A metaphor for the future
The present of the future >> His Majesty with the graduates of 2008
Oct 26, 2008-Thimphu: His Majesty Jigme Khesar stirred the imagination of the centennial graduates last Wednesday with a metaphor.
Just 15 days away from his coronation, His Majesty was answering a question that he asked the graduates at the biennial convocation of Sherubtse College in April last year, few months after he took over as the head of state.
“How do we preserve everything that is special to Bhutan, yet take our country to greater heights?” he asked the 487 Sherubtseans.
In the following 15 months Bhutan witnessed changes that countries elsewhere saw only in decades. In the backdrop of the political and economic changes that ensued, His Majesty, invoking the metaphor of a bridge, answered the graduates of 2008.
Charming the 1,222 young graduates with a deep baritone, His Majesty said: “GNH today, for us, is the bridge between the fundamental values of kindness, equality, humanity and, today, the necessary pursuit of economic growth.”
While developing countries struggle to come in terms with their identity-forming values and the challenges of economic growth, proposing the ideals of GNH as a bridge that connects the two came as a fresh and imaginative twist.
Talking to the graduates of 2007, at the orientation program in October last year His Majesty drew his vision in simple terms.
“My goals for Bhutan are simple. We will build a vibrant democracy founded on a strong economy. This will be the means through which we will achieve Gross National Happiness.”
He said this when the political process was just kick starting and most Bhutanese were skeptical about the journey ahead.
Sharing the nation’s concern at his Sherubtse speech, His Majesty said every Bhutanese should consider it their immediate duty to usher in a successful democracy.
“It is a task that must be achieved. Failure can never be an option,” he said then.
And Bhutan did not fail.
With an elected parliament in place His Majesty said the nation’s responsibility now was to bolster democracy “fortify its roots, properly understand its tenets and judiciously exercise its rights in ways that will always benefit the nation.”
Given the small size and population of Bhutan, His Majesty said it was extremely vital to share a national objective. “We simply cannot afford to work in different directions. GNH is our common goal.”
In the spirits of a statesman for this age, His Majesty said though the meaning of GNH will never change, the way we achieve GNH in a changing world would present new challenges and opportunities for Bhutan.
Reaping the benefits of globalization, while not letting the country’s fundamental ideals swept away in its onslaught, has been an underlying motif in all his speeches.
At his Sherubtse speech, His Majesty presented this idea thus: “In the past we embraced modernization on our own terms and conditions. If we plan ahead and work hard we have a special opportunity to build a dynamic economy – once again on our own terms and conditions.”
As a young king, in all his speeches to graduates and young people, he presents a call to take the challenge of the future without forgetting the gifts of the past.
“If I knew and understood 20 years ago what I know and understand today, how much more prepared I would have been to serve my country,” he told the 2008 graduates.
Talking at Sherubtse College last year he said: “All that our country has achieved are the accomplishments of our parents – not ours. Our work lies ahead of us – what we have to do has not been done before.”
Referring to security as more than physical defense of the country, His Majesty said he was talking about the security that comes when people are united in love for their country and united in their efforts to further secure, consolidate, and hand over an even stronger nation to the future generation.
“If there was no love and harmony between our people, if the happiness and peace that we have today is lost, then somewhere we have failed,” he told the graduates last week, in many ways echoing the words of caution he gave to the Sherubtseans a year back.
His Majesty said he enjoyed talking to the graduates not just because it was his duty, but he along with the graduates were starting their lives together and will be ending their careers together too. “When we retire 20 or 30 years later, let us pass on the country proudly into younger hands.”