Dear Editor,
It was so refreshing to see that there are still among us people who are willing to express views with candour like Audreyanna Thomas, GHK Lall, Pastor Wendell Jeffrey and a few others. What I particularly like about Ms Thomas’s latest contribution ‘There is too much arrogance among our leaders’ (SN, February 5) is her assertion that that “there is a difference between being assertive and being arrogant.” She is on target as she usually is, because many of us have the experience of being deemed arrogant when in fact what is on display is no more than assertiveness, particularly in the face of intransigence and ignorance.
This situation is likely to be aggravated when one is not timid about speaking truth to power. Editor, the truth be told it is not unknown that many inept persons in positions of authority fail to resist the temptation of surrounding themselves with mediocrity. The simple reason is that like the one-eyed man in the land of the blind the boss looks like and sounds good because s/he tolerates no independent thought or difference of opinion. Anyone suffering from an attack of wanting to make a positive contribution to development is shot down and banished to – hopefully, obscurity. Progressive minds like the aforementioned persons ought to be commended for their steadfastness of purpose in presenting their ideas, regardless of the attempts by others to denigrate and undermine their contribution.
Yours faithfully,
Patrick E Mentore
