Agni’s women in Sama’s theatre

By SANGITA RAYAMAJHI

Agniko Katha end-ed on the edge of possibility as the female character Purnima stepped over the threshold of the monastery to journey towards a future that was yet to be made and named. Still haunted by the myth of the female body and the horrors of the present crisis, she leaves behind all that had meant so much to her, thus postponing her Nirvana for Bodhisattva—to serve those who needed her. Once again Abhi Subedi has brought women to the fore as in his previous play Dreams of Peach Blossoms. Their selfhood, their confidence, their power for life, their capacity to serve, and their sensitivity to the problem of the society brings again with revitalized energy the responsiveness of the playwright towards the status of women.

On Thursday, February 06, 2003 we all gathered around the entrance to Sama’s Theatre. The atmosphere was one of excitement and anticipation. Sama Theatre was to open to the public for the first time with Abhi Subedi’s play, Agniko Katha. The story is loosely based on or rather inspired by the memories of damage caused by fire at the Tyangboche Monastery in 1989, together with memories of other fires caused at other times. The play opens in a monastery but the turbulence in the mind of the monks is evident from he very first scene, as Poet Bhikchhu says:

This is but an enactment of a play/ But here somewhere inside/ Something has occurred

In the mind or the Gumba I do not know/ The wind blows through,/ The sky too is the same/ Inside, somewhere, something has happened/ In the Gumba today the drama of the sky is about to unfold/ The red burning horizon/ Could be of the mind, or of the Gumba/

Today, somewhere inside me I get a feel of a call of something/ To forewarn everyone

I have come without the Rimpoche’s message/ But carrying in mind the message of the Buddha. (All translations mine).

These words which tell us about the mindset of the monks is a premonition of a crisis that is to take place in the monastery. The Library is burnt down. Gyan the main monk sets out in his quest for knowledge, he goes out to seek answers to the questions that haunt him. While Purnima stays back. But she too has questions that she would like to get answers to. When the fire razed the library to the ground the pain of the charred books gave way to other pains that were suppressed for so long. The pain was not the pain of having to live the life of a nun, but the pain of a woman experiencing her loneliness, her isolation from the belief that even Lord Buddha would forsake her once she leaves the monastery. As one nun says, "Just see how it is. Lord Buddha is everywhere, but once we leave the monastery, it becomes difficult even for him to protect us. That is why the nuns cannot leave. If they leave even the gods will forsake them. I am quite surprised. If the monks leave the monastery Buddha will protect them but if we do the same he will not be able to protect us." And Purnima’s reply to this is still more fraught with pain, "God looks over everybody equally. But one thing what you’ve said is quite correct. When the monks leave the monastery everybody thinks well of them, but if we leave everybody thinks we are immoral, we are sinners." Thus the fire in the library allows these nuns to give vent to their pent up emotions that even in birth God has become impartial to them. According to the Buddhist philosophy women are born as women because in the previous life they had committed some unacceptable karma. And the voice of the singing nun rings through the stage, "Even a nun is a woman".

Perhaps after seeing the play many would not agree with me that I have once again chosen to talk about Purnima or about the singer nun or the other nuns. But that is precisely the point. The main nun Purnima in an answer to the main monk Gyan’s remark that a monk too has his body says— yes, that’s what I mean. Woman’s body is not a weakness, it is a power where the meanings of spirituality can be understood.

But in the monastery the role of the monks and the nuns has to be the same in their search for spirituality. Monk Gyan played by Subhas Thapa goes in search of knowledge and peace. In this quest he reaches the climax of his journey when he makes a last leap to perfection to Kailash ; he has to remain a monk. The Shaman played by Saugat Malla with all the accurate histriotics of a jhankri does the same, and he too gets his answer, "I needed to be a Shaman. I became a Shaman. I got this answer." The playwright thus brings the male and female together in the search for peace. The singing nun played by Sarita Giri gets her answer too, "I got my answer, whether I remain in the Gumba or outside I will live alongside my song." This play puts that message very strongly. It rejects segregation and separation. Why segregate in such great matters as spiritual quest? So Purnima played by the senior theatre artist Nisha Sharma Pokharel develops a strength, a power within her which enables her to walk out of the monastery with a mission in hand to begin working among the afflicted, the wounded and children whose parents are killed in war. Purnima has heard the pain everywhere and as she hands over the candle by chance to a girl named Pallabi Sharma Gupto standing in the audience the play ends with the thought of her mission that she vows to fulfil. The handing over of the candle signifies the symbolic sharing of the mission among women of all religions.

