I watched the second US Presidential Debate in the town hall format yesterday. What was truly impressive is that the Americans have devised a system for getting their US presidential candidates to debate and highlight the differences in their positions on alternative policies being promised to the American people as future policies, and therefore politics.
But then, in the US, the president does have a unique executive role as the chief executive of that democracy. While he can be checked or balanced by the Judiciary and the Congress, such equitable accountability does not exist in much other parts of the world. But, we still need to check the dream versus realities of their candidates\’ promises.
There is an older world view that believes and assumes that life is simply lived on a large craft, something like being on the deck of the Titanic, and that the right direction of the ship is somehow decided by this Lone Ranger leadership model. The captain rules and is always right!
Leadership a consensual model of teamwork
The alternative world view defines leadership as a consensual model of white-water teamwork; under severe conditions of change, as one pre-ordinate dominating feature. In that model, decision-making is no more on the assumption of one know-all person but rather a top team who constantly exchange ideas and knowledge with one another while participating in shared decision-making. There is mutual responsibility and accountability.
The promoters of the older model believe that \”leadership personality alone can define new direction-setting\”. However, in today\’s realities it appears that the Lone Ranger model of leadership is no more justifiable because no human being has complete knowledge of all complex realities in an Internet-worked world.
Moreover, the speed of change is so real that every boulder we face is never the older one of past experience, and it is always happening under extreme white-water conditions! The leader\’s personality is no more relevant than that of his partners and co-actors facing the newer reality.
The older model of the ‘captain of his craft\’ is no more the right metaphor. Today\’s reality, and the requisite new and relevant metaphor, is: ‘leadership for white-water rafting\’, where the craft is now only a small handful of people, and leadership means manoeuvring through changes at the speed of light to deal with every new boulder they have never seen before! Remember, never before has a US Consulate ever been attacked like this, with full knowledge that the ambassador was within!
Today\’s American model of leadership
The highlight of the recent presidentail debate, therefore for me, was the question about the killing of the American ambassador in Libya. And, Mitt Romney goofed on this once again. As I already wrote in my past article in The Malay Mail after the first debate: Romney is faux pas precedence option! Pun intended.
I liked and appreciated the Barack Obama model of leadership exemplified by the question. Others call it ‘leadership from the back\’; I call it shared model of leadership. President Obama spoke on this specific matter for the first time to explain the truth of the matter, and there was pin drop silence: everyone listened, except the contender!
Obama argued that he alone was Captain of Team America; inclusive of all players, whether it is secretary of state, the UN ambassador, the US ambassador to Libya, or even the other staff! They were all equal parts and parcel of his team. He was their captain! There was little uncertainty; there was little doubt about this posture and position. He spoke with the truth of integrity!
Nature and structure of American foreign policy
Foreign affairs and diplomacy today cannot be conducted within the language and literature of the American cowboy movies or even within the realities of \”the Americans and their Red Indians!\”
The world is today very flat; anyone, including a small team of well armed rebels in Libya can plan and deploy an attack on the American ambassador as a symbol of ‘hatred for American arrogance!\’ It was therefore another 9-11 repeated on the same date and anniversary! That alone tells me that it had nothing to do with the Egyptian Tahrir protest and its implications.
The Republican candidate\’s assumptions about truth and falsity, and premises of his discourse are as irrelevant as any maxim of entertainment for reality TV; it is only as real as the artificiality of its human creation and production! God is directly and personally absent to the non-astute observer!
China is not an enemy and neither is Iran satanic! Or, we can also all agree that Russia needs to figure out her new philosophy of life! But, the simple black-and-white world configuration of reality is at once a simplification as well as an uninformed view of complex reality of the world with its myriad of rainbow colours and her variations of creativity!
Therefore, as a resident of Asia, wherein we live, and now apparently becoming a theatre of new ‘performance reality shows,\’ I would like to state that we can all learn from how Asean dealt with both Myanmar and now, the Bangsamoro crisis in the Philippines, as a lesson in the newer model of engagement and discourse as opposed to the older one of pretentious power and control. All power always belongs to the author of life; never only with human systems and pretentious authorities!
Truth and reconciliation as the way forward
In any relationship between parties, truth is a given; when there is no shared truth, there cannot be a relationship! Now, if we are on the same page of truth-modes, then there is some basis to talk about \”reconciliation or resolution of any miscommunication.\” No common truth; there can be no talk or dream of reconciliation. We lose our capacity to agree, to disagree, in some agreeable way!
If Iran believes America is Satan, and likewise America of Iran; there can be no shared agreement of what is truth. One of my friends once told me that \”Mahathir is the Evil One himself!\” My reply was: \”I know Satan is Mr Evil, and Hitler was evil, but…\” This same person is now a good friend of Dr M.
Asean has taken a position of \”constructive engagement\” in her diplomacy related to the formation and realisation of Asean as a community of mutually respectful nations. Mutual engagement is therefore a willing and voluntary process of \”engagement with the other embedded with a sincere view to understand the other\’s views\”. Once this process starts, there are a myriad of potential possibilities.
South Africans taught the world about truth and reconciliation; and the Nobel Trustees recognised and awarded two Nobel Prizes for peace in that effort. The Myanmar Award has been now finally been awarded to the recipient. Even Obama was prematurely given a Peace Award; but, did the Americans really notice and understand why?