Vishü Rita Krocha
In the year 2009, Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered a powerful TED talk on “The Danger of a Single Story”. As she succinctly put it, “Show people as one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”
The single story, she said, “creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
As any society evolves through the years in different ways, the validity of multiple stories tend to be ignored, perpetuating a single story.
This is true even in the context of Nagaland, especially considering that we come from the oral tradition of literature where there are several narratives that are still wrapped inside the minds of the people.
As it often happens, a story of a place, a people, its history, or even an incident often gets to be told by those who hold a certain degree of power. Everywhere across the world, narratives have been promoted by power groups or individuals. But the risk of telling a single story is that many other important narratives of a people are forgotten in the process. The majority section of the people who do not get to own their own narratives eventually become submerged in the only story told about them that they even begin to doubt their own truths.
And this is not the only sad truth about a single story. A single story has harmed the society in more ways than one. The roots of many conflicts also stem from the insistence of a single truth while discarding the possibility of multiple valid stories.
One of the things that journalism, for instance, also relies on, are multiple perspectives and accounts of different sources instead of a single viewpoint to ensure faitness, accuracy and completeness. Especially in the wake of allegations or accusations, it is the most important thing for journalists to get multiple sides of the same story because a one-sided story is never fair.
It is not only in journalism, but as a society, we must all retrospect and re-examine our multitude of stories because stories are powerful, and they shape our very existence. Stories, when told honestly whether it is to do with one’s personal account or experience; whether it is about a society’s history or culture; or any other story that needs to be heard, will ultimately pave our road to freedom.
Just as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ended her TED talk with: “That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”
This is a guest editorial by Vishü Rita Krocha. She is the Publisher of PenThrill Publication and a senior journalist based in Kohima.
