By The Spark reporters

Ben Peterson

In 2009, Ben Peterson, a young Australian member of Socialist Alliance, spent four and a half months in Nepal, spending much of his time there with the Maoist revolutionaries and speaking to them about the revolutionary process taking place there. He had been reading everything he could find on the Nepali revolution while still in Australia but, frustrated by the lack of accurate information in the media, decided to go to Nepal to see and experience the revolution for himself.

This March Ben made a speaking tour of New Zealand in a visit organised by the Workers Party and Socialist Worker, with support from the Alliance in Christchurch and the International Socialist Organisation in Dunedin. The tour was organised to promote awareness of the revolutionary process in Nepal, especially as the revolution moves towards a critical phase there. We interviewed Ben at the beginning of the NZ speaking tour. [Read more…]

Reprinted from UNITYblog

Ben was kind enough to answer some questions for UNITYblog about his experiences in Nepal.

 When did you go to Nepal? How long were you there for?

I was in Nepal last year from the beginning of March to July, about four and half months in total.

Why did you go to Nepal?

I went to Nepal specifically to see the social and political transformations taking place there. I’d first come into contact with the revolutionary process there in 2006, but didn’t really start to study what was happening there until 2008 when the Maoists won the Constituent Assembly elections. The more I read into what was happening there the more excited I was. But all the time it was really hard to find good and reliable sources of information, particularly from a progressive point of view. So I decided that to really get a handle of what’s happening there, I should go and see it for myself. [Read more…]

When a peoples’ movement overthrew Nepal’s
hated King Gyanendra and the oppressive
monarchical structure in 2006, not much was heard
about it in NZ.
Yet exciting things are happening in Nepal today
that deserve our attention. The Nepalese people
are striving to build a new and better society.
We now have a chance to find out more. Ben
Peterson is a young Australian activist who spent a
year in Nepal witnessing first hand the revolutionary
struggle. He will be in NZ from 21-26 March 2010. Check out the flyer on Ben’s tour of New Zealand: Ben Peterson flyer