Dear Editor,
I refer to the article titled, `Ali banking on experience, 50,000 jobs promise’ (SN April 7). The following comments are offered.
It was startling, but intriguing to hear from the opposition presidential candidate. Having been missing and silent for so long it caught slightly off guard. Surprises do abound in this always excitable space. My thinking is that wiser, more sober heads must have prevailed and influenced this development. I do hope that, since so much is involved and since so many may be putting their mark in favour of him, that this is not a one-off, but the beginning of a more assertive and constant presence. Whether I think he stands for anything or not is immaterial and inconsequential. What is relevant is that the standard bearer of the party has to get out before the cyber and paper audiences and represent the merits and visions of his candidature. He has to be his own biggest advocate by selling himself, and through doing so constantly. I do not know how he is going to overcome the competing and insurmountable presence of his comrade and champion, who SN described in its Sunday editorial titled, `Naturalisation’ as one having a “customary flair for the melodramatic.” That tide lifts only one boat.
Moreover, I think that the media spotlight has to shift away from the big boss, the real candidate, and fixate clearly on the nominee. This is his opportunity to score some points and sway some from within his own voting camp. Rather regrettably, I do not foresee him making any positive or lasting impression on critics, naysayers, and assorted abusers and scorners. He has his work cut out for him, even with his own. But it would be a constructive step to tell his story, whatever it may be. I suggest that the man be given a chance to demonstrate what he is about, what he stands for, what he brings to the table. Has to be his own words, his energies and, shall we say, his intellect. The drive has to come from him. And so, too, must be the message: accurate, realistic, and persuasive in power.
On the aspect of message, I venture to say that the opposition candidate has selected two of the worst planks on which to walk. In piratical terms, and through identifying the planks of “experience and 50,000 jobs” it is my position that he has dug his own political grave. To be kind and courteous, his experience, such that it is, speaks more to a trail of a suspicious, if not incriminating litter, rather than that of principled, inspired leadership. That experience is the saga of the atrocities from a bygone era that plagued and from which this country not only reels, but also that from which it struggles to extricate itself. That experience inflicted a still-to-be-calculated amount of damage and which redounds to the severe discredit of the candidate. That experience now so lamely and unconvincingly marketed formed part of a continuum that devastated this country in dollars disappeared, psyche pummeled, and perverse culture introduced, enhanced, and now immovably embedded.
In terms of the second element of the candidate’s reliance, that “50,000 jobs promise” the best that should be said about it is that someone (anyone) would have the arrogance and ignorance to articulate such a foundationless proposition and prospect. As promises go that one is nowhere near to reality. I am compelled to chalk that up to inexperience, immaturity, and rhetorical extravagance. This country could use 50,000 jobs, even 10,000 slots of any kind, but it has not done so in decades; and even with the promised oil bonanza, anywhere that number will prove to be elusive and a pipe dream for the next decade. I see this as another of the usual empty political soundbites bandied about so casually around here.
For starters, the calibre of local content minds and hands is not there. Second, the local workforce-largely the youth brigade-is ill-equipped mentally, educationally, spiritually, and psychologically to rise to the challenge of responding to any invitation or environment that calls for tens of thousands of jobs. The interest may (may) be there for the foreign rates and money, but the ambition, vision, and drive are just not there. The mandatory focus and dedication are absent. So, even if a fraction of that number of jobs was available, it would go abegging, and have to be filled by the influx of skilled and voraciously hungry that are poised to invade these latitudes. Third, the bulk of any local jobs trickling down, and it would be a trickle, are sure to be of one kind: low level and that of the mainly labouring force. In other words, the need would be for physical, manual workers: roustabouts, porters, haulers, domestics, mud men and people in a variety of support services. In no shape or form is that number going to amount to 25,000 jobs, much less 50,000. In 20 years perhaps, but not in the next handful of years.
Having taken this stand, I encourage the candidate, now that he is in this boat and set adrift up the creek, he should get a paddle. That paddle must be one that is constructed of the sensible, the pragmatic, and the sturdy. Despite numerous misgivings, all grave, I wish him well. Fortune favours the brave and the boisterous, too.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
