R.B. Thohe Pou
This is a response to kuknalim.com site administrator’s statement issued in the wake of my earlier article titled “Is it www.kuknalim.com promoting tribalism & in favor of the non- Nagas?” and I believe that from this response we will come to know what is fact and what is mere fiction. Nothing strange and I am not surprised since it is human nature to keep from confessing to any crime until higher authority intervenes. Mr. Yan Murry (site admin.) in response to my above article writes, “Naga leaders need to know that this article is misleading and false as it is based on already corrected measures in Kuknalim.com”. To my honorable Naga leaders, I solemnly state that the contents of my article were pure facts and now you must also know the misleading and false statement given by the site administrator. How could they try to mislead you, our respected leaders? The site administrator above told a blatant lie maybe in the hope that due to remoteness and lack of resources our leaders will not be able to find out the truth. Till the 10th of August 2007, the situation as outlined in my original article was still prevailing and there was no ‘corrected measures’ taken as claimed. May I humbly request our honorable Naga leaders to investigate the matter so that this attempt to pull the wool over their eyes does not go unchallenged?
1) The kuknalim.com site admin claimed that they have banned Mr. Ratattat but the member himself clarified that the site moderator never warned or banned him. Ratatattat1 writes on 7th Aug. 2007 in response to kuknalim.com site administrator’s statement as follows, ”The “particular member” ie me. had not been “warned” about anything-in the 1st communiqué from the administration”. Only just prior to their above statement in response to Thohe Pou, they apparently banned him because the member had to re-register with a different nickname ratattat1 to post his reply. Also, some of my friends have been writing open letters to the site administrator complaining about his anti-Naga views and yet the member was not banned him till 6th Aug 2007. Ratattat writes, Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:56pm “That Naga nationalism is a byproduct of British policies aimed at retaining SOME measure of Empire is another fact that u need to thrust at me alongside the one u did.”
2) The site administrator also claimed that they did not snub articles related to Nagas. But let’s see what some of our friends say, RAVENRED (a Delhi based Journalist) writes on Apr 22, 2006, “Same goes with my write up dear so no offence but it would be nice if they can give an explanation. Whether the article was not worth publishing or too controversial” The above comment by Ravenred was in response to my question, “Is it worth to publish this article “Nagas are subhuman and filthy”? In their forum I had posted some of my articles with titles like, “Nagas are subhuman and filthy - the Indian officers’ perception”; “The Unceasing, Oozing Nagas blood and tears”; “The similarities between Nagas and the Southern tribes of Archipelago” (A research paper); “The myth of Nagas origin”; etc. I had submitted these articles to their site but they were never posted. Why they did not publish Ravenred’s, others’ and my articles, which are on issues related to Nagas? Personally I don’t have any problem whether they post my article or not because there are many other sites and newspaper where these will be published. If we go to their site and check in 2006, we see that there are only a couple of articles, if any, related to Naga issues.
3) The site administrator also claimed in his statement that, “..... we have a policy that site administrator are not responsible for comments on the website”. Today, in kuknalim.com we have open criticism and defamation of other tribes and by the same token, if tomorrow I go to open another site representing the Nagas and claim that according to the site policies, views expressed in the site are not my (i.e. site administrator’s) responsibility and I give everyone freedom to defame and criticize any one they like am I justified? If the Naga public says yes then I must apologize to all for raising this issue. Freedom of speech or expression never means that you and I can defame some one or other community.
4) They also claimed that the picture mentioned in the article was inhuman. Yes it was inhuman, and that was the point!!! The person who posted the picture wanted everyone to condemn such inhuman atrocities. For the record it was not supposed to be posted under ‘funny pictures’ and the intention was to open the eyes of the people to condemn such a barbaric and murderous act. I believe that Dark_angel (ex-NPMHR Delhi) had posted that as there were also some other pictures like from the Asian Tsunami and a Somalian boy dying of hunger with a vulture lurking nearby, etc. Dark_angel’s comment on my earlier article, “I would also like to point out that I was the one who posted the pic of Tangkhul gal slaughter in mumbai by a maniac in the section “ Saddest picture I have seen” which was gross for the admin and other pics of international or Indian related pics of Tsunami victim was not gross for them as one of the owner of Kuknalim was an Indian settled in Australia”. Is the website meant for Somalians and other Asians but not for the Nagas?