The playwright by putting the emphasis on this woman’s mission has created a problem within a system where women’s voice is not given prominence if not actually muted. But in the play the dramatic tension is the subject. How does the play do it? This play puts women’s aspirations for great works, meaning for their life and existence into powerful words. But the treatment that two persons have given to it makes it very effective—Sunil Pokharel, the director’s understanding of the theatre of words, which are too important to ignore, and the acting of the powerful seasoned woman artist Nisha. That aspect of women and their mission in life which is and can be similar to that of any male comes out well. The other women artists Basanti Maharjan and Aruna Karki charged each of their expressions with the feelings natural to women whose role they enacted. The poet monk played by Suresh Chand, the village monk played by Rajan Khatiwada, and the Rimpoche played by young artist Nishansh Pokharel come out in the entire play very effectively.

Women have a texture here. They are in the monastery. A singing woman brings the dreams of the outer free world into her faith system. Her song blends so well with the faith system . She is supported by the young dreamer, the seeker, monk Gyan. In the traditional system of dance mani-rimdu, and singing and prayer the singing of the nun played by Sarita Giri, brings out a woman’s sense of great spirituality and free imagination. The other women, played by the same girls in different roles cover from the domains of faith to that of the rural free movement and devotion.

Women’s scale, canvas if you prefer to call it so, is wider than those of the monks. The movement, the physical and spiritual dynamism is very important in which women’s journey becomes very pronounced culminating in the departure of Purnima.

The smaller size of the stage space, not enough chairs to sit and a packed audience on that particular day probably are some problems. Due to these reasons, to some people the play must have seemed a little longer, but in fact it has the perfect balance, length and dramatic scenic turns. The important point is the mood that one play can create and touch our deeply wounded thoughts caused by the violent turns of events in this country. If a play group invites and shows a play like Agniko Katha as if out of blue and gives people a chance to search for language within themselves that is a great cultural event. In a society where theatre or music has not been given any role of importance, there will be no means to salvage the afflicted minds. People who came to see the play did agree that it had given them a moment for meditation on peace. As the English translation of the play is underway, it will be easier for those who do not have access to Nepali to better understand the words because this play puts stress on giving words the quality of theatre.

When the nun, Purnima leaves the stage, she was asserting the power of a woman. This first journey of a woman inside Sama Theatre today to search and prove the meaning of a woman’s existence and her power heralds new times for women.

Of bandhs, goals and Maradonas

By ANIL PANICKER

The other day there was a news item that said that a sister (or is that brother?) organisation of the Maoists has once again decided to shut down all educational institutions in Nepal. (Later on, the bandh was called off.)

"Once again?", I caught myself saying. I am not here to talk about the relative merits or demerits of this students’ body decision to go in for a forced closure of places, which essentially are ‘temples of education’.

My concerns are for the vast multitude of students who will be affected and their studies derailed because of this unplanned break in their academic calendar.

School days are the most precious phase of an individual’s life and the things one learns or unlearns during this critical period, have the potential to make or mar the destiny of a person.

I remember my school days, when the odd bandh befell on our laps. We children used to welcome it with wide-open arms and the occasion was a cause for much joy. It meant a break from the daily rigmarole of getting up in the morning and boarding the school bus, to start another day of classes, classes and more classes.

It also meant several extra hours for us to play around or a day to catch up on the latest action in the sporting arena or whatever it was one was hooked onto then.

For all that to happen, we had to thank some political party or the other, (we never knew which one, absolute political novices that we were!) who bestowed this free gift to us. Usually it was to protest over something that happened either to the economy, ecology or environment, or to all three of these at the same time. But one thing was very clear. The event or mishap had to be really big to warrant a bandh. But things are markedly different for children these days. I find that nowadays bandhs are being declared at the drop of a hat.

I have a simple formula to know whether the schools are open on a particular day or not. There is a small uneven piece of ground that overlooks my backyard. If the ground is empty, I know that there is no bandh today. And if the ground is filled with kids playing football, I know that today is bandh day.

