The Best, the Worst, and the Rest

While we lose the Best without a murmur, the Worst is coming in with screaming headlines 

– Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

This is a writing of one of the ‘Rest’ getting fed up with the performance of the ‘worst’ while suffering from the departure of the ‘Best’! As the ‘worst’ always have control due to the ineptness of the ‘Rest’ the suffering is continuous and the results have been perilous pushing living in paradise to witness ‘paradice’!

Singapore’s Lee was termed as a conviction politician due to his crystal clear views and expressions – unambiguous, purpose-driven, and yet he was not one to mince words either. Sadly, many of the comparable ilk from our country could be best termed as convicted politicians. Yes, many of them have not formally achieved the status due to not having gone down the route to realising the accolade but the general understanding – the public court of justice – is just that. Many of their statements never reach any form of documentation other than perhaps the Hansard and even in that document, forcible removal or expunging is a common occurrence. 

Many times when you have verbal exchanges and brawls within the well, the student on-lookers from the public gallery – why they have come to the august institution perhaps is to learn and get inspired – have to close their ears and eyes while the accompanying teachers can only suffer in silence. This behaviour and the general attributes of display rightly bring to mind the question, are we having the ‘worst’ as our politicians. Having led a richly endowed nation to bankruptcy I, unfortunately, have to answer that question in the affirmative. If we have had leaders on either side of the well, we just should not be enjoying this type of dividend from all their inputs. After all, we just celebrated 75 years of leading ourselves.

What Lee demonstrated was the productive use of human capital in developing Singapore. He understood well his only available resource. He took many steps, some quite bold, such as even dictating how marriages should take place to improve the societal IQ ensuring that the human capital is managed and leveraged effectively for the benefit of Singapore. His bold statement ‘levels of competence will decline, our economy will falter, our administration will suffer, and society will decline’ because so many educated men are failing to find educated women to marry and are instead marrying uneducated women or remaining unmarried’ created so much buzz in the society yet he stuck to his logic and pushed for change in attitude and practices – all for his Singapore! 

He had been handed over a small land area with precious little to boast of. In the end, his strategy was delivered and Singapore is the success story of Asia. Singapore is in the top 10 global innovation nations. The National University of Singapore where his body was given state honours in the final journey is also among the top in the global university league. The success of his educational mission was connected to the growth of the economy. Sri Lanka has a lesson to make note of. We are in an economic position that could be termed an absolute hole. We used to place our smart human capital as one of our strengths in any SWOT analysis. Highly literate, healthy, etc., etc. You may question whether we were exposed to that when we speak of the current situation. Yet we see and hear the exodus of the brightest finding their way out in droves. 

Another majority is learning to depart as they have formed in their minds it is not worth being stuck here. Perhaps another acquired British trait is surfacing – the grass is always greener on the other side! The alarm bells should be ringing but we hear no focused effort to restore confidence. An important part of the confidence building should be from discussing and demonstrating roadmaps that are being developed to ensure that belt-tightening is only for a period. The country having to embrace new ways of doing things is a must in deed and in communication and articulating plans with sincerity. 

Our human capital had to respond collectively if we are to pull ourselves out of this mess and only then can we do that. This is where the exodus of the brightest has to be tackled not through restrictions but imaginatively through processes that they will feel honoured to take part in and contribute rather than getting into the first flight away. We see both staff and students leaving our study programs quite frequently today and each departure is also more work getting distributed to the remaining few. Simply society cannot lose a good portion of the Best! 

We have a multi-layer political system which many take as learning grounds and for honing dubious skills. Why public servants should have training grounds in places where they really should be serving grounds which in fact are what they are. One cannot take a Pradeshiya Sabha to be the training ground and then climb up to the Parliament via the Provincial Council. All such expenditure is at our cost. In the name of democracy, there should not be institutions where there are no educational qualifications to enter and no age limit to depart. Thomas Jefferson one of the founding fathers of America stated an informed citizenry is a bulwark for protecting democracy. Yes, democratic ideals are fine. Yet today mere literacy plus street smartness is not what is meant by ‘informed citizenry’. 

The citizenry is expected to consider and elect members of these different political bodies. The upcoming local council elections have attracted more than 80,000 contestants. Most of them are expected by default not to have any decent level of education to be eligible. While literacy is not an issue the worry under current conditions is scientific literacy. Within the elected, this form of literacy is at an all-time low. Those who are elected would be given pots of money to bring prosperity to their electorate. The absence of some decent education on one side and the acceptance of dubious past records in candidacy is a recipe for disaster as far as an economic and social system is considered. 

Out of 80,000 contenders to 8,711 places on local councils is definitely to materialise after the election. As elected members, they have to spend money and achieve progress. The prevailing view is those who are quite close and dear certainly achieve progress. We simply failed to understand the importance of the right person and the importance of the right set of qualifications. Now realise such for tomorrow is impossible as we have already concluded nominations. Yet the voter who incidentally happens to be the ‘Rest’ must play the role of a communicator as otherwise the ‘elected representative’ is going to be below par. What can be stated here is while we lose the Best without a murmur, the Worst is coming in with screaming headlines.

Lee is credited with the quote I always tried to be correct, not politically correct. Our even limited edition politicians of quality, speak of after all we are politicians and we have to perform in that context. Our way of work thus is to be ‘politically right’ in the first place. That is why we have not made any headway but only have seen an extraordinary capability in reversing an economy to a great deep ditch! Lee’s one of the most important principles was the zero tolerance on corruption and the steps taken ahead to ensure clear communication on the same. 

Now, how about the rest?! The rest is almost held ransom to all that is going on and is currently dazed by all the issues surfacing. The ‘Rest’ is also in a position of inability to understand or comprehend how all of a sudden we just have no money left! The bold declarations of difficult times ahead and all the dire consequences that we all have to face come with no clear statement of how and why this situation is with us. We the rest must buckle up and be good citizens coughing up in any way possible so that the cumulative sins could be corrected. It is somewhat funny to hear what all of them are saying in unison that none of them was ever in power all the time so thereby implying no responsibility to the current state. 

This peculiar situation certainly demands an understanding yet the rest have no choice in any discussion or the right to an explanation. They are expected to make no sound but only feel comforted by the assurances that all are in order as we prepare to trade debt over more debts. Suffering silently had been a hallmark of ours. Some may suffer silently and yet may not exactly know that due to blind adherence to politics. However, the rest is not guilty either as they get what they deserve because that is the nature of the system. You have to do some extra work and a different way of engagement if you are to realise something different. The ‘Rest’ also believe that corruption was also a main reason for this predicament and clearly wants to see and hear action taken on that as part of the way to recovery. That is what you witnessed from the Singapore story. That is what you are seeing from the currently emerging Rwanda story. 

The Best –almost but not all – is fleeing, the worst is fighting for power and all likelihood will realise as someone out of the lot has to win! – and the rest – the majority – as usual, would suffer in silence unless they at this late hour realise that change is indeed possible when the silent majority decides to be and to do otherwise.