Saturday, February 1, 2014

शरणार्थी साहित्य र नेपाली सन्दर्भ

अभि सुवेदी

नेपाली सन्दर्भमा शरणार्थी साहित्यको छलफल गर्न मलाई केही युवा प्राज्ञले भनेपछि मेरो मनमा यो विषय एउटा कहीँ अज्ञात थलोबाट उठेको आँधीजस्तो आयो । नसोचेको तर सुन्दर, मायालु अनि मानवीय वेदनाको र मान्छेको मुक्तिमाथिको विश्वासको आँधी । महमुद दार्बिस भन्ने प्यालेस्टिनी कविलाई म धेरै पढ्छु । तिनका मनपरेका कविता पल्टाएँ । एकाध हरफ यस्ता छन्, ‘मेरी आमा छन्, एउटा धेरै झ्याल भएको घर छ, भाइहरू, साथीहरू र चिसो स्याँठ पस्ने झ्याल भएको झ्यालखानाको कोठा छ † ... मेरा शब्दका गहिरा क्षितिजमा मेरो एउटा जुन छ’ (दार्बिस, दुर्भाग्य, त्यो स्वर्गै थियो, क्यालिफोर्निया विश्वविद्यालय प्रेस, २००३: ७) । अर्को एउटा कवि गेन्डुन छोफेलका, ‘रेब्कङ्’ भन्ने कविताका हरफ पनि मनमा आए, ‘हाय, मेरो त्यो रेब्कङ् उपत्यका,/त्यो यसको हराभरा भूमिमा बहने खोला †’ म शरणार्थी विषयमा राजनीतिक रूपले निरपेक्ष छु । त्यसो त अगमसिंह गिरीले लेखेको र अम्बर गुरुङ दाइले गाएका यी हरफ पनि मनमा गुन्जे, ‘सुनको सपना आँसुमा किन हो बाँधी ल्यायौ नि/ मनको आगो निभाउन किन पो यहाँ आयौ नि ।’ अहिलेको यथार्थले त्यो भेट्दैन । भारतीय नेपाली ‘डियास्पोरा’ होइनन्, भारतीय हुन् । बाँकी भावात्मक हो । तर, खुदुनाबारीको शरणार्थी शिविरका भुटानी अर्को महाशक्ति मुलुकमा अर्को आयामका शरणार्थी भएर जाँदा अन्तिम मानिसको रूपमा बिदा लिने अलबिदा बेलडाँगी (२०७०)का युवक लेखक शिवलाल दाहालका यी हरफले शरणार्थीको अर्को चेतना उजागर गर्‍यो, ‘हाम्रो उभिने धरातल विभाजित भइसक्यो । हाम्रो अस्तित्व खण्डखण्ड भइसक्यो । अहँ, लेख्न सक्तिन यो वियोगान्त कथा । आफ्नै बिलयनको कथा । बेलडाँगीको बिलयनको कथा ।’ यी उद्धृत पाठखण्डहरूले शरणार्थी र आप्रवासी साहित्यका मूलभूत पक्षहरूका लक्षणा बोध गराउँछन् ।
शरणार्थी भएर बसेको भूमि छोड्नु र स्थानापन्न हुँदै जानु शरणार्थी साहित्यकारका रचनामा आउने बलियो बिम्ब हो । जस्तो, शिवलाल दाहालको अलबिदा बेलडाँगी (२०७०) मा भुटानी बस्ने शरणार्थी भूमि विखण्डन भएको प्रसंग छ । त्यो भूमिमा दोस्रो तहको आप्रवासनको चित्र भेटिन्छ । साहित्यकारले आफ्ना निबन्धको विषय बनाएका छन्, यस अवस्थालाई । यो भावनात्मक छ जुन कुरा साधारण शरणार्थीका प्रतिवेदनमा पाउन सकिँदैन । त्यो भूमिसँगको वियोग आफ्नै मानिससँगको वियोग हो । अझ लेखक भन्छन्– बेलडाँगी शरणार्थी शिविर नै बिलयन हुन लागेको छ, जुन लेखकको दैहिक गतिसँग जोडिएको छ । यो एउटा चाखलाग्दो र अनौठो किसिमको शरणार्थी साहित्यको संचेतना हो । यो दोस्रो ‘अर्डरको शरणार्थी चेतना हो । यो अवस्थाले बिलयन शब्दको प्रयोग गर्छ । यसको रूपक वाचाल छ । के शरणार्थीले भोगेको जीवन एकनासको हुन्छ, के गुमेको भूमि पनि शरणार्थीका मनबाट बिलाएर जान्छ ? के भूमिको विलयन भनेको शरणार्थी र भूमिको भावनात्मक र दैहिक सम्बन्धको अन्त्य हो ? यस विषयमा धेरै शास्त्र निस्केका छन् । नेपालमा यसमा थोरै मात्र बहस भएका छन् । डा. शिव रिजालको विचारमा ‘नेपाल छाडेर जाने भुटानीहरूले खालि अर्को भूमण्डलीय बाटो हिँडेका मात्र हुन् । उनीहरूले मातृभूमि फर्किने ट्रान्जिट मात्र बदलेका हुन् । भुटानबाट निकालिएकै दिनदेखि तिनीहरू विश्व राजनीतिका विषय पनि बनिसकेका छन् । यो उनीहरूको अमेरिकी यात्रा यही विश्वराजनीतिक अवस्थामा बाँच्ने र यसमा प्रवेश गर्ने अभ्यासको कडी मात्र हो’ (काडमाडौं पोस्ट, १६ नोभेम्बर २०७०) । यसर्थ शरणार्थी अस्मिता बिलयन हुँदैन भन्ने बुझिन्छ । शरणार्थी अवस्था बिलयन हुँदैन भन्ने रूपक साहित्यको रूपमा बढी अर्थ राख्छ किनभने युद्ध, राज्य र प्राकृतिक संकटले विस्थापित मानिसको शरणार्थी अथवा एक्जाइल अवस्थाको समयमा नैरन्तर्य दुई किसिमले हुन्छ । पहिलो, मानिसका अस्मिता नै अत्यन्त नराम्रो गरी उथलपुथलमा पर्छन् । यस विषयमा विभाजनले छुटेका लेखक र अध्येताका समदृष्टि पाइन्छन् । दोस्रो, शरणार्थीका अवस्था र तिनका अन्तर्कथाको चित्र साहित्य र कला अनि रंगमञ्चमा हुन्छ । हामी शरणार्थी साहित्यको चर्चा गर्दा त्यही विषयतिर फर्किन्छौँ । बिलयन होइन, अर्को अवसरको सिर्जना हुन्छ र त्यो आपैँmमा एउटा तेस्रो पाठ हुन्छ भन्ने सिद्धान्त स्थापित भएको छ । त्यसमा एडवर्ड सइदको कामले ठूलो आधार खडा गरिदिएको छ ।