The last time they declared a bandh, I didn’t even have to peep over the boundary walls to figure out that a bandh was on. My ears did the needful. They were smart enough to pick up the huge large thuds, which emanated from the back portion of my house. Thuds which were very liberally interspersed with boisterous shrieks of laughter. And when the decibel levels rose, I knew for sure that a goal had been scored.

This non-stop cacophony of noises used to commence quite early in the day and continued right upto the wee hours of dusk. All this continued for about two weeks and when my ears had become quite attuned to their merry chatter, it stopped all of a sudden. It was then that I knew that the kids had gone back to their schools.

I pity these poor kids. In those two weeks, they had become quite adept at scoring some amazing goals. I am sure this tragic interlude from kicking ball must surely have dented some of these skills. I pray that this time around when bandh comes, they not only relearn all that they forgot, but a few among them even turn out to be Nepal’s Maradonas and Peles. And for all this, they need to thank the people who are gifting them the bandh.

Liberalise our financial sector

By CHANDRA THAPA

Mr Upadhyaya (a notional person) wants to use his friendly device and doesn’t have the time to visit the banks where he maintains the accounts. He takes a sip of the coffee at his office and finishes his entire personal and official banking transactions at the click of a mouse. Mr Upadhyaya also wants to trade in the stock exchange and instructs his bank via e-message to transact on his behalf. He pays all the utility bills, taxes to the government, and school fees on line. The following day Mr Upadhyaya flies to London on a business trip and suddenly up in the air, around 36,000 feet, he remembers to make an urgent transaction and immediately uses his personal devise to make the transaction via WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) technology. This is the future scenario of banking. The concept of market place is gradually being dominated by market space. Banks will be carried in the personal device and services will be tailor-made to suit the customer’s need and environment.

In India, ICICI bank now uses mobile ATMs. A concept whereby the bank makes optimum utilisation of its resources by launching the ‘ATM on wheels’. The very notion is that not throughout the day people make transactions and it will not be feasible for the bank to place ATMs in every nook and cranny of India round the clock but at the same time it just cannot neglect the retail market who needs value added services. Hence, the idea is to station the mobile machines at some strategically important location for few hours. These machines are connected to the central data base of the bank via GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) technology using wireless media. The future plans are to place such moving device on the train such as ‘The Palace on Wheels’ - the dream train of India and at other vantage locations such as departmental stores, shopping arcades or even in the flights. Thus, the future banking model is that banks do not want their clients to visit them rather they are approaching them with the services at their doorsteps. Similarly, in advanced and also in some developing nations the concept of mobile Point of Sale Terminal (POS) is also on the growth. These electronic devices which accept credit cards are being carried to the door step of the customer. The customer makes order through the web site and makes payment on delivery. The store personnel carry the devise and accept the cards of the customers using wireless technology executing spot transaction right inside the home of the consumers.

A survey in India has highlighted the growth of e-payments. The credit card spending is estimated to have grown by 30 percent to IRs 13,300 crores per annum with an average usage per person of IRs 23,000. The deployment of ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) is also on the surge with a growth of more than 100 percent. Comparing with the population density, the present number of almost 5500 ATMs is small but the aggressive growth by the private banks coupled with State Bank of India will surely view a huge boost since the market poses immense impetus. The ATM per million people in India is just 5.5 compared to 730 people for USA and 1150 people for Japan.

The above examples clearly show that banking business in the global arena will not be confined to few products but a wide product diversification with the aim to provide solutions along with the products is emerging. The time has come for Nepal as well to jump on the bandwagon of innovative, novel and value added financial services. The forces of globalisation and the liberalisation of the global markets will force us to stand on a par with the changing world. Hence, we need to build our capacity accordingly or else the concept of development will be a mere dream only. One very small example where Nepal is lacking, which in the present scenario might not look too detrimental at the micro level but in long-term this might have a negative impact on our overall tourism industry. A tourist visits Nepal carrying petty cash but the plastic cards with the concept that just as India has, Nepal is also capacitated with good and wide coverage of the acceptance infrastructure. Although we do have ATMs that accepts cash cards but when these few machines are out of order and the tourist is in real need of funds, he finds himself in a very embarrassing situation. This creates a negative picture and the same person would probably never recommend Nepal as a tourist-friendly destination, owing to his own bitter experience. This is a small example where the innovation of financial sector can be linked with the overall development of the nation.

