There is an African proverb that states “When your house is burning, it’s no use beating the tom-toms.” In the context of the existential realities of indigenous peoples it means addressing the struggle against our own weaknesses by overcoming the existing mindset that consistently blames others for our present situation without assuming an iota of responsibility. Such an endeavor would necessarily mean engaging in a process of self-realization and examination of the existing conditions so that a new meaning and attitude towards life may consciously be pursued.
The pursuit towards self-realization must undauntedly involve the struggle against our own weaknesses. Experience has shown that in the general framework of daily struggle, no matter what difficulties are created by the powers that be, the most difficult encounter in our daily struggle is against ourselves. This constant struggle is the expression of the internal contradictions in the economic, social and cultural reality of every society. Hence any social and political movement needs to function on the awareness and knowledge of this fundamental reality, or it runs the risk of failure. The development of a movement depends mainly on its internal characteristics and less on its external appearances; and is essentially determined and formed by the historical realities of each people.
However, the struggle against our own weakness is an important dilemma which has not been paid sufficient attention. The ignorance of a people’s historical reality constitutes a fault-line that causes ideological deficiencies, not to say the lack of ideology. It was in this aspect that the legendary Amilcar Cabral, leader of the national liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau declared, “Every practice produces a theory, and even if it is true that a revolution can fail even though it be based on perfectly conceived theories, nobody has yet made a successful revolution without a revolutionary theory.”
The praxis must be based on a theory that emerges out of the historical processes so as to meet existing political aspirations. This process of action and reflection needs to embrace the conceptual distinction between the context of transformation and the process of transformation itself. Tragically dominant forces have ensured that indigenous people such as those in the northeast are in a distressing position of being peoples without any history prior to the advent of colonial forces. Yet we see that history has continuity and therefore it is essential that those seeking transformation must gauge the historical processes that have mobilized and crystallized the political identity and the political aspiration of indigenous peoples.
Personal and collective transformation will have no historical bearing unless it leads not just to a real involvement in the liberation of human society but also an unconditional identification with the hopes of the people. A praxis that empowers a process to constructively address internal weaknesses enables the development of the struggle to establish concrete possibilities of moving from the present situation of injustice and domination to a new stage of historical process which allows opportunities to create a new just and dignified existence. Dignity after all is the regaining of a new historical personality of a people, and one which rejects the negation of its right to determine and define its own future in a way that will free the process of an evolving humanity. Hence, it may do us some good to genuinely and constructively engage and find solutions to our struggle against our own weakness, because in doing so, it can only result in fostering critical solidarity to strengthen the common struggle against subjugation of all forms.