झापा शरणार्थी शिविरको आरम्भ कसरी भयो भन्ने भुटानी वाइएन चौंलागाईंको उपन्यास साक्षी (२०६९) ले समय बिन्दु खिचेको छ । सायद माघ २, २०४८ मा कन्काइको बगर भन्ने ‘स्पेस’मा आरम्भ भएको शरणार्थीको कथा नेपालको प्रजातान्त्रिक राजनीतिक परिवर्तन भएर पञ्चायत व्यवस्था ढल्नेबित्तिकैदेखि अहिलेसम्मको युगभित्रको नेपालभित्रको कथा हो । त्यसैले यो कथा शरणार्थीको कथा मात्र नभएर नेपाली राजनीतिले नेपाली मूलका मानिसका समस्या कसरी हेर्‍यो, भुटानसँग सायद समाधान गर्न सकिने यो समस्यालाई यहाँको भ्रमले कसरी प्रभावित पार्‍यो भन्ने कुरा पनि हेर्नुपर्ने हुन्छ । ‘एकजाइल’ वा शरणार्थी साहित्यमा प्रतिबिम्बित साहित्यमा राजनीतिको प्रभाव निकै जटिल रूपले परेको हुन्छ भन्ने कुरा यो विषयका अध्येतालाई थाहा भएकै हो । त्यसो हो भने भुटानी शरणार्थी साहित्यलाई यी दुई कृतिले दुई युगका माइलस्टोन देखाएर पर्याप्त चित्रण हुन्छ त भन्ने कुरा आउँछ । मैले बुझेसम्म भुटानी शरणार्थी क्याम्प र त्यससँग सम्बन्ध राखेका शरणार्थीले अनेकौँ सानातिना साहित्यका रचना गरेका छन् । नाटक रचना गरेर मञ्चन गरेका छन् । तर, उपन्यास लेखनमा भने यो शरणार्थी क्याम्पको इतिवृत्तमा लेखिएका नेपाली लेखकका उपन्यासमा डा. तारालाल श्रेष्ठको उपन्यास सपनाको समाधि (२०६९) लाई अहिलेसम्मको शरणार्थीसँगका सहवास र अन्तरअध्यनबाट लेखिएको उपन्यास भन्नुपर्छ ।



कृष्ण धरावासीको उपन्यास शरणार्थी प्रयोगात्मक उपन्यास हो, जुन तारालाल श्रेष्ठको भन्दा भिन्न किसिमले लेखिएको छ । तर, धरावासीको उपन्यासबाट अर्को कुरा बुझ्नुपर्छ । युरोप र अरू मुलुकका शरणार्थी शिविरबाट सोझै दैन्य चित्रण र प्रेमकथा मात्र नभएर प्रयोगात्मक साहित्य पनि निस्केका छन् । जर्मन यहुदी कवि पल सेलानका कवितालाई उनका बाबुआमा मार्ने नात्सी कृत्यको सोझो वर्णन नभएर सूक्ष्म र प्रयोगात्मक मर्म भएको साहित्य मान्नुपर्छ । त्यो पनि शरणार्थी साहित्यको नै रूप हो, जुन शराणर्थीइतर लेखकले लेख्छन् । तर, शरणार्थीइतर लेखक भए पनि तारालालले यो उपन्यासभित्र शरणार्थी दलित महिला चमेलीसँग तथाकथित उच्च जातको मानिसको प्रेमसम्बन्ध देखाएर नेपाली भनिने मानिसका जहाँ भए पनि तिनै सामाजिक चरित्र हुने रहेछन् र नेपाली राष्ट्र वा ‘नेसन’ भन्नु सीमाभित्र र बाहिरका चरित्रबाट पनि हेर्नुपर्ने रहेछ भन्ने कुरा देखाएका छन् । दलितको अस्मिता सीमान्तभित्रको सीमान्त जीवन हो । तारालालको उपन्यासले त्यसको चित्रण गरेको छ । चौलागाईंको उपन्यास घटनाको शृंखलाले बनिएको छ । यसको अन्तर्य मानिसको शरणार्थी अवस्थाको दसा हो । राजु खड्का, बालक र वृद्धवृद्धाका अवस्था, भुटानीका आफ्नै त्रासद गल्ती जसलाई त्रासद नाटक समीक्षामा ‘ह्युब्रिस्’ भन्छन्, सबै भेटिन्छन् । मैले उनको पाण्डुलिपि पढ्दा उपन्यासका तत्त्व र शैलीभन्दा यसरी विक्षित तरल इतिहासको चित्र भेटेर किताबमा केही शब्द लेखेको छु । यी सबै उपन्यास डिस्कोर्स पब्लिकेसनले छापेको हो ।


