[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e, the administrators of The Naga Blog, wishes to express our frustration–to say the least–at how our law enforcement authorities are flattening the entire orchard just to find a locust.
We may not always understand the pressure and the efforts that our police and the state administration exert to ensure our safety, and assure us of peace in times of turmoil. The March 5 incident was a blot on the face of a Christian people; it took just one day to flush down the toilet our much-touted Christian history.
The Naga Blog – a 60,000 member community of professionals, achievers, and youths from Nagaland, Northeast, India and abroad– have not stopped mourning the scar, the wound on our minds and history that the sad day inflicted on each of us remains. May our lives heal and give us wisdom.Even as we mourn that ignominy, we also mourn –with shock– the fact that some of our police authorities have begun to trample the entire paddy field in the name of trying to find the rodent.
The Naga Blog is not a new community; over the years since 2008, the online forum has been at the forefront of charity initiatives, social building, and welfare outreach. But the pursuit of social well-being has always been only a part of our greater pursuit for a higher appreciation of democratic values, respect for fellowmen and above all, Human Rights.
The Naga Blog is the first online Naga community to have a filtering / screening mechanism. Not only during the traumatizing week of March first week were we censoring posts (opinions expressed by others on the internet are called ‘posts’) images, videos, or attempts at fomenting sectarian sentiments that could potentially aggravate the situation.
For information of the public, even during the week, we even appealed to our political and community leaders and achievers not to comment on the matter or case but leave it to the police and court so that the situation would not aggravate due to careless opinions anywhere – in TV or newspapers or in the social media. That post is still there.
Our mission:
• We have been doing so since 2008: even during the exodus in 2012 when communal elements in India attempted to break down good sense and sow bloodshed against Northeastern peoples living in India, we were there screening every inimical post, image or visual.
• The same we have been doing since the night of March 5: We have been rejecting any posts and multimedia to discourage people from using the forum in any manner that would stir communal sentiments, or aggravate situations, or foment undemocratic actions.
The Naga Blog has been the chief forum of the Naga community since 2008 (when we were slowing warming to this new phenomenon called the internet). The Naga Blog’s charity missions are not new to even the media. Among the several missions, here is a list of just a few initiatives which The Naga Blog has taken up:
Sikkim Earthquake Relief (September 2011) where bloggers from all over collected Rs 1,59,455 with messages from contributors were handed over to India football star Bhaichung Bhutia and P. Renedy Singh
This blog has been a major source for promoting and acknowledging our entrepreneurs, innovators and achievers where the Government might have overlooked and missed out.
TNB Cycling Club (2013) which is also an offshoot of The Naga Blog has built a foundation for the younger generation to pursue a healthy green lifestyle.
The Naga Blog Online Blood Donation has been one of the most unique indigenous initiative, where hundreds of blood donors have listed their names, blood group and phone numbers. Through this initiative bloggers have been able to reach out to people during emergencies and donated blood for free.
Online Lost and Found initiative, where many people have found their lost items from wallets to documents to ATM cards.
Career Counselling initiative where our professionals from around the world provide free career counselling to our young students.
Burma Camp Fire Relief where bloggers collected cash and some bloggers also contributed two sacks of clothes. Volunteers from Dimapur led by Kevin Yepthomi purchased 55 blankets, 10 bags of rice, 7 bags of potatoes and 4 bags of dal for the victims.
Mon Fire Tragedy: The Naga Blog and NOOBS (Nagaland open online barter or sell) collected relief materials, cash and led by the admins drove to the fire ravaged villages in Mon district to help the victims of the fire tragedy.
The Naga Blog has also been an active part of the Election Commission of India’s SVEEP campaign to sensitive the people about mass sensitization on Clean Election across the State.
Dimapur Civil Hospital: Bloggers came together to clean and renovate the Dimapur Civil Hospital to give out an example that instead of always pointing our fingers at the problems and the Government, we can also start solving these problems by taking our own initiatives.
The above are just a few initiatives from among the several other campaigns which the blog has undertaken.
Members:
• Indeed, we are a group of professionals of around 60,000 members: from scientists to engineers and musicians from around the world, editors, writers, and journalists to even GBs and community leaders, bureaucrats to politicians, to Naga students from as far as Burma are members of The Naga Blog!
• Our state machinery are apparently modern and so are our police force – you have the resources and the mechanism and see the proof yourself. Any member of the group knows that the forum does not allow any sectarian ambitions, communal or tribal comments, personal attacks or graphic images. We even filter spam links!
In fact, anyone who knows what the internet is also knows that there are literally millions of ways they can use it for negative movements. In fact, we hope this doesn’t surprise you (we believe you know much more about the internet more than we do):
The Internet community:
• They don’t need to be a member of The Naga Blog or Facebook to further their cause! Anyone – we repeat anyone – can create any number of page / groups and profiles (even millions of pages in one night, we are serious!), and carry out their agenda! That is Facebook. That is internet.
• Likewise, antisocial elements do not even have to be a member of Facebook! They can go and create any number (repeat, any number) of free blog communities to carry out their agenda. It doesn’t even cost money to have your own site. A person can literally have literally thousands of forums, free blog and groups – if he has the time to create that many groups! That is the internet. One can create thousands of groups or pages or private profiles with any name, objective or intention anytime, anywhere so long as he has access to the internet – and time.
• One need not be a member of Facebook or The Naga Blog to sow hatred, foment communal sentiments against communities, or create vendetta against individuals and sow bloodshed! There are more than 4 millions websites on the internet (That is not counting the possible thousands of groups and pages within each of them just like a single website website, Facebook, has)
We feel more than hurt that with the extent of resources and ‘knowledge’ about the world our government leaders and authorities are thought to have, they would offer to single out a few groups to ‘block’ without even knowing what values they stand for, and what objective for the society’s well-being they have been pursuing for years.
Our request:
We request our esteemed authorities to take some time to acquaint with the behavior and dynamics of virtual interaction of our community. Anyone can be a member of any online community – Facebook is just one tiny part of the internet. A person can literally be a member of any group whether it was Facebook to Google or Yahoo or Technorati or Telegraph. There are more than 4 millions websites on the internet (That is not counting the possible thousands of groups and pages within each of them just like a single website website, Facebook, has)
Just as it is illogical to ban a mobile company because a criminal had used their mobile network to commit a crime, similarly singling out few groups on Facebook just because a few bad apples happened to have loitered inside during sensitive times has tarnished our image at a national and international level where people outside are unaware of what The Naga Blog has actually contributed to our Naga society. We are hurt to be made scapegoats when the entire herd was only sheep. It has embarrassed us in the face of knowledgeable people.
We request our state government and the law enforcement to kindly take time to study our contention and our precedence, before censuring The Naga Blog (or any other group whether it is on Facebook or Google). We repeat, antisocial elements do not even need Facebook to start their own online websites to plant disease into our society.
We continue to stand for what is good, productive, peaceful and democratic. Our cooperation and support to the investigation agencies and stakeholders continue. We hope that our land and people heal.
