by Surendra BISSOONDOYAL

? We have nothing to learn from others!?.

This is the summum of arrogance that some people exuberantly exhibit when they hold positions of power. People who have had responsibility thrust on them confuse responsibility with power and get rattled when they feel that the power is slipping away. Irrational reactions under pressure do not serve the purpose of good governance, whether they are from ministers, chief executives or even heads of families.

How can we say that we have nothing to learn from others when even Nobel prize winners will humbly tell us that they have a lot more to learn in their own fields?

J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is known as the father of the atomic bomb and directed the project that led to the explosion of the first bomb, was a top physicist. But this did not prevent him from seeking wisdom in the humanities and learning Greek and Sanskrit.

In fact he read the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit and described it as one of the most influential books in his life. He compared the total amount of knowledge known to man as being inside a sphere, the unknown being outside that sphere. As the amount of knowledge increases the sphere becomes bigger but at the same time the area of contact with the unknown increases.

In short, the more we know the more we are aware of what we do not know --- unlike our self-declared geniuses who do not need to learn anymore. If we continue to learn, as we should, we will understand how insignificant we are. We will then have a greater sense of our own inadequacies instead of pompously sitting on a pedestal that we have ourselves erected, and expecting others to put their proposals on a plate and dance attendance on us for acceptance, to use a phrase coined by Jawaharlal Nehru when he was describing the attitude of the British colonial government during the struggle for India?s freedom. In our own times we have seen how the enlightened leadership of Nelson Mandela can make people of different backgrounds work together to build a new South Africa. It was certainly not easy for somebody who had spent twenty years in prison and suffered the ignonimity of apartheid.

He gave us a lesson in humility when, on arrival at the SSR International airport, he went about shaking hands with the workers. On the other hand we are seeing the effects that the arrogance of power is having on a country like Zimbabwe which has the resources to fuel its economic development and, in the wake of such development, propel social development as well.

But the failure of those in power to harness the knowledge and goodwill of all its people has taken Zimbabwe to the edge of the precipice.

Is that what we want for Mauritius? At a time when we have to think about how best to cope with the loss of revenue following the reduction in the export price of sugar and the worsening social environment our leaders proclaim:

Nou mem mari. Nou mem konne tou.

Even assuming the power to decide who should be the representatives of employees on the National Pay Council! If we want the 2nd of October to be declared as the day of non-violence we should at least bear in mind that Gandhi had reminded his countrymen that the fight for the independence of India was a fight against injustice and not a fight against the British people.

Violence in our mind and in our utterances may be worse than physical violence.