We look up to our leaders as mentors, inspiring examples of how to live well, and as having our best interests at heart.
When leaders violate this public trust, betraying our faith in their commitment to us, we either turn our backs on them or become apathetic, resigned and disconnected from the society’s future.
The debate in Parliament on the national budget displayed our political leaders in all their pride, pomp and ceremony. One local enterprising website broadcast the debate live online to a global audience, and so the world heard how our leaders think about our country.
Take Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee, for example. The Minister expressed shock and dismay at the opposition debaters who flay the government for crime plaguing the society. Rohee said no one need worry about the country’s security. He said everything’s fine.
I will not use this space to go into the numerous unsolved murders that lie dormant and un-investigated; the allegations of crippling organized crime gripping the country; the international conviction of influential drug lords and terrorists; or the fear of the citizenry who live in iron caged houses and walk the streets of Georgetown in fear.
Rohee either knows what he’s talking about, or he is in a state of such denial that we should be alarmed. The government’s role in the “phantom gang” that still raises troubling questions may mean that Rohee has information not privy to the National Assembly. Let’s hope the Minister knows what he’s talking about, even though he won’t tell us.
When this government took office from the Desmond Hoyte administration, organized crime and public-private sector corruption had already started to eat into the heart of the society. This government’s policies exacerbated the problems by leaps and bounds, so that today the society lives in constant fear.
The culture of the gun took over as force became the automatic choice of the questionable police force to deal with alleged criminals.
This government cemented community policing groups as a law enforcement arm, and trained and deputised ordinary citizens all across the country. We hear little of the community policing sector today, but Rohee may have had this sector in mind when he expressed confidence in the security situation: what he may mean is that the government is secured, as both the police Force and Army operate professionally despite criticisms. And then there is the armed-and-ready policing community sector. His confidence might be well placed.
Yet, we saw outside Parliament comments by an Opposition guy who called for “African” empowerment, and for inclusive government to include the Afro-ethnic community into the governance of the country.
This man called for massive street protests. His words, widely publicized in the international media online, seem provocative, incisive and inflammatory. As Home Affairs Minister, Rohee must have taken note.
Daily, we see across the world what this sort of harsh, divisive language could cause – backed by a government in denial, one that refuses to deal with festering social sores that could flare into chaos on the streets. In this festering rottenness in the national body politic, we saw one man stand out: Raphael Trotman has quietly been demonstrating such excellent leadership character and selfless sacrifice that he is starting to emerge as a leader the nation could trust.
Not only did he go against the tide, of our politicians lusting for power, to give up a power position in his Alliance For Change Party election platform, but he has declared that he would quit Parliament as a member if progress in governance does not emerge soon.
A politician willing to give up his chance at power and such influence as being a Parliamentarian? In our Guyana, that is unprecedented. When we know a leader has no agenda on his plate for power and influence, we could start to trust him as committed to the cause of transforming the society.
Trotman walked out of the People’s National Congress and joined Khemraj Ramjattan to lead and cause social transformation. And even in the Alliance For Change we see him stand out as a different kind of leader. Let’s hope he sticks around and commits to be the difference.
The society stands at the crossroads, pressed to choose between either turning its back on an acrimonious, divisive, strife-ridden history, thus embracing a future of achieving that so elusive Guyana Dream to be a Breadbasket of the Caribbean, or plunge into a failed nation.
We wish Rohee demonstrated the kind of character and leadership that Trotman is showing. But one man is a start. It is a bright spot. Trotman spends his Sundays in church at Sophia, one of the poorest sections of Georgetown. He humbles himself, listens and readily allows himself to go through personal change. His message of a national change, of transformation countrywide shows up in his personal life. His words and commitment show that we do have the kind of leader among us that could make a huge difference.
The way these leaders could make a difference is simple: choose to speak to the nation from a heart that cares, that sacrifices, that reaches across divides to embrace and reconcile and forgive.
Neil Postman and George Orwell wrote profound books and essays on the power and influence of words in the public square to shape the socio-cultural space.
In ‘Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk’, Postman shows how “we defeat ourselves by the way we talk”. With our words, spoken in the public square at Parliament and propagated through the media, we build “semantic environments” that shape social space for good or for bad.
What we witnessed in the past week is the self-declared “African” activist evoke a semantic environment based on fear, violence and social chaos. We saw Home Affairs Minister Rohee outline a semantic environment that we do not trust as it does not line up with our experience, because whereas he says the security situation is perfect, the citizen who retreats into iron caged homes knows it’s not. Then we witnessed Raphael Trotman building a semantic environment of self sacrifice and selfless leadership, with magnanimous embrace of his opposing members in Parliament during his speech.
Which one of these do we choose to cultivate into the national conversation?
Do we choose Rohee’s assurances while the media reports two men shot at Grove in a daring early morning robbery? De we choose the “African” activist and his street violence? Do we choose Trotman’s selfless words of a reconciliatory national ethos?
“If we change our words, we may change the matter. And, therefore, the solution”, Postman wrote.
When national leaders talk to us, and not with us, through the medium of mass media, or make a speech from Parliament, we cannot ask them what they mean. And so crazy talk, or stupid talk coming from an influential leader builds a semantic environment that disrupts social order, causing chaos and confusion in society.
When influential leaders who refuse to be responsible for their talk spew words of crazy and stupid behaviour to us, we need to guard ourselves well.
We may trust them because they are on the platform, but we can look into their language and choose the ones who could mentor and inspire us to work hard to build a great society.
All is not lost, for we have such an emerging leader in Trotman.
