal activities. Rich terrorist groups like former Irish Republican Army was involved in money laundering, smuggling or drugs, Taliban involves in drug trade, human trafficking and other groups involve in loot, abductions, threat etc to raise money.

Adopting the path of violence has become a popular way of getting thing that one cannot get in a traditional way. This includes the thirst for power. Terrorist groups like the ones mentioned above have taught people that violence is an optimal solution. In today's world where there are more regulations for a chocolate than for machine guns, having an access of such life threatening tools has made our world unsafe. It has also made unstable countries prone to violence eruption.

The guerilla movement of Maoists in Nepal was an act of terrorism. A group of people led by Baburam Bhattrai and Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda started capturing police offices of rural Nepal in order to acquire weapons, combat dresses, walkie talkies and money. The movement that spread in a quick pace had a motto “ destruction before construction “. At least, everything they could were destroyed. From bridges to health posts, roads, schools, government buildings, private properties etc to name the few. In the name of fighting for Social Justice, thousands of poor and illiterate youths from rural places were handled weapons. ( to note: children of both Baburam and Prachanda were sent for higher education to renowned universities )

At last 14,000 deaths. The Maoists used all sorts of threats, tricks and lies to get a majority government and ruled the nation. People who were ready to kill innocents some time could be trusted that they will do good for the public ? The theory of psychology doubts it. It can only be trusted in very few extra-ordinary cases. Maoists were not like that. The Maoists ruled for some time with no result towards progress and the economical situation of the country deteriorated. Gangsters were given the responsibility of sensitive organs like the finance ministry which need high experts of monetary policy. Having a look at Barack Obama's council of Economic Advisors, there are nobel prize winning veteran economists with life long experiences and still, they face economic crisis often. How can such untrained, irresponsible and inexperienced people run finance ministry. No wonder that they use such organs for their own benefit and let the future generation pay the high price. Several similar examples are there but this is not the topic of this essay.

The recent election was a slap in the face of Maoists as they lost most of the seats in the government and became only a tiny opposition party but still involved in the government. The cases of Human Rights abuses, killings, abductions etc continually came to the limelight when Maoists were ruling. They used all their power and influence to hide these happenings arguing that this will hamper the peace process. It is a well known fact that Maoists violated human rights like the killing of civilians not involved in the fighting, recruiting children in the guerilla warfare etc. So, what is not clear for the general public is what will happen to these criminals.

My answer to this question is: Patience. Yes Patience because the demise of Maoists is on the way. This party is in the process of being smaller and smaller and one day, it will dissolve. That will be the best time to arrest the master minds. Before going further, it is important to understand that, we cannot punish all the guerilla fighters. Economist and Terrorism expert Loretta Napoleoni mentions that terrorist groups have maximum 4- 7 masterminds. All others are blind followers. These followers do whatever the masterminds order them to do. That is why they also have no opinion about why they are fighting and we never read or hear any interview with a normal guerilla of any terrorist groups. In many cases, the guerillas were also recruited by force. So, we cannot punish all of them for the atrocity. In the case of Maoists, it is also logical to punish these few masterminds. But we need to wait a long time for that. If we arrest them now, the remaining supporters will come to the street to protest and it will easily turn violent. Time should be taken to show the public that the path of violence they took was a huge mistake and this kind of actions should not be tolerated. Then it is time to bring truth forward and arrest them.

We should learn from history. Similar atrocities were committed in other areas as well. In the Yugoslavian war of early 90s, it took a long time to bring the guilty into justice. The trial of Slobodan Milosevic took a long long time and it was only after almost 20 years that he was pleaded guilty of war crimes in the international criminal court in the Hague, Netherlands. Similarly, Karazic, Ratko Mladic etc were jail sentenced roughly 20 years after the war. The timing was thought logically. It also gave a signal in Yugoslavia that any war crimes can take the masterminds into jail, even after the peace process and after decades.

So, the victims of Nepalese Civil War should have a patience. Someday, the engineers of the Civil War who used innocent people for a purpose non other than gaining name, fame, properties and a form of empire for people around them will be brought to justice. People like Prachanda, Baburam, Mohan Baidya, Agni Sapkota can never enjoy a good night sleep, the nightmare of International Criminal Court will be haunting them until the day it turns from a nightmare to reality. As I have mentioned in another article “Join the ICC”, it is also good if country like Nepal, which is prone to violence join the International Criminal Court. This will stop the possible mass murderers or anyone who decide to choose the path of violence because the ICC can arrest them. Moreover, it will also stop the foreign countries to commit such crimes in Nepal because the law of ICC says that even if the oppressor is not the member of ICC but it commits such crime in a country that is the member of ICC, it will be brought to justice. So, this can be a factor that can stop any massive scale violence in the future.  