शरणार्थी साहित्य एउटा बृहत् विषय हो । यो शब्द भन्नेबित्तिकै हाम्रा मनमा अंग्रेजीमा ‘रेफ्युजी’ भनिने शब्दको अभिव्यञ्जना हुन्छ । शरणार्थीको परिभाषा गर्ने यस पत्रको उद्देश्य होइन । शरणार्थी साहित्यले उजागर गर्ने केही विषयको छलफल गर्नु मात्र यस प्रस्तुतिको उद्देश्य हो । शरणार्थी भन्नेबित्तिकै केही चित्र, ‘भिजुअल’ मनमा आउँछन्, जुन आजको उत्तरवर्ती युगका चरित्र भइसकेका छन् । त्यसर्थ शरणार्थीको ऐतिहासिक वृत्तको कुरा पनि आउँछ । शरणार्थी साहित्य त्यस्तो अवस्थाबाट जन्मेको हो, जहाँ मानिस आफ्नो भूमिबाट निस्कन बाध्य भएका हुन्छन्, अनि अर्को अमूक भूमिमा बसेर स्थानहीन घुमेर आफ्नो जीवन मात्र होइन, आफ्ना विचारको नैरन्तर्यको निम्ति पनि काम गरिरहेका हुन्छन् । निर्वासन, आप्रवासन, परदेशजस्ता शब्दले शरणार्थी भन्ने अर्थसँग केही साम्य राखे पनि शरणार्थी शब्दले जन्माउने भावमा बढी तीव्रता हुन्छ । तर, अर्को एउटा प्रवृत्ति पनि हुन्छ । त्यसअनुसार शरणार्थी शब्द र साहित्यलाई अत्यन्तै निरीह अवस्थाको चित्रणको रूपमा प्रस्तुत गरिन्छ । यसले शरणार्थी अथवा शरणमा बस्नुको एकप्रकारको शाब्दिक र भावगत अवस्थाको चित्रण गर्छ । त्यसले शरणार्थी र तिनका अभिव्यक्तिलाई विशेष चरित्रको रूपमा प्रस्तुत गर्छ । यसमा केही समस्या देखिएका छन् । अन्य वा ‘अदर’ जसलाई अंग्रेजीमा ‘अल्टेरिटी’को नाममा छलफल गरिन्छ, त्यसको जन्म हुन सक्छ त्यहाँ । शरणार्थी अन्य हो अथवा ‘द अदर’ हो भन्ने विचार जन्मिने प्रवृत्ति देखिन्छ । त्यसले शरणार्थी साहित्यलाई केही निरीहको साहित्य, दु:खेसोको कथा, केही अतिरञ्जक चित्र वा ‘मेलोड्रामा’ भन्ने अर्थमा सीमित गर्न सक्छ । म शरणार्थी साहित्यलाई त्यस रूपमा हेर्नुलाई गल्ती हो भन्ने मान्यता राख्छु ।


शरणार्थी साहित्य सिर्जनाका अरू कैयौँ तीव्र अवस्थाजस्तै एक विशेष अवस्था हो, जसको कारणले मानव साहित्यको इतिहासमा अत्यन्त मौलिक र मानव संवेदनाले भरिपूर्ण साहित्यको जन्म हुन्छ । यो विचारले शरणार्थी अवस्थामा बसेका लेखकले रचना गरेको साहित्य हेरियो भने साहित्यको विशेष सिर्जनशील शक्तिको पहिचान हुन्छ । तर, त्यसो हो भने के शरणार्थी अवस्था एक मान्य र इच्छित अवस्था हो ? भन्ने प्रश्न उठ्छ । यसमा मेरो भनाइ यस्तो छ । साहित्य भावना जन्माउने मानव अवस्थाका अनेकौँ आयामबाट रचना गरिन्छ । शरणार्थी साहित्य पनि त्यस्तै एउटा मानव अवस्थाको आयाम हो, जसबाट बलिया साहित्यको रचना भएको छ । त्यसैले शरणाार्थी साहित्यलाई साँघुरो होइन, विशेष अर्थमा लिइनुपर्छ भन्ने मेरो विचार छ । प्यालेस्टिनी कवि मोहमद दार्बिसको तलको विचारले यो कुरालाई बढी प्रस्टसँग उजागर गर्छ । उनी शरणार्थी, निर्वासित वा राज्यहीन अवस्थालाई विसर्जन र बिलयन मान्दैनन् । एउटा उद्धरण यहाँ राख्न चाहन्छु :
शरणार्थी भन्ने विषयलाई माक्र्सले खासै उठाएका छैनन् । तर, तिनका सिद्धान्तको निचोडमा तिनले भनेका छन्, श्रमिकको राष्ट्र हुँदैन । माक्र्सले पश्चिमी उन्नाइस शताब्दीका ‘नेसन–स्टेट’ वा राज्य रचना हुने वेलाको युरोपेली विचारलाई लिएर लेखेका थिए । तर, पछि गएर विडम्बनाको सिर्जना भयो । यता संसार खुला हुँदै गयो, उता राज्यहरूका सीमा कसिँदै गए । राज्यका नक्सा कोरिए । ती नक्सा लक्ष्मणरेखा भए । ती रेखाभित्र र बाहिर बस्नेका अस्मिताको चर्चा भयो । त्यस्ता राज्यसीमाभित्र बसेका अनि ती भूमिमा आफ्नो अधिकारको इतिहास भएका नरनारीलाई शासकले विस्थापित गर्दा ती अर्को सीमान्त क्षेत्रमा शरण लिन बाध्य भए । तिनलाई शरणार्थी भनियो । तर, शरणार्थी र दु:खी मानवका बीचमा के कुरामा साम्य छ र ती के अर्थमा फरक छन् भन्ने कुराको छलफल भएका छन् । फ्रान्ज फाननको ‘पृथिवीका अभागी’ वा ‘द रेचेड् अफ सद अर्थ’ अनि शिक्षाविद् पोलो फ्रेरको ‘दु:खीको शिक्षा’ अथवा ‘पेडागोजी अभ दी अप्रेस्ड’ भन्ने किताबमा उठेका विचारमा अमुक राज्यभित्र बस्ने वा विस्थापित भई हिँड्न बाध्य मानिसका अवस्थाको चित्रण गरिएको भेटिन्छ ।


