By Murali Balaji
04/02/2008
In the summer of 2001, I was on a flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco for the Asian American Journalists Association convention.
Sitting across the aisle from me was a small East Asian man wearing an "AAJA" sweatshirt. Thinking that this older gentleman was perhaps the father of an AAJA member or just a supporter of the organization, I started to converse with him.
At the time, I was a city hall reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and thought that my position warranted a little boasting. The man was gracious enough to praise me and seemed genuinely happy that I was doing so well for myself as a journalist.
Later that evening, AAJA had a reception, in which a speaker noted the Dith Pran award for photojournalism and pointed to none other than the small man who sat with me on the 3.5-hour plane ride.
I was embarrassed for having talked about my exploits as a reporter to Dith, who had done more in his life as a journalist and activist than most of my generation put together. But he did not accept my apologies for being arrogant, telling me instead that I was doing a great job in my field.
On Sunday, Dith Pran died at age 65 following a three-month bout with pancreatic cancer. He was best remembered as the survivor of the genocide in Cambodia that inspired the 1984 movie, "The Killing Fields." Pran had a long career as an award-winning photographer for the New York Times. He was also a tireless human rights advocate whose work was critical in the passage of the 1994 Cambodian Genocide Justice Act.
We had maintained contact, and I always thought of him as a man whose unassuming and quiet nature contradicted the larger-than-life persona that seemed to follow him after "The Killing Fields" was made.
Dith might have often been lost in crowds or, unlike me, felt uncomfortable talking about himself to others, but he never ceased to remind us through his actions that living through the worst in humanity can bring out our best.
Dith was a living reminder of modern genocide, a man who by being alive showed us how we could overcome — but never forget — the most barbaric actions committed against our fellow humans. He was a testament that genocide is real and not merely a political term, and that mass killings in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central and South America and parts of Africa are not merely aberrations, revisionist histories or media-constructed fantasies.
Dith was soft-spoken and maintained a sanguine nature that disguised his fierce inner spirit. He smiled whenever he listened to me gripe about my job, as if he knew my worst days could never come close to the days he had seen.
For the past few years, we had stayed in touch about the possibility of his speaking to college students about his experiences as a genocide survivor and as a successful photojournalist. I never had a chance to thank him for making me understand that life is more than surviving — it is to be lived.
Thank you, Dith.
Murali Balaji is a lecturer and doctoral fellow in the College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University.
04/02/2008
In the summer of 2001, I was on a flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco for the Asian American Journalists Association convention.
Sitting across the aisle from me was a small East Asian man wearing an "AAJA" sweatshirt. Thinking that this older gentleman was perhaps the father of an AAJA member or just a supporter of the organization, I started to converse with him.
At the time, I was a city hall reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and thought that my position warranted a little boasting. The man was gracious enough to praise me and seemed genuinely happy that I was doing so well for myself as a journalist.
Later that evening, AAJA had a reception, in which a speaker noted the Dith Pran award for photojournalism and pointed to none other than the small man who sat with me on the 3.5-hour plane ride.
I was embarrassed for having talked about my exploits as a reporter to Dith, who had done more in his life as a journalist and activist than most of my generation put together. But he did not accept my apologies for being arrogant, telling me instead that I was doing a great job in my field.
On Sunday, Dith Pran died at age 65 following a three-month bout with pancreatic cancer. He was best remembered as the survivor of the genocide in Cambodia that inspired the 1984 movie, "The Killing Fields." Pran had a long career as an award-winning photographer for the New York Times. He was also a tireless human rights advocate whose work was critical in the passage of the 1994 Cambodian Genocide Justice Act.
We had maintained contact, and I always thought of him as a man whose unassuming and quiet nature contradicted the larger-than-life persona that seemed to follow him after "The Killing Fields" was made.
Dith might have often been lost in crowds or, unlike me, felt uncomfortable talking about himself to others, but he never ceased to remind us through his actions that living through the worst in humanity can bring out our best.
Dith was a living reminder of modern genocide, a man who by being alive showed us how we could overcome — but never forget — the most barbaric actions committed against our fellow humans. He was a testament that genocide is real and not merely a political term, and that mass killings in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central and South America and parts of Africa are not merely aberrations, revisionist histories or media-constructed fantasies.
Dith was soft-spoken and maintained a sanguine nature that disguised his fierce inner spirit. He smiled whenever he listened to me gripe about my job, as if he knew my worst days could never come close to the days he had seen.
For the past few years, we had stayed in touch about the possibility of his speaking to college students about his experiences as a genocide survivor and as a successful photojournalist. I never had a chance to thank him for making me understand that life is more than surviving — it is to be lived.
Thank you, Dith.
Murali Balaji is a lecturer and doctoral fellow in the College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University.
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