Gex
Manjushree Thapa is an author of fiction & literary nonfiction. Born in Kathmandu, she moved to Canada, then back to Nepal through middle school. She went to high school in Washington, DC; college in Providence, Rhode Island; and graduate school in Seattle, Washington.
Claiming women have no nationality, she has burned down the new constitution of Nepal. Here’s what she said:
The new constitution, voted on by the Constituent Assembly on September 16, ignored the feminist movement altogether, and endorsed the logic of the Hindu patriarch. Not only can women not confer citizenship to their children independently of men, the children of Nepali women and foreign men will be barred from high office. No such restriction applies to the children of Nepali men married to foreign women. And Nepali men can, as ever, confer citizenship to their children independently of women.
News of this vote felt violent, like a slap, a blow, a punch to the gut. I spent days reeling, in shock, raging and impotent, bewildered and ill, thinking: a country that betrays its women doesn’t deserve women’s loyalty.
The act felt funereal rather than defiant. I was mournful rather than angry. Something in me—hope, perhaps, for a better future for Nepal—had died. My loyalty had faded. “Mann nai maryo,” were the only words I could speak. The fire flared, blazed briefly, and flickered out. My emotions toward my country burned away.
A constitution that makes women unequal citizens & tramples on the aspirations of Dalit, Indigenous & Madhesi Nepalis is #NotMyConstitution.
— Manjushree Thapa (@manjushreethapa) September 13, 2015
Read the full article here.
