hi friends,
truly need help on this one.
trying to read about the election results in nepal with an open mind and heart and i'm just so confused.
and humbled.
just a few months ago i was here going on about how the maoists are raping and pillaging, and now they may be writing the next constitution of nepal.
i also live in a country (usa) where we drag everybody's past before them and yell,
"look at this video of you talking to someone who used to once believe something that's not-so-nice that must mean that you're not-so-nice too in fact you're bad and dangerous!"
(i'm a little fed up with the accusations going back and forth in the american primaries right now)
so....electing the maoists - a party that has quite openly terrorized the country in the past but has now changed its course - is very risky to me, but also, i'm coming to see it shows a tremendous faith and trust in the human power to change.
i would love to know people's thoughts on this - hopefully we all live in a place where we get to vote at some point in our lives and how do we choose?
based on someone's past (or really, what we know of it and how it's been spun for us in the media...)?
on someone's present - who they are today, what they stand for, how they carry themselves through the campaign and reach out to a country in flux....(the maoists once picked up all the garbage in kathmandu to woo voters - no easy task either and a hands-on approach that i think is kind of brilliant)
or on a promised future - and here again, i am all for candidates laying out an approach to ending the war, to healing our polluted skies and underfinanced schools, recognizing that our dollar is laughable....but also the future is an unknown, so how much can we pretend to control it?
at the present moment, the maoists seem to have the majority. how they got this support and what they will do with it are both questions that no one can really answer. but i do want to say it is a compelling lesson in the human capacity for change and i wonder how often i truly judge someone for who s/he is right NOW.
please as always, thoughts are MUCH appreciated.
and if you are interested in the PEN PAL PROGRAM for grade school children in the Kathmandu Valley, please let me know.
be well,
abby
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