The major attractions in advanced and growing nations for inward investors are usually reckoned to be the ready availability of well-educated people, the benign of innovations, the idea of integrating with the changing world and the fact that English is spoken. A very good and authentic example is India. Before 1992, the Indian financial sector was under the hem of stringent regulation. The growth and innovation figures were murkier. Once the sector was deregulated, liberalised and opened to foreign investors, began the in-flooding of Multinational Corporations with huge projects and aggressive moves. But to handle their financial needs the capacity in their financial sector was not up to the level and this attracted the international financial sector. Since then India has come a long way. Their human capitals are now among the best in the world because of the magnitude of exposure they receive and the emergence of competitive environment has led to immense innovations favouring the poorer. As a result of which a big middle class section has emerged as the strength of India. India has tasted the synergy of liberalisation and is becoming more and more open to the world. Any foreign investors can trade in their security market but in our case we have blocked the road map to the lucrative investors.

With the present hope of resorting peace and stability and taking the membership of WTO, we can no longer be self regulated. We have to invite big projects to exploit our comparative natural resources such as hydro power, herbal treasure, tea, tourism and garments but without liberalising the financial sector in a friendlier manner, our dreams of alleviating poverty will never be converted into reality. We need to integrate ourselves with the international financial market and lobby the global investor to finance the lucrative projects. Our security market needs to innovate and introduce the latest and diverse instruments to lure the domestic as well as foreign investors. Legislative framework must be formulated keeping the foreign and local investors in view. International financial policies for local viability and growth must be geared up. Our human capital needs the international exposure and should be able to understand the functioning of the global financial markets for crafting the local environment into a financially viable conduit for the international community. Without the sagacity of the international financing instruments and sources of bringing in global financial synergy, the dream of making Kathmandu a financial centre will never be realised. So let’s integrate ourselves with the outer world and be competitive.

op-ed

READ & TELL

PURAN P BISTA

Visible and invisible sides

There have been many inci dents where rebels deserted their comrades and resumed armed struggle after signing a peace agreement with the establishment. To name a few, one incident was in India’s Manipur state. Another was the 1975 Shillong Naga accord and the third was the Sri Lankan accord between Rajiv Gandhi and Jayawardhane.

Bisheshwor, a Manipur’s outfit, entered China with the help of Naga rebels through Nepal. He underwent a year-long training and formed People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the 1970s only to destroy his own economically prosperous state later. Bisheshwor recruited unemployed youth and in a year he plunged the state into bloodbath. In the early 1980s, the PLA captain, however, realized that he was steering the wrong ship, so he agreed to come to sign the peace agreement with the state government. After the peace agreement, he was elected to the state legislative assembly. But he became a victim of the deserted PLA cadres.

Certainly, the radical PLA ultras within the group had some reservations at the time of agreement. So the PLA did not die of the peace agreement there, rather it came up in a more organised manner. They had still maintained relationships with other terrorist outfits both in Burma and Manipur. They reorganized the group and procured arms from the Burmese rebels. Today, the state has over a dozen extremist groups who extort money, collect donations and destroy what they dislike. The state government is helpless because political leaders have a nexus with the extremists. And to initiate any military action against them is to sit on the deathbed. Such a situation was created by none other than the natives themselves.

This is a brief history on how a rich state is ruined in an armed struggle. Nagaland is as backward as Manipur, so is Nepal today. The Shillong Accord was signed between the Naga rebels led by Fizo and the state government in 1975. But a section of Naga rebels did not abide by the accord. Those who raised arms trained other extremist groups in the region. And the entire northeast, except Mizoram, is ruled by the gun-totting rats though the Naga rebels in recent years have agreed to hold peace talks with Delhi.

What will be the future of this country? Will Prachanda really manage to strike a lasting peace deal with the Chand government? Can Prachanda really convince his radical comrades, or has he already sown the seeds of hatred and gunfights that will breed only deserters to ravage this country further?

