The season of goodwill
As we sit on this Christmas day with families and friends let us, in the spirit of the season, remember that we are all transient travellers in this world, struggling in our different ways to make our peace with ourselves and with our fellow men and women. Let us also, in the spirit of the season, contemplate our future soberly but with no undue sense of foreboding, remembering that each of us can contribute in our own small way, by the quality of what we do and by what we refrain from doing or saying, to making it better rather than worse. We are aware of the weaknesses of our politicians. Yet they give their time and energy and conduct their struggle in public arenas for what they perceive to be the interest of the people. Few of us are prepared to undertake this often thankless task. Let us think of them with charity in this season. Our young new president may lack experience, may be naive in some ways, may be insecure in his own party. But he has displayed tremendous energy and initiative in the last four months and no one who has met him or seen him at work can fail to be impressed with his openness and sincerity and his eagerness to get things done. There is an obvious lack of malice too. These are things we can feel glad about, whichever party we support, a new generation has emerged relatively free of the baggage of the sixties. The leader of the opposition has lost quite a few admirers since December l997. Those who had admired his efforts to broaden his party and to appeal to all the races felt that he had retreated from this position under the pressure of losing the elections. But of course he was also under attack at the same time by radical critics in his party who felt he had capitulated and was not doing enough. His was a complex and sometimes lonely position and though he has made mistakes his essential strategic weakness may spring from the fact that the numbers are against him and his party and he does not understand or accept this, thus leading to him having no interest in the question of power sharing and a revision of the Westminster model when this was raised in the process of constitutional reform. We can perhaps also on this peaceful day visualise a brighter economic future for our long suffering country. The National Development Strategy will be published next month. This will provide many insights into the possibilities for development that lie ahead if only we can summon the energy to believe in ourselves as a nation. Our country has some natural assets and though we have suffered greatly from the diaspora of the last forty years all is not lost. There are still people with vision and ability, as the formulation of this Strategy itself proves. Let us use this season of peace and goodwill to give ourselves a measured hope. While not ignoring the difficulties and dangers that lie ahead let us pray for the statesmanship of our politicians, the energy of our businessmen, the maturity of our union leaders, the insight of our writers and artists, the soberness and balance of our media and the general sense of responsibility of our elites. However imperfectly and with whatever lack of clarity we may see it there is a way forward. Let us hope we have the strength, wisdom and forbearance to find it and pursue it.
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