Zogam 2050: A Vision ~ Haulianlal Guite, IAS
I have a vision. A vision of Zogam that shall one day come to pass. A vision on how we may properly conduct ourselves in a thousand different ways, excelling in all fields of endeavor, despite living in a changing world we increasingly feel it difficult to understand. A vision of times in which, whatever we pursue, think and feel, trade and exchange, write and play, laugh, love and sorrow…we do these, and more, in such splendid ways ours perhaps rival the glory of classical Greece.
And what is my vision?
I. I envision a Zomian world where our Economy is predominantly Service-based, knowledge-and-skill-driven.
Where our skills and labor contribute to building such services like:
- an IT sector, as prosperous as any;
- creation of software rivaling the country’s best;
- finance and banking, indulging the rich and alleviating the poor;
- media and sports, with all forms of entertainment;
- tourism and healthcare; retail and real estate;
- literary production, education and expertise.
All of these driving our economy rather than getting our poor bodies drilled to such destructive and unprofitable primary-secondary activities exploiting natural resources, like: hunting, fishing, agriculture, horticulture, lumbering and mining. Or even oil and other polluting industries, which may glitter at first sight, but on closer inspection, are known to be poisonous for our long-term survival.
I dream, that is, the rise of a business, burgeoning middle class out of our poorest lot, who shall look beyond the square meal and passionately desire to prosper. Of the birth of BPO workers, of software engineers, of IT entrepreneurs, of service providers, of bankers and financiers, of managers and designers, of intellectuals and academicians, in the heart of Zogam itself…each contributing in their own ways to:
- increasing our purchasing power, our per capita, our standard of living;
- ending poverty and minimizing unemployment;
- injecting reasonably proper material comforts and
- all the varied modern amenities into the lower stratum of our society.
II. I envision a Zomian world where our Academia is populated with masters in their own fields. An academia filled with first-rate philosophers and thinkers, psychologists and neurologists, anthropologists and sociologists, mathematicians and physicists, biologists and experimenters, historians and writers.
An academia in which the collective genius of our intellects are properly channeled towards extending and enlarging our cultural horizons, adding to the richness of our worldviews and improving them so they grow in myriad ways.
In other words, the rise of an intellectual class directly engaged in restoring our tribal cultures to full health, abetting and leading in its expansive growth.
III. I envision a Zomian world where our Artists and Entertainers are counted among the best in any generation.
Original in their paintings, in the hue of their colors; creative in their plays and compositions; bold in their architecture and finesse; courageous in the lyre of their songs and the thunder of their music; lascivious in designing fabrics, wares and artistry; tearing and disturbing in the sheer depth of their poetries, drilling into our very souls.
I have a vision, that is, of our artists and entertainers:
- composing dramas, comedies, tragedies and plays; legends, tales and folklore; poetries, epics and lyrics; movies, shows, films and documentaries, which sing the saga of our people in all its colors from days of yore to our own …and which stand mighty as literary monuments heralding the coming of our very own classical age;
- constructing sumptuous parks and gardens where families can picnic and our children play; colossal halls and malls satiating our material desires; glistening cathedrals, pavements and roads that shall be our infrastructural pride…adorning in beauteous manifold our beloved Lamka with its bold architecture, brazenly trailblazing, innovative and yet, essentially tribal;
- designing software that sweetly attune to our highland tastes; fabrics and dresses inventively conjured in its texture, lining and thread; leather bags and pants, furniture, jewelries, watches and mobiles, even computers being craftily modeled in such uniquely novel ways their external, visible motifs are all identifiable as ours own and no one else’s;
- performing tribal dances, plays and theatricals; entertaining our holidays, weary nights and dull weekends with countless melodies sung by the grandest singers and tuned to a dozen instruments by the finest musicians, relieving, intensely, our boredom, the week’s burden of work and satisfying our aesthetic tastes;
- playing as champions the various sports that conquer the imagination and dross of mankind: such sports as are being touted with the feet (football), the hand and wood (cricket), in the arena (boxing and fencing), and more; producing champions towering to such splendid heights they capture the world’s breath and become our ambassadors to the outside world.
IV. I envision a Zomian world where our educational institutions provide Education, whole and real. Education that truly cultivates our minds and train its students to excel among mankind in whatever we do.
An educational system, that is, in which schools and teachers compete to produce, not the best results in the annual exams, but the most educated literati who shall never loss the temptation to learn more, whose thirst for knowledge shall be unquenchable.
An educational system that shall, as the days progress to years and adolescence give way to adulthood, produce the brightest:
- mathematicians, philosophers, scientists, academics and scholars;
- engineers, technocrats and builders;
- doctors, nurses and midwives who save and extend our lives, sorrowful though they maybe;
- businessmen, managers and entrepreneurs whose presence strike chords in the global scale.
