Allow me to compare the Nepali sati practice with the Nazi Germany. These are two completely different cases, but both of them caused huge sufferings to a lot of people.

Sati practice was abolished in 1920 and World War II ended in 1945. Everybody condemn these two horrible things that happened in the not so distant past. I don’t know about German people, but in Nepal we often hear people say: “Sati le sharapekodeshkasaribanchha?”, or “how can a country cursed by sati improve?”

And this has become the easiest way to justify our failure to achieve anything. That said, it will be wrong to say we have not achieved anything. And it is also a fact that the improvements we have seen in the recent past are not satisfactory.

Now let’s go to Nazi Germany – the deadliest conflict ever in history that claimed the lives of around 50 to 85 million people. We all have heard or read about The Holocaust, and we cannot even imagine the pain this caused to the people. So by Nepali standard, these people must have cursed the people responsible for the World War.

Here comes my main point. Germany today is one of the biggest economies in the world and the biggest in Europe.

I was born and raised in Italy, and fascist Italy too was responsible for a lot of atrocities during the World War. But after the War, there was an economic boom; the Italian people wanted to recreate their image and they worked hard to achieve it. Italians don’t say “nothing is working in Italy because of the War”. Today’s people are not responsible for what happened in the past. So blaming others or some particular incidents will never take us forward.

After staying in Nepal for nine years, now I understand one of the reasons why our beautiful country is lagging behind is people here do not believe they are in control of their lives and they have an uncanny penchant for finding someone or something to blame.

At times I wonder whether we are fatalistic.

What we can achieve tomorrow is based on our today’s actions.

So we should stop blaming the circumstances and history for our failure; we have to start focusing on how we can achieve our goals and how we can correct the mistakes we have made. The past does not predict the future. So stop blaming the past and work on the present if you want to ensure a better future.