5) The site admin also claimed in his statement, “….while it is impossible to monitor the site in real time due to constraints, moderators spend significant time on the forums to weed these articles out”. OK, if they are too busy in their own work then they should not put up the forum in the first place providing a platform for people to defame others or send hatred messages. There are many clean sites like www.nagasonline.com, www.tangkhul.com, www.nagalim.in, www.cniceonline.com etc. How is it possible for them to keep their sites clean while Kuknalim.com cannot? Has the kuknalim.com site administrator been asleep since 2004 (when these hate posts emerged) till now, August 2007? Size is not an excuse because one should know better than to bite off more than one can chew.
6) The kuknalim.com site moderator claimed that I am just talking or writing a baseless article, the site administrator writes in his statement as, “…..old forum messages are archived and removed from the website. Morever, that topic has been removed a long time. It is not advisable to base your article on outdated topics like these” But that is the point and proof that they allow the members and non-members to criticize and defame other tribes and community since 2004 till 24th July 2007. When did you remove all those undesirable posts? Dark_angel writes, “…. Let me make it all clear to you. Tangkhul.com is born since Tangkhuls were abused like hell in the so-call site KUKNALIM, to provide an alternative space for my own people. Secondly, the article which thohe wrote was supposed to be written by four to five of us, which we cannot do it due to our tight schedule but at last Thohe did it and hats off to him.” If the site moderator had stopped or did not allow these harmful posts to be discussed after 2004 or 2005, I may not have written the article in the first place. But since they have been allowing members or non-members to defame other tribes till July 2007, I have to bring it to the notice of our honorable Naga leaders and the public to decide what is right and what is wrong.
Dark_angel also wrote, “… The duty of the site administrator and moderator is to warn or ban or remove them which tangkhul.com did on daily basis, but kuknalim will allow people to abuse particular tribe and drag on and will lock a topic yet the topic will be visible to all the members. They made sure that all the members will read again and again, but picture and words which will wake up the nationalism of the nagas were remove without hesitation. So are the kuknalim adminitration for the Nagas? Kuknalim promote tribalism and are against the posting of any news article favouring Nagas but lately i have notice that they do have started posting news related to Nagas”.
Another senior member of kuknalim.com counter comments on my article, “Guys let us not fight here!! Try to reason it out. let us forget about them targeting at one tribe or the other one. but i can clearly see that they are promoting/encouraging tribalism in the site! I have been hanging around in kuknalim.com since they were born.. so i know whats going on there..... we should advise/teach them to stop promoting/encouraging tribalism in future. that will be very good for the nagas as a whole. If they realize/know what wrong they have done, we should be happy for that.”
Wapang wrote about my article as follows, “Very good writing!! kuknalim.com should be taught a good lesson. specially the administrator and owners of the website should be taught a good lesson. thohe you did a great job. i personally would like to extent my gratitude for the write up. i hope all members/readers should think properly. kuknalim.com should be renamed as indianalim.com or antinagas.com. They are damaging the image of the nagas”
I do appreciate Kuknalim.com, which is supposed to be the first Naga website, and I used to recommend others to read it when www.nagalandpost.com and other sites had yet to come up. But now it comes as a shock when you visit kuknalim.com and see all the undesirable defamatory posts. Until and unless these objectionable entries are deleted from their forums, we should not recommend any one to visit the site. However I do hope that they will come to realize their mistake and make a genuine effort to keep their site clean.
