Opinion (Spotlight Weekly)

‘Nepal's Strength Lies In Its Strong Sense Of Nationalism’

— CARLTON COON

Former US ambassador to Nepal CARLTON COON was recently in Kathmandu. Coon headed the US embassy in Nepal from 1981-1984. During his tenure, late king Birendra paid a state visit to the United States. Coon addressed a lecture program organized by the Society for the Promotion of Civic Education and the American Center. Excerpts from the address compiled by KESHAB POUDEL.

On how Nepal has changed: The American people have a unique impression about Nepal. They see Nepal as a country of the beautiful Himalayas. I cannot remember whether it was in 1958 or during another visit in early 1960, when I found myself talking to an old gentleman in a bar. He told me Nepal's unique stories dating back to 1930s. This pushed my historical frontier back another 30 years perhaps.

In those days, Kathmandu was very small community and everybody knew everybody else. There was very little happening that was newsworthy and this gentleman was the only foreign correspondent in Kathmandu. I guess he must have been [Elizabeth] Holly's predecessor at Reuters. He saw the biggest news of the year in a big jailbreak in Kathmandu. He happened to know because one of the people who broke out was a friend and was hiding in his house.

So he had a story and he wanted to report it in London, but he could not do that until he talked to the prime minister. So he went to see the prime minister and he got his clearance to do the story. They had only one copper wire that linked Kathmandu to Birgunj. He rolled out the message to a runner who ran across the border to India and there was fellow to send the message to New Delhi and then to London. The British Foreign Office picked up the story and sent an electric message back to their resident in Kathmandu. The resident went to the prime minister and asked him what it was all about. In just one week, the story had gone all the way to London and come back again.

This was a society with very limited communication and travel and where public education virtually non-existent. Today there is every medium of communication, including the Internet. There are highways and educated masses. The changes during this period have been significant.

On the Nepalese community: What will be your worldview when you live in this kind of society? If you remember the ruling elite, they have their own community. Other members of the elite aspire them. And your group in a community of that village aspires your community to be there. The sense of group identity is the sense of social unit within which you belong.

These circumstances prevailed in Nepal 60-70 years ago. You didn't have a sense of nationalism. Everybody recognized the king as the symbol of the Nepalese nation. But it was a more personal and a more religiousrelationship than secular. It was essentially not a unifying force. You felt the relationship with the king. But that did not mean you had to have a relationship with the guy on the other side of the river or mountain or on the other end of Nepal.

On the modernization process: When I came here in 1970 as the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy, my ambassador was a very wise and understanding person. He managed to develop a pretty good personal relationship with His Majesty King Mahendra. I remembered many staff meetings with our USAID people who complained that they could not get projects done because the minister was not cooperating. I think what US advisor did not realize was that these people were not being ignorant and wrong headed. They were operating according to a system of logic, with their own worldview. When nothing happened, the USAID people went to visit the king. The hurdles were removed.

It seems to me that this was an organic evolutionary way about growth rather than coming here and saying you guys do this thing this way and that thing that way. That is not a winning strategy in a country that is trying desperately hard to evolve into a modern nation state. Attitudes and procedures that are traditional and ingrained and people grew up believing in them are inconsistent and incomparable with the functioning of a modern democratic state.

On the most revealing day: The most revealing day of my life was in late January of 1972 when King Mahendra died. He passed away in the terai. At that time, I was charge d'affaires and I was thrust into the middle of a storm. It was obvious to me that something terrible had happened that directly affected all Nepalese. The helicopter arrived with the body for the funeral and all these complex things happened with machine-like precision. Everybody, including severe critics of the king, was in a state of shock. We then proceeded to the young king Birendra. From the thread of the continuity, in a sense, I discovered that the monarchy is a very central and very important institution in Nepal. It is the central and symbolic representation of Nepalese nationalism.

On the king as a symbol: For everybody in Kathmandu and everybody outside related to the monarchy in a kind of individual and personal sense. This sense of the king as a symbol of national unity did not extend into the sense of unity across the Nepalese citizens. Then I came back as ambassador and I saw how this obstacle to economic development and effective aid utilization program was still evolving. But progress was never as fast as our aid technicians wanted because Nepal has cultural blocks. I tried to analyze what the cultural blocks were. I finally came to the conclusion that it is really a concept that you were born and have grown up with.

On cultural diversity: I was always fascinated with the cultural, ethnic, linguistic and other diversity of the people of Nepal. One day I went to visit outside the valley with my staff. Somebody came to us and I guess he was Chhetri. When I asked Jat ke ho (What is your caste?), everybody was happy to talk about their ethnic group. One day a young man came walking down and I asked the same question, the guy said 蔾 am a Nepali' and walked away. That was good enough for me. I think that is the hope for your country.

On US Peace Corps volunteers: Another thing that really strengthened our relationship with Nepal is the Peace Corps program. Because Peace Corps volunteers really got out there, they came to understand what was going on in the villages much better than we ever did in Kathmandu. I feel that the Panchayat system proclaimed the virtue of a top-down system. It had not allowed information to flow from the villages. When it came to resource allocation, it was the center that decided.

On King Birendra's US visit: I was very close to King Birendra than any other diplomat. The palace was not easily accessible, but I did have the privilege to accompany King Birendra to the United States in December 1983 in a very successful visit. King Birendra was a good man who really loved the people of Nepal. He was a die-hard democrat who really wanted to move the country towards democracy. There were obstacles and difficulties so things moved slowly. I would say that before I left the country in 1984, I predicted how democratic forces were building up and something would happen within five years. I made some other predictions based on that. I am sorry about the events of last spring. I do miss King Birendra. You have a monarchy that continues to work. You have a new king who symbolizes the spirit of the Nepalese people. That is important.

On challenges to Nepal: You have some real problems these days, adding to the tragedy of last year, such as the Maoist insurrection in the countryside. What has been happening in Nepal is really terrible. I do certainly support the measures taken by the government to protect innocent civilians and bring this problem under control. Personally, I feel same way towards the situation in Nepal as the situation towards the United States following the September 11 attacks. I feel it is necessary to stop this form of behavior. It is also important for all of us to try to understand why this happened in the first place and see ways of preventing such things from happening in the future.

On Nepalese nationalism: In Nepal, you have new generation coming up that doesn't care about 'Jat' and has a new sense of Nepalese nationalism. These young children really believe that they belong to the nation. I don't say that you will give up your group or caste loyalty or your roots. We in America have done an example. In the last two or three generations, we no longer consider ourselves primarily as a Yankee, black or Italian or Hispanic or whatever. We consider ourselves as Americans. Although we recognize our individual differences and different heritages, our first loyalty comes to the nation.

On evolution of democracy: I think democracy has to work in the way it should. It is somehow a generation thing. All the people have to internalize the conviction that they are first and foremost Nepalese, not Brahmins, Rais, Limbus or whatever. Many of your problems are rooted in corruption. I think you always have corruption in every society to some extent. But it becomes rampant when the interest of the nation as a whole is seen as unimportant. I feel this is going to take a lot of time. The national leadership, educators and everybody else need to stress the importance of considering yourself Nepalese. If you can reshape these basic attitudes towards castes and ethnic divisions in society, and if you can generate a deep-seated conviction that that this is your country, it will lead to the determination that education opportunities and health care should be extended to everybody. Not because of political demands, but because of needs. This is the long-term solution for the kind of problems you have. It is what will make Nepal a strong and vigorous country.