The Moral Test

The Moral Test: The Death of Morality in Chin Society

December 2003।

Abstract: It may be easier to write praising people’s goodness andachievement, but also is necessary that someone volunteer to point out thenegative aspect of the people that might be devastating against the well being of the people। This article describes the moral aspect of the Chin society and its negative impact on the people। For anyone who does really care about the moral well being of the Chin people, it might be interesting to read it and digest it and come up with his or her own thesis on the issues। And any comment, argument, and reflection is most welcome for further development of thought and knowledge.Samuel Johnson once said, “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” There is always a powerful force that moves the people to act or not to act in a certain way and when that force is lacking the people move along any direction where their conditionally motivated emotion lead them, just like the fallen leafs and the dust on the ground flying wherever the wind blows them. Likewise, when human society faces a moral destruction and when the standing moral trend is completely destroyed by any kind of historical pitfall, the people wonder like sheepwithout a shepherd in the jungle. Moreover, when such moral accelerator islacking, a person acts or not act like a sick person that left an individualhopeless becoming alcoholic, self-abuser, and obsess. On the other hand,loosing a moral control opens the exploration of human explosive stupiditythat can cause an enormous moral setback in human society. And it is, like acancer illness, very dangerous and painful for the healthy growth of thesociety as well as for the individuals to be grown up from such sick socialenvironment. Moreover, its recovery is more difficult and painstaking thanpolitical and economic reconstruction. It’s also worth to mention people’ssaying, “When money is lost, nothing is lost. But when character is lost,everything is lost.” When political rights are lost, national sovereignty islost. And when a moral trend is lost, human dignity is lost.Looking back to Chin history, since before Christianity was introducedby the western missionaries, although there were necessary social evils, ourforefathers were well known in moral courage, moral dignity, honesty anddiligence. The belief system of the society was solidly founded thatthoroughly dictated the individual’s moral decision-making. In a socialoutlook, fear, shame, and honor were the driving force of every individual inthe society that every body acted in accordance with the unwritten generalmoral norms of the society. The “fear’ here does not mean timidity, but thefear of the society’s condemnation for stepping out of the commonnorms. “Shame” means, shame of the society’s humiliation for stepping out of the common norms. And “honor” for good work and courage was also a powerfuldriving force that motivated people to act or not to act in a certain way.Mostly, Chin people believed in the existence of the law of nature-theabsolute truth. And breaking the law of nature was believed to be punishableby death by God or by the super natural being. For example, adultery wasbelieved to be absolutely wrong and was punishable by death: death by aTiger’s bite. Likewise, murder, stealing, telling lie were believed to becondemnable with serious punishment. Not only the fear of the humiliation of the society, there was fear of punishment by God or supernatural being. Every action was judged by the moral standard of the commonly accepted principles and by the law of nature. After the introduction of Christianity, the Chin people’s underpinning moral principles were not destroyed but transformed intoGod-centered belief, eliminating many of the previous system’s social evils.As the civil war had been continuing until the British colonization, when theBritish first came to the region, there was no much outside moral influenceamong Chin people, but the traditional and ancient belief system underlinedthe standing value system.As a result of the lost in war and the British colonization, Chinpeople lost their national pride and their value system was changed into self-diminishing under the influence of the powerful western colonizers, believing that whatever the westerners had or believed was superior to theirs. Of course, due to the civilization gap and differences in human development, they were socially, politically, and economically inferior to the westerners, butprobably not in human essence. It was unfortunate that Chin people’s land was divided into three political regions: India, Burma, and Bangladesh thatminimized the human power of the great Chin society. Although the British must bore the political responsibility and blame for dividing the land into three, the westerners’ sacrifices in christianizing the society was a historicalparamount that has saved the Chin people from racial and culturalassimilation. It is assumed that due to the civilization gap, the westerners’cultural intrusion was insignificant as much as expected. On the other hand,the British rule opened opportunity for many Chin leaders to interact withneighboring people group, that was when the cultural explosion begun among Chin people.Although there were political alteration and social moderation duringthe British rule and the Burma democratic rule, the traditional value systemhad not been completely destroyed until 1970s and 80s. The leaders of 1940s,50s and 60s were raised up within the Chin traditional society withtraditional value system that the social cultural exchanges simply modifiedthe societal norms and enhanced the better part of the societal elements. They were economically poor, but rich in moral character. However, the latergeneration suffered the moral intrusion of the Burmese Burmanization-asystematic racial cultural assimilation program. The Chin society waspolitically, socially, and culturally unable to prevent the moral intrusion ofthe Burmese Burmanization, especially since the rule of the Burmese regime(1960-current). As the Chin societal leadership system was destroyed, thesocial system was also completely destroyed as a result