The impending Age Of Abundance was prophecied in the scriptures thousands of years ago.
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Thursday, December 12, 2024
Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Friday, April 07, 2023
Friday, October 12, 2012
Cyber Pearl Harbor Will Be From Stateless Entity Like Al Qaeda
The Al Qaeda simply does not have the brain power, or it would have done it already. They have no qualms. They do not deliberate, hum and haw. They just don't have the capability.
But the cyber Pearl Harbor will not be enacted by some state, not Iran, not China, not North Korea. It might not even be an organization like the Al Qaeda, however loose. It is more likely to be a group whose structure is akin to the group Anonymous. All members are faceless and anonymous.
But that can not be mistaken for acts like that of Wikileaks. Or Kim Dot Com. Releasing secret State Department cables is not Pearl Harbor. Pirating movies is not Pearl Harbor. And there will be legitimate cyber developments to weaken the nation state and empower the individual, the global citizen. That would be a welcome development.
But a Cyber Pearl Harbor by definition would have to be an act of evil. 9/11 was the modern day Pearl Harbor.
Panetta warns US could face ‘cyber Pearl Harbor’
Maintaining watch on Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and especially the Al Qaeda makes sense, but room has to be made for a new hitherto unknown entity.
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Onion, Seriously
And you thought you could get away by not taking The Onion seriously.
Iran's News Agency Reruns The Onion as Real News
Iran's News Agency Reruns The Onion as Real News
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The Long March Of Democracy
During the recent Blogger outage, a whole bunch of my blog posts got lost. And then all of them came back except this one at my Barackface blog. Since it had already been cross published at Technorati, I still had a copy.
Just One More Missing Blog Post
Miracle: The Lost Blog Posts Are Back
Lost A Whole Bunch Of Blog Posts
And Blogger Is Back
The Long March Of Democracy
The military action in Libya has absolutely been the right move. And a limited military action in Syria might be called for soon enough, something that is a week max. But military action is not an option when the tide of democracy finally hits Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and China.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
A Moment Of Appreciating Disqus
Image via CrunchBaseFred Wilson put out this blog post earlier today: Social Media's Secret Weapon - Email. Brad Feld wrote a reply post within hours: Implementing Social Media’s Secret Weapon. Fred Wilson showed up in Brad Feld's comments section for the post like Brad Feld had showed up earlier in Fred Wilson's comments section for his post. I read the two posts and all their comments. The little back and forth the two had at Brad's blog is really something. I am like, thank you Disqus. How else could I have become privy to this? 
These two dudes go way back. They are old friends. I once saw a picture of the two of them in a group photo. It is from way back. And these two also made it onto a list of the top 100 venture capitalists in the world a few weeks back, I don't know if it was Fortune, or Forbes, it was one of those. Long before I saw that list I have admired the excellence of their minds. Both of them also happen to have great blogs. They do a good job of giving you a front row seat to their action if you drop by often enough.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Meeting Brad Feld
I got to meet Mark Suster yesterday, and Brad Feld today, and I get to meet Vin Vacanti next week. In Vacanti's case it will not be my first time, but still. What do you think is going on? StartUp Week, that's what.
TechStars' Geographical Advantage Over Y Combinator
Brad Feld
StartUp Week At NYU April 6-15
To: Brad Feld, Subject: Iran And Me (Digital Ninja/Commando)
Happy July 4 Fred Wilson, Brad Feld
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld
Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC
To Iran, With Love (3)
To Iran, With Love (1)
To Iran, With Love (2)
Both Mark and Brad recognized me right away. We have interacted online. I have interacted more with Brad than with Mark. At one point I was trying to get Brad to fund my work into Iran democracy.
"Oh, hey," Brad said when it was my turn to greet him.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Soraya Darabi: Top 5: Strike 3
Image via CrunchBaseSoraya Darabi has hit the top 5 spot at this blog all over again, this is the third time. This traffic bump is due to the TechCrunch post on her. There are like a thousand tweets about that TechCrunch post. Pretty awesome. Soraya Darabi
Social Media Is For Real
Ultimately It Is About Iran, Because That Is Where It All Started
Soraya Darabi In New York Magazine
Fred Wilson, Soraya Darabi: Both Crazy About Music
Happy FoodSpotting Day Soraya Darabi
Darabi Hits Top 5 Again At This Blog
FoodSpotting Is The Next FourSquare
Food/Social = Physics, Coding = Mathematics
Monday, February 21, 2011
Libya On My Mind, Libya On Your Mind
Image via WikipediaRight now is a great time to follow me on Twitter. I have been reading up on the Arab democracy movements and sharing the links with abandon. I have also been blogging. My blog posts automatically show up in my Twitter stream. 2011 is 1989. This is big, this is historic. This will be a year to remember. Nothing like this has happened in Arab history ever before.
I am thinking Libya. I am thinking Saudi Arabia. Heck, I am thinking China, and I am thinking Burma.
Pray for Libya. Meditate for Libya. Every ounce of mental energy counts. It does not matter where you are. People braving the streets deserve to be in your thoughts.
And, yes, Iran's time will come all over again. 2009 was not a wasted year. That was dress rehearsal.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Seven Social Media Week Events
Image via WikipediaI tried very hard to limit myself to few Social Media Week events this year. First I decided on one: the party Thursday. Then I added one more. Then one. And I am like, that's it. But now looks like I will have attended seven Social Media Week events by the time the week is over, one of them on LiveStream. That counts. I got to witness the entire panel discussion, and got to ask a question on Twitter. This morning the UN panel discussion was great, except the moderator chunked off the Q and A session. What a bummer. I approached him later and asked the question anyway.
"What is happening in Egypt right now, we did this successfully in Nepal in 2006. I was the only Nepali in America to have worked full time for it. We did good. That inspired protests in Tibet and Burma, both of which were mercilessly crushed. Iran's was another failure in 2009. Tunisia was a success, but Egypt is struggling. Social media is important. My blog was my primary tool when I did what I did, not phone calls, although those I did, not events, I attended quite a few. But at the end of the day social media is just a tool. Ultimately the challenge of a political revolution and of confronting the ugly, concrete versions of sexism in some parts of the world are social and political in nature. The solutions are primarily political. Would you agree?"
Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Stuxnet And The Confounded Mullahs
Image via WikipediaNew Scientist: Stuxnet: the online front line: Stuxnet, the computer worm running rampant in Iran's nuclear facilities ..... a few lines of malicious computer code can trip electricity grids, burn out power-station generators, pollute water supplies and sabotage gas pipelines. ....... Where regular worms merely infect computer systems, stuxnet can reach out into the physical world. It uses vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows to give an attacker remote control of the specialised factory-floor computers used to control industrial processes. ..... The worm can allow attackers to run motors so fast they burn out, to turn off alarms and safety cut-offs, open effluent valves and activate pumps - in other words, carry out industrial sabotage and skulduggery on a massive scale.Unless we have some high tech mullahs in Iran, my guess is they are one confounded crowd. As to the origins of stuxnet, your guess is as good as mine. It is possible this has been the work of the Pentagon, like the Iranian regime has been claiming, possibly even the work of Israel, but I doubt that. Biblical references in malicious code do not prove the worm is Israel's work. It is very possible some teenager cowboys, either in Israel or America, and as much likely elsewhere, took it upto themselves to tickle the Iranian regime a little.
Whoever might be behind this, and we might not even know, very likely, this stunt has rattled the mullahs like threats of economic sanctions have not so far.
When they start arresting "spies" is when you know they got it all wrong. That is a symptom of being confounded. Obviously you do not have to be inside of Iran to pull this stunt. That is the whole point of cyber attacks.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Techie, Tech Blogger, Iran Democracy Activist, New Yorker
"A former student asked me a few days ago how I learned Ruby on Rails. The answer was that I simply read a lot of great tutorials."
Techie, tech blogger, Iran democracy activist, New Yorker.
What do you want to be when you grow up? I just changed my Twitter and Facebook profiles to read the above. It used to be: Iran Democracy Activist, Tech Blogger, New Yorker.
And then there are distractions: The Movie Business.
Fundraising to be able to do full time Iran democracy work has not been easy: Selling 5% Of Nobel For 50K. I mean, if the Iranian American founder of eBay will not come along, who will?
Tweet 1, Tweet 2, Tweet 3, Tweet 4.
Not only do I not seem to have the knack for small dollar political donations, I think political work is meant to be public service, and so I am not going to discontinue my Iran work, I am going to do it on the side, part time. Insa-allah.
I have a LinkedIn email from Anu Shukla that has me psyched.
Location is southbay or virtual - exciting early stage opportunity. Will invest in training and ramp up for non Ruby engineering talent that are interested in learning. Competitive salary and stock.This means, if I can get in, I get to telecommute from NYC, and I can spend the first few weeks learning Ruby. I am up for it. Besides this looks like might be Anu's new stealth startup. Anu is a serial entrepreneur. She is bigger than Sabeer Hotmail Bhatia because Bhatia basically disappeared after Hotmail, whereas Anu kept chugging all along, and with Anu it is like you ain't seen nothing yet. Her best is yet to come.
Image via CrunchBaseThat is the impression I get. Offerpal Media is a bigger promise than the company she sold over a decade ago for was it 200 million dollars?
She is inspiring. I'd be honored to be part of her new stealth startup.
Mike Arrington Is A Sexist Pig: Say PeeeeG!
The Highlight Of My Internet Week
Anu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising
I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla
I might even be open to moving to the other coast. But for now I should stay put. I think I like the idea of staying put in NYC and visiting the Bay Area often enough. That would be a swell arrangement.
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails: Download
Ruby on Rails Guides
Ruby on Rails - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ruby on Rails Documentation
Top 12 Ruby on Rails Tutorials
Ruby on rails: up and running - Google Books Result
Ruby on Rails Tutorials - Tutorialized
Dribbble: Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett | the Ruby on Rails Podcast
rails's rails at master - GitHub
Ruby on Rails Tutorial
Tutorial
Ruby on Rails Guides: Getting Started with Rails
Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example | by Michael Hartl
Ruby on Rails: the Ultimate Beginner's Tutorial
Ruby on Rails programming tutorials2 - Meshplex
Ruby on Rails Tutorial
Languages: English, Hindi, Nepali, Maithili (very good). Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Tharu, Urdu (good). Bengali, Sanskrit (so so).
Paul Graham: What Happens At Y Combinator: a portrait of YC is in some ways the complement of a portrait of the average startup .... an event called Demo Day, at which the startups present to an audience that now includes most of the world's top startup investors. ..... the details people omit in more public talks tend to be the most interesting parts of their stories ...... you hear just how screwed up most of these successful startups were on the way up. ...... Startups modify or even replace their ideas much more than outsiders realize. ..... Usually we advise startups to launch fast and iterate. .... real users, whose often surprising reactions to your product teach you what you should have been building. ..... Since there are a large number of points on the perimeter of most existing technologies at which one could push outward to create a quantum blister, what to build first is one of the most important questions we talk about. ...... The larval product should also have a larval business model. ..... Most things that happen to newly launched startups are bad. But paradoxically, these disasters are precisely the reason to launch fast: they all represent problems you're going to need to solve eventually, and the only way even to find out what they are is to launch. In practice they vary from technological bottlenecks to threats of lawsuits, but the most common problem is that users don't like the product enough. ...... the search space is huge ..... Some startups are immediately attractive, and they'll find it easy to raise money. Others are ugly ducklings, who will grow into swans in time ...... because raising money is like choosing an angle of attack for a plane. If you try to climb too steeply you just stall. ....... Once you start to get hard commitments from investors, more investors want in. ....... We still talk regularly with founders from the first YC batch in the summer of 2005. ....... Occasionally investors will say "I'm in" at Demo Day, but most of the convincing happens in subsequent meetings. ....... Getting a startup set up correctly is a nontrivial problem. ...... mediating disputes between founders. ..... Now, 5 years later, the YC alumni network is probably the most powerful network in the startup world. ..... Starting a startup was a very lonely undertaking when we did it ourselves in Boston in 1995. One of the goals of YC's batch model was to fix that, by giving founders the colleagues one would otherwise lack as companies with just 2 or 3 people. ....... even the most ardent boosters of other cities wouldn't claim they're at parity with the Bay Area. All other things being equal, Silicon Valley is the best place to start a startup. ...... Founders from other places are almost always surprised when they get here by the breadth and depth of support for startups. The Bay Area is for startups what LA is for the film industry. ....... The kind of horror stories you hear about investors dicking over startups rarely happen to those we fund. We almost never see broken termsheets. ....... "One of my goals since my last job was to stop working with mediocrity and find/surround myself with people smarter than I. YC definitely provided the quality of people I needed to be around." ...... The only person who's funded more is Ron Conway, and he may not have had such close interactions with all of them. ...... the intensity of YC.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Shopping Around For Iran
Image via WikipediaI came across a John Boyd blog post while working on this post: Seed Money. And so I emailed him.
