May 1st is the 121st day of the year (122nd if it is the Leap year). This day of the year is celebrated around the world as International Labor Day with great participation and closeness to labor-related elements.
Many around the world tend to associate May Day with socialism and communism, as well as confine this day just concerning Cuba and the former Soviet Union, however, it is important to see this day of labor as more democratic and more important day in today's context. Let me take you back on 19th century, the 19th century is known as the century of workers and their labor. The beginning of this century has embarked the beginning of a new dimension of various factories, industries, production and development, industrial revolution and economic growth.
In commemoration of the "Hey Market Scandal" in Chicago, USA on May 4, 1886, before the turn of the 19th century, May 1 is celebrated as a special International Day for Labor and Labor Issues.
On this day, May 1 commemorates the workers' agitation for an eight-hour day, in which an unidentified person threw a bomb at the police and in retaliation, many innocent people were killed in a retaliatory attack by the police.
Remember that before that movement, workers from all over the world used to work up to 16 hours a day. May Day has brought a momentous change in the field of labor and the credit and vision of today's growing labor-friendly society has been started from this day.
It is also important to remember unknown and known labor martyrs across the globe. The English and Nepali adaptations of the historical phrase used on the first day of May, 1886, are to be found here only in the courtyard of Hamro Patro.
THE DAY WILL COME WHEN OUR SILENCE WILL BE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE VOICES YOU ARE THROTTLING TODAY.
अर्थात एकदिन त्यस्तो हुनेछ जब अहिलेको हाम्रो मौनतानै तिमीहरुको गर्जनभन्दा वलियो हुनेछ ।
The above phrase has addressed the industrialists of that time, in this sense, more than 130 years ago, to some extent, the gap between industrialists and workers still exists. May this May Day speak to the world about this. Institutionalize the changes that have taken place and give a working environment and the right value for labor.
Without the support and involvement of Nepali labors, no revolution, people's movement and socio-political transformation would have been possible.
Now that the definition of labor has become wider, we all Nepali are included in this wide range. The remittances coming from labor abroad have supported Nepal's economy, in that sense, most of the taxes we pay, eat, walk, and run the country are the product of the sweat of those working brothers and sisters. But the extent to which the country itself seeks to respect labor and workers is evident from the looting that begins at the airport and the brokerage system and government's institutional silence in the vulnerable process and issues of foreign workers.
Despite the government's innumerable efforts, foreign employment has not been easy, and even within the country, the plight of the working people narrates everything.
The fear of being discriminated against a laborer commences right from a mother by showing her children to a worker from infancy, if you don't read it, is that you have to work and eat.
Studying and sweating are completely different, being educated doesn't mean you should be a labor, to create a conducive environment in Nepal, we all have to pay attention to this. Let's not educate our kids with a false hope that being educated skips them from being a labor, labor is a privilege. The price of sweat is enough to make you laugh, let's restore the value of labor and reinstall smiles.
Suyog Dhakal
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