नेपाली साहित्यमा शरणार्थी साहित्यको शाब्दिक प्रयोग भएको पछिल्लो समयमा हो । नेपालको पूर्वी झापा जिल्लामा भुटानी सरकारको नीतिअन्तर्गत निर्वासित खासगरी युवाले लेखेको साहित्यबाट नेपाली साहित्यिक वृत्तमा यो शब्दको प्रचार भएको हो । त्यसमा पनि केही युवा लेखक र प्राज्ञिकको संलग्नताबाट यस अभिव्यक्तिले व्यापकता पाएको कुरा आज सर्वविदितै छ । मलाई निकै वर्षपहिले द राइजिङ नेपाल दैनिकको निम्ति त्यसका सम्पादक श्याम केसीले भारत र बाहिरका न्यायाधीशले तयार पारेको एउटा रिपोर्टको किताब समीक्षा गर्न पठाएका थिए । त्यसको समीक्षामा मैले पहिलोपटक राज्य र नागरिक, त्यसमा पनि नेपाली मूलका मानिसमाथिको यातनाको विषयमा पढेँ । मलाई त्यसले धेरै विचलित बनायो । मेरो समीक्षा प्रकाशित भएपछि त्यो दैनिकको ठेगानामा दुईथरी चिठी आए । पहिलो किसिममा मेरो समीक्षासँग असहमति राख्ने चिठी आए । तिनमा भनिएको थियो– यो न्यायमृ्र्तिहरूको रिपोर्ट एकाग्रही छ । अनि अर्कोथरी चिठी केही भुटानी नेपाली साहित्यकारले लेखेका थिए । चिठीका भाषाबाट लाग्थ्यो उनीहरू सरल र सहज किसिमले लेख्ने मानिस थिए, तर उनीहरू त्यहाँको घटनालाई संवेदनाले हेर्थे । त्यसपछि म भुटानी साहित्यकारसँग परिचित हुने अवसर पाइनँ ।



डा. तारालाल श्रेष्ठले सवाल्टर्न अध्ययनमा विद्याावरिधि मेरो निर्देशनमा गर्न त्रिभुवन विश्वविद्यालयअन्तर्गत आरम्भ गरेपछि तिनको स्वाभाविक चाख र उनको विषयको अध्ययन र खोजीको क्रममा गरेका अनुसन्धान, लेखकसँगका साहचर्य र प्रकाशनले गर्दा भुटानी मात्र होइन शरणार्थी साहित्यको एक ‘जान्रा’ वा लेखन विधाको नेपाली साहित्यमा प्रवेश भयो भन्नुपर्छ । नेपाली साहित्यकै दृष्टिले मैले शरणार्थी वा आप्रवासी भन्ने पदावलीको प्रस्ट चित्रणको दृष्टिले पहिलेको साहित्यमा प्रयोग भेटेको थिइनँ । तर, नेपालीले मूल भूमिबाट बाहिर बसेर लेख्ने अनि यो भूमिको स्मृतिभावजन्य किसिमले चित्रण गर्ने साहित्य भने लेखिँदै आएको देखिन्छ । भारतमा बस्ने नेपाली मूलका मानिसलाई प्रवासी नेपाली भनिन्थ्यो । त्यो शब्दको प्रयोग आज राजनीतिक रूपले ठीक छैन भन्ने मानिन थालिएको छ । तर, मूल भूमिसँग स्मृतिका भावजन्य अभिव्यक्ति भएका साहित्य र गीत लेखिएका छन् । दु:ख पर्दा सम्झिने आधार आप्रवासी साहित्यको एउटा मूल कुरा हो । केही भूमिको स्मृति गर्ने आधार छन् भने त्यसको सम्झना गरिन्छ । अर्को, यदि त्यस्तो भूमि नै हरण भएको छ अथवा आफ्नै भूमिबाट निर्वासित गरिएको छ भने मानिस राज्यविहीन भएको अवस्था हुन्छ अनि त्यस वेला साहित्यमा त्यही अवस्थाको चित्रण हुन्छ । त्यो आप्रवासी अथवा अंग्रेजी ‘एक्जाइल’बाट ‘एक्जिलिक’ साहित्य र चेतनाको रूपमा चर्चित छ ।