You have a great post on seed money ... I followed a link from Fred Wilson's blog to your post. Great post. http://www.blindreason.org/2010/07/rush-to-early-seed-stage-later-stage.html What really got my attention was your putting broadband on the top of the list. I am 15 months from a green card, and 15 months from my startup. My startup will deal with the last mile of the broadband business.I also just sent out a whole bunch of tweets to a whole bunch of angel investors. I sent out tweets to all angel investors on the List Of Angels On Twitter. The cut off point was people who had tweeted out in the past 24 hours. If you are not active on Twitter daily, maybe you are not of interest to me.
Are you in NYC? Let's meet for coffee some time.
I need you to help me with something. http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/07/to-iran-with-love-3.html I need you to put 3-5K into this. This is not an investment. This falls in the public service domain. This is about democracy in Iran.
One Tweet Response
I should not have been, but I was surprised to find so many Indians on the list, including one I am Facebook friends with.
I should not have been, but I was surprised to find so many Indians on the list, including one I am Facebook friends with.
Monday, July 12, 2010
To Iran, With Love (3)
Image via CrunchBaseHappy July 4 Fred Wilson, Brad Feld
The Germans Called Me Robin Hood
To: Brad Feld, Subject: Iran And Me (Digital Ninja/Commando)
Rome - Phoenix W/ Devendra Banhart
Brad Feld
To Iran, With Love (1)
To Iran, With Love (2)
North To Alaska
To continue with our conversation, in this post I am going to tackle two questions.
- What can I do for Iran based on what I have done for Nepal?
- Why am I seeking 5K in personal money from 20 VCs towards this? Why not from some other crowd?
What Can I Do For Iran Based On What I Have Done For Nepal?
Not everyone believes every country should or is going to end up a democracy, it is only a matter of time. Not only do I believe that, I believe that process can be accelerated, and I believe a democracy movement is science, it can be made to work every single time. Elections alone do not make a democracy, we know that. Otherwise they have elections in Iran, in Zimbabwe, in Egypt. Heck, Saddam used to have elections.
Iran is not a democracy. An unelected committee of mullahs is the supreme authority in that country. Only candidates sanctioned by that committee can run for president. That is no democracy.
You determine a country is not a democracy. And then you determine all the steps it has to take to end up a democracy. There are a lot of preceding preliminary steps, but ultimately a sufficient bloc of groups inside and outside the country has to set the right goal, which would be to shut the country down completely until the current regime makes way for an interim, caretaker government that would come into power with a mandate to hold elections to a constituent assembly within a year of taking power. That assembly would get two years to write a constitution for the country. A majority block in that assembly would form the government. Each article in the constitution would require two third of the votes in the assembly.
That is the roadmap. My personal project is only upto the point of regime change. Once the interim, caretaker government takes over, I am officially out, although I can't imagine completely disappearing. On my own I would continue to monitor the situation part time. There would have been too much emotional investment on my part to that point for me to just walk away.
Why Do It?
Because this is the right thing to do. Because we care about the people of Iran as much as people anywhere. Because we are huge fans of them for what they have been doing for over a year now. Because we believe in the power of democracy to do good. And because we want peace in the Middle East.
People say there is no peace in the Middle East because it is a few different religions clashing with each other. I don't buy into that. If diversity were the reason for lack of peace, New York City where I live ought to be at permanent war with itself. I don't see evidence to that effect.
There is no peace in the Middle East because Israel is the only democracy around there. When a democracy tries to talk to a neighborhood of non democracies, you get The Mother Of All Culture Clashes.
And there is also a need to prove the netroots, the grassroots are powerful enough unto themselves to be able to bring about democracy into a country. No country, not even the US, can afford to militarily go into every country. It is too expensive. And it is not even the best way to do it.
A people powered democracy movement in Iran would ignite similar conflagrations in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In seeking a successful conclusion of the democracy movement in Iran, we seek the bringing about of a domino effect.
How To Do It?
"I am one small human being," my fellow Buddhist Richard Gere once said about himself. I am but one small human being. But I have proven in the case of Nepal that one human being sufficiently digital and with sufficient political acumen can make a big difference.
It is like in the movie The Matrix. You sit in front of your computer, your terminal, and you transport yourself to the theaters of action. You observe and study the reality, the ever changing reality, in all theaters of action, and you propose action plans everywhere you can. You have no institutional authority, noone elected you, you are not doling out money, and so you have to be extra, extra right, extra convincing before people will do your bidding, before people, the key players, will listen to you to do what needs to get done.
Month One: Immersion
I would spend about a month totally immersing myself. I am going to collect as much information as possible. I am going to network feverishly. I am going to network among the members of the Iranian diaspora in New York City, and more online.
Roadmap
Then I am going to start working to gather support for my roadmap. If the democracy movement in Iran sticks to the goal of holding the presidential election all over again, it will keep banging its head against the wall. For the goal to be shifted to regime change, I will have to network deep enough to be able to determine that leadership change for the movement can be brought about without losing the fissures that have been created in the Iranian establishment by the movement so far.
Logistical Support
As for the global netroots/grassroots, all those people who turned their Twitter avatar green, they also need to shift their goal post. Extending moral support is not enough. Logistical support has to be provided. Once the movement decides to wage one final struggle, we will have to get very sophisticated about it.
We have to document every act of atrocity by the current regime. It has to be publicly announced that the interim, caretaker government will persecute all those who might unleash brutality upon peaceful protesters. You do that to protect your people best you can.
But brutality will happen. And we have to provide medical services to take care of those who might get injured in the course of the democracy movement.
Working on these two concrete steps also helps do the organization work for the movement, helps build a robust network.
All Digital, One Person
Many individuals and organizations in many countries will have to do just the right thing at the right time for this to work. And you do have to take all possible actors into count. But my particular role is going to be the role of one person who works all digitally. The world is connected enough by now that that digital activism could prove decisive. Geography is not a hindrance. And there is and there will be enough information from and about all relevant theaters of action, and where that is not enough, you connect the dots best you can.
This is doable.
Larger Implications
An Iran that is a modern democracy is still going to want to make peaceful use of nuclear energy as it should, but it is not going to be sinister and unreasonable like the non democratic Iran of today. A democratic Iran is still going to speak up for the Palestinians, as it should, but it is not going to scapegoat Israel for all its internal failures, and promises not kept to its own people.
Israel today feels an existential threat from Iran's possible nuclear weapons. That threat is primarily political. Russia still had all the nuclear weapons, but once the Cold War ended, America was no longer feeling the threat from those weapons, Europe was not feeling the threat. Israel is not going to feel an existential threat from an Iran that is a democracy.
