Witoubou Newmai
Each person has a corresponding response to his/her situation; the response of a sad person and happy person to things, accordingly, may have huge divergence. Citing one case in this regard is the saying, “A hungry man is an angry man”.
In the above case, the best way to placate the angry man is to provide food.
Taking the “angry man’s template” to today’s Naga situation, the responses of various organisations and individuals to things around them are indicative of a fatigued society.
Due to the prolonged struggle, the Naga society is tired today. The exhaustion has reached to such a degree that we are witness to many of us overstepping, ‘understepping’ and ‘side-stepping.’ However, though such has been the situation for a long time now, we are concurrently noticing that the Naga society continues to talk about their struggle or movement. Given this scenario, one should appreciate the depth of the Naga burden. In other words, one should hesitate to hurl blames.
We must note that if one has the ability and the capacity to appreciate the depth of the Naga burden, the tempo of jargons would be fine-tuned thereby paving a conducive ambience for constructive communications.
Given today’s multidimensional shoves, which have been causing global paradigmatic changes, we must also acknowledge that the role of the votaries of truth and justice in the Naga society has become even more crucial.
Since Nagas are a minuscule voice in the sea of chaos and shoves, and that, if we genuinely value justice and truth, one Naga cannot afford to devalue fellow Naga. We say this because the more we create more sequestered boxes for ourselves, the fainter the voice becomes that strives for, and defends, truth and justice. Coming to this area, we really need to remind ourselves of Thomas Anthony Harris’ I’m OK-You’re OK rationale.
“I am a person. You are a person. Without you I am not a person, for only through you is language made possible and only through language is thought made possible, and only through thought is humanness made possible. You have made me important. Therefore, I am important and you are important. If I devalue you, I devalue myself. This is the rationale of the position I’m OK-You’re OK. Through this position only are we persons instead of things. Returning man to his rightful place of personhood is the theme of redemption, or reconciliation, or enlightenment, central to all of the great world religions. The requirement of this position is that we are responsible to and for one another, and this responsibility is the ultimate claim imposed on all men alike”.
Although Harris may be talking here for the highest level of the human situation, and connecting this to the Naga situation may appear contradictory to the spirit of the above quotation, this should be considered as a sound template and model for different situations where small communities strive for truth and justice amid whirlwind politics of 'might is right'.
