PULL QUOTE: “I wrote earlier this year on the issue of territoriality in the public service, and it remains true that the public service in Guyana is filled with little kings who’ve carved out their own respective individual territories, and anyone who infringes upon it is somehow subject to character assassination, not necessarily perpetrated by themselves, but often by their underlings acting on their hints, non-specific remarks or even attitude towards someone.”
I’VE WRITTEN, in more than one column if my memory serves me correctly, about a particular risk associated with public office: The risk of defamation, simply by virtue of serving in a politically contentious environment such as this one.

A former English teacher of mine used to like to offer the example of the assassination of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, to demonstrate how weak leadership and sycophantism can combine to produce fatal consequences without a directly expressed intention.
According to the story, the King of England (I’ve forgotten which one exactly) was bothered by Becket’s public opposition to his acting against the rules of the Church.  At a gathering of his court, the King simply exclaimed to nobody in particular: “Would no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
A few months later, four knights who were present when the King made that apparently only rhetorical query, assassinated Becket. While the King did not help the assassins while they were on the run, he also did nothing to ensure that they were brought to justice.
The more I serve in public capacities here in Guyana, the more examples I see that play out in a similar way to my old English teacher’s favourite fable. I wrote earlier this year on the issue of territoriality in the public service, and it remains true that the public service in Guyana is filled with little kings who’ve carved out their own respective individual territories, and anyone who infringes upon it is somehow subject to character assassination, not necessarily perpetrated by themselves, but often by their underlings acting on their hints, non-specific remarks or even attitude towards someone.
Try as I might, as much as I would like to illustrate the general lesson as my English teacher did, this is something that I’ve not only witnessed in relation to how it affects others, but something I’ve experienced myself, that I have been a ‘victim’ or attempted victim.  And the best I can do in response is to humbly offer reason and restraint against what is clearly a widespread neurosis that we have here in Guyana.

I’m one of those people who believe that if superiors have a problem with an officer occupying any position for reasons which are associated with loyalty, etc. they should take the necessary actions against the officer which includes removal.

Firstly, suppose that you are in a position of leadership and you find that a person’s actions, not simply their existence, are somehow detrimental to you adequately functioning in your position. If you are that person’s superior, or the system provides for your direct intervention in sanctioning that person, there is no need to beat around the bush and make what is referred to as passive-aggressive statements. If you are in a position to sanction that person, sanction that person, otherwise you are clearly complicit in that person’s faults. Unless it is of course that your criticisms are unfounded, and your intent is simply to defame that person.

Secondly, suppose that your superior has expressed a negative opinion about someone. Do you simply believe that opinion, without evidence? And if you do, what value is there in spreading this opinion, as it relates to your job?  And what value is there in letting that opinion impact upon your treatment of that person? Very often I’ve found that leaders of the type I’ve outlined above only encourage or promote subordinates who take in and amplify even their least prejudice – what they do is build a bureaucratic echo chamber.
The problem on a personal level is that no leader concerned with leadership as a character trait, as opposed to a status that perpetuates by any means necessary, ever encourages sycophants around them – the quality of a leader is defined not by the quality of the follower.  And for the follower, if you’re involved in public service simply to advance by parroting and mimicking what some insecure superior says, then you’re either going to remain in that subordinate position, or end up ascending in a system in which you can be subject to the same character assassination that you help to perpetuate.

I’m not saying that this sort of attitude is restricted to the public sector – some corporate cultures thrive on such dog eat dog competition, and others fail utterly because of it. But what makes this phenomenon particularly worrisome in the public service is because of that sacred concept of the public trust and the social contract. People expect the State to work in their best interests, not in the interest of the personal ambitions and prejudices of individuals.

In a democracy – and arguably even in an autocracy – the greater good is what should be paramount and while competition is a necessary part of life, what I have seen of recent is a situation where ‘competition’ in the public service has become so rabid, so personal, that it is fast moving from the place where people race to see who can do a public job better, and who is more deserving of the perks that come with high-level positions. If such a situation continues to prevail, it is the Guyanese people who will lose.
Written By Keith Burrowes