Why Me? Why You?
We don't ask why techies had to do Kiva. We don't wonder why we did not leave all that to the traditional microfinance people. You and I are members of the tech community. I need you to think of me as a member of the community who wants to take some time off from full time tech startup work and do this for a period of 15 months, for that should be enough time, to help bring about this positive change. This is about doing the right thing, but this is also about proving the Internet as a technology is mature enough, the world is connected enough, and that the digital ways are powerful enough.
If I were to get State Department sponsorship, that would hinder my work. God forbid, if I were to get CIA sponsorship, that would totally paralyze my capacity to do what I want to do. This has to happen at the netroots level, where you and I exist and at the level you and I have the option to reach out to all sorts of causes all over the world.
Why You?
If you have been a prominent VC for a few decades, I think you can afford to put in 5K of your personal money into this. It is doable for you.
Why Me?
I have done this before. I can do this again. And this work ties into what I want to do after that, which would be to launch my tech startup that will want to help bring many more people online. I can't say I was born in India, so I am going to think about the people in India, or that I grew up in Nepal, and so I am going to focus on Nepal. Bringing people online is a global endeavor, and I have to be able to show I can care deeply about people in places like Iran where I have never been, but where I do know there is an acute need. This work will allow me to prove that, show that.
It will also allow me to further work on my two strengths: vision and group dynamics. Here you are talking about large scale group dynamics. I have a knack for that. It is an important business skill.
And if I can do what I am saying I can, I think that is going to earn me some credibility that I can cash on when it is time for me to raise some money for my startup in about 15 months. That is the self interest part.
No Time To Lose
So, let's get started. You two come in at 5K each. And you have until the end of July to find me other 18 VCs who will also come in at 5K each. And if I can get this done by September 2011, you all get to raise another 2.5K each. That will be your way of saying it was a big goal, but it got achieved, and so.
Not everyone believes every country should or is going to end up a democracy, it is only a matter of time. Not only do I believe that, I believe that process can be accelerated, and I believe a democracy movement is science, it can be made to work every single time. Elections alone do not make a democracy, we know that. Otherwise they have elections in Iran, in Zimbabwe, in Egypt. Heck, Saddam used to have elections.
Iran is not a democracy. An unelected committee of mullahs is the supreme authority in that country. Only candidates sanctioned by that committee can run for president. That is no democracy.
You determine a country is not a democracy. And then you determine all the steps it has to take to end up a democracy. There are a lot of preceding preliminary steps, but ultimately a sufficient bloc of groups inside and outside the country has to set the right goal, which would be to shut the country down completely until the current regime makes way for an interim, caretaker government that would come into power with a mandate to hold elections to a constituent assembly within a year of taking power. That assembly would get two years to write a constitution for the country. A majority block in that assembly would form the government. Each article in the constitution would require two third of the votes in the assembly.
That is the roadmap. My personal project is only upto the point of regime change. Once the interim, caretaker government takes over, I am officially out, although I can't imagine completely disappearing. On my own I would continue to monitor the situation part time. There would have been too much emotional investment on my part to that point for me to just walk away.
Why Do It?
Because this is the right thing to do. Because we care about the people of Iran as much as people anywhere. Because we are huge fans of them for what they have been doing for over a year now. Because we believe in the power of democracy to do good. And because we want peace in the Middle East.
People say there is no peace in the Middle East because it is a few different religions clashing with each other. I don't buy into that. If diversity were the reason for lack of peace, New York City where I live ought to be at permanent war with itself. I don't see evidence to that effect.
There is no peace in the Middle East because Israel is the only democracy around there. When a democracy tries to talk to a neighborhood of non democracies, you get The Mother Of All Culture Clashes.
And there is also a need to prove the netroots, the grassroots are powerful enough unto themselves to be able to bring about democracy into a country. No country, not even the US, can afford to militarily go into every country. It is too expensive. And it is not even the best way to do it.
A people powered democracy movement in Iran would ignite similar conflagrations in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In seeking a successful conclusion of the democracy movement in Iran, we seek the bringing about of a domino effect.
How To Do It?
"I am one small human being," my fellow Buddhist Richard Gere once said about himself. I am but one small human being. But I have proven in the case of Nepal that one human being sufficiently digital and with sufficient political acumen can make a big difference.
It is like in the movie The Matrix. You sit in front of your computer, your terminal, and you transport yourself to the theaters of action. You observe and study the reality, the ever changing reality, in all theaters of action, and you propose action plans everywhere you can. You have no institutional authority, noone elected you, you are not doling out money, and so you have to be extra, extra right, extra convincing before people will do your bidding, before people, the key players, will listen to you to do what needs to get done.
Month One: Immersion
I would spend about a month totally immersing myself. I am going to collect as much information as possible. I am going to network feverishly. I am going to network among the members of the Iranian diaspora in New York City, and more online.
Roadmap
Then I am going to start working to gather support for my roadmap. If the democracy movement in Iran sticks to the goal of holding the presidential election all over again, it will keep banging its head against the wall. For the goal to be shifted to regime change, I will have to network deep enough to be able to determine that leadership change for the movement can be brought about without losing the fissures that have been created in the Iranian establishment by the movement so far.
Logistical Support
As for the global netroots/grassroots, all those people who turned their Twitter avatar green, they also need to shift their goal post. Extending moral support is not enough. Logistical support has to be provided. Once the movement decides to wage one final struggle, we will have to get very sophisticated about it.
We have to document every act of atrocity by the current regime. It has to be publicly announced that the interim, caretaker government will persecute all those who might unleash brutality upon peaceful protesters. You do that to protect your people best you can.
But brutality will happen. And we have to provide medical services to take care of those who might get injured in the course of the democracy movement.
Working on these two concrete steps also helps do the organization work for the movement, helps build a robust network.
All Digital, One Person
Many individuals and organizations in many countries will have to do just the right thing at the right time for this to work. And you do have to take all possible actors into count. But my particular role is going to be the role of one person who works all digitally. The world is connected enough by now that that digital activism could prove decisive. Geography is not a hindrance. And there is and there will be enough information from and about all relevant theaters of action, and where that is not enough, you connect the dots best you can.
This is doable.
Larger Implications
An Iran that is a modern democracy is still going to want to make peaceful use of nuclear energy as it should, but it is not going to be sinister and unreasonable like the non democratic Iran of today. A democratic Iran is still going to speak up for the Palestinians, as it should, but it is not going to scapegoat Israel for all its internal failures, and promises not kept to its own people.
