Dr Asangba Tzudir
A recent news item published in this paper with the headline, “controversy over missing funds” has raised a lot of eyebrows more so because the controversy comes from a “prominent Church in Dimapur.” Had it been any other organization other than a religious institution it probably could have been different, where the general expression would have been attitudes of indifference. However, the fact that it happened in a Church became worthy of a headline. More than the headline, it also serves as a very stern reminder for every Christian and what a Christian is called upon to. It is simply not about only those who are part of the controversy or the one who owned up, but as a society, as a Church, everyone has a moral responsibility. This is a collective responsibility and calls everyone to really evaluate the status of morality and where, as a society we are headed?
These are times that call for a serious reflection and re-evaluation of one’s moral status as a moral being because, in imagining or visualizing the worst, this instance cannot be taken as the limit and the way in which human mentality and mindsets operate, one can expect the worst or worse things to follow. The attitudinal trend is such that, and also because of the fragmentation and division on various lines, the larger whole cannot form into a collectivity. Yet, whenever something bad happens, say, a man commits a crime of rape, then the crime literally belongs to the one who committed the crime, or his clansmen, relatives, his tribe, village, and never the whole. It must be remembered and reiterated that when a crime as rape is committed on a women, the entire menfolk should not only feel ashamed but also own the responsibility. Unless we learn to see it within a collectivity and accordingly own responsibility, our moral compass as a whole becomes meaningless.
Today, the world is undergoing a moral crisis, yet on the other side morality is placed above any human consideration. However, the situational context is such that it no longer is about morality being placed above everything else, but something else where individualism and the material consideration and the selfishness find placed above morality. Thus human pursuits have gone beyond morality devoid of any iota of moral consideration, and in the process humans have not only lost sense of their sight or moral direction but have willfully stepped down from being a moral being to material slaves. Morality seems to have become a hurdle in the pursuit of materialism.
As a people belonging to a religious community, the emerging issues calls for the question of our allegiance and to whom it should be owed. When human pursuits goes beyond morality, not only the moral credibility but humanity as a whole loses its face. Times are such that we are talking about Artificial Intelligence and its associated concerns, and which also impinges on issues concerning morality, and as humans it is time to seriously reflect the case of being a human and what it means to be a moral being, and then reassert morality and thereby rebuild the moral compass to let it once again become the guiding pendulum.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir writes a weekly guest editorial for The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
