The two-week J-Term course ended with dinner on Monday night. Our friends, both Nepali and internationals, who had helped and supported us in this course, joined us for a final evening of fun in Kathmandu.  As we waited for our food to arrive, the students made a brief presentation on what we identified as “challenges” to building peace at all levels – the top,  mid and grassroots – in Nepal. I thought they did a great job! How much had we learnt in two weeks!
While all of our audience was very receptive of our views and experiences, a Nepali friend made the statement that we needed to highlight the positive in order to motivate Nepalis to building peace. His point was that there was a lot of good work being done by individuals and smaller organizations. He reminded us that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
His statements clearly discomforted the students. I mean, lets be real here – tell a bunch of Americans that they are not being positive and see the shock register on their faces. We are a culture of highlighting and even glorifying simple achievements. How could we have turned the “criticizers”? 🙂
We met a few organizations which ran extraordinary programs during the country’s current turbulent transitional period and the students did discuss these in their presentation.   Peacebuilding however, as an umbrella term for a variety of programs from institutionalizing democracy to delivering basic human needs, is a long-term process with changes taking place slowly and often subject to the agendas and commitments of peacebuilding actors. Challenges are not the same as “Criticisms”.  And highlighting some of the challenges, such as structural and systemic imbalances, in fact supports the good and often vain efforts of those without the power.
We have a lot of reflecting to do when we return to Monterey.  We will ALWAYS admit to the limitations of our research and will humbly accept all additional information that comes our way. We do have a lot of questions at the end of this trip and so in a way, we recognize that our research is only beginning.  But, we need to draw “our” conclusions from everything that we have seen and heard in two weeks. Yes, two weeks only but they were our experiences and as outsiders there is the chance that we saw and heard things that insiders do not or cannot perceive.  And we hope to share our analysis with a wide variety of audience who we hope will provide critical feedback.
While we all deserve a pat on the back every now and then, I strongly believe that peacebuilding actors do a HUGE disservice to their countries when they emphasize on the “feel good” feeling.  Challenging the Challenges to Peacebuiliding is key. If not, the proverbial tunnel that ultimately leads to light will only keep getting longer.