Dr. Asangba Tzüdir
The confession made by NBCC General Secretary during the recent clean election campaign calls for a reality check. It seems like an honest submission, nonetheless a ‘politically’ correct statement in consideration of a fitting prologue to the campaign.
Though very belated, yet, it is made more conspicuous by the timing of the confession in relation to the clean election campaign. Was it a sudden realisation leading to the confession that the Church has failed? Bringing in the reality check, a more pertinent query is whether the Church has truly realised where it has failed as Church, and as leaders. The answer to this encapsulates the degree of truth and honesty about the confession, more so the truth about the status of the Churches today. A reality check is thus vital to determine whether the Church and the whole of Christendom is working on building a clean kingdom of God.
Coming to the NBCC project “clean election”, it requires a critical enquiry beginning with a holistic understanding of what it means to be ‘clean’ and thereupon envision the idea of a clean election. The existential predicament requires due warrant, and based on which the NBCC has come up with a pledge card. For this, the Church as a whole and the people in it needs to clean itself and pledge to be clean before God. It requires a bottom–up confessional approach beyond the ‘groundwork of morals’ as outlined in the pledge card (with the assertion that the election of ‘right’ leaders is a “birth right and a God-given responsibility”). If this is the groundwork, then it needs to go deeper into the underlying structures. The Church and the people in it need to bow to the power of the Church, and the kind of morality it injects through its religiosity should be the basis of transforming the self. In other words, the power and the religiosity of the Church should provoke the ‘moral selves’ of each individual in infusing a sense of moral responsibility in doing the desired action. The ‘will’ to change cannot come from what is written in the clean election pledge card but from within oneself through a self-realisation and transformation in relation to the Church and the concomitant Christian ethics and principles.
Another aspect of clean election is the challenge to select and elect the right leader. Corruption from every section have only resulted in corrupt elections which have in turn breed bad governance, poverty, crime and social instability and even violence. The pledge points if taken with utmost sincerity, might lead to a ‘clean’ and ‘peaceful’ election but it does not have adequate cover to elect the right leader. Can the people decide the right leader? As of now only those with money and muscle power becomes the leader. The onus is on the people to shed all ‘selfishness’ with a ‘pledge not to sell ones soul’ and reverse this trend in selecting and electing the right leader and work collectively for a collective good of the society and for the future generations.
In sum, the efforts of NBCC and the pledge points is appreciable but for it to work what is desired is a bottom-up approach with a sense of collective responsibility to be free from corruption and to fight against any corrupt practices and thereby create spaces for democracy to nurture. For now, this seems to be the most daunting factor for clean election to set in the right path.
(Dr. Asangba Tzüdir is Editor with Heritage Publishing House. He contributes a weekly guest editorial to the Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
