Tuesday, July 1, 2008

MODERNITY Vs TRADITION

When modernity meets tradition, what happens?? One is labeled a rebel and the other digs in deep to gain recognition!
So much has changed over the years and today I seem to love the subject that I once despised so much. ‘History’, and it’s full of changes, and as somebody once said that those who study history make sure that it doesn’t repeat itself because many of us believe history repeats… that it’s a full circle! I lately saw this movie ‘The Last Samurai’ and really got nostalgic remembering the tokugawa’s, the chonins, the ronins, the chotsu, and the samurai’s. I kept wondering as to how the westernization under the garb of renaissance entered each and every household and threw out the once besotted culture and values; and it happened everywhere ignoring no spot on the world map. Discoveries that were supposed to find new lands led in discovering riches that were beyond the western world’s comprehension; this gradually made life severe for the natives.
‘They came, they saw, and they conquered’ and we like fools gave up. Gave up what we had preserved for years; our art, literature, and culture. Some of us sold our souls, turned into traitors and deceived our own people; but that kind of a behavior probably can be best understood by the theory of ‘the survival of the fittest’ by Charles Darwin. Most of the people turned traitors because they wanted to live for long, for as long as they could and the rest changed due to the inexplicable behavioral streaks that most of the humans have. The traditional art of warfare using swords, knives etc. that had won us many a battles succumbed to the bombs and guns and slowly the warrior died. He had no cause to live for, and whatever little reasons he had were not powerful enough to evoke the spirit of the revolutionary that once he was. The class of master less samurai’s who had lost their place in the normal loyalty pattern of Japanese feudal society started disrupting the so-called peace of the society knowing their wasn’t much to do.
Isn’t that ironical?? The irony is embedded in the fact that even though we weren’t ready for the changes we accepted them readily thinking that whatever the fair skin brought with it was as fair as them. If only the treaties could be fair and the wars scrupulous.
At times I feel that great scholars talk about reaching our roots; and I’m only left with one question that is, were my roots so weak that they gave away my country’s most precious treasures? A king gave away his crown, a warrior his sword and till date we are giving them the last bits of our priceless possession. Still I’m left with a question i.e. what is that we consider being traditional and what is modernization? We chose their ways of living then. I’m sure by now we must be pretty confused about our tradition. Who knows what it was in reality back then; those who could have given us an account must have become too rigid witnessing so many changes in their life. Do we still want to continue this debate? Do we still want to force our children into believing whatever we believed in? Can’t we let them be what they want to be? Time we gave them a chance to perceive things from their point of view.
I know my question is a little difficult to answer, it’s only debatable, and again like always will arise schools of thought. Some will support my point of view, the others will jeer at me and some will be absolutely clueless or will come up with a new perspective of which I won’t have an idea. That is why for the first time I feel I don’t need a school of thought to guide my actions. Not necessarily will I think wrong and like a situation where u can’t describe right or wrong I may end up finding an answer to this situation.
Maybe history won’t repeat itself but god knows as to how many more futile battles we will have to fight over a piece of no man’s land. I still wonder what it would have been like when we had swords in place of guns, parchments in place of diaries, and papyrus in place of paper. I still fancy the times when every soul had a spirit and god was one of the living; but the world came up with discoveries and inventions, renaissance and modernization. Then force met force and thrust met resistance, simple discoveries became obsessions. The order of the natives perturbed with the onset of colonialism. Today a lot of things have changed again yet somewhere the slave lives. I’ll wait for the day when the slave will rise above us to let its soul free. Or else we can only dig our roots to find an answer that we choose to believe in!!