Dear Editor,
It must certainly be instructive to observers that at a juncture when our society is primed to launch into a progressive mode, there appears to be a substantive reliance on past experience, regardless of quality or relevance, whether deriving from overseas or resurrected from the local doldrums.
The revitalisation presumably is founded on the notion that once we do not repeat the mistakes of the past (ours and others) we are qualified not to take the risks a globally transformed environment continually poses for the developmental process – a notion that brazenly flies in the face of the rampant increase and variations in technologies, which in turn demand creative analyses and imaginative innovations for which younger and ‘mobile’ proportions of the populace are being prepared, alas ‘online’.
So it is for us to wonder, and seek clarification from those who lead the march of ‘veteranism’ of how they envisage that it will span the knowledge chasm; fashion the organisational changes so desperately needed to reconcile with the global imperatives of governance; transform managers into leaders; and transition from entrenched individual perspectives to truly encompassing collective visioning. Which of the generations is more capable of effecting the cross-fertilisation so palpably necessary?
In any case the top down mode of dialogue has long been disparaged in acclaimed organisational structures whose leaders are profitably (in financial terms) opting not only for consensus, but perhaps, more importantly, plumbing and benefiting from the wisdom of their followership.
However irrelevantly, the foregoing reflections were stirred by the published emphasis placed on a particular group of ‘veterans’ , through the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into the welfare specifically of veterans of the Guyana Defence Force.
Such priority attention would appear to proclaim that this group’s contribution to society supersedes that of other ‘veterans’, if at all the latter exist.
Actually they do – invisible as they are to those from whom they expect better. One particular group of ‘veterans’ who have been unable to attract the care of any regime manned by the very personnel they have bred and educated over the decades of our lives are teachers, who make up the most critical group of human developers.
Maltreated throughout the various phases and levels of their careers, they find it difficult to reconcile with the insistence that they must retire to pasture promptly at age fifty-five years (not unlike counterpart public servants many of whom however are rehired until obsolescence).
The teaching profession – the bastion of our growth and development – continues to be regarded as the lesser, if not the least appreciated, while ironically, the achievements of their products are celebrated in extenso.
Some of their protagonists would argue, not unjustifiably, that teachers are the victims of gross negligence, a state which is confirmed by the instant perception that as ‘veterans’ their welfare does not matter.
Yet, others again would make the case for the other grouping of uniformed officers and ranks – the Guyana Police Force – who, pound per pound, are exposed to more violence than their brother soldiers, who in turn they protect from violence. So what have they done (or not done) to qualify for second rating.
With a Police Service Commission firmly established by the Guyana Constitution, the police can legitimately claim similar/equal rights to an inquiry, as was accorded the non-uniformed public servant. The police, like so many other veterans, have literally been shot out of range by the soldier.
Finally, it occurred to me belatedly, that while busy making the case for others, many of us are enjoying the revival phase of the ‘veteran’ (without Inquiry).
(On the other hand, if the age of retirement in the public service were raised (as at the Guyana Revenue Authority, Guyana Geology & Mines Commission, Guyana Power & Light, and Audit Office of Guyana) it would substantially reduce the prospective population of ‘veterans’).
Yours faithfully,
E.B. John