of the perils of theregime government system. The value system, the moral underpinning principlesand the whole belief system no longer exist as the moral foundation forindividual decision-making. The Chin people’s moral trend was forgotten andreplaced by the compromise and uncertain self-centered human curiosity. Thetraditional sense of civic duty and moral obligation were replaced by the so-called “Myanmah-Ni-Myanmah-Han” that overwhelmed people with bama-centeredself-gratifying thought. The most precious elements of the societal propriety-the intrinsic moral purity-was replaced by a contaminated thought system.As the valued leadership system was destroyed, there has been nocommonly accepted leadership concept: who should be respected as leaders inthe society. Many are left to wait the resurrection of the death lion andunwilling to accept any pop-up leader. At the same time, some are left withtheir painful memories of the past. Especially after 1988, people fear to beappointed by the regime government as the leader in the community. Because,appointed leader in the community only means being the administrative agent ofthe Bama armies, having no legitimate authority. In the moral aspect, at theworse, the younger generation has been grown up with the attitude of hatredtoward leadership in the society, longing something better than what theyhave: a democratic rule, without a chance to develop a democratic way ofthinking within themselves. It means, although many of our depressed peoplesing “Democracy” like a beautiful song, in reality, they have been brought upunder an anti-democratic thought system. That means egoistic mindset, losingthe Chin traditional altruism, promoting antagonistic instead of civicmutualism. That is true not only to the Chin society, but also to the wholepopulation of Burma. One of the weaknesses among the recent democraticactivists is that the activists themselves lack a democratic politicalthinking: political tolerance without extreme hatred toward politicaldissents, which is essential political nature for the existence and a healthygrowth of a democratic society. Overall, having no such moral underpinningleadership concept within a collapsed system, people are forced by the powerof self-survival-necessity. That, generally speaking, in politics, economics,and social, self-survival even with the expense of others’ lives or publicgood becomes a very common practice, without any moral constraint, among theChins as well as among all Burmese.Many people might have thought that the economic devastation as themost destructive to the society what the Burmese regime has done, but comparedto the moral intrusion, all other impacts are much easier to reconstruct whenthe political system is opened for such changes. However, the moral decay thathas erupted the people’s minds cannot be easily repaired. Because, society’sthought system is socially constructed throughout the social evolution of therespective society and when any particular thought system is permanentlyfixed, hardwired, programmed, and gradually framed in people’s mind it isimpossible to reframe or reprogram within a decade or two, unless theoverwhelming social cultural revolution occurs, for which kind history has noevidence of signs of such event to take place in a near future. Some might have thought that the academic learningexperiences in the western countries or any democratic society automaticallycorrects the moral decay of a person. But that is not true, without asystematic transformation of a person’s thought system; the superficialintellectual knowledge simply develops and modifies the outward social skills. On the otherhand, without a true internal transformation, the superficial intellectualknowledge simply makes a person cleverer to defense his or her stance even to defense a deadly erred action. Thereare several examples among the regime leaders, such as Dr. Maung Maung, Bo Khin Ngut, to name a few. To change such fixed thought system in the mind ofthe people, it is possible only when reconstructed socially and gradually thattakes time and requires intellectual and social capital. Therefore, it ispredictable for the people of Burma when a new system of thought is believed to be re-instituted when a democratic rule is implemented that the nation will face more troubles caused by moral corruption than political strategic issues.The democratic fighters who have vowed to give their precious lives for thesake of the people of Burma proved that they are patriots of this generation.They delay no time to stand against the regime government and many have paid the price that they should be remembered with honor. However, what was lacking among the stronghold of the anti-regime government? People do sacrifice anything they have, but not their ideas, the ideas produced by their fixedthought system that had been hardwired throughout the regime’s reign. Ofcourse, no doubt, there are some (or many) whose minds have intellectuallyovercome such corrupted thought system and think democratically, and while others, whose ignorance leaves them slow to learn the crookedness of the regime’s moralintrusion, if there are some, may have remain as honest as the people of Amazon. After havingbeen hardwired with such authoritarian thought system, it is almost impossibleto jump out of one’s mind and think independent of one’s own subjectivity.Even among Christians and Buddhists, who have claimed to have beliefs in theexistence of the law of nature and of God, there are many who happened to makemoral decision in accordance with the law of subjectivism, and, sadly, defendtheir own ideas and action even more than they would defend the interest ofthe common people. In such a way, many have gained political capital, andthose capitals are spent for the defense of their own ideas and are willing todefense their own stance even with the expense of the best of others and even at the expense of public interest. Sad, but true. It isalways true wherever there is no moral underpinning principles in the societythat every social, political, and economic capital are spent for the defenseof the interests of those who have controlled all chances and opportunities to exploit those