As damaged houses are
being destroyed in Nepal today, serious power tools have been brought
into the country to do this job. Nepalis that are dreaming of jobs in
the Middle-East are instead employed now, albeit temporarily, with
the dismantling process here at home using the new power tools, and
this kind of dismantling work has consequences on fantasy production.
The Middle-Eastern countries in which Nepali workers work are known
for oil wealth and other kinds of revenue, and the fantasy of the
Nepali worker in the Middle-East, then, concerns itself with spending
oil wealth and consuming more and more, rather than with saving money
and working hard. But, with the jackhammer and other power tools used
by Nepali workers here in Nepal today, this fantasy will transform
from a fantasy of consumption and excess pleasure to a fantasy of
production, where the workers will fantasize about working in
the Middle-East instead of spending money over there. The patriotic
passion with which the Nepali workers work to dismantle buildings in
Nepal will also translate into a high degree of commitment towards
work once they are abroad. That feeling that they are “representing
Nepal” when they are working abroad tomorrow will also be
supplemented by their feeling of “doing Nepal's work” in
dismantling Nepali houses here today. This
fantasy-to-be-more-productive entails that Nepali workers will be
more entrepreneurial and “business-savvy” than before, and will try to attempt more lucrative and profitable ventures in the nations where
they are employed, rather than being dependent on wage labor without
much freedom for upward mobility.
The jackhammer is a
smaller version of the Middle-Eastern oil drill, and the feeling of
the powerful working jackhammer in a worker's hands will translate to
a desire to control with one's hands an entire oil drill or even an
oil rig, such is the positive “power trip” of controlling a powerful
jackhammer and of destroying an entire house. There is, for the first
time today, a definite relationship between Middle-Eastern heavy
industry/construction and work within Nepal, putting the focus of the
relations between Nepal and the Middle-East on issues related to work
conditions rather than leisure and wages, perhaps even putting the
issue of dangerous work conditions on the map. An authentic interest in issues related to work will be more prevalent: the Nepali worker,
upon migration, will realize that the Middle-Eastern countries are
not only a place for spending and luxury, but that these countries
have to be recognized instead for the efficiency they show in
generating oil and the endurance of their operations and business
practices. Further, familiarity with the equipment used in serious
construction would be favorable towards the Nepali worker's
productivity in the Middle-East, and be looked favorably by the
bosses over there, causing more rapid upward mobility in the
workplace hierarchy, perhaps even taking a Nepali worker to the very
top.
What the migrant Nepali
worker must try and avoid, however, is a kind of “identity crisis”
related to the difference in responsibilities at work between here
and in the Middle-East: the work here in Nepal today is destructive
and negative, while constructing buildings or extracting oil in the
Middle East is a more positive endeavor, one that creates something
rather than destroying. There may be moments when the migrant worker
questions his/her authentic position, whether he is supposed to
create or destroy. If the migrant worker identifies with the
destructive work in Nepal too much, he/she will be thought to be more
comfortable with destructive work: thereby employed in the military
of a Middle-Eastern country and dropped into war-zones, and then a
military relationship between Nepal and the Middle-East would begin,
like in the case of the British army and Nepali soldiers, with
stricter conditions on who can work over there.
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