{"id":684,"date":"2010-12-30T15:08:08","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T19:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/blog\/peacebuilder\/?p=684"},"modified":"2011-03-16T14:12:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T18:12:08","slug":"akum-longchari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2010\/12\/akum-longchari\/","title":{"rendered":"Co-founder & managing director of daily newspaper in Nagaland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ak\u00fcm Longchari, MA \u201900<\/h3>\n

Dimapur, Nagaland<\/h4>\n

(far northeastern India on maps)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To have any understanding of Ak\u00fcm Longchari\u2019s work, one must have some knowledge of his people, the indigenous Nagas, of his homeland, Nagaland.<\/p>\n

Nagaland is located between Burma, China and Bangladesh. For political and safety reasons, tourist visas are difficult to come by. Blogging on www.world66.com, one visitor wrote: \u201cNature could not have been kinder to Nagaland, the exquisitely picturesque landscape, the vibrantly colorful sunrise and sunset, lush and verdant flora, this is a land that represents unimaginable beauty, molded perfectly for a breathtaking experience.\u201d The blogger spoke of Nagaland containing 35 major tribes and subtribes, each with \u201cits own customs, language and dress.\u201d Each tribe can be \u201ceasily distinguished by the colorful and intricately designed costumes, jewelry and beads that they wear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let us clarify here that Ak\u00fcm Longchari is not a mountaintop-dwelling tribesman easily distinguished by his \u201ccostumes and beads.\u201d Wearing factory-made clothing like most urbanites, Ak\u00fcm has regularly attended, and led, peace-themed and human rights workshops in India and around the world.<\/p>\n

In addition to his MA in conflict transformation from EMU, he holds a law degree from a university in New Delhi. He has been a scholar at the Caux Institute in Switzerland and a fellow with the Salzburg Seminar. He is a PhD candidate at the University of New England in Australia, where his research focuses on the right to self-determination as a resource for peace.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Parts of Ak\u00fcm\u2019s homeland fell under British administration in the 1800s. During this period, Christian missionaries assiduously converted the majority of Nagas. Today more than 90% of Nagas are practicing Christians, predominantly Baptists with some Catholics and other denominations. The official language of education and inter-country communication is English.<\/p>\n

Thus, in addition to its distant location from subcontinental India, Nagaland is set apart from India by: the prevalence of Christianity, rather than Hinduism; the dominant use of the English language, rather than Hindi; and the Nagas\u2019 status as indigenous people who look and act differently from Indians.<\/p>\n

The entire northeast region has been embroiled in violent conflict at various points since the early 1900s. In 1997, a bilateral ceasefire agreement was signed with India\u2019s central government to enable political negotiations to take place. Open warfare has subsided, but fundamental issues remain unresolved.<\/p>\n

Ak\u00fcm paints this picture of the current situation: Nagaland has experienced human rights violations and heavy militarization, which has caused the social networks to collapse, especially during the past 60 years. This has displaced people from their land and created further divisions among the indigenous groups. There has been considerable bloodshed along tribal and political lines among the Nagas. The Indian government does not address the problems that fuel the violence, including: the government\u2019s oppressive conduct; high unemployment; poor health care; and a weak infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Where does Ak\u00fcm personally fit into this picture? Ak\u00fcm is known in his homeland for his emphasis on all parties taking responsibility for past harms, listening to each other\u2019s truths, and working toward reconciliation in the interests of the well-being of all. He does not demonize the Indian government, but he does ask it to be \u201caccountable,\u201d so that a political solution can be found to the Naga struggle for self-determination.<\/p>\n

Ak\u00fcm says he has been dedicated to nonviolent approaches to addressing wrongs and injustices since an early age. He was formerly with the Naga People\u2019s Movement for Human Rights, which initiated people-to-people dialoguing and the \u201cJourney of Conscience\u201d \u2013 a nonviolent campaign for peace by Naga civil society groups.<\/p>\n

One of the ways Ak\u00fcm manifests his philosophy is through the English-language newspaper he co-founded in 2005, The Morung Express<\/em>. It has, he says, a \u201cjustpeace\u201d approach to journalism. In September 2010, Ak\u00fcm was honored for his peace work at the North East [India] Regional Youth Peace Festival.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Ak\u00fcm and other representatives of civil society organizations formed the Naga Forum for Reconciliation, with support from members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain and members of the American Baptist Church. The forum seeks to reconcile various Naga armed groups on the basis of the historical and political rights of the Nagas. The forum has been meeting with militant groups for nearly two years. According to one participant, the groups have moved from \u201cviolence, uncertainty, mistrust and fear\u201d to a situation of \u201cfragile and yet substantive progress, with decreased violence.\u201d General meetings are held in a third country and symbolic events, such as soccer matches involving teams of players from different groups, have been instrumental for paving the way toward reconciliation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ak\u00fcm Longchari, MA \u201900 Dimapur, Nagaland (far northeastern India on maps) To have any understanding of Ak\u00fcm Longchari\u2019s work, one must have some knowledge of… Read more about Co-founder & managing director of daily newspaper in Nagaland<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38,113,291,465,466,467,648],"issues":[6],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources","tag-akum-longchari","tag-caux-institute","tag-india","tag-naga-forum-for-reconciliation","tag-naga-peoples-movement-for-human-rights","tag-nagaland","tag-the-morung-express","issues-fall-winter-2010-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2170,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions\/2170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}