Time Bomb of Foreign Employment

By: Bikal Dhungel

The UN estimated that at the end of 2013, there were 232 million international migrants worldwide. This number is increasing. Most of these people emigrate for employment purposes. The total amount migrants transfer to their family, called remittance flow has reached 414 billion dollars ( World Bank ). This figure is almost four times the total Official Development Aid ( ODA ) of 135 billion dollars ( OCED ) in the same year. The Middle East attracts a handsome number of migrants as countries like Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar etc having more migrants than the native population. Thank to the discovery of oil, these countries were turned from deserts to a powerhouse of world economy supplying oil needed to run the economies of other countries. They are highly dependent on migrant workers.

South Asian countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan etc have large number of youth forces working in the middle east. Nepal records the peak of over 3.2 million people living in foreign countries for employment purposes. Remittance Flow hence, is one of the major source of income and comprise of 22% of GDP. Out of the total workforce of 15 million people, 3.2 million or roughly one fifth , generating the amount of GDP that is also one fifth implies that per person, the foreign migrants are sending the equal amount of money that they would earn at home if they had a job. But job is not available at home. In this case, foreign employment is an opportunity to gain hard currencies but we should also keep in mind that creating jobs at home would bring back the migrant workers immediately in contrast to the argument of some policy makers who argued that due to higher earning in foreign countries, outward migration would continue whatsoever. It will certainly be this way, if the total earnings will be increased and if the labour standards will improve. However, it is true that remittance flow has made things possible that would not be in its absence. For example the children of migrant workers can attend the school or enjoy better nutrition for the time until one family member sends money home.

Despite all good things about remittance flow it would be economically correct to say that it is a time bomb ticking towards the end. We should consider the economic vulnerability of countries where most migrant workers are stationed. These are oil exporting countries and oil is limited. So, they should find other ways to sustain their economies in the future. In addition to that, many European countries for example are switching to Green Energy. Still, this is the issue of the future too far away. Current issue is the end of construction boom. Looking back to history, after World War II, all the countries that were involved or destroyed had a high growth in the decades following due to reconstruction and then booming years. Germany started to grow in the fifties, boomed in the sixties and slowly sustained at a low growth until the German economy did not need foreign workers and chancellor Willy Brandt called for “Anwerbestop”/No Recruitment in foreign countries. Japan had a similar story. After a large destruction in World War II including two atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, already after 30 years it became worlds second largest economy only behind the US. South Korea and few other East-Asian countries share similar stories but then stopped growing and sustained at some point. The same trend is visible in China today. After Mao's death when Deng Xiaoping embraced a free market economy, China started to grow. It had a double digit growth for around three decades. China overtook the UK, then France, then Germany and Japan and stand today as second largest economy of the world. China has more than twice the economy of Japan and more than half of the US economy. Napoleon Bonaparte once said “ Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world “. She indeed shaked but now the cooling down phase has arrived. China of course wants to be the Super Power, the number one economy of the world, the richest country. There are also forecasters who say that China will indeed overtake the US around 2035. However, we should keep in mind that the US is still the most scientific country of the world with fantastic educational institutes and research centers. Having a look at top 100 universities in the world, 45 are from the US and only 2 from China (Times higher education, 2014). The US Army spends more money than the next top 12 countries combined. The US Army controls whole waterways of the world so it can sink every ship it wants and watch them whenever it likes. The US Army is deployed in more than 150 countries around the world, which we do not hear in the news that often. In Germany alone over 40,000 US soldiers are stationed mainly in Rammstein, Wiesbaden, Kaiserslautern and 18 other cities Similarly, there are US Army bases in Japan, South Korea, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc, which are strategically important places and they can launch war any time anywhere. Why I mentioned this is to say that China will not be a world power, at least not in next 100 years. Moreover, the US is one country, with a stable democracy and exemplary degree of freedom. It has one language and people from the whole world, highly qualified ones choose the US instead of China. China has huge disparity between rural and urban region. It doesn’t even have one language. There are 55 minority groups, some of them prone to conflicts like in Xinjiang or Tibet. China has ongoing border problems with all of its big neighbours including India, Pakistan and Vietnam. It still has a totalitarian government that massively restricts the freedom of people. The ruling party is still called “The Communist Party of China “ which doesnt allow freedom of speech, a vital factor for change, innovation and development. So, China's growth might not last longer.