Israel today feels an existential threat from Iran's possible nuclear weapons. That threat is primarily political. Russia still had all the nuclear weapons, but once the Cold War ended, America was no longer feeling the threat from those weapons, Europe was not feeling the threat. Israel is not going to feel an existential threat from an Iran that is a democracy.
Why Me? Why You?
We don't ask why techies had to do Kiva. We don't wonder why we did not leave all that to the traditional microfinance people. You and I are members of the tech community. I need you to think of me as a member of the community who wants to take some time off from full time tech startup work and do this for a period of 15 months, for that should be enough time, to help bring about this positive change. This is about doing the right thing, but this is also about proving the Internet as a technology is mature enough, the world is connected enough, and that the digital ways are powerful enough.
If I were to get State Department sponsorship, that would hinder my work. God forbid, if I were to get CIA sponsorship, that would totally paralyze my capacity to do what I want to do. This has to happen at the netroots level, where you and I exist and at the level you and I have the option to reach out to all sorts of causes all over the world.
Why You?
If you have been a prominent VC for a few decades, I think you can afford to put in 5K of your personal money into this. It is doable for you.
Why Me?
I have done this before. I can do this again. And this work ties into what I want to do after that, which would be to launch my tech startup that will want to help bring many more people online. I can't say I was born in India, so I am going to think about the people in India, or that I grew up in Nepal, and so I am going to focus on Nepal. Bringing people online is a global endeavor, and I have to be able to show I can care deeply about people in places like Iran where I have never been, but where I do know there is an acute need. This work will allow me to prove that, show that.
It will also allow me to further work on my two strengths: vision and group dynamics. Here you are talking about large scale group dynamics. I have a knack for that. It is an important business skill.
And if I can do what I am saying I can, I think that is going to earn me some credibility that I can cash on when it is time for me to raise some money for my startup in about 15 months. That is the self interest part.
No Time To Lose
So, let's get started. You two come in at 5K each. And you have until the end of July to find me other 18 VCs who will also come in at 5K each. And if I can get this done by September 2011, you all get to raise another 2.5K each. That will be your way of saying it was a big goal, but it got achieved, and so.
Friday, July 09, 2010
To Iran, With Love (2)
To: Brad Feld, Subject: Iran And Me (Digital Ninja/Commando)
To Iran, With Love (1)
Hello Brad. Hello Fred.
I am psyched to be talking to two of my favorite people in the tech community.
Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld
Fred Wilson: An Unassuming Kind Of Guy
Meeting Fred Wilson In Person
Fred Wilson: A DJ
Fred Wilson: DJ
Fred Wilson's Gift To Me
Fred Wilson's Insight
Fred Wilson: VC
Fred Wilson: A VC
So let me tackle some of the questions after having introduced myself: To Iran, With Love (1). Over the past few days I have paced around a whole lot trying to grapple with as to the best way to present myself.
I ended up giving a name to the method: nonviolent militancy. Not only are you strictly nonviolent, you are almost all digital. The battles take place on the screen for a big part. But the method is not the message. Unless you have a very high level of political consciousness, unless you have super political instincts, unless your political knowledge is robust, unless you are a disrupter in the best tradition of entrepreneurs, unless you have a firm commitment to the basic principles that underly any democracy movement, you can't do what I did for Nepal. My political credentials were outstanding, and so the technology behind the digital tools I ended up using came to be of service to me. The medium is not the message. On the other hand without the digital medium my work would not have been possible. The Internet allowed me the utter fearlessness that I exhibited at all junctures because it allowed me to be in the safety of New York City without many of the disadvantages of distance. On any given day, I had a pretty good idea of what was going on at the ground level in Nepal. I looked at Nepal from my distance the way an astrophysicist might look at planet Jupiter and do a very good job at it. The distance kept me safe, but it also gave me a certain objectivity, a certain detachment. That helped my work.
It was amazing to me over the course of my work spanning about two years eating into my savings that I was able to meet in person almost all the key political players in the drama in Nepal right here in New York City. I also discovered every little town in Nepal is represented by at least a few people in Queens. If that is true for the poorest country outside of Africa, that has to be true for every country on earth. That is why I have been saying for years everyone you need to spread democracy across the world lives right here in New York City. New York City truly is the capital city of the world. And if I networked hard enough in New York City, I realized I could get to know people who personally knew people in all the political parties in Nepal, in all the human rights NGOs active in Nepal, in all the media houses there.
Dinesh Prasain Tour: Report
Anil Jha, Bimal Nidhi US Tour Logistics
Gagan Thapa Talk In Boston: Two Hours Audio
Gagan Thapa October 22 Saturday 2 PM Columbia University
Sage Radachowsky Interviews Anil Jha
A Day In The Life Of Gagan Thapa
The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Gagan Thapa
Seven Party Forum In Jackson Heights
Krishna Pahadi November 6 Sunday 5 PM
Gagan's Talk In New York
Pahadi Says Goal Is Democratic Republic
Krishna Pahadi At New York University
December 11 Sunday 11 AM Union Square
Dinesh Tripathi In New York
Anand Bist, Troublemaker
My Proposal To The Saturday Symposium At Columbia
Dinesh Tripathi, "Arthur Kinoy Of Nepal"
Symposium At Columbia
February 1 New York Rally Photos
March 22 Event At Columbia
And I worked the phone. I called people in Nepal, in India, elsewhere.
And I worked the email circuit. Every time I received a mass email from some Nepali wishing me a Happy New Year or greetings for one of Nepal's major festivals, I would go ahead and harvest all the emails. And thus I ended up with the largest Nepali mailing list in the world. Someone once said when Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas that if you knew 1500 people in Little Rock, you knew everyone who mattered in Arkansas. Well, those 1500 people for Nepal are all on my mailing list. There are about 8500 people on that list. Featured at the top is an email from the Prime Minister of Nepal, Madhav Nepal.
But the hub of all my work was my Nepal blog: Democracy For Nepal. And my primary data collection method was the wild wild web, the Internet. Anyone could have accessed all the information that I was able to access on a daily basis. I visited the websites of the newspapers out of Nepal. I had a Nepal section on my Google News page.
I was able to cash on the personal contacts I already had, and was able to build. But the Internet was my primary playground. Anyone could have accessed what I accessed, and I feel like anyone anywhere could apply the principles that I applied in Nepal, and intend to apply in Iran. Actually one big reason I want to get involved with Iran is so as to be able to prove what we did in Nepal can be done over and over again all over the world, everywhere where there is no democracy.
