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RECUPERATING from the bruising budget debate just ended, and before being immersed in wondering how we will manage with the cuts, I take some time out to respond to Dr. Henry Jeffrey’s “Future Notes”, with the headline: “The Prime Minister’s Utopianism”, in the Stabroek News of 2013-04-24. Utopian I may well be, but laissez-faire, do-nothing utopianism I do reject. There is “doing much” in my call to keep the faith and to venture forth and socialise across our differences. Utopian I may well be, hoping that increased socialisation may be a-borning in our schools and work-places, but more on this later.
Utopian or not, how to know? If I could, I would let there be a census that would ask of every man, woman and child, of every 770,000, or thereabout, of us Guyanese, to say whether Guyana would become good or not. Leave it to the results to determine whether my faith (and, I dare say, Dr. Henry Jeffrey’s faith, too) in us realising our motto, should be considered utopian or not.
I am open to compromise: we may be seeking the same end, differing though in our approach.‘Keeping the faith” does not exclude “methods of management that will progressively ease the above perception – the perception of the manner in which divided societies are managed and socio-economic results distributed.” Without faith, every logical, rational management step proposed by any one side, is seen as (or suspected to be) a step of now-more-open, now-more-hidden advantage-seeking by the other. How, without faith, do we get past our history, seen by each side as a series of ‘knocks’ and ‘knocks-back’, differing only in identifying which was ‘knock’ and which was ‘knock-back’, which were aggressive moves and which were only defensive moves?
We of the PPP and PPP/C, in 2004, put on the table our paper, “Building trust (steadily, in small steps, then in bigger steps) for (steadily greater) political cooperation”.
Utopian I may well be, yet more realistic than many. Realistic enough to know how excruciating and poignantly challenging would be the moves to socialise and get closer. I was about 10 years old in the early 1950s when I heard this story from my grandfather. A Christian parson , about 1930 on the West Coast of Berbice, when he was approached by a friend with whom he shared the ups and downs of planting a little rice and minding a few cows, to join him in playing Phagwah. What was he to do? It was a time very different from now, when even members of various Christian denominations kept some safe distance between each other, and all expected conformation with the biblical injunction, “Not to join with the heathen in their heathen ways”. And yet, he could sense a sincere desire for a closer friendship in that invitation. He compromised in having some ‘Phagwah’ sprinkled on his boots; and I silently heckled, “Your church members would not have seen, but your God in heaven would have known”. Coming together would even entail reshaping one’s religious faith, even putting at risk one’s place in the hereafter.
Making a living and having our children educated and trained are ongoing concerns of the overwhelming majority of us. I keep the faith that schools and workplaces are places where socialising across groups is being born in common experiences.
Utopian I may well be, and in good company. Thanks to Mr. Dunstan Barrow’s quarterly performance review of the bauxite operations in the latter half of the 1980s, at which he regularly distributed relevant books, I received a copy of “Quality Control – the Japanese Way” by Kaoru Ishakawa, an historical, philosophical, ideological book. It was this movement in Japan, focusing on work and working, production and productivity, efficiency and effectiveness, bringing together the many earlier Western studies on work and working in a Japanese way, from which movement grew Statistical Process-Control Charting, Lean Six Sigma, and the now worldwide ISO quality-control systems. In his book, Ishikawa posited that it was necessary to hold the view, as Japanese did, but Westerners did not, that everyone wants to do well and to be seen and known to have done well. Ishikawa showed how this article of faith of the Japanese led them to manage situations and to make decisions different from managers in Western countries. I have been keeping the faith with Ishikawa, though, I admit to, a number of tests of faith.
I keep the faith and want to spread the faith that a better life comes only with each of us doing whatever we do better, individually and all together. I hope for a greater understanding and acceptance that all goods and services come from our work. There are no goods and services other than that which we produce and provide in exchange with each other – no good education, health services, road-building, politics, other than that which we who are in education, health services, road-building and politics, deliver.
Slavery and indentureship would have messed up our attitude to work – in work is to be found great satisfaction and reward, just in its accomplishment. We have to get to not being bashful in saying that we like our work, that we enjoy our work. With the need to import so much of the goods and services that we seek, we, Guyanese, must in turn become good workers to the world, and to ourselves.
I keep the faith that we know deep down that it is the need for a good living which does, and must, drive us to apply ourselves, to work and co-operate with others whom we may otherwise even detest; that at best, the demands, and legislation, for a living wage do not take us further than a more even distribution, into many mouths, the excesses which would have gone to the mouths of a few. Our call for a fairer distribution of goods could never be abandoned, but that is not enough – the strictest re-distribution would not take us where we want to be.
Utopian I may well be: our seven consecutive years of growth and development say that, in Guyana, we may be doing some things right, some things good. Let us keep it that way.
Of course, we might have done better, but we have a good base on, and from, which to build. We can have an even better life with just the material things which we have today, if we could but change our attitudes and behaviour.
