Mongolia just celebrated its biggest national holiday. Mongolians have been celebrating Naadam for a long time, along with the anniversaries of the People’s Revolution and the Great Mongolian Empire. Mongolians took a grand total of five days off and celebrated Naadam 2012 for so long,that they astonished the entire world and the“hills became flat.”
A national holiday not only expresses people’s history and tradition,but also shows their joy, energy and desire for a better life. When celebrating the holiday, people strengthen the core values of the nation’s existence and development and pass them down to the younger generations.This way, the tradition fully expresses the meaning of a national holiday and the holiday leaves a great impression on people. They eagerly wait for the next year.
The deviated meaning
The media keeps calling Naadam, our beautiful holiday, “an expression of Mongolian people’s tradition to show respect to the state.”This is a thought provoking saying. How well does it fit a free, democratic nation with a parliamentary system?
The core principle of governance of democratic Mongolia with a market economy, is not to regard the state with respect as a first priority, but to safeguard its people’s rights, freedom and properties.It would be another case if it was obeying the law and establishing equality before the law.And also, which statesman are we talking about respecting?Are we to follow the ways of today’s statesmen who dress up in the most expensive clothes, show off their cars and watches, buy the fastest racehorses and belittle the poor, as has become common phenomenon?Not everyone needs to follow the “deviated” ways of the state that turned Mongolia into a corruption nest.
These ways of conduct only exist in a monarchy and must not be found in countries with public or representative governance. On my defacto interview, Mr. Jack Weatherford, who wrote the most popular book about the Great Khaan, said that today’s Mongolian statesmen must not forget that Chinggis Khaan was born in a ger and his life ended in a ger.
While most countries celebrate abolishing monarchies, founding a constitutional republic, setting up parliamentary governance and ensuring freedom as a national holiday, Mongolia is celebrating ours as if we are trying to bring back a monarchy.
Our statesmen have a tendency to dress up and behave like kings.A trend is spreading everywhere: racehorses only belonging to rich statesmen finish in first place and wrestlers sponsored by their companies beat their opponents.It is a different case if actors are in plays that shows our history and tradition.
However, shouldn’t one be proud of what one has done, not what the past generation has achieved? None of us were there when they made history.
Naadam celebrates freedom, not money
Twenty years have passed since every Mongolian obtained human rights, freedom and opportunity to strive towards a happier life for the first time in history.However, not everyone today has the conditions to make use of this opportunity and the chance to compete in an equal and just way.Creating advantages for oneself after entering politics and trading power and positions have become widespread. This can be explained by the fact that Mongolians are putting material wealth before everything.Our social consciousness is being dominated by an improper understanding that only wealthy people are good people, one with more money is a better person and money can buy everything.
The clearest expression of all this is our Naadam festival, the manner of which has deviated from its meaning. Fixing the game or “Nachnii naira,”which is found in every Mongolian Naadam wrestling event, is an example. The press is always talking about how the local soum/province councils collect money and make secret deals with other wrestlers in order to have their own wrestler ranked up.If that is true, can’t we punish the guilty by banning them from wrestling again for deceiving people?
Another example is horse races. It has become common that one gets all the credit just by buying the horse. It is astonishing that he gets the prize after having some other person train the horse for the race. Should not the ‘little kid’ who rode that horse for so long, be praised for his courage and endurance? Here is a joke: A guy (soum governor) asks a horse trainer “What are you giving to your horse?” The trainer, giving some candy to the guy, answers “Candy, you should taste it!” After the guy left, the trainer tells his horse “Unless this guy is in the race,you will win tomorrow.”
The very essence of Naadam is that everyone should be brave, skillful, powerful, enduring, competitive, fit and capable of riding a horse, wrestling and doing archery. However, our Naadam has become a holiday that deviated from its main meaning. What percentage of Mongolian men today meet the above requirements?
A national holiday must aid social development, give energy to people and pass down the knowledge to the youth. Nevertheless, we are encouraging the dominance of power and money.
The missing meaning
Why are we not showing or even mentioning our laborers, firemen, policemen and those who pick up the trash we so carelessly leave on the streets – the people who are fulfilling their duties so that we can celebrate Naadam? If we unveil them to the public and express our gratitude, there will be another meaning added to our national holiday. Furthermore, through Naadam, everyone should be made aware of the fact that everything we need was created by someone’s hard work.
We should all understand that honor and glory can’t be bought. Local councils should use their money they spend on prizes in more creative ways. The money can be spent on creating a competition to improve development, produce unique local products and introduce a brand product inforeign markets.
The meaning of Naadam should be turned to promoting the fact that those who work hard achieve success, not the ones who conspire or cheat.Also, special attention should be paid to making donations to orphan schools and elderly hospitals.
Instead of wasting money to make themselves look good, companies should spend the money they earned in fair competition under the law in order to enter the world market.People want to be proud of Mongolian products found on every continent. Businessmen should stop entering politics after some success. There is no doubt that Mongolians will keep showing the greatest respect to history and tradition. Our sayings do not tell us to show off the clothes we wear, buy honor and glory, steal from public property or do anything you want if you have the money.
Our national holiday Naadam should be our leverage to unite under the great energy to aim for a nice life and to go forward with full confidence.
Translated by B.AMAR