Government Cannot Go Into Denial of Itself

The recent call-in debates on the radio sparked some criticism of the Prime Minister's response to a young participant. Indeed, the question arises as to whether or not people feel free to comment, criticize or praise matters of national importance.

The extent to which the citizen feels free to participate has to do with the political maturity and the psychological health of the nation; the extent to which people feel intimidated or mentally and psychologically abused by the political directorate.

Flowing from this is the extent to which citizens feel secure; both physically and economically as citizens or fear reprisals for what they say. People are not going to feel free to participate if they sense that their jobs and their may be on the line.

It does not matter whether or not the perpetrator feels that such fears are imaginary. What is important is the fact that these fears are real to the person who feels them and consequently they will not participate if they feel alienated or do not want to be the victim of a verbal onslaught.

It is a question of survival. Man is a survivor. If man was not a survivor the human race would have become extinct every since. Man in his attempt to survive has established communities and societies. As these evolve and develop, the expectations are that the threats which previously hindered the survival of man would be lessened and quality of life improved.

So that democracy is an ideology insofar as it promotes man as an individual living in a community with the right to self-determination and, through participation, develop a way of life which reflects the intelligence of human beings to create a homogenous society.

The right to participate; freedom of speech; protection from arbitrary rule by the observance of the rule of law; what the society abhors and what it embraces are principles that citizens depend on to make life better and to realise their fullest potential.

We are quick to say that we live in a democratic country but how democratic is it if you feel threatened by the very systems and devices which were established to protect the citizen?

The right of freedom of speech goes deeper than any law protecting these rights. Freedom of speech must be a political liberty empowering the citizen not to feel threatened. (See the Charter of Civil Society). We have the police for protection, the law courts for justice and elections that allow people to rise up and change their governments.

While this may be so we suffer as the result of the deficiencies in the system and especially by our lack of participation. The young man should be praised for his bravery to seek to be outspoken.

The Prime Minister could only be chided for the manner in which he responded only in so far as his behaviour may have deterred others from being as brave as the young man. The lingering question is, why does one have to be brave to speak up?

From a Civil Society perspective, we on this side have similar concerns as to the effectiveness and efficiency of Government programmes. Far from nip-picking, if you added Civil Society concerns to that of the private sector's there cannot be much more left that is positive in government's relations with its subjects.

Therefore, it would have been very soothing if the Prime Minister had said, let us put aside some time, even if on another date and in another forum, that we could examine some factors which contribute to the failings of the bureaucracy as this is becoming more integral to the performance of the private sector, labour and civil society.

When we speak of inefficiency and ineffectiveness timeliness is critical. For example, what can be processed in the private sector in a day will more than likely take days to weeks to process in the public sector because of the culture it has adopted for transparency and accountability. However, when the political will is exercised it can match and sometimes even outdo the private sector.

To show how simple matters could be of national significance, there is the case of a disabled lady residing in a pavilion since Ivan blew off her roof. To this day she is still in the pavilion being pressurized by the National Sports Council and the sportsmen who are accustomed using the pavilion.

This has a ripple effect in the sense that this woman's poverty is preventing the use of facilities for the purpose for which it was built and is fast becoming a hindrance to the development of the sportsmen and sports programmes in that community.

When we reflect on the spirit of elation which flowed from the recent ICC Championship that the West Indies won, we see the importance of sports development. West Indians throughout the Diaspora who held their heads down over the past few years are now holding their heads high.

It would be good to do a survey of how this spirit impacted positively on the quality of people's lives; on productivity in the workplace and as a catalyst in the manner in which people relate to one another during this period.

Everything is important and people need to feel good about themselves. The one thing that the Government should not do is to react in such a way as to seem to be going into a state of denial. We are all familiar with the fact that the way to recovery is to arrest denial and recognise that there is a problem. Once a person recognises this he then has to deal with himself; inward inspection and behaviour modification.

The public sector can be no different and the powers that be need to openly admit that there are problems which cannot be fixed unless we address them squarely. It is a matter of people working with people otherwise we will be committing to something which when the time comes we will be hopeless and unable to cope as we move into a highly competitive mode under the CSME. The time is now.

Roosevelt O. King
Secretary General - BANGO
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