“Loyalty to country ALWAYS, Loyalty to government when it deserves it”
Every once in a while, i like to take a break from the regular trend on my blog, to discuss a topic that is of crucial importance to my current train of thought. Food For Thought as i like to call these posts, are designed to get my readers thinking about the things around them and how they can actively change the world around them positively.
Recently, i have been very intrigued in the state of politics. i have been fortunate i guess due to my job, to be around quite a few politicians as I am a journalist. However, because of my position, i also am able to see the ugly that lies beneath when power corrupts them.
Every country has a set of elitist individuals that we blindly give full reign to in the hopes that something good will come out of it for us. We push down our ideas and hopes for the progress of our respective countries, put aside our ambitions and rest the burden on the shoulders of someone else, who we think can handle it. However, I think that the persons we give the power to are not necessarily fit for the job.
These persons are caught up in the race for social mobility and self enrichment, that they forget about the people who put them in the positions of prominence in the first place. That is the problem. Politicians are disconnected with the people they have been asked to represent. They aren't relate-able and they are unaware of the plight of the people in their country. Politicians are self absorbed and they never really get anything solved.
Politicians are short-sighted. They have no vision. They don't plan for the future and never look beyond or plan for anything beyond the next 5 years, which puts us at the end of their term in office. A lot of times, there are persons with good intentions in power who are genuine, but sadly, they make up the minority.
Where I live, the politicians are recycled. The same faces run every election and the portfolios just shift from time to time. If we're using the same individuals repetitively, how can the executive arm of government have an influx of new innovative ideas to move a country forward. Term limits should be insisted in government to give new faces a chance, new ideas the ability to blossom, and a chance for progress to actually be achieved.
“Man is the only animal that devours his own kind”
When discussing the problem with politics, we can't only focus on the politicians, though they are the main culprits. We also have to talk about the common man, the every day person who time after time surrenders their liberty to the ruthless politician. The people are trapped in a continuous cycle. They are deluded in to thinking that only one set of individuals have the capacity to lead a country. Where I live, the beloved head of a political party was prime-minister for 28 consecutive years. His father before him was the first prime-minister and they brainwashed the people into thinking that only them or a person from their family was fit to lead the country. As a result, the people blindly followed. not realizing that no real change was taking place within the country.
From that little bit, you can tell that the politicians may begin to feel a sense of entitlement. That the country is theirs. And that is the problem that occurs in a small twin island state such as my own. The same people who made the regulations all those years ago, are still the same faces of politics today. No one has changed. So if you had problems with them before, the problem can't be solved if you stick the same people back in.
We need to seriously rethink who we place in positions of leadership. We need to look at facts and look with progressive minds rather than sticking to political preference and the clouded notion only one set of persons can lead. But that's just my humble opinion.