chances and opportunities to serve the interest of a few. And it is alwaysvery dangerous when an intellectually and morally untrained person is left tomake his or her own moral decision, especially when such decision would have impact on the general public.Both in societal and individual level, the impact of the moral intrusion hascaused an enormous moral decay. The acquisition of power and wealth become thecentral tendency of many individuals with the end goal for self-pleasures,like ancient hedonists. Especially among the exiles, where people don’t feelmoral or legal accountability to the society they refuge, while leaving behind their moral restrain of their home society, there is more chancesto explore lack of moral constraint. There is no moral constraint not to telllie or not to do any immoral thing whatever would please them by acquiring opportunity orsocial or economic means. As there is no moral system that closely watchesthem, as long as anything is legally, socially, and politically undetectablepeople would do anything to satisfy the curiosity of their human demand.Politicians exploit any social and political capital to advance theirpolitical opportunity, and even religious and social leaders would takeadvantage on the goodness of their God and lack of societal moral force forself-advancement. Although these are not completely bad, as all people havesimilar kind of human natural behavior, it is very important to have a verypowerful moral underpinning principles for those people who have greaternational historical responsibilities and challenges for system change, and for those people whosesociety is comparatively immature, lacking the contemporary intellectual means that would help individuals see things in the context of time and reason.In individual level, many have become defensive rather than proactive and liveby the negative aspect of life instead of enjoying the best part of it. Sothen, for many, life becomes burdensome rather than a privilege to enjoy andto promote happiness for others. For many children of this generation havebeen brought up within an antagonistic social environment where their seeingand hearing from their families and from the society influenced them with thenegative mindsets and aspect of their social leaders, religious leaders and politicalleaders, and the negative impact on their own family economically, sociallyand politically. For, commonly among Chin people, it is mistakenly ignoredthat when parents and elders let their children hear the badness of others,the negative aspect of others, they are framing and constructing the mindsetof their children with antagonistic mindset which eventually builds theirwhole attitude filled with cynical, hatred and angriness that mercilessly eats the most precious moral beauty of the souls of their children. And when they are grown up under such influence, they can no longer see goodness in others, and even cannot bear the goodness of others. It means when they see good things in others their internal faculty is filled with envy and disagree with what is supposed to be happening in others. Inthat sense, hatred and anger becomes part of their human attributes. It isunpleasant to see that many take mistakes as destructive for themselves aswell as for others instead of utilizing it as a learning privilege and self-discovery and self-realization. On the other hand, it is also common thatdefensive people lack acceptance about their mistakes for their internalpsychological inconveniency causes fear that makes them feel every mistake as destructive and unwilling to accept as it is. Moreover, as a result ofnegative mindset, there is always a compelling force to tell or do somethingabout the badness of others. Many people do not aware of the danger ofangriness and hatred that consume the fat of human mental faculty which isessential for an individual’s personal and intellectual growth that leaves theindividual with a pessimistic view on others as well as upon himself orherself. More than hatred and anger, nothing disrupts the individual’sinternal mental and intellectual development. Nothing destroys the beauty of human soul than hatred and anger do. When a person’s mindset isfilled with hatred and anger, his or her mental faculty is impaired andeventually loss capacity to judge any particular object with balanced.Therefore, it is unfortunate and regretful that the regime government’s reignhas double impact on the people: the direct moral, social, economic, andpolitical damages and the consequential impact among the people themselves.Here comes a moral challenge to the Chin social, political, and religiousleaders: where are you heading? Like Aristotelians, some leaders seembelieving in moderation as the best, which, they think, potentially please themost. It is more important for leaders of the society, for they are specialpersons to say “NO” when a person kills an innocent or when a person stealsthat is not his or hers, and etc. And they are special persons to say “Comeon! Let’s go and do something,” while others reluctant to do anything unlessthey expect something in return for personal gain. However, when leaders lackmoral force to direct people and themselves toward particular direction, andlack moral courage to say “NO” to any destructive action in the society thatsociety is ruined or ruining. On the other hand, that is the expression of theregime leaders’ moral behavior, to say “NO” when only their status quo isthreatened or potentially threatened and to say “Let’s do” only to promote thegoodness of their existence. So then, as everyone is a leader, leading atleast himself or herself, where are we heading? What force compels us do ornot to do anything what we do or we do not do? The most powerful thing that man can possesses is not gunsand bullets but the moral force that directs him or her toward a certaindirection and stands against any driving force and overturns history upsidedown. And the most precious thing that man can loss is the moral force thatwould leave him or her move along any driving force around her or him towarduncertain end.May the good and powerful force be in you to dictate your decision-making anddirects you toward a certain end.