Today, when we look around, one can see the violence of silence take its toll on the lives of Naga men and women. The tragic irony keeps unfolding itself and it is so acute that one can feel it literally. It’s a silence that takes away ones desire to live a full life. The violence of silence is indeed deafening and dampening to the human desire and will to resist being drawn into a cycle of cynicism. The violence of silence is frustratingly complex and hypnotic and has a lingering and traumatic effect.
Young people today are increasingly alienated and the society is in real danger of losing the next generation of leaders. Young people are losing their sense of self-respect and they have stopped knowing what it really means to have self-respect and to have hope. At the very individual level they have stopped hoping, thinking and understanding their purpose of existence. This has led to confusion and chaos. The violence of silence has stripped away the right of ownership and conditions a spirit of conformity that accepts the abnormal as the norm.
Nagas will have to rediscover the need to begin working hard and to take responsibility for the problems of their nation. Difficult as it maybe, it is essential to have a place where people can talk, plan and act together by naming the varying forms of violence and the causes that led to it. It is equally important to unmask the truth, not the partial truth but the whole truth. Eventually, one needs to evolve ways through which one can participate in the process of finding a solution to transcend the status-quo. If not, as Max Ediger put it; speak up before your silence is misunderstood.
In this period of transitionary disorder, it is important for young people’s hopes and aspirations to be heard because there is an ongoing struggle between contradicting forces. Those that pursue to seize power from the top propagate good-governance, while those that struggle to establish alternate just power relations from the bottom, advocate self-governance. The confrontation between the top and bottom has had an impact not just on conventional politics but on all areas of life. The lines between the two are quite clearly demarcated. In situations of such overwhelming circumstances, it becomes essential for young people to speak out their hopes for the future.
The struggle therefore, is not about building an ideal, but involves creating a process that respects and upholds values that are imperative for the Naga future. It is about changing the nature of institutions and making them more inclusive, humanistic, democratic, and future oriented. It reflects a system that builds bridges and supports negotiating differences and creating shared realities in which the diverse Naga nations (tribes) can dwell together as one people in mutual respect. If young Nagas are unable to embark on the search for alternatives, it may lead to a condition that is ungovernable for all!