With the same hypothesis, we can also forecast that rich countries of the middle east will shrink in the coming years or decade. When Qatar finishes building all its stadium for World Cup 2022, the labours used should return to their countries. Similarly, after all the needed infra-structures are built in UAE or Saudi Arabia, labours should return home. In the worst scenario, when another Economic Crisis hit in these countries, same labour forces are the ones to get hit first. But even without assuming the worst case, after all the construction works are done, a large part of migrants will return, without any benefits because they are temporary workers. The ones who will face consequences are their families who are so dependent on them. Once you are used to spending a certain amount of money, it is very difficult if there is suddenly no money coming. So, the family would stop consuming required nutrients, children will be out of school and there is a risk of being pushed to extreme poverty in a short time. If the Remittance will not be spent IN NEPAL now, we will face this problem. Current situation is, they are not spent. Nepalese import a large portion of foods from abroad mainly India and China. Since they are getting money transferred from abroad, they have increased their calories intake through more foods. But these foods were not produced in Nepal. When Nepalese for example demand more food, the entrepreneur in India invests more, produce more and sell more to Nepalese. So, the remittance flow is ending up in India and China because we buy their products. If the money is spent in Nepal, it would create jobs and even in the times of crisis, the situation will not be as bad as in the absence of investment. This is simple: just have a look at the list of items we import from India, then have a look if we can produce these goods locally (mostly yes ) and if so, get an expertise and invest. Nepal for example imports hundreds of tons of chicken every day, it imports vegetables like tomato, beans, green leaves but also other materials like pencils, pens, text books, cloths, etc. These few items can also be produced at home. But for this, the government should bring expertise, teach people how to do this, where to do this, then there will be a huge change. At least in agricultural sector, we are starting to see this change, which is positive. Buying goods locally would be cost efficient as we save a huge cost in transportation and import tax. This is also environmentally friendly. By this way, we can generate millions of jobs.

But in this essay, it is about Remittance. So, my point is, what will happen when all of a sudden, migrants come home ? In today's situation, people are sending money, they have money and they buy more foods. Still, the food production is somehow limited. That is why, it caused the rise in prices. The prices are now so high that the average goods price in comparison to 15 years before has quadrupled. This is also because of the policy of printing money by the previous government which simply raises the price and bring inflation but nothing more than that. So, when people suddenly have no income, they have no money to buy daily foods but the prices will remain the same. All of a sudden, they are unable to buy foods and there will be a high food shortage. Sure, when people cannot afford to buy foods, the prices will also go down but this is a slow process. Prices almost never go down all of a sudden rather do slowly. But people need foods and goods in a daily basis, so they might have a big problem. Moreover, in most of the places in the world, when similar scenario arises, the sellers tend to hide the foods, in order to stop the falling price. If few of them do this, it is not bad but if a large number of sellers or a big suppliers do this, it will have a huge effect. This is also the case with food speculation that caused thousands of death in Africa and South Asia in the recent years. So, the end of boom years will slow down the economy of the middle east, but in countries like Nepal, it might be the matter of life and death. The transition period when people cannot afford to buy and when price start to go down, this will be very critical. Unless the government intervene in the market, we will have a big crisis of hunger which will cause many deaths. Consequently, it will also keep people poor undermining their capacity to afford in the future. This is the period when the time bomb will explode.

So, to stop this bomb from exploding, it is necessary to create a business environment of investment. First step is again government. Through training programs for the youth, the government can initiate the project and also invite the private sector to provide supervision, with profit, which in-turn will motivate others to start the business. There are many people who have ideas and courage but no financial security to take a loan. The government can be the financial guarantee for such people. Slowly it will lead to the investment of money earned in foreign countries in Nepal itself and even in the day when 3 million migrant workers come back home, it will be business as usual and perhaps, nobody should die. Hence, start producing foods in Nepal, start businesses, do not consume all the remittances you receive rather save some for the rainy days, prioritize local products whenever it is possible. This will be the take 'off of ' of growth that brought some successful stories of Economic Development in some countries mentioned above.  

Why Economists should not be blamed

By: Bikal Dhungel

Since the financial crisis of 2007/2008, everybody have turned to be a kind of Economist. For the several years following, even until today, the news are filled with things related to finance, economics, crisis, recessions, depressions etc. A large majority also believe that Economists are responsible for the crisis. In a public lecture in the London School of Economics, Queen Elizabeth II asked the panel “ Why didnt you know the crisis coming ? “. This looks like a simple question but yet a tough one. Why didnt the economists see the crisis coming actually ? What do they study in the university and does it make sense to study economics if the crisis come and hit the society and economists look and see and are helpless about it ?

