I adore ancestral traditions but I will suggest that we should critically appreciate and acknowledge our received traditions.
It would be regressive to accept and follow anything and everything for the sake of being our own.
At the same breadth, I will ridicule and aspire to shed with those aspects of traditions which dwarfs us, stifle our human potentiality,
divide us, chain us, numb and dumb our collective consciousness, nurture our diffidence to make us inept to compete/progress ourselves;
which carries the evil of blind obsessive arrogance on one hand and subjugation and inequality on the other part;
which endorses idleness/lazy indulgence, discourage hard-working and mutual progressive ethos; that serves as veil to prevent us from progressive emulation;
which obscure our line of thinking, in other words that sanctions inimical to progressive thinking;
which are not consistent and not stimulating for a society to be engendered with social equality, human self-respect and mutual respect so as to ignite our human potentiality and capability to realize our collective progress and welfare.
We should be able to point out cultural-substances which are inimical to unity and progress. Even in a gold mine, one has to discard a
lot of unwanted matters to extract the purest form of Gold.
In the same way, society advances by critically looking into our set up in
every dimensions and reforming for the best from time to time, from a different/outdated context to another changing context requiring a lot of sane,
dynamic and altruistic thinking and actions.
Weak-will and widespread opportunism for short-term personal benefit has crept deep into our larger society and consciousness. This will explain
most of our present predicaments. Let not it hijacks our path to collective progress.
It is time for self-reckoning and due sacrifice for common cause and to weed out those ills. To move forward, we need to realize all these aspects.
We have to dig for the ills which lies within ourselves/within all of us of how we shape our attitudes and actions.
We have to be critically aware of this socio-psychological aspect so as to face head on and co-exist with the world with freedom, dignity and self-respect.
We must join hands while seeking our justice with all other peoples beyond our own society who are unjustly exploited and trampled upon and must give due solidarity.
Our collective interest must come first than our personal gain as this collective interest will deliver all our personal interest and security in the long run.
Don't make us easily befooled and vulnerable to divisive politics to be enslaved forever. If we don't change and critically questioning our own outlooks
and our own worldviews, I ensure you all and me that the future does not belong to us. We will be crippled and not being able to stand on our own with dignity,
freedom and equal welfare of all of us.
An Inhabitant , a pesudonym used by Nongallakpa Horam, writes regularly to e-pao.net
You can contact the writer at [email protected]
This article was webcasted on 06th January 2005.
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