bout de papier, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1994) — Spring 1994 // Printemps 1994, p. 3
Editor:
Manila has discovered the secret location where FS officers are produced.
I guess we should wear “Made in Philippines” tags on our three-piece suits.
(Taken from a speeding car along the south superhighway, Manila, June or July 1993.)
Regards to all.
Jim Bowman Manila
ES Ready Mix
Editor:
Greetings from Deepest Darkest.
I still read the mag with considerable interest and enjoyment.
With that in mind I enclose a letter from the Chief Justice of Tanzania about the “good samaritan” services of a Canadian, as I think bout readers might be interested.
T.S.E. Jones Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
18th May, 1993
Mrs. Patricia Marsden-Dole, The High Commissioner of Canada, DAR ES SALAAM.
Your Excellency,
Re: A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE IN CANADA
As you are aware, I visited Canada in March to attend a meeting of international law experts held in your beautiful city of Vancouver between 22nd and 26th March 1993. During that brief visit to your great country, an incident occurred which made me come face to face with what is finest in Canadian character. Just a day before my departure from Canada, a Tanzanian postgraduate student studying at Simon Fraser University took me and my personal assistant in his car on a sight seeing tour to Chilliwack and beyond. Later in the evening, as we drove back to Vancouver through Agassiz along Lougheed Highway, we stopped at a sight-seeing roadside, to observe what a noticeboard at the site described as the original bedrock of the river Fraser. Unfortunately, as we got out of the car, our postgraduate host overlooked to put on the car brakes. As our eyes feasted on the scenery below, our car slid quietly towards and over the edge of the road and fell down the sharp incline with a crash into the woodland below.
After realizing the full implications of what had happened and unsuccessfully attempting to stop numerous motor vehicles which drove past the scene, we decided just to walk along Lougheed Highway until we could find someone somehow to assist us. We did not have to walk very far. We soon came to a house by the highway. We met a Canadian, who seemed to have been waiting to help us, regardless of the fact that we were complete strangers and black. After listening to our story, he drove us in his truck to the scene and to the nearby town to get professional help to retrieve our motor vehicle. All this he did with great warmth and humanity. The car was retrieved, and as it turned out to have suffered only minor scratches, we drove happily back to Vancouver. This happy ending is undoubtedly attributable to the conduct of one of the finest Canadians that I have ever met. He is no other than one Mr. John Perry of 2721 Lougheed Highway, Agassiz.
Please convey to him my warm regards and gratitude.
EL. Nyalali Chief Justice of Tanzania
Editor:
Cassandra and Kafka The creation (?) of a Consular/Admin stream Foreign Affairs will in a few years fail, to be followed by the re-invoking to some other familiar path.
It is first of all a sociological error to separate further the political, economic resources from the consular and admin (seldom spelled out) functions, although these latter have been denigrated since green door East Block days. Part of the explanation for the sins of commission in recent years is the extent to which policy thinkers lacked administrative smarts. The latest stream will only encourage this. It will be regarded, and regard itself, as second class although it won’t necessarily be.
In addition consular work is unremitting and requires the kind of training and the touch of the expelled immigration officers. There will not be a marrying of cultures with the central agency (remember) orientation of the administrative authority. There will be painful and sometimes fatal conflicts for resources and in availabilities.
Once again the basics are being purged for lesser roles, immigration, culture, aid, passports, etc. Trade is a sovereigntist entity. Now consular and admin. It might even be better, but less subtle, to contract them out. Foreign Affairs is denuding itself of almost all of its sources of public recognition.
The provision to the government of high level Foreign Affairs counselling in Ottawa, with some input from downgraded facilities abroad, is a weighty responsibility but it is hard to quantify, and more or less impossible to plan. Political analysis is assessed sceptically and second guessed by self-confident, well-informed, responsible operational departments around Ottawa.
Press on as well as possible but prepare for the next move when this one proves no better than the last time it was tried.
Yours sincerely, John Hadwen (rtd)
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1994) — Spring 1994 // Printemps 1994, p. 3. Read the rest of this issue →
