CONVERSATIONS

Oct 16, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A conversation is a two-way process. It is about engaging two or more persons or entities; not about merely speaking to them. A conversation is not a sales pitch. It is not about someone lecturing to another. Rather there must be the willingness on both sides to listen, engage and tolerate.
The former President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, has, according to reports in the media, made a call for a “new” national conversation. But the more you read of what this conversation is supposed to be about, the more it becomes clear that this is not a new conversation that is being proposed but the same old rigmarole, infected with the same old flaws that have characterized the way the PPPC has done public business since 1997.
This so-called new conversation is based on the major projects which have been scuttled by the opposition parties. It is conversation about what the government wants and not necessarily about what the people want. It is not a conversation at all. It a sale pitch in which the government will try to garner support for these major projects so that they can be rescued from the deep pit into which they have fallen.
Guyana indeed needs a new conversation, but it cannot be on the basis of what has been outlined. It has to be constructive engagement in which the government must be prepared to listen, to discuss, and to compromise. It cannot be about one-way traffic.
The ruling party, so short of ideas, with its creative juices almost as dry as the Amalia Falls, has also called for a conversation.
This time it is about attending to indiscipline in the society. The people have a way of poking fun at these suggestions. The people are asking about the indiscipline of the government, such as, for example, in moving ahead with the construction of a hotel even before financial closure has been had.
But one has to treat this call for a conversation by the ruling party with far more seriousness, because it could allow for a constructive engagement between the government and stakeholders on societal problems and hopefully this engagement can lead to greater partnerships.
No details have been provided as to how the government plans to begin this conversation on indiscipline.
Until such time as this is made clear, a conclusive pronouncement on the merits of the proposal will have to be delayed. But it is certainly something that should be looked at, because it does not proscribe a fixed agenda, as was the call for a new conversation around projects which are being rejected by the opposition parties.
While these proposals for conversations are taking place, another one has been launched by the Ministry of Education. The Minister of Education has been meeting with the parents and the teachers in a number of schools to discuss issues of concern to them and, importantly, to build partnerships.
This is a very commendable discourse that has been launched and led by the Minister of Education and should be encouraged. Hopefully it will allow officials of the Ministry of Education to meet with the parents of every school and thus work towards a much broader partnership in education.
Obviously, the Minister of Education herself will be unable to meet with every school, but the meetings that she has had so far hopefully crystallize in her mind how this new conversation about partnering in education can be structured.
It is suggested that someone be appointed to head this process full-time and that the conversation takes place nationwide. Eventually, a model as to how these partnerships between the ministry, the parents and other stakeholders can be cemented will emerge. If this conversation works, then it can give impetus and stimulus to the other conversation on social problems that the ruling party wants.
As for the call for a new conversation on the major projects which have been jettisoned, I am afraid that has to take place at the political level, because unless it takes place there and is resolved there, it will amount to nothing more than an attempt to bring public pressure to bear on the opposition parties to withdraw their opposition to the projects that the government wants to see.
Any approach outside of a political engagement with the opposition parties would not amount to a new conversation but an old political trick that has outlived its usefulness.

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