Some important differences

Let’s face it: Most of us simply want the things around us to work properly – nature, people, machines, institutions, systems. To the extent that we can speak about an “average citizen”, we can safely conclude that such a cohort would rather get on with life, its joys and its challenges, and to do so safely, in good health, and with as few inconveniences as possible.

There should also be the means to participate in society devoid of significant need when it comes to shelter and other economic, social, and cultural rights.

It is therefore totally understandable that a country’s power arrangements, in all their manifestations, enter the equation at critical points of such aspirations. It is also natural, that in the cut and thrust of election campaigning these matters would dominate the public discourse. Mind you, we are not alone in this.

In the Caribbean, this year for example, there are likely to be as many as nine national elections, including the scheduled but highly unlikely encounter in Haiti. In every instance, the meeting of basic needs dominates the public discourse, as it should.

Pay close attention, as I have, to those just past and to the others to come, including ours, and you will recognise vast areas of common concern, together with all the familiar assets and liabilities of our heritage of political culture and practice.

We can discuss at another time, if you wish, the colonial legacy and the extent to which we ought to be able to begin taking responsibility for ourselves as citizens and as polities.

Even so, there is a declining yet significant number of people in our countries for whom solutions and progress are viewed solely within the context of what the political institutions of their own durable private/tribal choice or taste can achieve. Alternatives are pre-emptively discarded as unrealistic options.

This is also despite the fact that in most instances there is little to separate the prescriptions of competing parties. There is no fundamental philosophy to distinguish them from each other.

Everywhere, there is the lure of the theocratic state, for example, leaving unfinished business when it comes to key areas of human rights. It is amazing the harmony on LGBT+ rights, capital punishment, the subservience of the state under the powers of the Church, among others.

There is, as well, psycho-social reliance on authoritarian behaviours both by the ruled and the rulers. Hence, non-resolution of important rules of the governance game including the separation of powers, and the degree to which post-colonial thought remains entrenched in our constitutions in the letter of savings clauses or after the spirit of unchallenged power.

This makes solutions-driven decision-making declarations rather illusory - “fixing” things expressed purely as abstruse and deceptive expressions of essentially immovable personal or collective preference. It’s more difficult to conceal such a condition nowadays – that fixing things is an exclusive tribal preserve.

That said, there remains a lot to be done, and a long history of shortcomings. Digital transformation in both the private and public sectors is sluggish and insufficiently deep.

There is, understandably, a lot of emphasis on public service developments because people simply do not have the options that are otherwise available within private enterprise.

But tell me the difference at the counter of a bank or insurance company and the one facing you at any state agency. Be honest.

Burdensome business processes in the private sector easily match inefficiencies in the state domain. Serious people routinely recognise the digital facades. Make no mistake about it, these two areas of concern –  the digital lag and archaic business processes - are evident across the board.

We can all also speak about depravities in private health, whatever the undoubted and tragic deficiencies in our system of socialised medicine. There is however little in the public domain to distinguish differences in approaches to fixing these things by those who claim superior credentials.

That said, and back to the politics, there are behaviours that ought to determine important, albeit narrow distinctions. Actions executed and things said at times of deepest, darkest societal need, for instance. The resort to ad hominem attack over reasoned argument. And, of course, a notion of the genetic superiority of one group over another.

These are the things, even above the transactional aches, that should make a difference in the end. When choices need to be made.