But wait, are all doctors healthy ? Do all designers live in perfectly designed homes ? Are all marriage counsellors happily married ? The answer is no and this complex thing called a government is not only filled with economists. Actually Economists only contain a tiny fraction of the government. Most politicians also turn to be a lawyer with no training in economics. They also tend to focus less on efficiency as the economists do, which can also be good in some sense but when things go wrong, the blame should not be faced by Economists alone. I will give few example about important times in history when economists knew what is going to happen but still the mainstream politics rejected it and only realised this when it was too late.

Ludwig von Mises, in his book called 'Socialism' which he wrote in 1922, predicted the fall of Soviet Communism. (Source: Mises Institute ) Mises's prediction of the fall was based on the lack of information that a country cannot have from its market. This means, the central planning would not know what to produce and how much to produce. The most efficient way of doing this is to let the market do itself though the invisible hand of Adam Smith. The problem of this calculation and central planning would lead to the fall of socialism/communism. Infact, this happened in many parts of the world in the coming days. China, having embraced the communist system has now completely rejected the idea and took free market policy which resulted in double digit growth for more than 3 decades which brought over 600 million people out of poverty. China is the most successful story of economic development in human history and this was made possible by free market system and not by planned economy within communism.

But listening to Ludwig von Mises was far from reality.

During the same time, another pioneer of Economics or to be more exact, Keynesianism was the British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes told that a limited government intervention in the economy would help to solve the crisis or in other words, a limited government intervention is necessary. Most social-market economies of the European Union like Germany or Scandinavian Countries today run mostly on Keynesian policies.

After World War I ended in 1918, in the Treaty of Versaillies, the allied powers, Britain, France etc imposed reparation charges on Germany which had to pay for their damage. Keynes published a book called “ The Economic consequences of the Peace “ presenting the account of payments Germany should pay. He wrote that Germany was told to pay more than it caused damage or it was not fair. This would radicalise Germany in the future and can even invite another world war. Critics blamed Keynes for being a supporter of Germany. The wall street crash of 1929 indeed radicalised Germany and gave birth to Adolf Hitler who had plans to create a 1000 year lasting German Empire and regain the territories it lost after World War II. Hitler was democratically elected the Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and the war began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. It is still unknown what would have happened without such a high war repairing payments imposed on Germany but this has surely radicalised the German people.

Third example is more recent, the crisis of 2007/2008. Friedrich Hayek from the Austrian School of Economics wrote in the sixties that deregulation is dangerous. If we deregulate the financial sector providing easy credits to the people, the rate of borrowing will increase and borrowing might take place without a collateral. This can also lead to borrowing for the sake of speculation. Hayek pointed out that the borrowing bubble will increase and finally burst causing the financial crisis that will eventually lead to economical crisis. What happened before 2007 was the same. Since the decade before, the financial industry was deregulated and borrowing was easier. At the same time, few significant banks acted unethically meaning borrowing to people without security who then failed to pay back their debts. The crisis was mainly brought by the housing market of the US. Banks like Northern Rock, Goldman Sachs etc default and the crisis hit in the large scale. What happened after that was the politicians campaigning for regulation of financial industry which they achieved in some degree and today another crisis due to the same reason is unlikely. The crisis was again foreseen by an economist almost 50 years ago.

Moreover, the financial industry is responsible for the crisis who acted unethically. So, blaming the economists for the mess is not logical. A close cooperation between the policy makers and economists would lead to a stable society.  

The Limits of Pacifism

By: Bikal Dhungel

Non-violence is a powerful weapon. It knelled down an empire where the sun never set. However, where is the limit of non-violence ? Where is the limit of pacifism ? Had the British continually opened fire on the non-violent protesters in India, would they continue to believe in Gandhi ? How long would Nelson Mandela accept the massacre of his people from violent armed forces ?


Unfortunately, our history is mixed. Non-violence in the case of South Africa, India and the Civil Rights movement in America under Martin Luther King Junior had success but on the other hand, not confronting the oppressors violently with weapon has caused millions of lives. The Rwandan Genocide, when the Hutu Militants massacred a million people of Tutsi ethnic group within three months, the world looked away. They refused to take action. The international community could send the army to Rwanda to stop the Hutus from killing. Even the United Nations pulled out from Rwanda. Later, the US president Bill Clinton apologized publicly for not sending the US Army to Rwanda. He could have saved one million people. Similarly, the question goes further, shall we tolerate terrorist groups and tackle them non-violently ? Would non-violence works against Al Quida or Taliban or Boko Haram or any other extremist groups ?