Where our religious leaders know and preach the difference between faith and culture, respecting at a fair distance our traditional customs and rituals. Whereby we cease from following Western practices as if they are divinely ordained – when in fact their origin is human (and Anglophone at that).
I dream, that is, of a Zogam, in which churches do not impose Western ways:
- in the procession of our wedding ceremonies, thus respecting our traditional customs and rites of passage;
- in the practice of our burial and funeral rites, by tolerating other forms of burial and funerary;
- in the assembly of our purely social functions and conferences, that social matters may be conducted socially rather than religiously;
- in the structuring of our non-religious institutions, following the separation of church and state, in such a way religion is separated from secular education;
- in the construction of our chapels and cathedrals, whereby new architecture wholly conjured by our architects, shall be the makeup of our worship places;
- in the ordaining of dress codes, where we have at long last done away with Western formals in favor of our own invented codes.
In other words, churches allowing our own tribal cultures to enrich our religious practices rather than being still entomb in Western culture.
VI. I envision a Zomian world where politicians become Statesmen, freely and fairly elected, catering to the poorest lot and the remotest plot – regardless of who, what or which party they support.
Statesmen who:
- formulate policies that allow the market to freely and fairly thrive rather than be enmeshed in artificial pricing or be involved in controlling the production, transportation and distribution of goods and services that maim the market order;
- do not interfere in implementation of the policies they formulate, allowing administrators to efficiently function, so that the needy citizen may get what he is due at the opportune time, according to the law and in due process of the law;
- are learned enough to know the difference between the consequential and inconsequential matters, practical enough to make the choice between them, courageously choosing the matters that truly matter, and expending, ultimately, the full gamut of their energies toward their realization, in order that the last mile and the poorest man may benefit from just, benevolent governance;
- are visionaries passionate about reviving our dying culture, hearing the wisdom of our elders and listening to the knowledge of our intellectuals; and doing all they can to save our dying breed. So that all our dreams for Zogam, all that makes us unique and distinct, all that give us an identity separating us from the rest of mankind…may truly find fruition…and the cultural invasion of the West, may be successfully contained for many generations hence.
VII. I envision a Zomian world with a strong, responsible and independent Mass Media whose duty it shall be to report accurately, descriptively and comprehensively on at least every issue of importance.
Reporting on civil and academic matters; on socio-political issues; on economic and cultural concerns; on the activities of the state, the church, the academia, the civil society, the market; and on general current affairs. A world in which journalists and media persons – via the 7 mass media – tell the happenings among ourselves and outside.
Because, this 4th estate feeds the people with information absolutely essential:
- for the proper functioning of democracy, including conduct of elections;
- to ensure the swift, timely implementation of policies;
- for righting the wrongs of malafide actions public servants, corporates,
savants, sages and saints indulge in;
- to create awareness of peoples beyond us, so we may learn from them;
- for distilling esoteric knowledge of the pundits in exoteric language,
that the ignorance of the laymen may ever be lifted;
- to assist in the successful widespread of our culture and lifestyles; and
- for enriching our lives with all the phenomena making up our shared reality.
VIII. I envision a Zomian world where Our People of every age and place, wherever we are, retreat from the laziness of mind, the sloth of senses and the lethargy of our body.
A Zomian world in which the majority dares to dream and strive to excel. Competing, not just among ourselves, but with the best in the world in whatever field; believing in the potency of our intellect and skill, realizing our potential and finding for them the proper outlets. Of a people who become industrious, tenacious and courageous: doing all things necessary to succeed, ever persevering to reach our respective goals, and not afraid to take a stand on that which is right.
A people composed of leaders and followers, creators and imitators, thinkers and doers, critics and cynics, optimists and pessimists, and skeptics, who play their roles in earnest, in order that the best ideas and practices, and the noblest achievements, may rule the roost of our Zomian world.
I do not need to be told how fantastic these ambitions are, or how overgrown its very conception. I only hope that when history hence plays out its zillion themes, and string the subtle notes that make life worth living, we may have our hands on them too; in order that, on retiring from the world’s scene, when our bodies be laid to rest, we shall leave behind footprints our children shall follow – and in following, lead them to the world we envision herein.
Thus, while admitting the well-nigh insurmountable barriers almost certain to halt our journey towards the aforementioned glories, I hope and do pray that the Almighty steer us on that course whereby we tenaciously pursue these goals for as long as we shall live.
Truly these dreams are tall, perhaps overly so, even for the daring soul. But dreaming we have, for they are in the realm of possible, no matter how improbable.
Possible, I say. How so?
In what follows we shall see how these 8 visions may be achieved – by us, sons of Zo.
Contents: The Visions:
Vision 1: Service-based Market Economy
Vision 2: Cultured Academia
Vision 3: World-class Artists and Entertainers
Vision 4: Sound Educational System
Vision 5: Tolerant, Understanding Churches
Vision 6: Statesmen
Vision 7: Mass Media
Vision 8: Tribal Excellence
[to be continued]