The seven-year long People’s War shows that there was a conflict of which the Maoists themselves have been unaware, between the temper of mind and their theoretical doctrines. The Maoists, who anxiously demonstrated their physical power, advocated for a society, where the limit was too radical a step to be ignored. The Maoist hot-dictates that converted rural Nepal into a virtual battleground did not attract the heart of the masses even though they still defend that what they did was for the rights of rural masses. What the common people think about the Maoists is that many things, which occurred in the last six years, were real because they still bear the Maoist scars in their mind.

Naturally, the Maoist arguments on the making of a new Nepal after the round table dialogue are still invalid — rightly. This is purely a fanciful idea not supported by any ground reality. Neither do we have enough reason to believe that what the Maoist leaders are now advocating is true, nor is it an accidental sight that after fighting so many years for the people’s rights, the Maoists are going to change the country. Nor does it look an essential part of the Maoist doctrine. The stark reality stands clear how the country’s infrastructures, which took decades to build, were destroyed in such a short span. And unless the Maoists are able to realize what they did from what they want to do now, they will have a difficulty in finding grounds for a new Nepal. The best way to break the Maoist war is to find how many people lost their lives in the Maoist war and who will try and heal the wounds and compensate for the loss of those lives. Mere holding talks on constituent assembly and interim government in order to make a new Nepal may remain a mirage.

Now the moral duty of the Maoists is to believe in peace and shun violence. The skeptic Maoists will wrongly opt for violence once the meaning of peace ceases to exist in them. They will be deserters. Violence happens but the incidents should not become as devastating as this country saw. Such incidents, instead of yielding satisfactory results, unite the democratic forces. In a sense, the children of Maoist victims are seeking for justice and there is no reason to believe that the present proposed talks will offer them the justice they are seeking.

How Prachanda is going to resolve it has not been brought to public yet. Prachanda has only warned that it would have a serious consequence if the government breaches the trust. This is not an unexpected warning that clearly attempted to draw people’s attention. Such a warning undermines Prachanda’s both ability and understanding. This may ultimately appear a setback to what he thinks is right. This also explains that Prachanda has after all realized that what he was doing until January 29 was captaining a wrong ship. Let us hope that there won’t be any PLA deserters and Prachanda can really live up to his words. The much hyped round table dialogue will show new hope only when its effects are good.

We no longer need to decide Marketers do it for us

When Henry Ford, in ear ly twentieth century,  flooded the American roads with impeccably black cars produced in his revolutionary assembly-line facilities, the American people found themselves at the mercy of an unprecedented marketing genius. For those who believed and still do, that marketers offer choices to consumers, Ford offers a brilliant ‘no’ for an answer.

"A car of any colour as long as it is black," roared Ford and credulous Americans scurried to his chic outlets, claiming their rights to choose. "No, not the red one, not the green one, but the black one," they stammered. It was a historic moment for humanity. In those seemingly inconsequential and hollow assertions of their ‘right to choose’, humankind dived headlong into oblivion, handing over the responsibility of their purchase decisions to marketers. We have continued in that inglorious path ever after.

But then, humankind’s acute discomfort with the responsibility to make incessant choices became spectacularly obvious, not much later, in the same century. Around mid-twentieth century, Jean Paul Sartre, the remarkably influential French existential philosopher, said that humankind is ‘condemned’ to be free, thereby epitomising the fear that we face at the hands of options and the consequent necessity to decide.

The freer you are, the greater the number of options and hence higher the probability of post-decision regrets. This ‘terrifying freedom of choice’, as Sartre aptly put it, is something that most of us would rather do without. Thus went mass psychology. And who do you think capitalised on that? Marketers, who else! By simplifying decision making through continuously upgraded marketing tools, marketers did not just reap profits. They did a great service to humankind.

The common perception that marketers offer products and services only is not wrong, but incomplete. On the psychological level, marketers trade on decision-making. ‘If you are looking for a television with a perfect sound, purchase Videocon Bazzon’. ‘If you are a terribly shaky person, then ride on the unshakeable bike’, and so on. Ready-made decisions, only inputs required!

After the advent of the brand concept, such associations achieved new heights. Products, the branded ones to be specific, are no longer inanimate objects. They have a voice, personality, and definite identity. Since identity crisis is terribly common among present-day humans, the simplest solution for this is to be associated with a product. To be cool, we no longer need to work on our attitudes. Consuming a product belonging to a certain ‘cool’ brand will suffice. Similarly, if your physical attributes do not allow you a macho image, try Marlboro cigarettes.

