Dear Editor,
SN’s editorial of Sunday 3 February, 2019 raised a number of issues, albeit complementary, which invite debate.
Early amongst them is the reasonable and valid observation that over the past three years there has been a tendency to attract into various areas of the governance construct military personnel, perhaps on the presumption that the loyalty that disciplined experience required would translate into similar loyalty in a ‘freer’ civilian thinking and working environment.
Very quickly, there is this movement from a condition of ‘no choice’ to one of freedom to exercise judgement – likely in response to the demand for creativity and initiative.
The latter implies raising the bar of performance in consonance with the dynamics of new organisational goals and objectives.
On the other hand, it is the awareness that old disciplined loyalty is expected, that tends to constrict attempts at fresh perceptions and consequently, any proactivity.
The behaviour is in fact, a reflection of the rigidity which the old superior would have brought to a totally different authority arrangement in which as a leader, he/she would have had to expand the capacity for having decisions challenged. What then has to be fostered in place of putative ‘loyalty’ is TRUST.
Not totally unconnected is the proposition, however, suspect, that ‘upright leaders’ would tolerate ‘corrupt subordinates’. This inheres a fundamental contradiction wherein the latter’s misbehaviour must be seen as a reflection of the quality of leadership – in terms of the level of tolerance he/she displays towards related reports (in the media or elsewhere) of corruptibility.
Organisational and individual logic would immediately suggest that appropriate discipline has to be exercised, as would obtain in a military environment.
The above argumentation lends towards disagreement with the idea of having ‘natural talent for management’. One needs to put a heavy pause upon the perspective that in these dynamic times, when programmes, methodologies, systems, amongst others, are being globalised, so that even the smallest and poorest populations can respond appropriately and decisively, the manager concerned has to be trained to exercise effectively the span of control to which he/she is assigned.
For managers must earn respect from counterpart practitioners and organisations, rather than mere sacrificing judgement to remain in employment. Surely self-respect matters. Moral authority is key.
The point is well taken about the troublingly high and increasing export of skills and potential skills from Guyana to Caricom countries, aided and abetted of course by the formality of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), which facilitates movement of relevantly qualified personnel.
Not totally irrelevant, however, is that this development implicates the current question of the duality of citizenship, which is being so hotly debated.
Somehow the swarm of opinions, including those portrayed by legal commentators, tend to be embedded in the context of the instant political brouhaha.
There are, however, persons who quietly reflect on the times and environment that informed (or deformed) aspects of the Constitution.
From a distance, they argue that with the talent available to the framers in their day, and the fact (or presumption) that ‘dual citizenship’ was more an exception then than subsequently obtained, it was not perilous to the governance structure to exclude the perceived miscreants.
That was not to say that the tidal wave of migration north was not already evident. More latterly, however, there has been a relatively substantial ‘rate of return’, including of well qualified and relevantly experienced (non-military) remigrants.
There is little argument that at this perilously explosive stage of economic development, accompanied by an expansion of a vast array of technologies, the skills needed in this very small population cannot be sourced purely from ‘single citizenship’, and exclude their access to the highest layers of the land.
For unless there are well-structured criteria by which skilled persons can be evaluated for (glib) ‘allegiance’, how then could they be rejected from serving in positions where the appropriate skills are needed.
It is true that in Australia, for example, dual citizenship has been an issue for parliamentarians. But then look at the replacement stock from which to choose in a considerably larger population.
The point is that the distinction (not discrimination) will not unlikely be restricted to Parliament, already defected with a disproportionate percentage of novitiates and mediocrity. Why impose a limitation that is almost bound to spread across comparable levels of decision-making, and trickle down in a manner that would prove a disincentive for ambition to function at the next higher levels.
This, in fact, is less a political issue than that which recent aberrations would incite persons to treat. It is indeed a profound human resources development challenge. (In the meantime, how many new ‘vacancies’ are being filled by foreign citizens?)
The optimism expressed about the emergence of ‘new parties’ is mitigated by the fact of their old-fashioned memberships.
Nevertheless, the apparent trend (reversal if you will) towards static partisanship, must at all costs be overcome, by a mission to cross the divide, heal the gaping wounds, and weld the fractions into a cohesive whole.
It is not about us. It is about the next generation and their children.
Still left to be addressed are the variations of ‘dual citizenship’.
Yours faithfully
E.B. John
