The Future of Zomi Politics: My Perspective
C.S Dal – Speech on the 68th Zomi National Day, London; 20th February 2016
Thank you very much chairman – today I am very honoured to be here with you to celebrate and commemorate this special day of the Zomi National Day. Special thanks you to those who have taken great effort to make this happens.
About two years ago, our very own friend Dr. Bianca Son, completed her ground breaking research on the Zo history investigating and arguing that ‘The Chin of Burma and the Lushai and Kuki of India’ all belong to one ethnicity called the Zo. The evidence was so compelling and convincing that the exam board passed her paper without any correction. Many academic scholars before her had done similar research on our true identity but none has been as conclusive and compelling as her paper. So in the academic world, Zo people or Zomi has been firmly cemented as our common identity but we still need to make it in the real world.
When we were young, we all used to dream of some crazy things, great things that we’d like to do, to become when we grew up. The same for me, when I was young, I dreamed and talked a lot about great things, particularly how to modernise and develop our land, and how to unite all the Zo people (Zomi) under one administrative governance. As I grew up, I have become very passionate and involved in a number of social and political activities in order to pursue my childhood dream.
I am sure I am not alone in this – many of you might have done the same. Clearly, we have had many great leaders, past and present, who have tried to achieve exactly. I believe our fore fathers dreamed of the very same thing 68 years ago when they joined together to deny colonialism and feudalism. Instead they chose freedom in the hope that it’d bring greater prosperity and autonomy for our people.
As we celebrate the Zomi National Day today, it is worth to look back how far we have travelled since that time in terms of economic development and political rights. But I have to admit there has not been very much to talk about in that regard.
It has been almost 70 years now, our land is still not flourishing; the land, rivers and forests bequeathed to us by our ancestors have been exploited. Our economy is obsolete and is wasting the little energy we have available while we are lacking the things we need. A high proportion of the population lives on less than $1 a day (defined as extreme poverty under the UN definition). These people cannot afford to have enough food and decent shelters. Today poverty has remained our number one enemy.
70 years on now and, basic infrastructures and services such as roads, hospitals and schools, electricity, and communications are still woefully inadequate, leaving our people behind the rest of our respective countries. Underinvestment in education and healthcare means a large proportion of our people don’t have or can’t afford to have basic education and primary healthcare and as such illiteracy rate and mortality rate remain the highest in the countries today.
Politically, we are still not free from the chains of oppression and discriminations. Even worse, our own identity and very existence are still at risk. Especially it’s more evident in the Burmese side. Until recently, we were still denied from effective participation in public and economic life. Our rights as a human being as well as an ethnic group have been severely violated and denied in some instances.
But for me, the worst thing is we live in what a Ukrainian writer Havel called a ‘contaminated environment’ – because the enormous creativity and potential we have in our people have been abused and suppressed. As a result, we all lose confidence in ourselves, our cultures, and our identity. The lack of confidence makes us more pessimistic about ourselves and the situations in which we grow up. Consequently, we have learned not to believe in anything we have, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us those concepts only apply within our own tribe, clan and denomination or family.
That’s one of the very reasons why our land is still troubled by constant tribal politics and conflicts today. The ethnic conflicts have contributed to most of the political unrest, economical instability and social insecurity in the region. Unless we restore confidence in ourselves we won’t be able to respect other.
However, on the positive side, I think there are three main reasons why we should all be optimistic about our future. First of all, our people are never just a product of what other people have made. As we become more educated and better informed, we are able to relate ourselves to something superior than what other people have made. We are no longer afraid of doing what is right for us. For instance, currently our people are standing firmly against the three bills introduced in the Manipur Parliament.
Secondly, in recent years, the wind of change has blown through our land, whether we like it or not. We have seen the awakening of national consciousness among our people who have for more than a century lived in dependence upon some other power. We now want to be more independent.
Finally, there is a renewed belief among our people enforced by the political transformation happening in Burma. This is because under the military regime, we have been completely cut off from one another. For example, think about the East and West Berlin, the same people and family within the same city but divided by two different political systems. Now that Burma has become a bit more democratic and as such the political stability and economic development there will be crucial in supporting our cause. More encouraging for us is the success of ZCD (Zomi Congress for Democracy) in Burma’s recent elections, which has brought a breath of fresh air to many Zo people.
That being said, our future is not an easy one but the one we should not fail to take. It will be a nonstop striving so that we might fulfil the dream we all share one day. We have to work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for the Zo people and working for the Zo people means helping the many who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and diseases and inequality of opportunity.
As we move forward now, we will need three things. First, we need a strategic plan at the top level that is politically legitimate, economically credible and socially acceptable. Second, we need greater integration at all levels. Particularly greater integration among our people and it’s through greater social integration at individual level that will bring political closeness at the top level. Not the other way around. Any attempt without greater social integration will be premature and can backfire.
Last but not the least, we will need to empower and strengthen our people even further because people are the greatest asset we have. This will boost our morale and confidence in ourselves. This is most important because only a person or a nation that is self-confident is capable of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt. Let us try to introduce this kind of self-confidence into the life of our community and, as a Zo nation probably one day, into our behaviour on the international stage. Only thus can we restore our self-respect and our respect for one another as well as the respect of other people.
