The Changing Nepal: What peace and reconciliation means for the current political moment

For a decade, a bloody civil war swept Nepal and resulted in the death of over 17,886 people. When the guns were put down and peace talks were held in 2006, the process of healing and reconciliation had begun. Pooja Pant is a Nepalese artist and women's rights activist who, in 2018, curated a exhibit dedicated to remembering the victims of the Nepalese Civil War. Voices of Women Media, which Pant founded in 2007, were the ones who put together the installation, titled "Memory, Truth and Justice." It featured the story of victims who were ethnically targeted by the Royal Nepal Army because of their perceived association with Maoist rebels.

Exhibitions like the one put together by Pant show the means in which artists hold the atrocities of states accountable while also providing a means for families to grieve and educate future generations. Post-conflict resolution is a misleading term. Conflicts end with treaties, but they are not resolved. Rather, the cycles of violence that create armed conflict in the first place continue, and the families of those who are injured, killed, or disappeared live on with the weight of such violence. According to the Harvard Human Rights Journal, "By trying to sweep the dirt of the conflict under the carpet, through a general amnesty and by protecting those accused of war crimes, the state exacerbates the suffering of the families of victims" [1]. Radical re-conceptualizations of peace and justice are needed in order to truly bring about meaningful change in the wake of armed conflict. Only then can the reconciliation process come into full fruition.

However, understanding that our current concepts of post-conflict resolution is flawed is only the first step in reforming it. Finding out what those reforms may look like is difficult, and inherently tied to the sociopolitical context of a country in time. Yet, we don't have to look far to imagine how reconciliation could create peace. Here at home, the United States is in the midst of a political, social, economic, and racial crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has not as much created inequalities as it has merely exacerbated them and made them more visible.

The killing of George Floyd by police officers in May gave new power to the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement, leading to a series of protests across the country and around the world. The protests inspired a continuation of the prison and police abolition movements in its wake, leading to newfound discussions of what justice for Black people in the United States may one day look like. In the meantime, we have to think of ongoing ways we can remember and give honor to those who have lost their lives to state violence, both here in the US and elsewhere.

I do not know what peace and reconciliation looks like in the US, same way I don't know what it may look like in Nepal. What I do know is that exhibits such as "Memory, Truth and Justice" are a stepping stone to that reality. The same structures of violence like economic exploitation, imperialism, and patriarchy that attributed to the Nepalese Civil War are still present today, both at home and abroad. However, art is not just of voice of the artist, but a reflection of the people they depict. Like Pant's work, they are a vessel for us to remember what we lost and educate future generations so they won't forget.

A utopia of peace and justice may still be a blurry vision in my head, but as long as it comes from the peoples' will for a better future, then it's a reality to continue fighting for.

Source:

1. "The Disappeared and the Question of Justice: A Story From Nepal," Ram Kumar Bhandari, Harvard Human Rights Journal, vol. 33, Spring 2020, https://harvardhrj.com/the-disappeared-and-question-of-justice-a-story-from-nepal/.