There is an African proverb that states “When your house is burning, it’s no use beating the tom-toms.” In the context of the existential realities of the Nagas it means addressing the struggle against our own weaknesses by overcoming the existing mindset that consistently blames others for our present situation without assuming an iota of responsibility. Such an endeavor would necessarily mean engaging in a process of self-realization and examination of the existing conditions so that a new meaning and attitude towards life may consciously be pursued.
The pursuit towards self-realization must undauntedly involve the struggle against our own weaknesses. Experience has shown that in the general framework of daily struggle, no matter what difficulties are created by the powers that be, the most difficult encounter in the daily struggle is against oneself. This constant struggle is the expression of the internal contradictions in the economic, social and cultural reality of every society. Hence any social and political movement needs to function on the awareness and knowledge of this fundamental reality, or it runs the risk of failure. The development of a movement depends mainly on its internal characteristics and less on its external appearances; and is essentially determined and formed by the historical realities of each people.
However, the struggle against one’s own weakness is an important dilemma which has not been paid sufficient attention. The ignorance of a people’s historical reality constitutes a fault-line that causes ideological deficiencies, not to say the lack of ideology. It was in this aspect that the legendary Amilcar Cabral, leader of the national liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau declared, “Every practice produces a theory, and even if it is true that a revolution can fail even though it be based on perfectly conceived theories, nobody has yet made a successful revolution without a revolutionary theory.”
The praxis must be based on a theory that emerges out of the historical processes so as to meet existing political aspirations. We see that history has continuity and therefore it is essential that those seeking transformation must gauge the historical processes that have mobilized and crystallized the political identity and the political aspiration of the people.
Personal and collective transformation will have no historical bearing unless it leads not just to a real involvement in the liberation of human society but also an unconditional identification with the hopes and dignity of the people. After all dignity is the regaining of a new historical personality.