नेपाली साहित्यको निम्ति शरणार्थी साहित्य एउटा नौलो जान्रा वा प्रकार भएर छलफलमा आएको, खासगरी नेपालमा भुटानी शरणार्थीको प्रवेशदेखि नै हो । यो विषय मैले माथि भने जस्तै पहिला एउटा राजनीतिक रूपले सिर्जना भएको अवस्थाबाट आएको हो । शरणार्थी क्याम्पमा जन्मेको पछिल्लो पुस्ताले शरणार्थी अवस्थालाई स्मृतिको रूपमा लिए । त्यसर्थ शरणार्थी क्याम्प एउटा स्मृतिमा रुपान्तरित भयो । त्यहाँ पनि पुस्तान्तरका कुरा आए । त्यसले जन्माएका मानव भावनाजनिन विषय साहित्यमा लेखिए । नेपालभित्र भुटानी शरणार्थी साहित्यको संख्या नगण्य छ । अहिले जति छ, त्यसको चर्चाको श्रेय डिस्कोर्स पब्लिकेसन र यसका मुख्य संयोजक डा. तारालाल श्रेष्ठलाई दिनुपर्छ । उनले आफैँ पनि उपन्यास सपनाको समाधि (२०६९) लेखेका छन् ।


तर, नेपाली साहित्यमा आप्रवासी नेपालीका भावनासँग जोडिएका लेखनका उदाहरण भएको हुनाले शरणार्थी भन्ने नामको साहित्य नभए पनि आप्रवासन साहित्यमा पनि विभिन्न किसिमले भावजन्य अभिव्यक्ति भएको साहित्यको इतिहास लेखिएको निकै वर्षअघिदेखि नै हो भन्ने देखिन्छ । शरणार्थीको रूपमा नेपालभित्रका नेपाली बाहिर गएर लेखेका उदाहरण छैनन् । तर, शरणार्थीले भोगेकाजस्ता दु:ख भोगेर कठोर परिश्रम गरेर जीविक कमाउन गएका खासगरी खाडी मुलुकका नेपाली लेखकले लेखेका साहित्यको अत्यन्त मार्मिक र वेदनायुक्त साहित्य हामीसँग छ । यसप्रकारको साहित्य बढिरहेको छ । मैले कतार दोहामा बिजुलीको उपयोग गर्न अवसर नपाएका तर काव्यसामथ्र्य भएका कवि बद्रीप्रसाद पराजुलीले जुनेली रातमा कविता लेखेर किताब छपाएको कुरा उनलाई भेटेर अनि कुराकानीबाट थाहा पाएर लेख पनि लेखिसकेको छु । यो एउटा नेपाली साहित्य कस्तो अवस्थामा पनि सिर्जना भइरहेछ भन्ने विषयको उदाहरण हो । साथै अर्को राष्ट्रमा बस्ने नेपाली लेखकले नेपाली भूमिको सम्झना र दैहिक भिन्न भएको अवस्थालाई साहित्यिक र प्रगीतात्मक भावनामा परिणत गरेर लेखेका साहित्य पनि हामीसँग छन् । एडवर्ड सइदले भनेजस्तो ‘एक्जाइल’ नै यथार्थ भएका उदाहरण हामीसँग अरू पनि नभएका होइनन् । तर, भारतका नेपालीले लेखेको साहित्यमा अब आप्रवासन वा ‘डियास्पोरा’को अर्थ राख्न छोडिएको कुरा महत्त्वपूर्ण हो ।


म शरणार्थी साहित्यलाई ‘मेलोड्रामेटिक’ र बिलयन साहित्य मान्दिन । सइदले भनेजस्तो सीमान्त बौद्धिक र साहित्यिक चेतना अप्ठेरो होला । तर, त्यसबाट बलियो मानवीय भावनाले ओतप्रोत साहित्य लेखिँदै आएको छ । यसर्थ डियास्पोराको सीमान्त साहित्य आउँछ । शरणार्थी साहित्य पनि त्यसभित्रको एउटा प्रकार हो । प्यालेस्टाइनी कवि महमुद दार्बिसको भनाइमा त्यो सारतत्त्व भेटिन्छ । राज्य खोसिएका वा त्यसबाट विस्थापित मानिसले आफ्नो चेतनालाई साँघुरो परिवेशमा खण्डित नगरेर बृहत्तर मानिसका सौन्दर्य चेतनासँग साक्षात्कार गराउँछन् । अनि अर्को एउटा कुरा अन्तमा थप्न मन लागेको छ । त्यो हो, आजको भूमण्डलीकरणको अनि उत्तरवर्ती वा ‘पोस्टालिटी’ले नियन्त्रण गरेको युगमा मानिसका हलचल अनि राष्ट्र र सीमाहरू भर्चुअल भएको अवस्थामा, पुँजीवादी युगको व्यापारिक बहुलता र विस्तारको युगमा, राजनीतिक र आर्थिक सिद्धान्तले काम गर्न छाडेको युगमा, मानिस एउटै अवस्थामा रहिरहन सक्दैनन् । दाहालको अलबिदा बेलडाँगी त्यही उत्तरवर्ती युगको मानिस स्थानान्तरण हुँदै, ‘बिलयन’ हुँदै गएको लक्षणाको नाम हो । आधुनिकताले मानिसका समस्याबाट चेतना अलग गरिदियो भन्ने फ्रेंकफर्ट स्कुलका विद्वान्हरूले आज राज्यबाट विस्थापित लाखौँ मानिस र उत्तरपुँजीको युगले ल्याएका भौगोलिक र दैहिक विचलनको विषयमा के भन्ने थिए होलान् † सीमाहीन पुँजीवाद प्रयोग गरी आफ्नो फाइदाका निम्ति सीमा बनाएर, नागरिकलाई सीमा कटाएर, पुँजीको निम्ति अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय भ्रष्टाचारको संस्कृति बनाएर आज शक्तिमा बस्ने अधिनायक र उन्मत्त शासकले जे गरिरहेछन्, त्यसले शरणार्थी जन्माउने क्रम जारी छ । तर, सीमान्त चेतनाको सिर्जनशील शक्ति झन् बढिरहेको छ ।

