Thats a mouthful for sure.





Those brilliant Maoists have been banging their heads together for six days to try and mend a catastrophic rift in their party. It seems most of the hard-liners want to announce an all Communist "People's Republic" immediately; while Prachanda wants to go a little slower so as not to throw the country back into chaos. After what blogdai can only assume to be and excruciating application of sheer brainpower, our boys in red have decided to call Nepal the "People's Federal Democratic National Republic." Just think of the expense in stationary this will incur! PFDNR Nepal.





What this title tells us, just by looking at it, is that the Maoists are still deeply divided and deeply factionalized. it's as if the Maoists threw every point of contention they had into the title, not caring if it worked or even made sense. Nepal is now the "agree to disagree" nation from its title.





Maoist honcho's called this new title a "synthesis" of party policy documents. blogdai sees it as an "emulsion:" hurredly mixing together things that don't belong.





Imagine if we left the Maoists to rename our popular Kathmandu watering holes:

Fire and Ice Pizza would be: "Cold Firey Hot Pizza Ice"

Tom and Jerry Pub: "Jerry's Pub with Tom's Name but mostly Jerry's unless it' Not"

Yin/Yang Bar: "Yin or Yang both at once with no balance or compromise Bar."





Let's break down this new title and look at it. Both the words that are used and their positioning tell us quite a lot about what went on in that Maoist meeting.





People's

Only ideologically totalitarian or Communist governments use this word to describe their country. The fact that it occurs first in the title tells blogdai that the hard-line Communist ideologues in the Maoist party holding sway. It also shows that every Maoists eventually wants a Communist Nepal.





Federal

Means a type of representative government; the type that no Nepali can adequately describe, but is supposed to limit the chaos of pure democracy by letting elected representative speak for the majority of people in any given district or "federated" sub-unit of a nation. It is the second term used in the new Maoist title and probably sits there to appease the NC and UML.





Democratic

Dead in the middle of the new title. It is in the weakest position for emphasis--almost an afterthought. Maoists know that if you use any variation of the word "democracy," to describe yourself, whether applicable or not, the U.S. will leave you alone, the world media will fawn all over you, and foreign aid will keep arriving. It's a lot like all of those ridiculous military medals that despots like to create and wear on their uniforms: No real meaning but gives a good impression.





National

A poor thinker's stab at national unity. Mainly, it's just the Maoists way of saying that they've finally made it to the big leagues. No factionalizing, they tell us, "we are now a national brand." Thanks to Ian Martin and James Moriarty.





Republic

If you read the new title quickly, you find that Nepal is actually called a "People's Republic" Notice how "People's" and "Republic" frame all other words? They are the two most strategically placed words in the title. Republic, next to Federal and sometimes Democracy, is unnecessary and redundant. All three terms share concepts and mechanisms.





This new title shows what can happen when a room full of hog butchers begins to squabble. We get nothing approaching compromise, but we can infer quite a lot about the Maoist's intentions from the mish-mash of a title they want to slap on Nepal: We are on our way to a Communist state.





-=blogdai



