Were we to be more careful, kind, considerate and courteous to each other and more ready to extend and receive advice and counsel, the daily, horrendous listing of accidents on land and river, and the violent altercations, could be reduced by two-thirds, or more.
Utopian I may well be to hope that we, descendants of slaves and indentured people could stop viewing ourselves as victims and not view our life here in Guyana, the life we are making here for ourselves, as unworthy.
Life is neither fair nor unfair, it just rolls on – I keep thinking of the Russian-born young man immersing himself into ordinary life in Guyana, in preparing a report on Guyana as a tourist destination – the markets, the mini-buses, travelling by mini-bus from Corriverton to Charity and Georgetown to Mahdia.
He was not appalled, and he didn’t find it degrading nor deprived, but, rather, found it basically interesting and acceptable. We can, and should, take pride in what we have: what we do not have now is what we are yet to put in place to make Guyana better – high amongst which is to develop the discipline and dispose of our garbage in an acceptable manner.
Growth and development could be perplexing – what was acceptable before may not be acceptable on the next rung as we ascend, and as some catch the tide first, ‘income spreads’ are likely to widen before they narrow. Utopian I may well be to hope that we will manage the disturbances inherent in growth and development itself.
I return to my possibly Utopian focus on work and working, and steady improvement. During the just-ended budget debate, I was heartened by views expressed by three of my younger colleague Members of Parliament.
The Minister of Education, the Honourable Priya Manickchand, put an instructive picture of 300,000 students being tutored by 10,000 teachers in 1,000 schools. More than likely, at any moment, something is going wrong somewhere. The question is, firstly, one of the frequency of occurrence of untoward events, then, is the frequency increasing or decreasing, and what about the sense of responsibility of the teachers and parents at each location?
Honourable Member Dawn Hastings affirmed that we cannot improve what we cannot/do not measure, and Honourable Member James Bond presented for our consideration more than a dozen measures of performance across our security and justice system, from clear-up rates of investigators to the rates of successful convictions won by prosecutors, to the number and lengths of postponement of cases before our courts.
Many see the series of postponements as the cause of long delays in justice being done, and as a mechanism of manipulating outcomes. Whatever our job, we are serving, and our service is open to some judgment and measurement.
The Honourable Speaker had lent me a book on multi-ethnic societies around the world, including Guyana. In the last and very short paragraph, the two authors posed the question whether the chances were good, of multi-ethnic societies overcoming the problems of multi-ethnicity – they thought not.
I will keep the faith, Utopian as it might be, that we will, always aware of the mistrust inherent in the mere existence of our various ethnicities but, nevertheless, always striving to live our motto – one people, one nation, one destiny.
Utopian or not, how to know? If I could, I would let there be a census that would ask of every man, woman and child, of every 770,000, or thereabout, of us Guyanese, to say whether Guyana would become good or not. Leave it to the results to determine whether my faith (and, I dare say, Dr. Henry Jeffrey’s faith, too) in us realising our motto, should be considered utopian or not.
I am open to compromise: we may be seeking the same end, differing though in our approach.‘Keeping the faith” does not exclude “methods of management that will progressively ease the above perception – the perception of the manner in which divided societies are managed and socio-economic results distributed.” Without faith, every logical, rational management step proposed by any one side, is seen as (or suspected to be) a step of now-more-open, now-more-hidden advantage-seeking by the other. How, without faith, do we get past our history, seen by each side as a series of ‘knocks’ and ‘knocks-back’, differing only in identifying which was ‘knock’ and which was ‘knock-back’, which were aggressive moves and which were only defensive moves?
We of the PPP and PPP/C, in 2004, put on the table our paper, “Building trust (steadily, in small steps, then in bigger steps) for (steadily greater) political cooperation”.
Utopian I may well be, yet more realistic than many. Realistic enough to know how excruciating and poignantly challenging would be the moves to socialise and get closer. I was about 10 years old in the early 1950s when I heard this story from my grandfather. A Christian parson , about 1930 on the West Coast of Berbice, when he was approached by a friend with whom he shared the ups and downs of planting a little rice and minding a few cows, to join him in playing Phagwah. What was he to do? It was a time very different from now, when even members of various Christian denominations kept some safe distance between each other, and all expected conformation with the biblical injunction, “Not to join with the heathen in their heathen ways”. And yet, he could sense a sincere desire for a closer friendship in that invitation. He compromised in having some ‘Phagwah’ sprinkled on his boots; and I silently heckled, “Your church members would not have seen, but your God in heaven would have known”. Coming together would even entail reshaping one’s religious faith, even putting at risk one’s place in the hereafter.
Making a living and having our children educated and trained are ongoing concerns of the overwhelming majority of us. I keep the faith that schools and workplaces are places where socialising across groups is being born in common experiences.