Some stalwart proponents of the ‘free choice’ camp would argue that elevated alertness, which they claim to possess, is a foolproof shield against the marketer’s exploits. Be advised not to be so sure. Marketers know where to find you, how to talk to you and when to finally enter that ‘black-box’ of yours, which is called ‘mind’ in popular parlance. They even have code language, you see!

Marketers don’t know why you sulk at life, as they are no Socrates or Spinoza or Freud for that matter. Knowing that is no longer relevant. But they know for sure that an action-packed three-hour celluloid crap gives you scintillating kicks. Who has the time to investigate for reasons every time kids cry. Knowing that Cadbury’s Dairy Milk can instantly shut their mouths up is adequate.

The market is one big circus where goods transform into potential solutions to life’s problems; the potential solutions into radiant hopes; hopes into an urge at trial; the urge into actual purchase and the purchase into a subdued smile on the marketer’s face.

Given these marvellous transformations occurring regularly in the marketplace, it is not accidental that you find it impossible at times to keep from purchasing an utterly unnecessary item like, for instance, a deodorant spray. Human sweat has a fragrance, say poets. And really, the day all of us vote against the smell of sweat, the only hard evidence of honest toil, humanity will fall dead like a sorry fig in this universe of incessant activity. How can there be any more creativity, constructive endeavours, struggle, petty losses and great victories if we start disliking the smell of sweat?

The deodorant, therefore, is the most conspiratorial invention ever. It antagonises humans with their most salient evidence of life and activity. But then, you purchased one this weekend at the departmental store, lured hopelessly by its aromatic promises. You could have safely left it in the shelves. But marketers got the better of you. They caught you off-guard while you were unsuspectingly watching your favourite T.V serial, and suddenly an aromatic model of your liking informed you that irritating the nasal mucosa of your neighbour is a crime. You were impressed!

Delivering instant satisfaction by offering a whole range of brands and their personality is one thing. Some smarter marketers have gone a step further. However much we proclaim that we are no cheap conformists, marketers know only too well how to bend us at their will. A movie hits the theatres. Marketers are tearing their vocal cords, screaming through your T.V sets and radios that the movie is a must-see if you are a serious advocate of, for example, human rights. The icy worry of being called, in our example, a proponent of ‘human wrongs’, propels you against the demands of an overstuffed work-schedule towards the theatre. For hours, you yawn at a neat sequence of fantastic gibberish, until finally you fall asleep. When they wake you up at the end of the rubbish, you exclaim, "What a wonderful movie!"

The urge to conform to the ‘in-stuff’ is a weakness witnessed in even the most rebellious of us. There are many people who read fashion magazines simply because that identifies them with modernity. Whether being fashionable and being modern are synonymous or not is a contentious debate. Most of us play it safe by simultaneously indulging in the debate and wearing worn-out jeans, something that the earlier generations would regard as immediately indicative of the emptiness of our pockets.

Times have definitely changed. We no longer go shopping. Shops come to us, undress, expose their treasures, and persuade us that life would indeed be meaningless if we do not consume so-and-so. Since welcoming guests is still a widely lauded virtue in this planet of ape-descendants, we indeed make our preparations to welcome shops to our homes. Every time we turn on the T.V, we have at our disposal a pen and paper, so that we can note down all those items that would make life richer and meaningful. After all, we are consumers, not the deciders.

The question of American power

BILL KELLER

If the United States storms into Iraq, as now seems almost inevi table, it will have been airlifted to war with a tailwind from some unlikely sources. For starters, three men who have little in common with President George W. Bush have articulated the case for war better than the administration itself - at least up until its recent crescendo of case-making.

Tony Blair, who so resembles the American predecessor whom Bush despises, has been an eloquent and indispensable ally in the face of grave political risk. Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat who embodies the patient, lawyerly internationalism that some Bush partisans cannot abide, has managed without endorsing war to demonstrate Iraq’s refusal to be contained.

Kenneth Pollack, the Clinton National Security Council expert whose argument for invading Iraq is surely the most influential book of this season, has provided intellectual cover for every liberal who finds himself inclining toward war but uneasy about Bush.