Recently, radical Islamists called ISIS calling for an Islamic State forced more than 200,000 Kurds to flee northern Iraq and killed more than 1000 people as of 10^th August. The international community is tired of sending troops abroad which is connected with huge costs and causality but feel their responsibility to act. This is why countries like France and UK decided to send weapons for the kurdish forces to fight back the islamists. Most pacifist Germany also decided to take part in the operation. Not doing anything against the radicals would result in massive loss of human lives and infra-structures. So, being attached on pacifism is not always a right thing to do. Saving human lives in any cost should be the priority. If weapons can be used to save lives, we should do it.



Imagine what would have happened if the NATO had not bombed Kosovo, imagine what would Hitler do if the allied forces had not reacted in time. So, if weapons could be used to kill people, it can also be used to save people and install peace. We should only make sure that weapons do not end at wrong hands but in general , sticking to Pacifism can be dangerous in some situation and we should know the limits of this.

Depression: Disease of the future

By: Bikal Dhungel 

Death of Robin Williams ( a Hollywood star ) shows that Depression has nothing to do with money. It can affect the rich as well as other classes. The World Health Organisation states that worldwide 350 million or more people of all ages are suffering with depression which can lead to suicide if no action is taken. 

The matter of concern is if the treatment is available. In the least developed countries, there are barely any psychologists or psychotherapists actively involving in treating depression. In rich Europe, for example in Germany, the patient should wait 3 months in average to meet a psycho therapist. This is a long time for somebody suffering with this disease. The WHO points that there are several influencing factors of depression namely social, psychological and biological.

The social factor is what one can make change in.

Our society is moving towards more individualism. Individualism in one way has helped the western society to thrive as people had more time to think and discover creative ideas which later helped the society as a whole. On the other side, it is not without faults. People became more focused on themselves, their jobs or whatever they do but in an individualistic manner. One had to wait until Christmas and Easter to meet their families. One had to take an appointment to meet friends. This created loneliness. On the other hand, the society moved towards performance oriented one, materialistic one and one that values 'being', 'achieving', 'doing' etc more than anything else.

The result was emotional distress. People started to compare themselves with others and persued to do more than their peers by working overtime, by disregarding their health and relationships.

To enjoy the little time they have, people prefer to use things where they dont need other people like playing video games, other games in the internet, doing things alone, watching TV or spent time in internet. To feel being loved, one should go to the places like Disco today.

We humans are naturally social beings, we have lived in societies throughout the history and our pattern of life today is unnatural, it is a new process that we just know since recently. Lack of proper human connections, our thoughts cannot be expressed as we wish to be, our feelings are not being shared, they are being pressed in our minds and our mind is not peaceful. This resulted in anxiety, stress and eventually depression. Stress and depression are mostly found in western, individualistic society. More and more people are suffering with burn-out syndrome and the authorities are helpless about how to tackle this issue as this cause an enormous economic burden on the society. Billions of working hours are lost on absenteeism yearly due to stress related reasons.

Other factors like inequality, joblessness, financial burdens, health problems are adding oil to this problem. At least some countries have started to understand this problem and enacted rules and regulations to tackle the issue. For example in Sweden, 6 hours of daily work was tried. If this experiment works, people have more time for their family, friends and time to spend on the things they love or their hobbies. This might make them happy and lower the risk of stress or depression.

The number of people signing themselves for Yoga or other form of meditation is also increasing. It took a long time for the scientific community to accept that mindfulness is indeed a science rather than a religious belief. Even some universities started to teach mindfulness. However, this only is not enough. People should be encouraged to do more physical activities, eat healthy foods, invest on their health, invest time on things that make them happy, practice love and compassion etc. This will reduce the number of people suffering with depression.

A public health approach is needed to realise this. For example a safe cycling highway might be necessary if we want to encourage people to cycle rather than drive cars. If the road is dangerous, this might not be logical. The Danish capital of Copenhagen has established itself as the most bicycle friendly city in the world and more people cycle to work than anywhere else. Health insurance companies are studying if paying people to join the Fitness Club would reduce their cost of sickness. The result is yet to come.

For a society without stress and depression, we need to change few things and namely: using technology to make our life simpler but not overusing it and making us so addicted to it for example the electronic devices like iphones. We should spend required time for our physical and mental health. Practising compassion and taking care of fellow humans would make us more happy than others. Being charitable is equally good for us like for the ones we help. Close connection to the nature is always good. Spending some time daily for things we love which might be reading a book, playing a game or talking or listening to people we like etc would enrich our life. These are all things that we can do in personal level. When people are healthy, the society is healthy and when the society is healthy, the country is healthy. A healthy country means less number of people who feel alone and depressed in this world of 7 billion, a healthy country is where there are others who stands with you when you need them. Then only, the purpose of life could be fulfilled.