With the spring 2014 semester in full swing, memories of studies just completed are fading fast. But before we close the book on J-Term 2014, two more NYU Abu Dhabi students share their experiences from this immersive educational month. From studying insurgencies in Nepal, to understanding heritage in Zanzibar, we take one more journey back to January with the students who were there.

Conversations with Insurgencies in Nepal 

Guest Post: Dominique Lear, NYUAD Class of 2017

After a relaxing holiday back home in Mexico, I was looking forward to my very first January Term course at NYU Abu Dhabi. While most of my classmates were embarking on adventures in cosmopolitan capitals from Shanghai to New York for their three-week-long course, I was headed to Nepal with Understanding Insurgency and Counterinsurgency.

In truth, I wasn't entirely sure what the course entailed other than the brief sojourn to the Himalyas. On the first day of class, I sat at the back of the classroom next to the only other freshman in the course, hiding from the unfamiliar presence of the upperclassmen, and Associate Professor of Politics Michael Gilligan.

It was then that I found out that this course would give us the rare opportunity to interview key personnel from Nepal’s Civil War.

I spent a week with my nose dug deep into books about insurgent movements, counterinsurgency strategies, and the history of Nepal, specifically about the civil war. I learned a lot about Mao's Theory of Protracted War, which is an insurgency tactic used primarily in countries where a formal resistance movement would be difficult, and also how the insurgency leaders in Nepal applied it in the first six years of the 21st-Century. In class, we spent days brainstorming questions for our upcoming meetings in Nepal. Gradually full of knowledge and questions, we set off for Kathmandu.

During our five days in Nepal, we traversed the streets of Kathmandu, meeting ex-Prime Ministers, ex-insurgency leaders, army officials, party leaders, journalists and civilians who all participated in the conflict. We were rewarded with fascinating answers to the questions we had prepared, which was a relief because we were afraid of the resistance that political agendas would pose to our quest for knowledge.

We asked ex-Prime Minister and head of the insurgent movement, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, why there was a shift in their political stance into a more conservative agenda once the insurgents came into power. The Maoist leader, known as Prachanda (which means the fierce one), described the need for flexible insurgent goals in a country like Nepal in a time of continuous change as hard lined ideological pursuits would only result in failure.

It was eye opening to hear accounts from internally displaced people on what it was like to be a civilian during the conflict and how they were affected personally. We saw photo galleries depicting the war by founder and editor of Nepali Times Kunda Dixit, who talked to us about the role of the media during the war. Ex-military commanders guided us through what it was like to be in a guerrilla attack using army barracks on the mountains as a visual aid, and our books came alive as we saw how recruitment strategies or plans of attack were carried out in reality. Most importantly, we saw reconciliation, as men who had fought on opposite sides during the civil war sat with us for lunch to tell their stories.

It was an incredible learning experience for everybody in the class and we returned to Abu Dhabi hopeful for the future of Nepal and ever more inspired to make a difference. Now, seeing the halls of Sama filled with the life of a new semester, I secretly wished everyone would go back to their J-Term adventures, so I that can go back to mine.