The president will go to war with support - often, I admit, equivocal and patronizing in tone - from quite a few members of the East Coast liberal media cabal. The I-Can’t-Believe-I’m-a-Hawk Club includes op-ed regulars at The New York Times and The Washington Post, the editors of The New Yorker, The New Republic and Slate, and columnists in Time and Newsweek.

Many of these wary warmongers are baby boom liberals whose aversion to the deployment of American power was formed by Vietnam but who had a kind of epiphany along the way - for most of us, in the vicinity of Bosnia.

The president also has enough prominent Democrats with him - some from conviction, some from the opposite - to make this endeavor credibly bipartisan. Four of the six declared Democratic presidential hopefuls support war, with reservations. We reluctant hawks may disagree among ourselves about the most compelling logic for war - protecting America, relieving oppressed Iraqis or reforming the Middle East - but we generally agree that the logic for standing pat does not hold.

Much as we might wish that the administration had orchestrated events so that the inspectors had a year instead of three months, much as we deplore the arrogance and binary moralism, much as we worry about all the things that could go wrong, we are hard pressed to see an alternative that is not built on wishful thinking.

Thanks to all these grudging allies, Bush will be able to claim, with justification, that the coming war is a far cry from the rash, unilateral adventure that some of his advisers would have settled for.

Does this mean that Bush is pulling together a new American consensus about how to deal with the dangerous world he inherited? I don’t pretend to speak for the aviary, but almost all of the hesitant hawks go out of their way to disavow Bush’s larger agenda for American power even as they salute his plan to use it in Iraq. This is worth dwelling on a little, because with this war the administration is not just taking on a dictator, it is beginning to define in blood the new American imperium.

What his admirers call the Bush Doctrine is so far a crude edifice built of phrases from speeches and strategy documents, reinforced by a pattern of discarded treaties and military deployment. It consists of a determination to keep America an unchallenged superpower, a willingness to forcibly disarm any country that poses a gathering threat and an unwillingness to be constrained by treaties or international institutions that don’t suit the United States perfectly.

Imagine that the regime of Saddam Hussein begins to crumble under the first torrent of cruise missiles. The tank columns rumbling in from Kuwait are not beset by chemical warheads. There is no civilian carnage to rouse the Arab world against America. In fact, Al Jazeera shows American soldiers being welcomed by Iraqis as liberators. The illicit toxins are unearthed and destroyed. Persecuted Kurds and Shiites suppress the urge for clan vengeance.

If all this goes smoothly - and even if it goes a little less smoothly - Bush will hear a chorus of supporters claiming vindication. I imagine a triumphalist editorial or two in the neoconservative press. Pundits who earlier urged Bush to ignore Congress and the United Nations will assure him that he can now safely disregard everyone who caviled at the threshold of war, and will urge him to get on with the next liberation in the series. But in fact a victory in Iraq will not resolve the great questions of what America intends to be in the world. It will lay them wide open, and with them deep divisions within both American political parties.

The first test to be faced upon the conquest of Iraq is whether the aim is mainly to promote democracy or mainly to promote stability. Some, probably including a few in Bush’s cabinet, will argue that it was all about disarmament. Once that is done, they will say, once Saddam’s Republican Guard is purged, we can turn the country over to a contingent of Sunni generals and bring our troops home in 18 months.

"Some of these guys don’t go for nation-building," says Senator Joseph Biden, the senior Foreign Relations Committee Democrat who has ended up supporting war as the least bad option. "They think it’s cheaper to just go back and empty the swamp again if you have to."

Iraq would not become a great regional role model, although it would live better than it did under Saddam. The Saudis and probably the Israelis would prefer this to a rickety democracy governed by an unpredictable Shiite majority.

Others, in both parties, see Iraq as the beginning of the next colossal democracy project after the reformation of Eastern Europe.

Fouad Ajami, a scholar with no illusions about the Middle East’s capacity for heartbreak, has written that a MacArthur-style occupation of Iraq offers the prospect of an Arab country "free of the poison of anti-Americanism" and offers the region "a break with the false gods of despotism."

Nation-building may be vastly more expensive and difficult than swamp-clearing, but Ajami dares America to try. Bush has yet to take up that dare. A second question will be whether, having used force, Washington continues to rely on force or leans more heavily on diplomacy.