Source: NAYA PATRIKA

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Is the Dangerous Professor dangerous?

Several years back my essay was rejected from an essay competition because of its dangerous contents. I had proposed 'legalization of cannabis in Afghanistan".  I am not surprised when Science in its latest issue refers David Nutt as the dangerous professor.

There is the detail.


The Dangerous Professor

Kai Kupferschmidt


David Nutt wants to make drug policies science-based and give the world a safe alternative to alcohol. If only politicians would listen, he says.
Outspoken.
Nutt says politicians often have a "primitive, childish" way of thinking about drugs.
CREDIT: IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON/LAYTON THOMPSON


LONDON—David Nutt is trying to develop a new recreational drug that he hopes will be taken up by millions of people around the world. No, the 62-year-old scientist isn't "breaking bad." In fact, he hopes to do good. His drug would be a substitute for alcohol, to create drinks that are just as intoxicating as beer or whiskey but less toxic. And it would come with an antidote to reverse its effects, allowing people to sober up instantly and drive home safely.

Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London and a former top adviser to the British government on drug policy, says he has already identified a couple of candidates, which he is eager to develop further. "We know people like alcohol, they like the relaxation, they like the sense of inebriation," Nutt says. "Why don't we just allow them to do it with a drug that isn't going to rot their liver or their heart?"

But when he presented the idea on a BBC radio program late last year and made an appeal for funding, many were appalled. A charity working on alcohol issues criticized him for "swapping potentially one addictive substance for another"; a commentator called the broadcast "outrageous." News-papers likened his synthetic drug to soma, the intoxicating compound in Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World. Some of his colleagues dismissed the idea as scientifically unfeasible.

Nutt wasn't surprised. As a fierce advocate of what he says are more enlightened, rational drug policies, he has been a lightning rod for a long time. Politicians, in Nutt's view, make irrational decisions about drugs that help them win votes but cost society dearly. Drug policy is often based on the moral judgment that people should not use drugs, he says. Instead, it should reflect what science knows about the harms of different drugs—notably that many are far less harmful than legal substances such as alcohol, he says. The plan for a synthetic alcohol alternative is his own attempt to reduce the damage that drug use can wreak; he believes it could save millions of lives and billions of dollars.

Such views—and the combative way in which he espouses them—frequently land Nutt in fierce disputes. Newspaper commentators have called him "Professor Nutty" or "the dangerous professor." In 2009, he was sacked from his position as chair of the United Kingdom's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, tasked with giving scientific advice to the home secretary, after he criticized a government decision on cannabis.

But in November 2013, he received the John Maddox Prize for standing up for science. "In circumstances that would have humiliated and silenced most people," wrote neurobiologist Colin Blakemore, one of the judges, "David Nutt continued to affirm the importance of evidence in understanding the harms of drugs and in developing drug policy."

Controversial comparisons

David Nutt does not look like a dangerous professor. Short and heavyset, he has a jovial, round face and an old-fashioned mustache; one could mistake him for a London taxi driver. He limps slightly, has a down-to-earth way of speaking, and laughs a lot when he talks. "He is a real personality," says psychopharmacologist Rainer Spanagel of Heidelberg University in Germany. "You can be in a meeting and almost have a result, then he will come in an hour late, stir everything up, and in the end convince everyone of his position."

Nutt says he realized at an early age that "understanding how the brain works is the most interesting and challenging question in the universe." When he was a teenager, his father told him a story of how Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, took a dose of that drug and felt that the bike ride home took hours instead of minutes. "Isn't that incredible, that a drug can change time?" he asks. On his first night as an undergraduate in Cambridge, he witnessed the powers of drugs again when he went drinking with fellow students. Two of them couldn't stop. "I just watched them transform themselves. One of them started wailing and crying and the other became incredibly hostile."

During his clinical training, Nutt says he treated many alcoholics but failed "to get anyone interested in how to reduce their addiction to the drug that was harming them." He set out to answer that question, first in the United Kingdom, later as the chief of the Section of Clinical Science at the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a job he held for 2 years. Today, he runs the department of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, using modern imaging techniques to see what happens in the brain when people take drugs or develop an addiction.

But his biggest contribution to science, he says, was a discovery he made quite early in his career: that some molecules don't just block receptors in the brain, but actually have the opposite effect of the molecules that normally stimulate them—and in doing so shut down a brain pathway. Nutt called these molecules contragonists, and he has made a second career out of being a bit of a contragonist himself, trying to calm society's overexcited responses to the steady stream of alarming news about drugs.

