The issue of legacy

THE EDITOR: The continuing outpouring of accolades for former president Max Richards at his passing, instructive in itself, raises more so questions about the critical issue of legacy: “What will the people say when you are gone?”

For the average folk, the idea may be of little formal significance for they are never really in the public’s eye as to warrant such a response, although within the small circle of their lives people may say he was a good or bad person or somewhere in-between, and that may matter.

In fact, in some instances, but in a more personal way, such people, through their religion or through charitable work and such-like observances, hope to make it right with their maker, and by extension the world around them. The concern for what the people will say for such people seems integral to their simple lives.

But for public figures especially in the politics, it’s a different kettle of fish. The maxim “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” often associated with politicians, seems to contain all the ingredients that would neutralise that simple sense of legacy referred to above, and in its place comes a sense of not being accountable, not to their maker, least of all the people they are supposed to represent, because of that feeling of power.

That attitude is exacerbated in this country by its race-based politics, in which the tribe is prepared to overlook the shortcomings of their leaders. Perhaps one would expect, even with these circumstances, that a sense of true leadership arising out of character will hopefully prevail.

But here there are no politicians of the character of Gandhi or Mandela to do so, only Third World politicians, prepared to exploit such tribal politics to their own advantage and that of their friends, even as, like true “mimic men,” they mouth the ideals of these greats.

Politics here, like for most Third World countries, is for self-aggrandisement and there is never a sense of what the people will say when they depart. Why should they anyway when, because of the tribalism, the vote is assured and there is no need to account? But even as the tribe can be fooled all the time, the politicians cannot fool all of the people all the time, and even as the politicians would think that they can, its worthwhile for them to remember two quotations from Shakespeare:

First: “Good name in man and woman…/ Is the immediate jewel of their souls/ Who steals my purse steals trash;/ ’tis something, nothing;/ ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;/ But he that filches from me my good name/ Robs me of that which not enriches him/ And makes me poor indeed” (Othello Act3Sc3 158-165).

This would hardly impact on the average politician for his purse is not “trash” but the “jewel of his soul,” for which he/she is quite prepared to trade their good name.

Next is the second quotation: “…that we but teach/ Bloody instructions, which being taught, return/ To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice/ Commends the ingredience of our poison’d chalice/ To our own lips”( Macbeth Act1 Sc7, 8-13).

This should impact for karmic justice cannot be evaded and politicians, as all others, should take note.

DR ERROL BENJAMIN, docbenj742