The most ardent think-tank interventionists have already mapped out a string of preventive conquests - Iran, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan if its friendly president is ousted by Islamic militants, perhaps eventually China. They argue for more immense Pentagon budgets to build forces configured for preemptive strikes. The reluctant hawks will reply that, having demonstrated its might, the United States need not be so quick to exercise it again, particularly since (as Washington seems to have learned in North Korea) not all problems lend themselves to the remedy of air strikes.

Iraq will also leave Americans arguing over how fully to enlist international organizations as partners in whatever global renovation America undertakes, in Iraq and beyond. Being sole occupiers of an Arab land, as the Israelis have learned to their distress, is not a recipe for goodwill. Nor is it cheap.

"The more powerful we are, the more we need the United Nations," says Biden - to amortize the dangers and costs of stewardship. Bush has kicked some new life into the United Nations, and has been well repaid. I would place a small bet that he will even get a second resolution on Iraq. Now the United States should stop treating it with such petulance and embrace it as a source of support and legitimacy. So the war in Iraq does not settle the question of American power but raises it to a new
urgency.

I think there is a consensus to be built. It is not the ultra-hawk view of an America radiating indifference to everyone who gets in its way, keeping aspiring powers in their place, shunning the clumsy implements of international law and leading with its air force. Nor is it the Vietnam-syndrome reticence about American power that still holds portions of both parties in sway.

Ronald Asmus, a Clinton Europe hand who came to the idea of regime change by way of Slobodan Milosevic, imagines a consensus somewhat like the honorable coalition that grew up during Bosnia and Kosovo. The desire to save the Balkans united humanitarian Democrats who are not squeamish about force with idealistic Republicans who define American interest more broadly than self-defense.

For a time, Paul Wolfowitz and Joseph Biden sang from the same hymnal. (The French foreign minister hummed along!)

"The question is, is this about American power, or is it about democracy?" Asmus asks.

"If it’s about democracy, we’ll have a broader base of support at home and more friends abroad. The great presidents of the last century - FDR, Wilson, Truman - all tried to articulate America’s purpose in a way that other parts of the world could buy into. Bush hasn’t done that yet."

Before long, we’ll find out if he cares to.

International Herald Tribune
Everything you want is not everything you need…

KAMANA SINGH BASNYAT

We always run after a silk dress when all we have is rayon, why do we fail to realize that some people are not even blessed with cotton dresses? We never appreciate what we possess and running after our short-lived desires has become a part of our habit, which can never be set apart.

Once in a blue moon we are thankful for the things that we have. We only realize the importance of a particular thing when that thing is no more with us. Ask yourself a question how often do you thank God or your parents for the things you have? I guess once in a long while. Why do we take those things for granted? The things without which our life would have become not an easy one.

When you were studying in the fifth grade, you had a desire to buy a skateboard and now you are desperate to buy a "Bajaj Saffire" because your closest friend rides it. Now you are obsessed with the scooter and you wish to get it at any cost. You start to dream about the scooter and how will you look with a helmet on? After struggling for many months you convinced your parents, got a driving license and a scooter. Finally you are on the way riding your new scooter. But in no time you see a lovely lady rolling in a sleek and shining "Santro" then you run after that car and you feel like throwing your helmet and grab the seat belt and play with the steering. Now, day and night you begin to dream about your set target and begin to feel low and disheartened. And who knows after you purchase that car you start to run after your dream to possess a helicopter?

These unlimited desires of mankind have led us to be very egotistical, self-centered and so indifferent. If one has a car in his garage he starts to possess a few of new model because he saw someone driving the latest designs. At that time he fails to notice that some people may not even have money to travel by taxi or a three wheeler and they have to stand in a queue or have to wrestle for a seat to sit in comfortably in local buses or micro buses––the cheapest forms of transportation. So in times of crisis and depression, look at the people who do not even have the basic necessities and how they struggle and toil a whole day for two square meals for themselves and their family members. Always keep the hope that you will also reach the same height by working hard but do not be obsessed with your desires because once they are fulfilled you will come with more and the list will never end.

Wishing for something and working to achieve it, is a sign of progress. But feeling pathetic for not having your wishes fulfilled and comparing your achievements with others will stop you to carry out you life contentedly. As we know that we arrive to this world empty handed and depart from this world the same way, lets all try to be satisfied with what we have, giving a thought to-" Everything we want is not everything we need."