I will touch upon those principles later. Let me now get into what precisely I did for Nepal. I helped move the ball at all critical junctures of the peace process.
What I Did For Nepal
When the king of Nepal pulled his military coup in February 2005, the first thing I did was I surveyed the scene. I read all the news I could. I tracked down all my key contacts that had fled to Delhi in the aftermath, including the guy who is now president of Nepal.
Hridayesh Tripathy In Delhi: Good News
Phone Interview With Rajendra Mahato
Phone Marathon: Called Up Delhi
Phone Marathon II
Then I surveyed the political scene. Either the king was going to backtrack and go back to being a ceremonial monarch, or Nepal needed to end the monarchy, become a republic.
Towards a Democratic Republic of Nepal
Now Nepal is a republic, but at that point in time republic was a big word to utter. None of the big democratic parties were for a republic. The king had jailed all their leaders and the parties were still singing the tunes of a constitutional monarchy. There is a term for that: mental slavery, the emotional dependence of the enslaved upon those who enslave them. The king showed signs he wanted to rule in an active way for a few decades. If they can do it in Saudi Arabia, why can't we do it in Nepal, he asked. Well, Saudi Arabia's time too will come.
I recognized there were three poles in Nepal: the royalists, the democrats and the Maoists. The only way to defeat the royalists was to forge an alliance between the other two forces. But that was not going to be easy because the Maoists had been waging a war for 10 years to establish a one party communist republic. They had been physically attacking and killing cadres of the largest democratic parties. How do you do business with them? At that point they had managed to dismantle the barely existent state apparatus in about 80% of the country.
The roadmap I proposed was this. The Maoists were for a communist republic. The big democratic parties were for a ceremonial monarchy. They needed to find common ground, which was the idea of a democratic republic. I sent overtures to the number two Maoist, Baburam Bhattarai. He sent overtures back, but that got him into trouble. The number one Maoist had him arrested by his own bodyguards. Later I appealed for his release, and he was released.
Sought eDialogue with Dr. Baburam Bhattarai
Ideological Overture To The Nepali Maoists
Ideological Overture To The Nepali Maoists (2)
Baburam Bhattarai On A Democratic Republic
Doing Business With Baburam Bhattarai
To: Prachanda, Baburam, Mahara, Badal And The Rest Of The Maoist Leadership
Prachanda's Letter Bomb Of 5/1
Baburam: Prachanda's Best Bet, Litmust Test, And Only Option
Baburam Bhattarai Press Statement
Around this time a fellow Nepali activist based out of New York City sent out an email saying the army in Nepal had had her father disappeared. The danger was real. No wonder most Nepalis in the diaspora tried not to put their names to the cause. They preferred private to public, offline to online. I spoke up at my blog. Her father was released a few days later.
"Urgent: Disappearance Of My Father" by Sarahana Shrestha
Once there was convergence between the Maoists and the democrats behind the idea of a democratic republic, it was time to go all the way and try to forge a strong alliance against the monarchists. It took long months, but finally they all got together behind the idea of holding elections to a constituent assembly.
How To Move Towards A Common Minimum Program?
Seeking Common Ground
Seize The Moment: Match The Maoists
Possible Framework For A Maoist-Democrat Alliance
Major Fermentations In The NC And The UML
Alliance Of Steel
Indian Support For Democrat-Maoist Alliance A Must
Around this time a former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba got arrested. His wife sent me an email.
Gagan Thapa Arrested, Deuba Re-Arrested
Email From Arzu Rana Deuba
Email From Madhav Kumar Nepal
March 22 Event, Deuba In New York
Sushil Pyakurel In Brussels
Deuba At Columbia
Deuba In Jackson Heights
Deuba Off To DC
The Maoists were still at war. Now that some common ground had been found, it was time for the Maoists to lay down the weapon. I proposed something pretty out of the box: unilateral ceasefire. How would the king respond? Could he keep fighting? No, he could not.
Power Does Not Necessarily Flow Through The Barrel Of A Gun: Maoists
Prachanda, Order Your Cadres To Live
After Ganapathy, A Ceasefire
RNA, Declare Your Own Ceasefire, You Have No Choice
Prachanda, Do Not Break The Ceasefire
Irresponsible Response To Ceasefire
For The First Time In A Decade, Permanent Peace Feels Possible
The Maoist Ceasefire: The Devil In The Details
The RNA Could Be Disbanded
The Maoists Could Do More
Militarists Attempting A Doramba Repeat To End Ceasefire
The Army Rank And File Need To Be For The People And Democracy
Prachanda, Extend The Ceasefire By Three Months
Prachanda Audio Interview, A First
Why The Maoists Should Not Go Back To Violence
Around this time I also got impatient with Girija Koirala, the de facto leader in the democratic camp for being the oldest person, and threw my weight behind Madhav Nepal who went on to organize some of the largest one day rallies over the coming months.
Madhav Nepal, Commander Of The Movement
Janakpur Rally, Biggest In Nepal Since 1990
Once the Maoist-Democrat alliance was formed, it was time to go for a mass movement. Here Ukraine in 2004 was my inspiration. The Nepali leaders kept thinking in terms of a rally here, a rally there, a shutdown here, a shutdown there. From the very beginning I was pushing for a Ukraine repeat, that we needed to come out into the streets and stay out there until the regime collapsed. That is what ended up happening only what happened in Nepal was much much bigger than what happened in Ukraine, and much bigger than anything I had imagined. But this was not a sure thing at all. The Maoists started thinking now the democrats had finally come around to their idea of a final armed struggle and an assault on the capital city. That suggestion I fought tooth and nail. Around this time I also hired a blogger in Kathmandu to video blog all street protests. That proved fundamental. At the time noone was doing that. Those videos got the Nepali diaspora excited. (Umesh, Turn It Into A Business, Mero Sansar Video Clips, Blogger Receives Death Threat, Bloggers Form Union) I also had to fight American tendencies to want to fight the Maoists to the military finish, to see them as the first opponent, we will deal with an autocratic king later attitude: Robert Kaplan Is An American Cowboy.
