Delroy ChuckTHE RECENT CALL by the managing director of BNS, William Clarke, for a benevolent dictatorship is nothing new or unique. It is a cry of desperation, a cry for strong leadership and, in fact, a cry for sound governance. As the escalating criminality reflects the decaying social order, the declining economy brings greater hardship and more suffering, and poor governance yields only hopelessness and despair, businessmen like Mr. Clarke passionately feel success can come with dictatorial leadership and a reduction or elimination of the basic rights and freedoms of the people.
Mr. Clarke mentions Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew as an example of benevolent dictatorship. That is really nonsense. The Western press has painted Lee Kuan Yew as someone who violated basic constitutional freedoms, primarily because he did suppress some press freedom and locked up several communists who threatened his government, but to a large extent the people enjoyed fundamental rights and freedoms. Lee Kuan Yew led by example, by strong leadership and with the support of the people. I rather doubt he could have succeeded by dictate and without the consent of the people. Lee Kuan Yew succeeded because of his strong intellect, sound leadership and clear vision of a better life for his people.
I know of no dictatorial leader who could face the public in General Elections and win repeatedly. In fact, Lee Kuan Yew in his book, From Third World to First said: "Our greatest asset was the trust and confidence of the people... We were careful not to squander this newly gained trust by misgovernment and corruption." Can we say the same of our present government? Then, with regards to the democratic process, he noted: "We got (the people) to vote for us again and again by providing jobs, building schools, hospitals, community centres, and, most important of all, homes which they owned (p.166)."
People want governments to deliver, to create the atmosphere for growth, jobs and prosperity and to increase their happiness and well-being.
To be fair, Mr. Clarke and like-minded persons have not indicated what rights and freedoms should be surrendered and just how we would elect or select the benevolent dictator. Would the removal of freedom of speech, including freedom of the press, make for a more orderly and compliant society? Should there be restrictions on the right of people to freely move about? Or, should we give the police the right to search and invade our person and homes as they see fit? If the truth be known, handing more power to the state would only exacerbate the indiscipline and create more room for corruption. The surrender of our rights and freedoms has already been tried and failed, under the infamous Suppression of Crime Act, and continues under similar legislations.
Interestingly, our present constitution does create a Prime Minister who can exercise dictatorial powers. Single-handedly, he chooses his own Cabinet, selects persons to the most important leadership posts, effectively controls the legislative process and, during his tenure, can behave as a dictator. Fortunately, none of our Prime Ministers to date have behaved as dictators. Perhaps, they have sought to be loved and admired and, thus, behaved as benevolent 'godfathers', distributing the largesse of the nation and granting favours like monarchs, instead of creating a climate of justice, opportunity and prosperity.
No doubt, the yearning for a benevolent dictator is a cry for leadership that could control the indiscipline and corruption, promote the welfare of the people and manage the country to growth and prosperity. Yet, it is not dictatorial leadership that is needed, but strong, caring and visionary leadership. Dictators can only gain compliance through force and fear, and are generally despised by even their followers. Most are corrupt, selfish and inhumane.
Good examples of benevolent dictatorships are the dons in our communities. Is that what we want, nationally? To yearn for such leadership is a backward step to tyranny, brutishness and degradation. It is really time for Mr. Clarke and others to understand that the world is moving forward, getting more democratic and promoting individual values and dignity. People want to enjoy more rights and freedoms, not less.
Even in the management of our crime problem, we have sought to give more powers to the police and to abridge the rights and freedoms of our citizens. Yet, we know that increasing the powers of the police or state agencies and, correspondingly, removing the rights and freedoms of the citizens has not worked and cannot work. The effect is to create more opportunities for corruption and abuse of powers. That is the lesson of history and experience. Indeed, countries that created opportunities, success and happiness for their people are those that have sought to trust, empower and release the energies of their people, by increasing instead of curbing their rights and freedoms. Thus, I would argue that our country would make greater progress if we seek to increase the rights and freedoms of our people and reduce the powers, control and dictates of the state.
To be sure, our country is decaying and disintegrating through weak and vacillating leadership. We seem to drift from crisis to crisis, without even admitting that we had one. There is no sense of accountability and acknowledgement that things have gone wrong. We create a problem and then take praise for solving it. For example, inflation is really the fault of governmental profligacy and the country suffered in the early nineties from stagflation. Now, the government takes praise for controlling it, without even acknowledging how it started. This desperate search for praise and admiration, contriving success from the dust heap of failure and the growing tendency to shift the blame cannot assist in nation building.
What this country needs is not benevolent leadership, of whatever kind, but honest, trustworthy and credible leadership that can sell a vision of where the country is going. We need a government that identifies problems and makes the effort to solve them, that cares for the country above party and self, that respects the individual's humanity and dignity, that upholds the human rights and freedoms of every citizen, and can create the right social and economic atmosphere for our people to fin
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at delchuck@hotmail.Com.
