Weaving Dreams

Nagas need to Dream because when people dare to dream Dreams great things happen. The impossible becomes possible. Dreaming lifts people out of the everyday ruts and worries. Dreams help people guide their own destiny and make their own culture. It is through dreaming Dreams that we find our own humanness and deep interconnections. When we dream Dreams, the consciousness within is awakened to be imaginative and creative as it was meant to be.  

Our Dreams become our shared vision, our common vision and the path to the future. Our Dreams help us recognize that a common and shared vision is possible as each person contributes to it. Weaving our dreams together is inclusive, participatory, and promotes harmony while supporting us both individually and collectively.  

Some of us may have forgotten about the benefit of dreaming, especially in the Naga context where we have become afraid to dream Dreams. For close to 190 years at a stretch starting with the British colonial project, followed by our present political subjugation, the Nagas have been unable to freely express and exercise our self-determining capacities as peoples.  

Under these conditions, it is indeed soothing to suffer peacefully and becomes effortless to slip into a state of mind where one is conditioned by all the injustices around us. Ironically, when people stop dreaming Dreams, the future becomes dim and uncertain as life is reduced to mechanical reactions to our current Naga reality.  

Nonetheless, Nagas need to gather the courage to dream Dreams and to allow new hope to arise. We can no longer be afraid to Dream, because it is by daring to Dream that we reclaim our own humanity. Nagas need to dream in order for us to be sure of where we are and where we wish to go. It is by dreaming Dreams that we can transcend our past and embrace the diversity that reflects our shared humanity.  

The Naga dream is a shared vision representing our way of life. It is based on the idea that the freedom of one depend the freedom of the other. In the Naga dream, freedom is not the end, rather a means to become fully whole again. It is a dream where every man, woman and child can attain their potential. It is a dream where the Naga people uphold their cultural values, the land, resources, environment and their neighbors to live in a harmonious mutual co-existence.  

Let’s reclaim the Naga dream together. It is about renewal with creativity which is manifested through expressions that have been denied and suppressed for so long. This dreaming can begin by enabling a collective and optimistic imagination to have its own space. In reality, the Naga dream itself becomes the road that will be made by walking and dreaming together.  

The Naga dream invites us to further engage in self-criticism, to correct ourselves and to embrace the values of the shared Naga dream both in thought and in action. As dreamers, we are expected to nurture and nourish the Naga dream. The Naga dream will remain alive as long as we are weaving the dreams together.