Dixit has realized that we need a new paradigm of journalism, a peace journalism and not war journalism.
Educated at Columbia University in New York City, Dixit was taught to be a spectator, and not to get emotionally involved. After graduation, he ended up in a lot of war zones, including Sri Lanka and the Philippines. But he grew tired of reporting on "other peoples' wars," and went back home to Nepal.
"You have to use your profession to be a part of the solution."
The Nepalese Civil War started around the same time Dixit returned. He and other journalists tried to stop it. "But we failed," he lamented. The media covers wars in battles. They talk about the bravery of fighters. War has been reduced to numbers. Violence is glamorized. Dixit found that he needed to forget all the rules he learned in journalism school, and that he needed to create new ones.
"War is regarded as not normal; peace is regarded as normal. But the seeds of war are sown in peace," Dixit said. It's the injustices, the anger, the emotional tension that are suppressed and unanswered for too long. So Dixit tried to cover the war from a different angle. "We forgot about the civilians," he said. These were the innocents, often the women, parents and children -- the people who went unnoticed.
In 2005, Dixit chose photography to shock people. He used the top 179 photographs sent in by journalists, photographers and amateurs to author a book. In 2006, there was a ceasefire and pro-democracy uprising in Nepal. People asked why the book was relevant anymore. But war doesn't end in a day, Dixit said. "The legacy of war continues."
15,000 people were killed, 1,800 disappeared, 120,000 wounded. Thousands were displaced.
The book Dixit authored, "A People War: Images of the Nepal Conflict 1996-2006," focused on the ordinary people who were neglected from the media. He didn't include images that were too gory, but didn't leave out pictures of conflict, as he saw a fine line between "turning people off and sanitizing the war."
The book was a hit, and the producer suggested they take it on the road. They set up exhibitions and showed pictures in 50 districts, reaching around 500,000 viewers. Dixit was surprised by the turnout. When they expected 1,000 people, 5,000 came. Guerilla fighters and soldiers walked in together and looked at the images. Children would enter laughing, and after seeing a few images, they would start whispering to each other. People would stare at a particular image for minutes, as if they could relate to or remember something. "More than the quantity, it's the depth and intensity of feeling," Dixit said. He donated many books to communities and universities.
At these exhibitions, guest books sat on desks, with a long line of people following. They wrote poetry, letters, memories, songs and phrases. People poured out memories and emotions. Dixit authored a second book, called "Never Again," including quotes from the guest book. On the back cover read (translated into English): "After the war comes the tears."
Dixit said that the media still play an important role in a post-war society. "For us, the war has not ended," he claimed. "We have to regard the war as going on, and bring out the truth in what happened, especially the injustices."
Frames of War is a documentary (it's uploaded on Youtube) based on Dixit's exhibition tour and first book: "A People War." The reaction was stunning. At the end of the film, there was no feet shuffling, no coughing, no whispering. Complete silence. Dixit found that documentary is a very powerful tool because "while you are watching a documentary or video, it completely immerses you." He continued, "Photos may stay forever, but video has direct, immediate impact."
Dixit's third book, "People After War: Nepalis Live with Legacy of Conflict," featured the people in the photographs of his first book five years after.
Below is a photo of a young girl fighting in the Nepalese Civil War, published in "A People War":
(Source: http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/un_betweentwostones.jpg)
Below is a picture of the same girl with her father and brother, published in Dixit's last book of the trilogy.
(Source: http://www.printsasiaimages.com/104350742/1104300420094UW8tG53.jpg)
Dixit later found out that the girl was a guerilla fighter and her brother was a soldier. They had fought during the same battles, and actually shot at each other. "The war was not just a civil war," Dixit said, "but it was a sibling war."
While battles have ended and soldiers have returned home, the legacy of war continues. Guns, repressed emotions, displaced fighters, inequality and injustice, and movies glorifying the war are traces of the violent past. Dixit provided a nice overview of the Nepalese Civil War, discussed the media's responsibility during wartime, and presented a new concept of journalism and reporting: a peace journalism rather than war journalism.
Here is another article Dixit writes about media's public service role.
One last quote that stuck out in Dixit's lecture was: "I think the rules of journalism are impossible to stop the war." It's true that we go to college to sharpen our critical thinking skills and broaden our perspectives as we take classes and interact with other people and their ideas and cultures and thoughts. But sometimes we get so caught up in rules, facts, formulas, conventions, and other people's passions and visions of the world. We see problems and systematic failures; conventional, boring solutions; or ask simple questions like "Why can't we just have peace?" How about we try to scrap the outdated formula, stop asking the same questions, look at ourselves from another planet and another time, and try something else?
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