Witoubou Newmai
We find one question more relevant today than various parroting platforms on Naga affairs.
Why do you think the comfort level of the common man and the educated youth with the various organisations including the 'Naga political groups' has dropped to its lowest ebb today? An honest effort to seek an answer to this question will be of great help to the various problems confronting the Naga people.
In fact, the limited capacity of these organisations and public leaders to address and redress the situation that demands them to perceive harmony amid discord over plethora of irrelevant and petty issues has questioned the authenticity and genuineness of their loud vaunts over the aspiration and heritage of the Naga people. For this reason, Naga organisatons including the “Naga political groups” have very less chance of succour. The general public cannot be blamed for the diminishing provision of it.
Today's complex challenges, both local and global, demand our organisations and leaders to keep updating themselves. Most often, leaders heading organisations with developed expertise in their working areas are found genuinely free of any vested interest and arrogance. Such leaders will have the ability to exhibit the needed capacity to ignore differences, because they are clear of their working areas. This, in fact, should be the drive in our movement for dignity. But today, we are left to see the cordial affairs disrupted. All for the vested interests, ignorance and arrogance, what should have been the Nagas' finest period seems destined to become a nightmare where the leaders, politicians and social organisations will soon become like a wisdom tooth that is unclear in its direction of growth.
We are reminded of a Nigerian story where a witty bird called Eneke keeps updating its skill of protecting itself challenging the hunters’ ever improving weaponry front. Though this story appears to be too archaic an example to connect it to the theme of this piece, however it is presented here for the sake of elucidating the point.
“Men have learnt to shoot without missing their mark and I have learnt to fly without perching on a twig.” In a Nigerian fable, Eneke the bird says this when asked why it was always on the wing.
The bird Eneke, like any other bird used to perch on twigs but as the skill of its perpetrators advanced Eneke too found a method to cope with the changing situation. In ‘Things Fall Apart’ written by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, the disintegrating tribes of Nigeria draw inspiration from the Eneke story to challenge the complex strategies employed by the white people to annihilate the natives in the 19th century.
Absence of a fine mechanism to keep our organisations and leaders accountable has also created a thriving ground for arrogance. Arrogance is the index of stagnation. An arrogant leader will always have a deep aversion to rationality. This is also one of the many reasons for the ebbing away of enthusiasm of the educated youth and the common man today.
