With the increasing number of identity based conflicts around the world, it calls for the need to reflect on whether the theory of modernization has failed? The modernization theory promoted the principle that with greater political and economic interaction combined with and the progressive growth of communication networks, ethnic identities would be broken and replaced with loyalties to a larger political entity. However, since the end of the Cold War there has been a persistent re-emergence of identities and peoples within existing States. A primary reason for this emerging trend rests in the awareness that many peoples’ are caged within artificial boundaries imposed by departing colonial powers. This is an area that the decolonization process failed to constructively address in finding resolutions.
All cultures, societies and nations have suffered from wounds that are deeply rooted within their own history of colonization and conquests. Ironically, these wounds will not begin to heal until they have been acknowledged. Time does not heal wounds, only healing can heal wounds which take a long time. Human society can no longer follow a paradigm that only seeks to find solutions to symptoms without addressing the core causes which are responsible for so much of today’s human suffering. This brings us back to identifying the root causes of conflict to confront the history where the wounds were inflicted.
Today, interactions between human beings in the global context have reached the point where no community can remain isolated even when it proposes to further isolate itself. Many of the Indigenous Peoples who were once isolated are now becoming a part of the globally community. This is a manifestation of the complex web of life based on human interdependence, interconnection and interrelationships. However, with greater human interaction, different aspirations are expressed and incompatible goals emerge. Yet conflict, if addressed constructively need not lead to violence, and can be a creative force for change. Tragically, the present models of addressing conflicts have only focused on managing differences, which only results in more conflicts.
There is an urgent need for existing world systems and paradigms to transcend the polity of ‘national security’ based on the concept of fear. Such paradigms have only succeeded in sustaining a negative trend of human association that evokes selective collective memories which feeds a people’s ‘chosen glories and chosen trauma.’ Consequently, the concept of ‘national security’ sustains a climate of fear which is intended to create internal defenses against the perceived external threat. In this manner, issues of human security are very often swept to the margins and kept out of any public discourse. The real politick of Statecraft has always been pragmatic in ensuring its control over people by denying paradigms of co-existence.
The modernization theory has largely failed to address identity based conflicts due to its inability to imagine and create human society beyond the State system. The Nagas, especially as Indigenous People, have much to learn from human history. If the Nagas are to have a respectful shared future, a respectful harmonious co-existence, then we need to become empowered and develop. Ultimately, the people, and not the State should be the focal point of Naga politics.
