Respect must be Earned

No longer does Respect flow vertically, from the poorer to the richer, from the weaker to the stronger. It is now spreads horizontally, throughout the world, as reported in a monthly bulletin, published a few years ago by Royal Bank of Canada.

Respect cannot be purchased, demanded, imposed or forced to someone or a society. It can only be earned. If we expect other nations and their leaders to respect us, we must start to respect them. This will never be achieved by ignorance and arrogance.

We might not agree with everyone, we might even hate someone, but, we will always respect someone who is competent, honest, and responsible.

Self-respect begets the respect of others in a society. If there is a general lack of respect for the political and social system, it should be kept in mind that, as citizens, we are the system. We are the people.

As said by Pogo, a comic character: " We have seen the enemy, and he is....us "

According to the philosopher John Rawls, shame is the guardian of respect. If a person or a group of persons or a society as a whole, have no qualms from their mistakes, injustice, mismanagement, insults, lies, arrogance, etc., we should not be surprised that other members of the said society or other nations, ignore their manners or politeness.

As Edward Gibbon pointed out in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", the Roman Empire began to crumble when its leaders forfeited the esteem of the citizenry.

We can not develop an Efficient Foreign Policy, if we do not inspire Trust and Credibility. We might lose Europe, Asia and Middle East, but we can not afford to lose Latin America. Never too late....but, time is running short. China knows best, so far.

Without honour, we have no value. Future articles will propose specific projects for "Being Smarter with Latin America".

The Facilitator.