Non-Violent Militancy, Concerted Global Action
Human Rights to Political Platform to Full-Fledged Movement
eDemocracy, 4S Campaign, 24/7 Vigil For Democracy: Take Over Tundikhel
Streets Filling Up
Major Student Protests
Timi Sadak Ma Utreko Dekheko Chhu (I have seen you come out into the streets - poem)
Pyramid Of 10 In Kathmandu
India-US-EU Need To Provide Logistical Support To The Democracy Movement
Logistics To Bring Down The Regime
Lilamani Pokharel For Continuous Movement
Maoists Should Go Beyond Ceasefire To Peaceful Mobilization
Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests
Democracy For Nepal: Contents 2005
Nepal Needs To Be Hitting The World Headlines: Write To The Media
Baburam Bhattarai May Not Preach Violence To The Seven Party Alliance
Non-Violence All The Way
"Robin Hood Im Internet"
Mero Sansar Video Clips 4
Undeclared Ceasefire, Decisive Movement
This is the gist of the developments leading up to the mass movement of April 2006 when eight of the country's 27 million people came out into the streets to shut the country down completely. Every step can be retraced at my Nepal blog. Here I have provided just a summary. Keeping my work transparent in real time was important to me even back then because I held a strong belief even back then that this work was relevant to many other countries. In April 2006 I came across a blog post by some anonymous member of the Zimbabwean diaspora that asked, why can't we have in Zimbabwe what they just had in Nepal? It was a good feeling for me to come across that sentiment.
In my next blog post I will tackle the other two questions.
To Iran, With Love (1)
I am psyched to be talking to two of my favorite people in the tech community.
Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld
Fred Wilson: An Unassuming Kind Of Guy
Meeting Fred Wilson In Person
Fred Wilson: A DJ
Fred Wilson: DJ
Fred Wilson's Gift To Me
Fred Wilson's Insight
Fred Wilson: VC
Fred Wilson: A VC
So let me tackle some of the questions after having introduced myself: To Iran, With Love (1). Over the past few days I have paced around a whole lot trying to grapple with as to the best way to present myself.
- What did I do for Nepal?
- How did I do it?
- What can I do for Iran?
- Why am I asking 20 VCs to put in 5K each in personal money towards this?
I ended up giving a name to the method: nonviolent militancy. Not only are you strictly nonviolent, you are almost all digital. The battles take place on the screen for a big part. But the method is not the message. Unless you have a very high level of political consciousness, unless you have super political instincts, unless your political knowledge is robust, unless you are a disrupter in the best tradition of entrepreneurs, unless you have a firm commitment to the basic principles that underly any democracy movement, you can't do what I did for Nepal. My political credentials were outstanding, and so the technology behind the digital tools I ended up using came to be of service to me. The medium is not the message. On the other hand without the digital medium my work would not have been possible. The Internet allowed me the utter fearlessness that I exhibited at all junctures because it allowed me to be in the safety of New York City without many of the disadvantages of distance. On any given day, I had a pretty good idea of what was going on at the ground level in Nepal. I looked at Nepal from my distance the way an astrophysicist might look at planet Jupiter and do a very good job at it. The distance kept me safe, but it also gave me a certain objectivity, a certain detachment. That helped my work.
It was amazing to me over the course of my work spanning about two years eating into my savings that I was able to meet in person almost all the key political players in the drama in Nepal right here in New York City. I also discovered every little town in Nepal is represented by at least a few people in Queens. If that is true for the poorest country outside of Africa, that has to be true for every country on earth. That is why I have been saying for years everyone you need to spread democracy across the world lives right here in New York City. New York City truly is the capital city of the world. And if I networked hard enough in New York City, I realized I could get to know people who personally knew people in all the political parties in Nepal, in all the human rights NGOs active in Nepal, in all the media houses there.
Dinesh Prasain Tour: Report
Anil Jha, Bimal Nidhi US Tour Logistics
Gagan Thapa Talk In Boston: Two Hours Audio
Gagan Thapa October 22 Saturday 2 PM Columbia University
Sage Radachowsky Interviews Anil Jha
A Day In The Life Of Gagan Thapa
The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Gagan Thapa
Seven Party Forum In Jackson Heights
Krishna Pahadi November 6 Sunday 5 PM
Gagan's Talk In New York
Pahadi Says Goal Is Democratic Republic
Krishna Pahadi At New York University
December 11 Sunday 11 AM Union Square
Dinesh Tripathi In New York
Anand Bist, Troublemaker
My Proposal To The Saturday Symposium At Columbia
Dinesh Tripathi, "Arthur Kinoy Of Nepal"
Symposium At Columbia
February 1 New York Rally Photos
March 22 Event At Columbia
And I worked the phone. I called people in Nepal, in India, elsewhere.
And I worked the email circuit. Every time I received a mass email from some Nepali wishing me a Happy New Year or greetings for one of Nepal's major festivals, I would go ahead and harvest all the emails. And thus I ended up with the largest Nepali mailing list in the world. Someone once said when Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas that if you knew 1500 people in Little Rock, you knew everyone who mattered in Arkansas. Well, those 1500 people for Nepal are all on my mailing list. There are about 8500 people on that list. Featured at the top is an email from the Prime Minister of Nepal, Madhav Nepal.
But the hub of all my work was my Nepal blog: Democracy For Nepal. And my primary data collection method was the wild wild web, the Internet. Anyone could have accessed all the information that I was able to access on a daily basis. I visited the websites of the newspapers out of Nepal. I had a Nepal section on my Google News page.
I was able to cash on the personal contacts I already had, and was able to build. But the Internet was my primary playground. Anyone could have accessed what I accessed, and I feel like anyone anywhere could apply the principles that I applied in Nepal, and intend to apply in Iran. Actually one big reason I want to get involved with Iran is so as to be able to prove what we did in Nepal can be done over and over again all over the world, everywhere where there is no democracy.
I will touch upon those principles later. Let me now get into what precisely I did for Nepal. I helped move the ball at all critical junctures of the peace process.
What I Did For Nepal
When the king of Nepal pulled his military coup in February 2005, the first thing I did was I surveyed the scene. I read all the news I could. I tracked down all my key contacts that had fled to Delhi in the aftermath, including the guy who is now president of Nepal.
Hridayesh Tripathy In Delhi: Good News
Phone Interview With Rajendra Mahato
Phone Marathon: Called Up Delhi
Phone Marathon II
Then I surveyed the political scene. Either the king was going to backtrack and go back to being a ceremonial monarch, or Nepal needed to end the monarchy, become a republic.
Towards a Democratic Republic of Nepal
Now Nepal is a republic, but at that point in time republic was a big word to utter. None of the big democratic parties were for a republic. The king had jailed all their leaders and the parties were still singing the tunes of a constitutional monarchy. There is a term for that: mental slavery, the emotional dependence of the enslaved upon those who enslave them. The king showed signs he wanted to rule in an active way for a few decades. If they can do it in Saudi Arabia, why can't we do it in Nepal, he asked. Well, Saudi Arabia's time too will come.
