 |
| Jeremy B Shearar, DDG, says goodbye |
You close your eyes and because you were
deeply influenced by your years in France, you remind yourself of the verity of
that French aphorism: ''Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." Then
you strip the immensity of the technological advances of our lifetime and
reduce our world to its human essentials; it becomes apparent that humankind
has changed little, if at all, during recorded history. Voices speak to us
across the centuries from Egypt, from Greece, from China, if we could decipher
them, from pre- Columbian America, with the same thoughts and ideas as we have
today, even if we try to dress them up in complicated language.
If this is true of recorded history, what
have I been doing for the past forty years? Simply expanding my knowledge and
understanding of an unchanging humanity? And, if so, what do I say now to those
who have shared with me these unchanging years as human beings struggling to
come to terms with the pressures of technological achievement?
FIrst of all. to the only one left who was
here when I started, the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself, who is the living
demonstration that human nature does not change. I remember the bleak forecasts
of pessimism and threats of resignation in those early days when we walked home
through the Union Buildings gardens as Cadets. I didn't really believe them
then, any more than I do now. We have come a long way together and, perhaps
because our natures are so opposed, we made, I think, a good team in
Washington.
No reference to the Minister is complete
without recalling the role played by his selfless and charming wife, Helena.
She holds a particular comer in the hearts of both my wife and myself but for
all of US shehas displayed a personal charm to make each one feel special and
important. We were stunned by her accident and have followed her long illness
as a personal tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with her constantly.
I would not lengthen the list by mentioning
individuals among my colleagues. There are so many, starting with those who
influenced my thinking and my ideas in my formative years in External Affairs,
some of whom still provide the Department with the benefit of their experience,
others who are now only nostalgic memories. We were a close knit group -
financially we had no alternative - who made much of our own amusements both at
office and extramurally. Not the least of them were table-tennis across the
desk, cricket with a ruler and a rubber and amateur dramatics. We sometimes
Used to say that our esprit de corps was cemented by the probability that we
were misfits in the real world. Of such are the future formulators of policy
made.
The Department has grown indescribably from
those early days (possibly no division more than Administration), ever since an
enquiry was made about twenty-five years ago into its order and method
procedures and naive line-function officers
were confronted with a fearsome and incomprehensible document, known as KT2,
whose sole purpose it seemed was to find out how much time was wasted on the
telephone. The result was that the chief investigator was incorporated into the
Department and developed around him a mighty and indispensable empire, by which
he ruled our lives and drew us, like some engulfing quicksand, deeper and
deeper into doing the Administration ourselves. Or so it seemed to us, who were
beginning to be called line-function and wanted only to do that.
He leaves on the same day I do and I would
not like him to go with the impression that there is not a great admiration for
the work he has done to keep an ever more complex structure afloat and position
it to withstand the onslaughts of our sister departments for the ever
diminishing slices of the budgetary cake. My good wishes go with him: few could
have coped with the painful illness that has dogged him these last few years
and kept his colleagues' interests at the masthead as he has.
We, the diplomats, the shop window of the
public service, sometimes tend to overvalue ourselves and overpraise such
success as may have been achieved. Where would we have been without our
secretarial and technical support staff? A good typist can even make a poor
draft look better and it is only too easy to forget what we owe them. My thanks
to all those who have over the years made my job easier, with a special word to
those who in the last two and a half years have helped to found the office of
the Deputy Director- General (Multilateral) and to keep it functioning.
These remarks are applicable a fortiori to
the local staff in our Missions abroad. For those I have worked with I have the
greatest admiration, especially in their loyalty to a government that was not
the toast of the world and which it took them twenty years of unbroken service
to have the opportunity of observing at home.
To my colleagues, past, present, and
future, career and contract: it has been a privilege working with you all,
through the good times but more especially the bad, through the agreements and the
occasional argument.
You have been good to me and to Penny and I
hope that we have responded in kind. I have been specially encouraged by the
development of the Multilateral Branch and the speed with which those who found
multilateralism a new concept, have responded to the challenge and developed an
expertise and understanding over a short period of time that has won them the
respect of their peers both within and outside the Department. As the thrust of
international relations explores the uncertainties of the post cold war era,
the multilateralist will come into his own. You are the nucleus and the
pioneers of a demanding future for a Department no longer shackled by the
chains of domestic policy.
Remember, though, that multilateralism
makes exceptional demands on you and your family: it requires a special breed
to cope. I have been lucky to have had the support and companionship of a wife
and family that have adapted to those demands, even in the face of growing
international hostility to our representatives in the seventies and eighties. I
cannot thank them enough: there are many times I have wondered whether we had
the right to expect our families to share the burden of representation abroad.
I need not say much here about Penny. Those
of you who have come to know her will understand what I would like to say far
more adequately than I can express it. Suffice it that, if I showed any
consideration
to my staff, it was because she has been my
conscience, my eyes and my ears on their behalf whenever (most of the time that
is) I was forgetful of their needs.
To answer some personal questions of my
working life that occasionally arise:
Nadir:
Our suspension from the 25th Conference
of the International Red Cross.
Zenith:
The past six years.
Notable achievement: Never to have made a
photostat or sent a fax myself.
Regret:
Not to have spoken in the General
Assembly or headed a major bilateral
mission.
Favourite
composer: Mood of the moment. as
patient colleagues are aware.
Greatest
frustration: That I could never
persuade the Department to spell my surname
correctly.
Greatest satisfaction: My wife and children.
Would we do it again? If you still remember
the
opening paragraphs you will see that we are
predestined to repeat our mistakes. We have
often
talked about this together, Penny and 1,
and are agreed
that as the balance overall was positive,
the answer
given the choice, is probably yes. But we
should like to
examine the options.
No comments:
Post a Comment