Maravi

Human energies fade

Human energies fade
By Editor
Monday August 04, 2008 [04:00]

EVERY period and every nation will need increasingly well-prepared, increasingly able leaders. It’s now a new world that is emerging and we have to adapt to it.
And as Vernon Mwaanga has aptly put it, the current political leaders should remember that they have a life span to live and thereafter, another generation will have to take over.

But the future generation of leaders will not be built in the future; it will be built on the threshold of today’s leadership. The future is not built in the future, it is constructed on what we do today – on the threshold of today.

We know that time passes and human energies fade. And there are some people whose fate was not to come into this world and rest at the end of their lives. They seem to be always ready to be with us, if we wish, as long as necessary – so long as they know they are useful. Not a minute less, or a second more.

They every day devote more time to the nation, they think; they give it more of their attention, because they have more experience, they meditated more, thought more. We see this in old men like Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Simon Zukas, and in old but less older men like Sikota Wina, Mark Chona and even Mwaanga himself.

So we have to be a bit more careful when we talk about generational changes. This should not mean excluding the older generations from meaningful political participation in the affairs of our country.

Plato said in The Republic that the ideal age for occupying ruling positions is after fifty-five. In our opinion, according to him, that ideal age should be sixty. And we imagine that sixty in Plato’s day would be somewhere around eighty today.

And how long one should be around, the people and the individual involved must decide – and of course the natural and absolutely logical phenomenon, which is someone’s death. What more could one person expect out of one life?

In our opinion, the person who today has the most authority, most experience, most ability and who people have most trust in should take over leadership when a vacancy arises.

Already, some generations are replacing others. We are confident, and we have always stated this, but we are aware that there are many dangers that can threaten a national democratic process. There are the errors of a subjective nature.

Now there are new generations in leadership because the independence struggle generation is passing. Now the youngest of that generation of leaders are probably in their late sixties or early seventies.

The independence struggle generation still cooperates with the new generations that recognised the authority of the few of that generation who are still around.

Clearly, what is important is to have politics based on principles and ideas shared by the entire nation and not politics where people do things just because they have blind faith in the leader or because the leader asks them to do so.

Really, we wish our leaders could combine youth and experience. We wish they had the experience of the older generations combined with their youth – in these difficult times, that require so much effort. above all, we wish our leaders had the youth, because a lot of energy is required. We think it would be much better to combine youth and experience.

And it is for this reason that we believe a combination of generations is a necessary one for the leadership of a country. No one generation can have in itself all these factors that are so necessary to good leadership. We therefore need the participation of more than one generation, of more generations, of all generations in the leadership of our country.

As for the issue of age, the matter of age is relative. It depends to a great extent on the person, on their state of health. Some people have to retire while they are still very young because their health doesn’t allow them to work; others continue to carry out public functions at seventy, seventy-five and even above eighty, because their health is good enough for them to do so. It also depends on the tasks. Some tasks are very easy, while others are more difficult. In times of great changes in a country, the tasks are usually hard, difficult; a great effort is required. Therefore, the leader has to give his all and make great effort to carry out his tasks.

It also depends on a person’s motivation. If one doesn’t have very powerful motivation, they can’t cope. It takes very powerful motivation and, above all, a very great need for one to do it.

The modern world has seen a large number of statesmen in their late seventies and early eighties. Today in the United States, John McCain, at 71, is competing for public office with a 47-year-old Barack Obama. Summing up, we think that old people shouldn’t be denied to engage in political affairs.

And Mwaanga touched another very important issue – that of hatred for tribalism. We agree with him that people shouldn’t be judged on their tribal origins but on their ability to deliver. We should consider ourselves fortunate, as a nation, to have been taught by Dr Kaunda and other leaders of the independence struggle generation like Sikota and Vernon himself that hatred and prejudice are not political weapons. There are political weapons and, in addition, we have the experience to know that principles are the best possible political weapons.

And when Mwaanga talks about leaving the country better than we found it, this reminds us of an old Rabbinic teaching, a beautiful one, that just before a person dies, an angel comes to him from Heaven and asks the vital question: “Tell me, is the world a better place because of your life which is about to end? Is the world a better place because of the efforts you exerted? Is the world a better place because you were around?”

We all have a duty to make a contribution to the building of a more just, fair and humane society in this country and this world.

Labels: YOUTHS

posted by MrK @ 4:06 AM