READER REJOINDER ON GOLDEN POLITICIANS ARTICLE
Editor I tried to read objectively your article on golden politicians. I have no facts for or against the issues raised, and my thoughts are that probably the problem arises when the appointed lets the appointing authority down.
Whether appointed or elected, public officers should respect their job--which is to serve the nation--and with utmost integrity. I have in my 51 years of existence seen and heard people campaign for votes, making promises most of which could have been fulfilled had people had integrity.
So, perhaps we could and should be complaining about how the appointed fail us and how the elected have served us well if they have. We asked nobody to go out there and lie to us. I’m sorry for sympathizing with none.
The appointed and elected all have failed to give me a decent salary. Until now, they both have said nothing about the health care crisis, the pillaging of the country’s resources etc.
If the appointed ensured delivery of health services, decent education, and decent employment for all, I really wouldn’t care who is doing what. When we shift attention from the issues we all can see and relate with, not only do we get misconstrued but also, and perhaps most importantly, we lose the attention of the audiences (and ultimately the numbers we hope to attract).
Politics is a game of numbers and he who hopes to initiate change should care for numbers. This will lead me to point second: I also do think that despite how we might feel about a lot of things, there has to be a starting point. There are concessions to be made. The first one could be intentionality to: respect the existing structures ( the constitution allows the authority to appoint right?) as the starting point to allow some kind of convergence to enable us to find each other.
Our overt low opinion of authority (whether we like them or not) will always determine how far we ourselves may be taken seriously. Audience is negotiated. Many times I have felt short-changed by God. But because He has what I want, I know all the time to negotiate Him. I choose and package my words accordingly.
As a teacher of language, I know the relationship between register, audience, language and style. Let’s work on this one. The Bridge are great with words. There’s nothing to lose in packaging words right, unless the purpose is to alienate.
The second could be . to not allow our feelings of anger and frustration to ‘speak’ for us. When we are angry, we become fractious and scornful. Some of us will go the extreme of lying, violence and be generally unpleasant.
These are a deadly combination. Unpleasantness makes us incoherent. So we end up taking away from ourselves the opportunity to explain what’s wrong. What’s wrong with not campaigning? What’s wrong with appointing etc. People like me are not asking for people to campaign or not campaign nor are we asking for a change of faces or whatever change for the sake of just being seen changing.
We want decent livelihoods: employment for our children regardless of who they are, medical care regardless of political affiliation, being treated with dignity in the land of our forefathers etc.
This kind of conversation, no matter how many times it’s had, gets us listening… Once we trail of to other things, we lose interest. We have seen a lot of still-born popular ideologies, especially in Africa, too many to care for names attached to political systems .
Trust me many of us care less for names and ways constituting governments. The majority of us just want human beings who understand that they can’t and shouldn’t be richer than the country. We want leaders who will work hard for the actual people to be economically enfranchised so that they themselves can enjoy their money in peace.
People who know how to steal, not those who milk the cow even when it’s bleeding And I think for us to achieve that, we don’t need to be disparaging. Actually, most often it’s the truth said in kindness ( with persistence) that’s the most chafing.
Kindness, respect and humility are the most incisive communicators… The Bridge could try these consistently. If you are speaking the truth, there’s no need for innuendo.. so that we can just focus on the facts. My comment after reading