Learning to Learn Together

Benito Z Swu

Nearing to the end of his life somewhere in the later half of the 2000’s, during a rare, pensive, one to one, father-son talk, my father from his sick bed reminded me again and said, “As the way it is now and the lifestyle that you tread, I feel sorry for you, son. That was and is not the way to live. It is but only Christ who will understand and forgive. Better late than never, son. Turn back to the Lord and He will show you the way, the truth, and the life.” It is not as if I obeyed my father and became a holier-than-thou believer from the nominal Christian that I was. But seriously today one does understand that all these years it has all been like a fictional romanticized version of living life, aware of the truth of Christ, but too shallow a faith to profess and live by. Maybe we have to stop romanticizing our lives and stories which usually happens at the expense of some little truth somewhere, and which, unwittingly, becomes the basis for sin to germinate and grow. It contaminates our very fundamental education and clouds the wisdom that, otherwise, would have enabled us to distinguish the right from the wrong. The American story of the recent past , for example, is a case in point. Donald Trump might turn out to be very worthy of being the President of America, which he is now as the President elect. Commentators and political analysts worldwide, however, are at their wits end as to understand how it became possible that tens and millions of Americans supported a Presidential candidate who consistently rejected basic constitutional principles that previously had been accepted across the political spectrum. Researchers and analysts, in the months and years ahead, will seek to discern and reason out all the contributing factors to the rise of an authoritarian American President, but the consensus today is that among the most important culprit is the American education system. Commentators say that American public schools are failing in education’s most basic purpose which is to prepare young people to be reflective citizens who would value their history, liberty and democracy, and resist appeals of demagogues. They say that, with the rise of economic globalization, educators have emphasized the importance of serving the needs of the private marketplace rather than preparing citizens for American democracy, and of preparing students to be college and carrier ready with no mention of becoming thoughtful democratic citizens. The Nagas too, constituted by the coming together of all the different distinct tribes but with the common one history of struggle as a composite people needs to get our education right. The times of today does not warrant our sitting over and squabbling on any issue, but getting down to the basics of knowing and understanding our foundation and beginnings, our customs and traditions, of educating each other, and even more importantly, educating the school going generation of honoring and following in the footsteps of the unparalleled integrity of our early pioneering fathers of Naga nationalism at every stage of the struggle. Educators in Nagaland need to start teaching that it is hard to find fault when the drive is for integrity and desire for togetherness. Owning up collectively to both success and failure in the solving of issues is an education that needs to be imparted at every level of civics education in our land. Education system of the Nagas on this front has failed in the past and need not fail now or in the future. The upcoming generations of Naga people need to live together, and unless they learn together or begin to learn together, there will be little hope that they will learn to live together. Thus the paramount importance is of not just the right to education, but the right education. So much has happened in the Naga story since the time the Naga tribes came together as a composite body, and every narrator have had a romanticized version of the story, be it in parts or bits, that the real truth in the story, not necessarily but usually, gets orphaned. The end result, however, unfortunately has been the fractioning of the body into parts and bits. Our education need not necessarily end up in the fraction and division of the whole. For the sake of posterity, the Naga people of today, all together, can agree to come together and not in the least be dishonored by honoring the very beginning of our story as the rallying point. The immortality of the story that follows will be an education that every Naga, for all time to come, will remain proud to have received. May the good Lord bless us all.