By Dr Bertrand Ramcharan
Seventh Chancellor of the University of GuyanaPreviously Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government
In 1919, as his country dealt with defeat in World War I, world-famous German political philosopher Max Weber gave a celebrated lecture on “The Profession and Vocation of Politics”. It is widely considered the most important piece of work in the history of modern political ideas.
Weber thought that Germany had been led to disaster not by its military, but by the very poor quality of its political leadership. He therefore set out to analyse what qualities one should expect of a country’s political leaders. His essay contains lessons that are worth keeping in mind in a country like Guyana which, in one way or another, has been on the brink since 1953. One could legitimately interrogate the quality of political leadership in Guyana for the past seventy-five years – across the political spectrum.