For the last three years, Nepal has been a Democratic Republic. After long years of armed struggle to transform the monarchical regime, Maoism triumphed in the ballot box and the country woke up to a new reality. At least 70% of the country´s population gave their vote to bring a prime minister into power who will rule with the promise of communist freedom, a freedom which has within its scope the abolition of all religious practice within the country, of any cult or form of adoration....
more »
For the last three years, Nepal has been a Democratic Republic. After long years of armed struggle to transform the monarchical regime, Maoism triumphed in the ballot box and the country woke up to a new reality. At least 70% of the country´s population gave their vote to bring a prime minister into power who will rule with the promise of communist freedom, a freedom which has within its scope the abolition of all religious practice within the country, of any cult or form of adoration. But in spite of this conscience with which Maoism rules today in Nepal, the leaders continue to have faith in the undisturbed and steady transformation of the electorate. What it really boils down to is that, under the scrupulous and all-pervading gaze of their leaders, that person only is considered a true communist, who is seen to have abandoned his religious beliefs and become converted into an activist for the Maoist cause, whereas those persons only pass as forming part of the mass called "voters" who view themselves as communists, who at the same time perform the rituals and privations of religious practices, which are principally of Hindu or Buddhist origin.
Nepal continues to proceed along its path of poverty, while the general mass of people begin to perceive the result of their election, their leaders' gamble remains up in the air: that they can transform the country's faith, so deep and rooted as much in the ideal of social justice, the sharing of wealth and a socialist society, as it is in Buddha, Laxmi or Shiva, gods and symbols of the thousand-year-old religious tradition of this people, inheritors of a rich and ancient spirituality, heirs of Brahman.
« less