The politics of appeal
Appeal is not bad, rather humble, if that produces any results. Appeals are for those who understand it and have will to execute. Appeal works well in social causes but rarely in political issues.
The people in power rarely listen to what is said in appeal unless the content are in their best political interest. Who heard appeals of Gandhi, King and Mandela? Recently revealed by New York Times speaks volumes about notoriety of those in power. FBI then described King as ‘filthy dirty evil’. The story of Gandhi and Mandela are no different. They all are now heroes. Their appeal was not listened to and they had to adopt other alternatives to make authority listen.
Our democratic movement began with appeal – when Rizal sent an appeal to King Jigme Singye seeking changes in the way southern Bhutanese were treated. Since then, millions and billions of appeals were sent to governments in India, Bhutan, Nepal, Europe, Asia, America and Australia. The appeals resulted unheard.
We had once the famous appeal movement, that died not because the appeal was ineffective but because of individual difference in leadership who though their personal egos were valuable than refugee issue. The appeal movement, in real sense, still continues – we send appeal to all occasions to every one: to UN, to EU, to SAARC, to BIMSTEC, to this and to that. And we rarely hear back. Moreover we rarely feel the need to follow up what happened to our appeal.
We heard three appeals this month from Nepal – of Rizal, Bhampa Rai and Sher Bahadur Rai. Personally, it makes no sense for me to send these appeals when they bear no value. I personally think the appeals end up in bins within minutes they are handed over. We are devaluating the value of appeals.
In US, our friends made verbal appeal to the US men to help promote human rights in Bhutan and stress repatriation of those willing to go back to Bhutan. We do not hear anything about Bhutanese refugee issue when the persons we appealed meet with political leaders of Bhutan.
Many of us, after spending harsh life in camp, are now free citizens of democratic nations. We have by now realised the power and strengths of democratic culture and processes. This wisdom should provoke us not to appeal the political leaders across the globe rather the people of Bhutan who have now power to vote those leaders who can speak about refugee issue.
The Bhutanese diaspora must connect to their fellow countrymen to tell their stories, to feed them with ideals of freedom, human rights, equality and social justice.