I recognized there were three poles in Nepal: the royalists, the democrats and the Maoists. The only way to defeat the royalists was to forge an alliance between the other two forces. But that was not going to be easy because the Maoists had been waging a war for 10 years to establish a one party communist republic. They had been physically attacking and killing cadres of the largest democratic parties. How do you do business with them? At that point they had managed to dismantle the barely existent state apparatus in about 80% of the country.
The roadmap I proposed was this. The Maoists were for a communist republic. The big democratic parties were for a ceremonial monarchy. They needed to find common ground, which was the idea of a democratic republic. I sent overtures to the number two Maoist, Baburam Bhattarai. He sent overtures back, but that got him into trouble. The number one Maoist had him arrested by his own bodyguards. Later I appealed for his release, and he was released.
Sought eDialogue with Dr. Baburam Bhattarai
Ideological Overture To The Nepali Maoists
Ideological Overture To The Nepali Maoists (2)
Baburam Bhattarai On A Democratic Republic
Doing Business With Baburam Bhattarai
To: Prachanda, Baburam, Mahara, Badal And The Rest Of The Maoist Leadership
Prachanda's Letter Bomb Of 5/1
Baburam: Prachanda's Best Bet, Litmust Test, And Only Option
Baburam Bhattarai Press Statement
Around this time a fellow Nepali activist based out of New York City sent out an email saying the army in Nepal had had her father disappeared. The danger was real. No wonder most Nepalis in the diaspora tried not to put their names to the cause. They preferred private to public, offline to online. I spoke up at my blog. Her father was released a few days later.
"Urgent: Disappearance Of My Father" by Sarahana Shrestha
Once there was convergence between the Maoists and the democrats behind the idea of a democratic republic, it was time to go all the way and try to forge a strong alliance against the monarchists. It took long months, but finally they all got together behind the idea of holding elections to a constituent assembly.
How To Move Towards A Common Minimum Program?
Seeking Common Ground
Seize The Moment: Match The Maoists
Possible Framework For A Maoist-Democrat Alliance
Major Fermentations In The NC And The UML
Alliance Of Steel
Indian Support For Democrat-Maoist Alliance A Must
Around this time a former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba got arrested. His wife sent me an email.
Gagan Thapa Arrested, Deuba Re-Arrested
Email From Arzu Rana Deuba
Email From Madhav Kumar Nepal
March 22 Event, Deuba In New York
Sushil Pyakurel In Brussels
Deuba At Columbia
Deuba In Jackson Heights
Deuba Off To DC
The Maoists were still at war. Now that some common ground had been found, it was time for the Maoists to lay down the weapon. I proposed something pretty out of the box: unilateral ceasefire. How would the king respond? Could he keep fighting? No, he could not.
Power Does Not Necessarily Flow Through The Barrel Of A Gun: Maoists
Prachanda, Order Your Cadres To Live
After Ganapathy, A Ceasefire
RNA, Declare Your Own Ceasefire, You Have No Choice
Prachanda, Do Not Break The Ceasefire
Irresponsible Response To Ceasefire
For The First Time In A Decade, Permanent Peace Feels Possible
The Maoist Ceasefire: The Devil In The Details
The RNA Could Be Disbanded
The Maoists Could Do More
Militarists Attempting A Doramba Repeat To End Ceasefire
The Army Rank And File Need To Be For The People And Democracy
Prachanda, Extend The Ceasefire By Three Months
Prachanda Audio Interview, A First
Why The Maoists Should Not Go Back To Violence
Around this time I also got impatient with Girija Koirala, the de facto leader in the democratic camp for being the oldest person, and threw my weight behind Madhav Nepal who went on to organize some of the largest one day rallies over the coming months.
Madhav Nepal, Commander Of The Movement
Janakpur Rally, Biggest In Nepal Since 1990
Once the Maoist-Democrat alliance was formed, it was time to go for a mass movement. Here Ukraine in 2004 was my inspiration. The Nepali leaders kept thinking in terms of a rally here, a rally there, a shutdown here, a shutdown there. From the very beginning I was pushing for a Ukraine repeat, that we needed to come out into the streets and stay out there until the regime collapsed. That is what ended up happening only what happened in Nepal was much much bigger than what happened in Ukraine, and much bigger than anything I had imagined. But this was not a sure thing at all. The Maoists started thinking now the democrats had finally come around to their idea of a final armed struggle and an assault on the capital city. That suggestion I fought tooth and nail. Around this time I also hired a blogger in Kathmandu to video blog all street protests. That proved fundamental. At the time noone was doing that. Those videos got the Nepali diaspora excited. (Umesh, Turn It Into A Business, Mero Sansar Video Clips, Blogger Receives Death Threat, Bloggers Form Union) I also had to fight American tendencies to want to fight the Maoists to the military finish, to see them as the first opponent, we will deal with an autocratic king later attitude: Robert Kaplan Is An American Cowboy.
Non-Violent Militancy, Concerted Global Action
Human Rights to Political Platform to Full-Fledged Movement
eDemocracy, 4S Campaign, 24/7 Vigil For Democracy: Take Over Tundikhel
Streets Filling Up
Major Student Protests
Timi Sadak Ma Utreko Dekheko Chhu (I have seen you come out into the streets - poem)
Pyramid Of 10 In Kathmandu
India-US-EU Need To Provide Logistical Support To The Democracy Movement
Logistics To Bring Down The Regime
Lilamani Pokharel For Continuous Movement
Maoists Should Go Beyond Ceasefire To Peaceful Mobilization
Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests Protests
Democracy For Nepal: Contents 2005
Nepal Needs To Be Hitting The World Headlines: Write To The Media
Baburam Bhattarai May Not Preach Violence To The Seven Party Alliance
Non-Violence All The Way
"Robin Hood Im Internet"
Mero Sansar Video Clips 4
Undeclared Ceasefire, Decisive Movement
This is the gist of the developments leading up to the mass movement of April 2006 when eight of the country's 27 million people came out into the streets to shut the country down completely. Every step can be retraced at my Nepal blog. Here I have provided just a summary. Keeping my work transparent in real time was important to me even back then because I held a strong belief even back then that this work was relevant to many other countries. In April 2006 I came across a blog post by some anonymous member of the Zimbabwean diaspora that asked, why can't we have in Zimbabwe what they just had in Nepal? It was a good feeling for me to come across that sentiment.
In my next blog post I will tackle the other two questions.
- What can I do for Iran?
- Why am I asking 20 VCs to put in 5K each in personal money towards this?
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