Thepfulhouvi Solo
ONE of the greatest privileges we as humans beings have today is the privilege every society has to correct and educate ourselves by looking at how we have behaved ourselves that appeared in the instant electronic Social medias or in the daily news papers, just like we look at ourselves in the mirror and correct what we appear lacking.
If my perceptions are right, today, the Naga Society often behaves similar to how the generally peace loving Jews of Jerusalem behaved like a mob at the incitement a few from outside some 62 years after the death of Jesus Chris in the city.
ACTS. 21:27-30 records: “when….some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, ‘Men of Israel help us! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holly place.’ (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed Paul had brought him into the temple area.) ”
Luke wrote in just one sentence and aptly: “the whole city was ‘roused’ and ‘in uproar’, and the people came running to [the Temple Area] from all directions.”
The people believed what a few in a religious group, -intolerant, racial and prone to violence-, publicly and loudly shouted to others the assumed allegations against their opponents; -in this case against Paul and the Way People, the Pioneers of Christian Religion. The mob was about to kill Paul when the overlord Roman Army Officer of the city, hearing the commotion, went and snatched Paul out of the mob, and took him to the Army Camp. How the normal crowd went insane, unreasonable and unconscionable only on the incitement of a few, is a poignant question: (There was no social-media, cell phones or daily news papers at that time!)
Acts 16: 16-24 also records that at Philippi, the principal city of 2500 years old Greek civilization at the time of Jesus, the usual law abiding crowd about the town behaved in the same manner as those at Jerusalem at the stirring up of a few self-interests:
There was a slave girl in the city, a fortune Teller; “She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.” For many days she followed Paul and his companions in the city and continuously shouted: “these men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved. ” The unauthorised preacher disturbed Paul’s message of profound Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people. And Paul told her: “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her. At the moment spirit left her.”
“When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”
“The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the Magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison.”
The irresponsible market-crowd, including the crowd-influenced Magistrates, without any investigation of the case of the allegations of the slave Owner, indicates the servile society of the day.
The Naga today, in towns and cities in particular, imitate mob culture; act false, imbalanced, irrational, artificial, impatiently reactive and violent. Some years ago in Dimapur, at the allegation of a certain unmarried young local girl crying wolf against her non-local male companion in an arranged hotel room on complained of breaking a personal private promise by her outsider companion, the tribal crowd swiftly went irrational.
The Naga crowd, quickly roused into mob frenzy, sided the local girl. It seized the man, did him violence and firstly threw him into the Jail. The allegation of the local girl against the so-called ‘illegal Muslim immigrant Trader’ swiftly went round Dimapur, the commercial centre of Nagaland. The man was accused allegedly of forced sexual act. The unbalanced, furious crowd rushed to the state central Jail, over-powered the small Jail guards, forced open the gate, pulled the man out, stripped him, bound his hands at his back and pulled him along the road on ground to the city tower and hung his now dead body there. The mob did insane, inhuman acts on the dead person!
At Ephesus, [Acts. 19:23-29]: the crowd behaved the same manner as like in Nagaland –naïve, racial, prone to violence, easily excited and spiritually bankrupt. Paul preached a spiritual living God, the most high; not made with human hands. Many were attracted to the Idea, but the teachings adversely affected the business interest of Demetrius the Silver Smith, and Craftsmen of the image of Roman Goddess Artemis; fertility Diana of the Greeks.
“About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. Demetrius called all the Craftsmen and said, ‘Men, you know we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced that led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia.
There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited, and the goddess herself, who is worship throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”
“Soon the whole city was in uproar. The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there.”
Luke has apt description of the quality of behaviour of the crowd of the Times.
The Naga society on the whole today appears: lost of its composure, the educated is perplexed for the morrow; the uneducated ignorance has blissful majority for the future; and as for the democratic leaders of the people; most sit on the wall for the chance of ‘Aya Ram today: Gaya Ram for tomorrow.’
No Revolution anywhere in the world succeeds without the majority support of the people: the Naga Revolutions today runs on a force of the minority factory of its force; they wait like Ulysses in the island of Cerci not knowing the times of the Naga people.
The elected Representatives with plenipotentiary powers use NGOs in paid political consultations for governance of the land. Beginning with foreign trained one-man FNR, the Global foreign educated NGOs with many home grown NGOs based on State, Race, Tribe, Village, Gender and every tradition and cultural divisions of the people, claim every rights to every say, on every matter of the Naga; all of them however know, the exact respectful distance with the best armed.
Most NGOs have names known to its core members that quietly select each other and formalises the selection in a system of General Meetings where any suggested nomination is rarely rejected. Most NGOs have no Membership Register or Membership Fee and a constitution drafted and managed for the convenience of a few.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s Horses,
And all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.
A great number of Organizations once suddenly formed a Joint Forum and issued an Ultimatum to the Chief Minister to immediately abdicate the Office for alleged reason of having lost the confidence of the Forum, presumptuously formed just a few days before.
The Chief Minister held he can’t resign because two third of the Assembly openly supports him from the floor of the August House. Great god! Even the Churches supported the Joint Forum’s demand, citing the decision of the Forum is the will of all the people; the will of the People is the Will from Above!
There was a great agitation against the Chief Minister and Kohima was burned as has never ever been seen before against the objection of the Kohima Village!
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
All the king’s Horses,
And all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.
The Naga must make all areas of our lives into the Democratic System, Peace and Non-violence if we like to enjoy a sovereign progressive democratic open state of peaceful life.
It is time the Naga Society owns the Responsibility of their actions, on their own will decide themselves and develop a civil democratic System of Society in Peace and Non-violence; everyone of us has a responsibility, not just the leaders or others only.
I hope the Naga Society have the Ear to hear and see us ourselves in our own mirror.
