A few weeks ago, there was a commentary in the media about Team Unity’s alleged failure to deliver on its campaign promises one quarter of the way into its term. The expectation seemed to be that the ‘promises’ are iron clad contracts that must be delivered within a specific time frame. There is also a perception that the Team is cracking up; a perception now being strengthened, according to the some pundits, by the Powell issue.
We are not defending the performance of any group in Government, nor endorsing the performance of any group in Opposition. But we want to make the point that the way things seem is not always the way things are. All that glitters is not gold. Donald Trump is quite smart to describe his promises as suggestions that are open to refinement and even outright change when he gets into office. We, too, would be smart not to accept hook, line and sinker every word that is uttered by politicians.
We must also understand that not all of the information available to government will be immediately shared with the public, even under a freedom of information act. Some information is sensitive and must be held back; and some information is incomplete and requires time to properly unravel. Patience is required and trust in our leaders (in and out of government). Notice we said trust, not blind faith. That is sure to err, and in government, to err is costly.
We recount a story of an Opposition party in the UK, arguing against the Government’s refusal to grant citizenship to a prominent foreign businessman. When the then Opposition was voted into Office, it too refused to grant citizenship to the said businessman. When questioned, the Minister responded by saying he now knows what he didn’t know before; and now knowing also refused to grant citizenship to the businessman.
Politics seems to be the art of reducing your beam to a mole while building up the opposition’s mole into a beam. Sadly, the truth is that our leaders seem not to be learning that the job isn’t done until the paperwork is done; and that no information and too little information is worse than bad information.Nature abhors a vacuum and silencegenerates loose threads. The vacuum will be filled with innuendos; then the loose threads willbe pulled to reveal the nakedness of government.
That is not a reassuring scenario.