Fictional affliction

In 2009, Nutt published an article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology comparing the harms from ecstasy with those caused by horse riding. Every 10,000th ecstasy pill is likely to hurt someone, he calculated, while an average horse enthusiast can expect a serious accident every 350 hours of riding. The sport, he concluded, was more dangerous than the notorious party drug. That "raises the critical question of why society tolerates—indeed encourages—certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others such as drug use," he added.
Politicians were not amused, and Nutt's whimsical reference to a fictional affliction he called equine addiction syndrome, or "equasy," did not help. In his book Drugs - Without the Hot Air, Nutt provided his account of a phone conversation he had with U.K. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith after the paper was published. (Smith calls it an "embroidered version" of their talk.)

Smith: "You can't compare harms from a legal activity with an illegal one."

Nutt: "Why not?"

"Because one's illegal."

"Why is it illegal?"

"Because it's harmful."

"Don't we need to compare harms to determine if it should be illegal?"

"You can't compare harms from a legal activity with an illegal one."

Nutt says this kind of circular logic crops up again and again when he discusses recreational drugs with politicians. "It's what we would call 'splitting' in psychiatric terms: this primitive, childish way of thinking things are either good or bad," he says.

He's often that outspoken. He likens the way drug laws are hampering legitimate scientific research, for instance into medical applications for psychedelic compounds, to the church's actions against Galileo and Copernicus. When the United Kingdom recently banned khat, a plant containing a stimulant that's popular among people from the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, he compared the decision with banning cats. And he accuses the Russian government of deliberately using alcohol to weaken the opposition. "However miserable they are, however much they hate their government and their country, they will just drink until they kill themselves, so they won't protest," he says.

But it's his stance on cannabis that got him sacked. In early 2009, ignoring advice from Nutt's advisory council, Smith upgraded cannabis from class C to class B, increasing the maximum penalty for possession from 2 to 5 years in prison. A few months later, Nutt criticized the decision in a public lecture, arguing that "overall, cannabis use does not lead to major health problems" and that tobacco and alcohol were more harmful. When media reported the remarks, Alan Johnson, who succeeded Smith as home secretary in mid-2009, asked him to resign. "He was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy," Johnson wrote in a letter in The Guardian.

Nutt did not go quietly. With financial help from a young hedge fund manager, Toby Jackson, he set up a rival body, the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, "to ensure that the public can access clear, evidence based information on drugs without interference from political or commercial interest." Politics have skewed not just drug laws but research itself, he argues. "If you want to get money from the U.S. government to work on a drug, you have to prove it damages the brain," he says.

One of his favorite examples is a paper that Science published in September 2002. The study, led by George Ricaurte at Johns Hopkins University, seemed to show that monkeys given just two or three doses of ecstasy, chemically known as MDMA, developed severe brain damage. The finding suggested that "even individuals who use MDMA on one occasion may be at risk for substantial brain injury," the authors wrote. The paper received massive media attention, but it was retracted a year later after the authors discovered that they had accidentally injected the animals not with MDMA but with methamphetamine, also known as crystal meth, which was already known to have the effects seen in the monkeys. Nutt says the mistake should have been obvious from the start because the data were "clearly wrong" and "scientifically implausible." "If that result was true, then kids would have been dropping dead from Parkinson's," he says.

Some resent this combative style. "He is a polarizing figure and the drug policy area is polarized enough," says Jonathan Caulkins, a professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But Jürgen Rehm, an epidemiologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada, says Nutt has helped stimulate debates that were long overdue. "You don't get to be on the front page of The Lancet and The New York Times unless you sharpen your arguments a little bit," Rehm says. "I can live with that."

Ranking the drugs
In 2010, Nutt sparked a new firestorm when he published another comparison: a Lancet paper ranking drugs according to the harm they cause. Nutt and other experts scored a long list of drugs on 16 criteria, nine related to the user, such as death from an overdose or wrecked relationships, and seven related to society, such as drug-fueled violence and economic costs. In the end, every drug was given a score between 0 and 100 to indicate its overall harm. Alcohol came out on top, ahead of heroin; mushrooms and ecstasy were at the low end (see graphic).

Critics said the study's methodology was flawed because it didn't address drug interactions and the social context of drug use. "For instance, the number of fatalities caused by excessive alcohol use is going to depend in part on gun control laws," says Caulkins, who calls the whole idea of expressing drug harm as a single number "embarrassing."

Caulkins adds that even if a perfect ranking of drug harms were possible, it wouldn't mean that politicians should put the tightest control measures on the most harmful drugs. Suppose drug A is more harmful to the individual and society than drug B, he says, but impurities in drug A, when illegally produced, can lead to potentially fatal organ failure while they just taste bad in drug B. If you were going to prohibit only one of the two drugs, it should be drug B, he says, even though it causes less harm per se, because criminalizing drug A would lead to a more dangerous product and more deaths. Nutt's ranking of drugs, he says, is "a pseudoscientific exercise which is trying to take control of the policy process from a technocratic perspective in a way that isn't even sound."

Other scientists defended the paper. Using Nutt's harm scales, "flawed and limited as they may be, would constitute a quantum leap of progress towards evidence-based and more rational drug policy in Canada and elsewhere," two Canadian drug scientists wrote in Addiction. Regardless of its quality, the paper has been hugely influential, Rehm says. "Everyone in the E.U. knows that paper, whether they like it or not. There is a time before that paper and a time after it appeared."

Nutt says his comparisons are an essential first step on the way to more evidence-based drug policies that seek to reduce harm rather than to moralize. The best option would be a regulated market for alcohol and all substances less harmful to the user than alcohol, he argues.