Utopian I may well be, and in good company. Thanks to Mr. Dunstan Barrow’s quarterly performance review of the bauxite operations in the latter half of the 1980s, at which he regularly distributed relevant books, I received a copy of “Quality Control – the Japanese Way” by Kaoru Ishakawa, an historical, philosophical, ideological book. It was this movement in Japan, focusing on work and working, production and productivity, efficiency and effectiveness, bringing together the many earlier Western studies on work and working in a Japanese way, from which movement grew Statistical Process-Control Charting, Lean Six Sigma, and the now worldwide ISO quality-control systems. In his book, Ishikawa posited that it was necessary to hold the view, as Japanese did, but Westerners did not, that everyone wants to do well and to be seen and known to have done well. Ishikawa showed how this article of faith of the Japanese led them to manage situations and to make decisions different from managers in Western countries. I have been keeping the faith with Ishikawa, though, I admit to, a number of tests of faith.
I keep the faith and want to spread the faith that a better life comes only with each of us doing whatever we do better, individually and all together. I hope for a greater understanding and acceptance that all goods and services come from our work. There are no goods and services other than that which we produce and provide in exchange with each other – no good education, health services, road-building, politics, other than that which we who are in education, health services, road-building and politics, deliver.
Slavery and indentureship would have messed up our attitude to work – in work is to be found great satisfaction and reward, just in its accomplishment. We have to get to not being bashful in saying that we like our work, that we enjoy our work. With the need to import so much of the goods and services that we seek, we, Guyanese, must in turn become good workers to the world, and to ourselves.
I keep the faith that we know deep down that it is the need for a good living which does, and must, drive us to apply ourselves, to work and co-operate with others whom we may otherwise even detest; that at best, the demands, and legislation, for a living wage do not take us further than a more even distribution, into many mouths, the excesses which would have gone to the mouths of a few. Our call for a fairer distribution of goods could never be abandoned, but that is not enough – the strictest re-distribution would not take us where we want to be.
Utopian I may well be: our seven consecutive years of growth and development say that, in Guyana, we may be doing some things right, some things good. Let us keep it that way.
Of course, we might have done better, but we have a good base on, and from, which to build. We can have an even better life with just the material things which we have today, if we could but change our attitudes and behaviour.
Were we to be more careful, kind, considerate and courteous to each other and more ready to extend and receive advice and counsel, the daily, horrendous listing of accidents on land and river, and the violent altercations, could be reduced by two-thirds, or more.
Utopian I may well be to hope that we, descendants of slaves and indentured people could stop viewing ourselves as victims and not view our life here in Guyana, the life we are making here for ourselves, as unworthy.
Life is neither fair nor unfair, it just rolls on – I keep thinking of the Russian-born young man immersing himself into ordinary life in Guyana, in preparing a report on Guyana as a tourist destination – the markets, the mini-buses, travelling by mini-bus from Corriverton to Charity and Georgetown to Mahdia.
He was not appalled, and he didn’t find it degrading nor deprived, but, rather, found it basically interesting and acceptable. We can, and should, take pride in what we have: what we do not have now is what we are yet to put in place to make Guyana better – high amongst which is to develop the discipline and dispose of our garbage in an acceptable manner.
Growth and development could be perplexing – what was acceptable before may not be acceptable on the next rung as we ascend, and as some catch the tide first, ‘income spreads’ are likely to widen before they narrow. Utopian I may well be to hope that we will manage the disturbances inherent in growth and development itself.
I return to my possibly Utopian focus on work and working, and steady improvement. During the just-ended budget debate, I was heartened by views expressed by three of my younger colleague Members of Parliament.
The Minister of Education, the Honourable Priya Manickchand, put an instructive picture of 300,000 students being tutored by 10,000 teachers in 1,000 schools. More than likely, at any moment, something is going wrong somewhere. The question is, firstly, one of the frequency of occurrence of untoward events, then, is the frequency increasing or decreasing, and what about the sense of responsibility of the teachers and parents at each location?
Honourable Member Dawn Hastings affirmed that we cannot improve what we cannot/do not measure, and Honourable Member James Bond presented for our consideration more than a dozen measures of performance across our security and justice system, from clear-up rates of investigators to the rates of successful convictions won by prosecutors, to the number and lengths of postponement of cases before our courts.
Many see the series of postponements as the cause of long delays in justice being done, and as a mechanism of manipulating outcomes. Whatever our job, we are serving, and our service is open to some judgment and measurement.
The Honourable Speaker had lent me a book on multi-ethnic societies around the world, including Guyana. In the last and very short paragraph, the two authors posed the question whether the chances were good, of multi-ethnic societies overcoming the problems of multi-ethnicity – they thought not.
I will keep the faith, Utopian as it might be, that we will, always aware of the mistrust inherent in the mere existence of our various ethnicities but, nevertheless, always striving to live our motto – one people, one nation, one destiny.