7) Sophylasuh writes, “Kuknalim represents a community to me.” That is the point there. Yes the word Kuknalim represents the Nagas. For me, as a Naga, ‘Kuknalim’ is a sacred word. Just as the Indian freedom fighters used the word ‘Jai Hind” we Nagas proudly say “Kuknalim” with our heads held high. VS (ex-NSUD leader, now in Hong Kong) noting that the site policy of Kuknalim.com stipulate that members should “…respect our land and people and this should be reflected by our posts and thoughts in the chartroom/forums/emails….” has this to add, “If the administrators are sincere about their policies they would make sure that disrespect towards any Naga individual or tribe is strictly monitored and the people involved warned against repeating. Tribalism is divisive and we should do our best to discourage it. There is enough in-fighting and discord among the Naga brothers out there in the society and these forums do not need to add fuel to the fire!! Remember, it is an honor to carry the name ‘Kuknalim’. An honor that one shouldn’t take too lightheartedly because you then become the face of the Nagas to the outside world. It is an honor that can and should be taken away if limits are crossed. I fully agree with Thohe that our leaders should pay attention to these matters and take action if necessary. The site otherwise is great!”
In 2005, to bring more awareness to other Indians about the Naga problem in Nagalim, I presented a paper at the University of Pune (Inter-disciplinary discussion group) on “Nagas Political History” after the Naga documentary movie, “Nagas – the other side of Silence” was screened. I then recommended to the Professors of the University and students to read more news about the Nagas from www.kuknalim.com. If we do not maintain a respectable site, we might be sending an erroneous message to outsiders. I am proud that Nagas now have lots of website (this is one reason I wrote the article “Nagas websites serving a great purpose”) and I hope that this pride won’t be misplaced.
Today I fight for kuknalim.com to be kept clean since it bears the Nagas identity and tomorrow if there is another site promoting tribalism or anti-Naga sentiments, many people who love the Nagas including me will be there to raise the issue again. Personally I am not against any one or any particular Naga website. However I will continue to raise my pleading voice towards our honorable Nagas leaders till kuknalim.com removes all those hateful messages like, “u a s s tankhuls blodd thirsty fanatic, murderous, extortionist and land grabbers... “who said maos are nagas?...in kohima all the thieves are maos nad noone wants them…look at them thieves, and tangkhuls are no better too... we are Nagas to decide whether or not the Tangkhuls are Nagas*! *I believe Tangkhuls are NOT nagas“ and bring notice to the Naga public that they have done so (removed the defamatory posts).
Many young Naga intellectual and promising leaders visit the site to encourage the younger Naga students and to promote the Nagas culture and tradition to others. However the site administrator considers that they are all good for nothing except Ratattat who is always against the voice of the Nagas in the forum. With reference to Ratattat, who was unnecessarily criticizing the NSCN and always held a strong anti-Naga view in the forums, Mkunga (a senior Naga leader from Delhi) wrote to site administrator earlier saying, “I am a senior students and we visit kuknalim as youth so that we can check the misguiding factor and it is not that we are here posting as if we do not have any work”.
Mruivah also mentioned in his comments, “….. And what thohe has written is true to my knowledge…I also presume many of us quite Kuknalim at a same time and stop post in around 2005 or 2006 September. Some of the Members which i recall are Tesking, Human virus, Makunga, Dark_Angel, Ravenred, Thohe, Jonnycamelately, Birdie and many more”.
These concerned Nagas, all influential leaders in their areas, were strongly against Ratattat and his inflammatory words in the forum and we requested the site administrator to ban him and to delete all hate-filled posts from the forum. But the site administrator turned a deaf ear to our request and many of us quit kuknalim.com in 2006. However, we love our Naga people and we are back here to raise our voices and to bring this to the notice of the Naga people so that the site may be kept clean in order to avoid sending the wrong message to the world about us Nagas.
I on behalf of my friends (leaders and promising Naga leaders) would like to request the site administrator to remove all those hate-mongering, divisive posts so that we may continue to promote our wonderful Naga culture and tradition to the world through kuknalim.com and other Naga websites.
I on behalf of my friends also would like to request the site administrator to notify the Naga public that they have deleted all those undesirable words from the forum.
R.B. Thohe Pou
PhD Research Scholar, University of Pune
Pune 411007 (Email: thohepou@rediffmail.com)