That scenario, under which only heroin, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine would remain illegal, seems unlikely to become a reality. But Nutt says he can already see more rational policies taking hold. Recently, Uruguay and the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington legalized the sale of recreational cannabis, going a step further than the Netherlands, which stopped enforcing laws on the sale and possession of small amounts of soft drugs decades ago. Nutt was also happy to read President Barack Obama's recent comment that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol. "At last, a politician telling the truth," he says. "I'll warn him though—I was sacked for saying that."

New Zealand, meanwhile, passed a law in 2013 that paves the way for newly invented recreational drugs to be sold legally if they have a "low risk" of harming the user. Nutt, who has advised the New Zealand government, is delighted by what he calls a "rational revolution in dealing with recreational drugs." The main problem now, he says, is establishing new drugs' risks—which is difficult because New Zealand does not allow them to be tested on animals—and deciding what "low risk" actually means. "I told them the threshold should be if it is safer than alcohol," he says. "They said: 'Oh my god, that is going to be far too dangerous.'"

Safer substitute

Nutt agrees that alcohol is now one of the most dangerous drugs on the market—which is why he's trying to invent a safer substitute. The World Health Organization estimates that alcohol—whose harms range from liver cirrhosis, cancer, and fetal alcohol syndrome to drunk driving and domestic violence—kills about 2.5 million people annually. "When I scan the brains of people with chronic alcohol dependence, many have brains which are more damaged than those of people with Alzheimer's," Nutt says.
In a paper published this month in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, Nutt and Rehm summarize the top six interventions that governments should consider to reduce the harms of alcohol, such as minimum prices and restrictions on the places that can sell hard liquor. They also argue that governments should support the development of alternatives. Nutt points to e-cigarettes—devices that heat and vaporize a nicotine solution—as a model. "In theory, electronic cigarettes could save 5 million lives a year. That is more than [the death toll from] AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and meningitis put together," he says. "I would argue that the e-cigarette is going to be the greatest health invention since vaccination."
Scoring drugs.
Nutt and colleagues at the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs in London ranked 20 drugs according to how harmful they are to the individual user and to others, expressed as a number between 0 and 100. They deemed crack cocaine the most harmful drug to the user and alcohol most harmful to U.K. society.
GRAPH SOURCE: DAVID NUTT


Can an alcohol alternative do the same? "I think that idea is utopian," says Spanagel, the German psychopharmacologist. One reason is that researchers have recently developed a much more complex picture of what ethanol, as chemists call it, actually does. Twenty years ago, they thought that once it reached the brain, alcohol elicited its many effects by infiltrating the membranes of neurons there and changing their properties. "Now we know that's nonsense. You would have to drink 5 liters of schnapps for that to happen," Spanagel says.

In fact, scientists have learned that alcohol, like other drugs, interacts with the receptors for certain neurotransmitters. But unlike other drugs, it acts on a wide range of them, including receptors for GABA, NMDA, serotonin, and acetylcholine. That will make it hard to find a substance to emulate most of alcohol's wanted effects while avoiding the unwanted ones, Spanagel predicts.

Nutt is concentrating on the GABA system—the most important inhibitory system in mammalian brains. Alcohol activates GABA receptors, effectively quieting the brain and leading to the state of relaxation many people seek. Nutt has sampled some compounds that target GABA receptors and was pleasantly surprised. "After exploring one possible compound I was quite relaxed and sleepily inebriated for an hour or so, then within minutes of taking the antidote I was up giving a lecture with no impairment whatsoever," he wrote in a recent article.

But he wants to go one step further. "We know that different subtypes of GABA mimic different effects of alcohol," he says. Nutt combed the scientific literature and patents for compounds targeting specific GABA receptors, and, in an as-yet unpublished report that he shared with Science, he identifies several molecules that he says fit the bill. Compounds targeting subtypes of the GABAA receptor called alpha2 and alpha3 are particularly promising, he says. Some of these molecules were dropped as therapeutic drug candidates precisely because they had side effects similar to alcohol intoxication.
Gregg Homanics, an alcohol researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, is skeptical that another substance could mimic all the positive effects of alcohol. "You could come up with a drug that might make you feel good. But is it going to be the same good feeling as alcohol? I doubt that." Such a drug might have downsides of its own, warns Andreas Heinz, an addiction researcher at Charité University Medicine Berlin. It could still turn out to be addictive or to harm a small proportion of the population. "There is an advantage when you have known drugs for hundreds of years and you know exactly what they do," he says.

Still, Nutt's appearance on the BBC radio program attracted new investors, ranging "from Ukrainian brewers to American hedge funds," he says, and Imperial Innovations, a company that provides technology transfer services, is working with him "to consider a range of options for taking the research forward," a spokesperson says. "We think we have enough funding now to take a substance all the way to the market," Nutt says—in fact, he hopes to be able to offer the first cocktails for sale in as little as a year from now.

Even a very good alcohol substitute would face obstacles. Many people won't forsake drinks they have long known and loved—such as beer, wine, and whiskey—for a new chemical, Spanagel says. The idea will also trigger all kinds of political and regulatory debates, Rehm says. "How will such a new drug be seen? Will you be able to buy it in the supermarket? In the pharmacy? Will society accept it?"

Whatever the outcome, Nutt's quest for a safer drink has already made people think about alcohol in a new way, Rehm adds. "It's provocative in the best sense of the word." Much the same could be said of the scientist who thought it up.

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