REGAINING LOST IDEINTITY

Difficulty gives rise to either one  response,
helplessness or
adventurously flavored innovative solutions.  
Many people succumb  in times of difficulty raising their hands  helplessly and do nothing about their situations.  
Unfortunately some  so called "leaders," artificially create  situations of helplessness knowing very well that some  people will succumb  so that  they can continue to exploit.

In difficulty people seek support and increase their dependency on those who help them. Support seekers start living  a life which is not  their own life -- they are molded into doing  things which they normally would not dare to do.  They live a life of slavery.  Slavery at the  physical level and then  consequently mental, cultural,  geographical and  political level. 
They cease to exist as they existed before, rather they feel ashamed to  even mention  their past.  This  phenomenon we  see all over the world, Afro Americans, Native Americans, the converted people from Hinduism
all or most of the populace who  show little or no sympathy to their former connection. 

The second kind of people, the adventurous ones, may avoid their physical connection for some time, so that they can survive, they do not act  foolishly and assert their identity and perish physically under the more superior controller. 
  They submit their body but not their mind or ego, which gives  a continuous life to their identitiy.

In the Mahabharata, Nala the great king lost everything and became a slave to his brother and worked under another king as a chariot driver,  his wife Damayanti was forsaken by her husband in the middle of the forest, she lost everything including half of the  only cloth on her body, but both Nala amd Damyanati never lost their identity.  
Eventually Damyanati figured out where her husband was, to find her husband  she declared  that she would  re marry, many suitors came hoping to marry Damayanti,  Nala also came as the chariot driver of the king,  Nala and Damyanati were re united.
So  Damayanti by her sheer zeal and desire to over come all challenges was  united as the wife of Nala . This
is a lesson that could be learned.

She broke all the so called rules of life for a normal traditional wife, thinking of remarriage, only with the desire of reuniting with her husband, so that she could continue to live with  her identity.

Look for such a leader, who has risen from dependence physically but is  independent mentally and has created a revolution in his own life and the life of others to be re united to practice his native culture.