How people’s lives are affected matters

‘SCISSORING’ the budget is not only a new phenomenon to Guyana’s political history and as the latest parliamentary highpoint, but may soon become a new job portfolio for Guyanese parliamentarians. At any rate, that the scissoring happened should hardly be surprising. Look! Anyone beset with power for the first time would want to explore its reach and possible outcomes. For that reason, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC), bestowed with this newly-found power coming from the one-seat parliamentary majority would want to test the scope of its power on an issue of major and strategic national importance. And what better issue to commence this testing exercise with than the national budget estimates, having already previewed the testing with Financial Papers #7 and #8 early in 2012.

‘Look at Carl Greenidge’s statement to the media when he talked about obtaining the full package of its demands from government; the concern and emphasis is on ‘full package’ goal. In his relationship to the media, where is the equal concern for the influence of this goal on how it would affect other people?’

And now that there is parliamentary approval for the slashed budget, there is a simultaneous release of the APNU and AFC test scores to their supporters on their performance during the budget debate. The usual analysis and interpretation of those scores and, indeed, the ‘scissored’ budget, will preoccupy the minds of parliamentarians and Guyanese for some time to come. And inquiring minds and eyes will focus on APNU and AFC, the combined opposition with parliamentary majority and parliamentary power, and possibly with new ‘scissoring’ skills.
For these reasons, it may be worth reviewing the ‘external’ and ‘inside’ of this new parliamentary opposition power-play. To develop some sense of power, I would start off using Dartmouth College Professor James Murphy’s (2011) depiction of the American adventure in Iraq which inflamed conflicting and contradictory claims about American power.
Murphy noted that one view of power is: Some people see the American invasion of Iraq as testimony to America as a superpower, a country that could reach so far away from home, and at a stroke, transform the politics of the Middle East region.
And he further noted the second view of power as: There are others who see the American adventurism in Iraq as limits to its power because after all these years America failed to achieve any of its goals, as unearthing weapons of mass destruction, crushing the  terrorists, or establishing a stable democracy. Murphy concluded that the use of military might and precision in Iraq is a depiction of both American power and American impotence.
The point of this example of the American invasion of Iraq is that there are different understandings of power. First, there is the external view of power, where power causes noticeable effects; the idea of Americans exercising total influence on Iraq, and being able to get the Iraqi people to do stuff that they would not ordinarily do, and the fact that America failed to realize its goals, is seeing power from the external sense; this means that power causes something that we can see; and further, that if by power we mean that we can get you to do what we want, then we are reducing our understanding of power to mean sheer influence. So what we see America did and is still doing to Iraq, where it shows utter concerns for its own goals, and little concern for the influence it wields over Iraq, is an example of this external view of power.
Murphy (2011) further argues that this external view of power  where people with power express concerns for their goals and not how their influence impact people’s lives, may not  come from decisions of people who would like to exercise responsible power. Could these parliamentarians in Guyana be dubbed ‘irresponsible’, where the ‘scissored’ hands of parliamentarians reduced a proposed national budget of $192.8 billion to the approved $171.8 billion, an incision of $21 billion?
It is possible that the Guyanese parliamentarians with power may not be aware that they should have dual concerns – concerns for achieving their goals and concerns for the influence of these goals on others – the external view of power.  Look at Carl Greenidge’s statement to the media when he talked about obtaining the full package of its demands from government; the concern and emphasis is on ‘full package’ goal.  In his relationship to the media, where is the equal concern for the influence of this goal on how it would affect other people?
In the new political dispensation, it is not possible for APNU to get the Greenidge ‘full package’ on its own capacity; getting this full package requires the AFC’s capacity, and perhaps, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C)’s capacity. And one danger in using other people’s capacity is because there is a tendency to see your own capacity as the most valuable, and, therefore, the tendency to place other people’s capacity as least valuable (Murphy, 2011).  Invariably, our capacity to wield power depends on the capacity of others; and as Kant would say, not to use people only as means but also as ends.
President Donald Ramotar’s engagement with the parliamentary opposition during the 2012 budget debate reflected his concerns for achieving national goals and to consider their impact on the nation vis-a-vis the unified capacities of the combined opposition. President Ramotar used the internal view of power. Nonetheless, this was not to be fruitful.
During the engagement over six days with the opposition APNU and AFC, the President showed goodwill on the following, among others: Agreeing with the $10,000 per month old age pension (agreement); bundle of measures for Linden, including phased reduction in subsidies (rejected); study on value added tax (VAT) for possible reduction, and expanding the zero-list items (rejected); $2 billion for a Depressed Community Fund for 2012 (rejected).
Usage of the external view of power does not bode well for future dialogue as well as civil parliamentary discourse, for the reasons already stated, where the combined opposition seems to express concerns for its own goals, and not so much how those goals affect others. The parliamentary majority group, in order to have some overall positive national impact, has to adapt the inside view of power, if it has not already done so, where it has concerns for both its own goals and concerns for how its intentions affect people. Applying the inside view of power will enhance greater collaboration among all sides in the political discourse. But mostly, the inside view of power will lay the foundations for people to exercise responsible power.

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