Mhaphüvi Naleo
What is meant by liberation? It simply means ‘being free’- having a right or privilege. From the Biblical perspective, it is deliverance or redemption from any barriers that hinder one’s relationship with God and fellow being, It also denotes the very notion that one is no more under the bondage of sin and the barriers that divide us, For In Christ whether Jews or Gentiles we are all one and that we are given a new commandment Love one another. Christians are to witness this as every believer has a share to proclaim the good news.
Nagas have a big share in this mandate because Christians are in majority. A state or a society which is mostly Christians must surely live out the Kingdom of God virtues- Love, peace, truth, joy, righteousness. Because by seeing these virtues in a society, others will also see the beauty of Christ. These virtues are not a philosophical idea nor to be experienced life afterwards. It is neither about a Marxist Utopia nor the paradise of angels. But in a real world these virtues are seen, experienced and lived out. We cannot keep on fooling ourselves without experiencing and seeing these virtues in our society because no one dares to renounce his or her Christian Identity. Killing, nepotism, extortion, corruption, injustice, pride and selfishness should and must not be in a society where the majority is Christians. If there is no truth, peace, love, justice and righteousness then let us be ashamed of being a Christian because the end result and our witness is just religious fanaticism. We will not be better than the religiosity of the Pharisees and the secularity of the Sadducees.
Development does not satisfy our inner longings. Development without developing peace, truth, justice and love is just like pleasing a child to give him or her toy without teaching him or her how to live as someone in the society. Killing and corruption has been filling up the gap of our newspapers everyday. Have we not experienced the reconciliation that Jesus has done for us? If we are truly Christian, then we do not have an enemy. Our only enemy is the devil who is always active to snatch us from the grace of God. Human beings are not our enemy. God is concerned for everyone and each one is worth before Him, Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNO) holds that all human beings are born free, and have equal dignity and rights, This does not mean right or free to take life and oppressed others at the expense of having a right. Rather it is legitimate that having a right and dignity is to live for others and considering others as equally worth to oneself. It is enough now to attack the person rather we should attack the problems that weaken us and confront before they destroy us. And it is worth weeping if we do not know the meaning of life and the suffering of the people. We do not need a better ideology from anyone to lead our generation but we want what is true, love, peace, justice and righteousness. Please identify with our suffering, longing and fears of tomorrow. We do not want our history to be a record of only development or of killing, corruption and evils of this age. Rather we want our history to be a record of ‘free from killing, corruption, and over comers of injustice and evils’. If the people cannot trust their leaders, then where is the hope for the hopeless?
To our bureaucrats and leaders of various organizations, we want truth, security, justice and righteousness rather than a better ideology, corruption and nepotism. We want you to lead us back to the biblical teaching and the pure democracy where our forefathers had practiced and once lived with it. Development does not in total sense meant utopia even for Marxist or any political government or for Christians. We do not want Nagaland to be only of developing infrastructures ¬mansions and a city built of gold, but at the same time we also want Nagaland to be a land where Nagas and outsiders experienced truth, love, honesty, peace, Justice and righteousness. The legacy and morality of the Nagas are in pathetic apology already. God has ordered the state to function for his purpose- justice and peace. And so you are the ministers of God (not to be confused with Christian ministers) by virtue of being serving his purpose (John Howard Yoder: The Politics of Jesus). We want you not only to distinguish what is right and wrong in this ministry but also to confront what is going wrong in our society and in our governance.
To our church leaders, we want you to lead us into the church which Christ was talking about in the scripture. Let the Church be prophetic and not the watchman of the status quo.
To our freedom fighters, we want you to consider the other group as your brothers and sisters who are also human, created in the image of God and have a right to live peacefully just like us. Do you think you are a good friend of others or by having ceasefire agreement with the government of India when you cannot even reconcile with your own brothers and sisters. We cannot pretend for long to be a good person or good leaders when our own broken family is not restored yet. If needed be we have to show and teach the mighty Indian about the Gandhian principle of Non-violence or Civil Disobedience Movement and not killings or divide and rule policy.
It will be of shame to call ourselves as civilized people when there is killing, corruption, nepotism, injustice every day and when people are afraid of their future history. For others know better than us, of where we are and what we are today and will be tomorrow. Who knows, may be God is withholding us back to be an independent people because He wants us to be a liberated community in the first place. Therefore, to be liberated is to be free from all the barriers that weaken us and that holds our future blurred. For this are the destiny of humankind and the purpose of God, created us in His image.
Mhaphüvi Naleo
Shalom Bible Seminary,
Sechüma, Nagaland
