What would King Ghaz have done?
Two Sidelined Diplomats & Wismaputra
The April 11 statement by Wismaputra apportioning blame on two serving officers of the Malaysian Foreign Service for some alleged foul up is probably the most pathetic, puerile and beyond the pale action.
Our hallowed Foreign Ministry seems to have lost the plot.
The function of that key ministry is to protect, promote and preserve the nation’s interests with a view to enhancing the prestige and stature of the country.
It must not lose sight of this fundamental and high responsibility.
If someone in that ministry has failed to deliver on a specific matter, it is an internal departmental matter and should be handled as such. Should that matter attract adverse press or media attention, a two-liner would be appropriate to express awareness of that episode and to state firmly that an internal inquiry is being held.
Instead, what we got was a long, rambling and unnecessary explanation of how well some agile political rover had done and how the prime minister had missed out on an important speaking opportunity.
Foreign ministries must be seized with large overarching policy and operational objectives of peace, regional stability and the creation of an international environment which would further the country’s diplomatic, economic, trade and other vital interests. Full attention must be given towards the attainment of these laudable objectives. Officers within the diplomatic service must be trained suitably to be able to endeavor to fulfil these objectives. They have to be equipped with sufficient resources, including up-to-date information so that they can feel the pulse of the receiving state and external environment and advise their home government appropriately. Protocol work, while important, should be the low-key, back room work which should not be taken for granted, but it should not, in any situation, be of such overwhelming importance to diminish the spirit and content of friendly relations between nations.
In Ben Macintyre’s book ‘ A Spy Among Friends’ (2014) it is related that on November 7, 1955, the then British Foreign Secretary, Harold Macmillan had informed the House of Commons that he ‘ had no reason to conclude that Mr Philby has at any time betrayed the interests of this country, or.....’
Kim Philby, a despicable hard-drinking philanderer, was in fact a spy for the Soviet Union from his student days in Cambridge and defected to Moscow in 1963 from Beirut. But his country’s political establishment deeply valued the role of its bureaucracy and would not cast aspersions on any bureaucrat unnecessarily. Britain was concerned with larger goals.
Philby’s disloyal and unpatriotic actions showed that he did not merit this kind of protection . Philby reportedly said: “ I have always operated on two levels, a personal level and a political one. When the two have come into conflict, I have had to put politics first.”
Needless to say, here in our country, there seems to be both politics and the deep state to contend with. One must remember that national priorities must remain paramount and prevail at all times.
M Santhananaban
April 12, 2022
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