Emancipating our conversations

by Maxwell Haywood 08.AUG.08

As a young child growing up in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, I heard many proverbs or wise sayings that spoke to the need for citizens to mind or be careful of what they say and how they say it. In short, these proverbs beckon us to emancipate our conversations.

Let me quickly recall six of these wise sayings or proverbs:{{more}} (1) Words go further than bullets; (2) What sweet goat mouth in the morning, run goat belly and bottom in the evening; (3) Don’t criticize others so that others may not criticize you; (4) Quarrels end, but words once spoken never die; (5) Mouth open and story jump out; (6) He who asks questions cannot avoid answers. There are many more, but let us settle with these for the moment.

These wise sayings have direct meaning for the development and further emancipation of our Vincentian society. In particular, these proverbs are sensitive to the ways in which we conduct interpersonal and intergroup relations in organized settings at the family, community, and national levels.

I have seen good organizations fall by the way side simply because of the way people irresponsibly and recklessly talk to or criticize each other. Quite often we verbally beat down each other with words, sound, and power. We use words to assassinate the characters of those whom we disagree with or oppose. We create mischief and do not care who stands or falls, and we defame one another. This social fact pervades every facet of our society. What is unfortunate about this is that no society can effectively institute a development process if there is a weak capacity for expressing disagreements and criticisms. The climate in organizations and institutions, whether civil, private or governmental, that manage the affairs of society is critical to achieving national and local development objectives. If this climate is marked by verbal hostility, it is extremely difficult to achieve development objectives.

Organizations, individuals, communities, nations need to constantly assess their strengths, weaknesses, mistakes, and achievements. This assessment is as essential to their development as nutrients are to the body. But for this assessment to work, people must feel free to disagree, agree, criticize, approve and disapprove. This means that all these practices must be constructive and seek to build up instead of destroying or preventing the accumulation of social capital that is so essential to the development and emancipation process. Freedom to criticize and express disagreements does not give license for expressions of contempt for others, revenge, character assassinations, attacks on the personhood of people, mischief, slander, lies, and other forms of non-productive and destructive behaviors.

What makes it excruciating is that persons will make charges against another individual or group of people without any substantive evidence. Often, these charges are destructive to those they are directed against.

The expression of disagreements and criticism is basically an art and science at the same time. Public debate, expression of criticisms and disagreements are artful and scientific practices that need to be developed and nurtured in citizens. Even though human beings have a natural necessity to communicate, it must be noted that expressing criticisms in a mature and responsible manner does not come naturally. Development institutions must pay serious attention to this human and social challenge. Strategies for genuine human resources development must be responsive to this need to develop capacity for expressing criticisms in more conscientious ways.

The wisdom inherited from our ancestors warns us about the danger in voicing criticisms and disagreements without care. Our grassroots cultures have created many proverbs or wise sayings to guide us. As the conscious emancipation process continues, the time seems right for us to pay greater attention to this reservoir of proverbial wisdom.