Not because someone is successful means they are worth patterning your life after

Dec 17, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – My grandson lives in Canada and lives what he calls a “Bohemian life”. You or I might charitably call him a starving artist. He has failed three times to get into art school and draws caricatures at Niagara Falls to make ends meet. This is actually decent money, but he is in with a bad set and they waste all their money drinking at bars. At least he does not smoke dope. I asked him why he has no aspirations in life and he told me, on the contrary, he has great aspirations, though he was far too drunk at the time to define them.
I told him he needed a role model whose example he could follow to turn his life around. Someone whose circumstances paralleled his but who rose above them and achieved great things. Well, last month, I ran into him doing open mic comedy at the same bar. He told me that he had taken my advice, and could I put in a good word for him with a political party. Now I don’t know anything about politics in Canada, but I told him that politics in Guyana is all about race, which didn’t put him off as much as I thought it would.
I asked what he was doing entertaining in bars if he wanted to be a politician. “Grandad, I took your advice and found a role model. He was a great politician, who did a lot of great things for his people. But he started out like me, exact same background, and made his name talking in drinking houses. That was how people got to know him and he got to know people.”
I have to say that this made some amount of sense. In politics and business, at least in Guyana, drinking is a big part of the culture. As he said, you can easily get to know the electorate, your fellow politicians, as well as financial backers and other powerful individuals over a glass of rum. I imagine that this disadvantages individuals who do not drink or are prohibited from drinking. Somewhat mollified, I asked him his next step.
“The next thing is to get out of the bars and onto the streets. Marches and demonstrations will help grow a following and show people we are serious about our cause.” Again, a solid strategy, one I see employed to some effect on the streets of Guyana. “This your own idea, or more emulation?” He replied that he was repeating but not copying entirely – “A role model is important, but you should also make sure you do not make the same mistakes they did. I want to build up a strong following, and some amount of bombast will be necessary, but I will take care not to entirely alienate the other side. Society is half and half, and it can’t function without the other half. So we have to keep them around until we’ve made the changes we need.”
At this point I was getting worried. I thought the rum might have rushed to his head, but I never heard no rum-sucker talking like this. That sort of talk might fly in Guyanese politics but in Canada they got a thing called “political correctness”, so I told him, “You can’t be saying things like, “other side” and “keep them around until!”
“I won’t mince words, grand-dad. This is my struggle. People don’t want a goody-goody leader full of platitudes; and if I succeed no one will ask me for an apology; and if I lose, no one will expect one. This is what I have learned.”
“Boy who it is feeding you this nonsense? Who it is you patterning yourself after?” I shouted at him. He walked over to his table, picked up a book and handed it to me. “This will explain.”
I looked down and was flabbergasted. I realised my mistake. I thought that by urging him to find a role model he would be able to emulate their best qualities, get his act together and turn around his life. What I forgot is that the choice of role models is just as important. Just because someone is successful does not mean they are worth patterning your life after. Just as important as success, your role model must be a good and decent person. I looked down at the book in my hands. It was Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)