After watching the documentary “Sari Soldiers”, which was a powerful piece that I would highly recommend to anyone interested on world affairs, I began to think about the nature of truth, both in the general sense and as it relates to conflict resolution. In part, this was provoked by reading I had just recently done for Pushpa’s Intro to Conflict Resolution course. In conflict, the establishment of truth means telling exactly what happend to you; your story. The documentary did an amazing job of telling Nepal’s story from a variety of perspectives- from soldiers to civilians, from Maoists to members of the Royal Nepal Army. Each person told their story; their truth. The subjectivity of truth is what makes conflict so dynamic and so complex. Everyone believes their truth to be the best representation of the sequence of events and of the nature of the conflict itself.

This brought to mind a quote: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” It happens to be a favorite phrase of mine because it forces you to change how you view people, events, conflicts, etc. and to approach it from a different direction, thinking of it instead from their perspective. This is what I kept in mind while watching the documentary: truth is often only fully truthful to one person, but who are we to say that one truth is better, more “right”, or more “true” than another.

The film displayed Maoist soldiers asserting that they joined the ranks because they were fighting for the good of the people; that they were fighting to combat injustice. But in the same moment, soldiers who joined the Royal Nepal Army did so for the same reasons. Who is more right? Whose reasons were more justifiable?

This documentary reminded me of the open mind, and open ears, that we must maintain as we conduct our fieldwork, so that we are able to hear, understand, and learn from everyone’s story.