A Solitary Christmas

by EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

     “Solo uno?” (“Just one?”) curiously asked the fish vendor when I replied that I needed just one piece out of the rows of fish at his counter.  “Si, solo uno, per favore” (“Yes, just one, please”)  I assured him, and realized why he wanted to make sure I needed just one piece.  It was seven hours before Christmas.   People were making their last-minute purchase of the food items they needed for their Christmas celebrations.  Most of them were buying food to be shared by at least two people.   And there I was buying food good for just one.

     As I left his stall, the thought that I was going to spend Christmas utterly alone began to tear at my heart.   My mind flew back to the Philippines and hovered over the faces of my loved ones there.  By this time, I surmised, the Midnight Mass would be over.  Everyone would soon be gathered around the dining table for the traditional noche buena.   Mama would pray a long Blessing, thanking God for all the graces the family had received during the year, as well as the storms it had weathered with His help.   Papa would generously compliment those who had prepared the food on how well they cooked.  Everyone would eat to his heart’s content.   Afterwards, we would all proceed to the living room for the exchange of gifts.   The grown-ups would be as excited as the kids.  But, it would be the younger ones’ thrill at the gifts they had received that would make such moments truly a time of joy. 

     My mind also hovered over the faces of my closest friends back home, and the happy moments I had shared with them at Christmastime.  As I drove from the grocery store to my apartment, I could feel a fog of loneliness slowly creeping into my heart.

     Luckily, a thought soon fell on me like a warm blanket out of nowhere.  It dawned on me that, in just a few years after I left the ministry, I had fallen into the very trap I had often warned people against in my erstwhile preaching:   I had unwittingly begun to mistake the “wrappings” of Christmas for the “gift” itself.  I had begun to associate Christmas more with being in the company of friends and loved ones, with having fun and exchanging gifts…  I had somehow lost sight of what Christmas was truly all about:  a time to thank God for loving us so much that He decided to become a man like us so He could be a part of our life in the deepest sense imaginable.

     I realized that God probably meant me to be absolutely alone that particular Christmas so I could be “rid” of the people and things that had somehow hidden the real meaning of this event from my eyes.  He had temporarily taken them away from me so I could experience what the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore once described in a poem as “the bare infinity of [God’s] uncrowded presence.”

     Shortly after I got home at around 6:15, my loved ones and closest friends called me from the Philippines, as they promised they would.  I had the chance to spend a few minutes talking with each of them.  At another time, hearing their voices would have made me feel more homesick.  But, not this time.  I felt elated to be in touch with them, even if only by telephone.

     I had dinner all by myself at around 8 o’clock; and at a little past ten I left for St. Peter’s Basilica to attend the Pope’s Midnight Mass there.  The sky over St. Peter’s Square was hardly Christmassy.  Only a few stars were visible that evening.  But, as I crossed the square towards the Basilica, I had the growing feeling that, strangely enough, that particular Christmas was going to be one of my happiest.  

     “You’ll never know that God is all you need until God is all you’ve got,” wrote Rick Warren in his best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life.*   Finding myself with no one for company at Christmas except God Himself, I remembered that He was, in truth, all that I really needed for Christmas.

NOTE

     *Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Metro Manila, Philippines:  OMF Literature, Inc., 2003), 194.

The Diplomatic Imagination

by EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

    

     More than half a century ago, the American sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote a book on the quality of mind that he believed sociologists must possess.   He called this quality of mind, the “sociological imagination.”  This quality of mind, Mills asserted, enables its possessor “to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world.”¹  Our personal lives, Mills explained, are inextricably linked with the social structures of which we are part, and vice versa.  Our biographies are inescapably intertwined with history.  The sociological imagination enables us to understand ourselves and our world better by making us see the dynamic “intersections” between one and the other.

     Like sociologists, diplomats need to develop a peculiar quality of mind that will enable them exercise their “calling” optimally.  With due apologies to C. Wright Mills, I wish to call this quality of mind the “diplomatic imagination.” 

    
     Before we can describe what this diplomatic imagination is, however, we have to clarify first what diplomacy is all about.

     Diplomacy has been defined in various ways by different people.  The definitions range from the sardonic to the panegyric.²  Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice defines it as “the application of intelligence and tact to the conduct of official relations between the governments of independent states, extending sometimes also to their relations with vassal states; or, more briefly still, the conduct of business between states by peaceful means.”³  On the other hand, Harold Nicolson concurs with the definition given by The Oxford English Dictionary”:  “Diplomacy is the management of international relations by negotiation; the method by which these relations are adjusted and managed by ambassadors and envoys; the business or art of the diplomatist.”⁴

     R.G. Feltham asserts that, in its relations with other states, the main objective of any state “is to direct and influence these relations for its own maximum advantage; but at the same time, and if only in self-interest, it has the responsibility of formulating its policies towards other states and managing its relations in the interests of world harmony, thus helping to prevent wars and the waste of wealth.  The formulation of foreign policy is one of the aspects of national politics and is the task of the politician, while the management of international relations and the reconciliation of diverse foreign policy priorities is the task of the diplomat.”⁵

     If the management of international relations is the basic task of diplomacy, then the first requirement for a diplomat is to develop a mind that systematically understands the dynamics of international relations.  It is a truism that one can only manage (or “control”) that which one understands.  A diplomat will not be in a position to manage international relations if he does not understand how this phenomenon works in the first place.  This, then, is the first element of the diplomatic imagination:  it systematically tries to explain to itself how and why states relate with one another the way they do.

    To construct this first element of the diplomatic imagination, a diplomat does not really have to reinvent the wheel (so to speak).   There exists a number of international relations theories that can help him understand the interplay between and among states.  It will serve a diplomat well to acquaint himself with these theories since they can provide him with the intellectual tools and implements with which he can fruitfully analyze and understand the workings of international relations.

     While trying to acquaint himself with these theories, a diplomat might find himself leaning towards one or the other perspective.   He might even find himself embracing one perspective as the theory from the vantage point of which he would henceforth analyze international relations. This tendency is natural, but I would advise him to avoid it if he can.   Theories are there to help us understand reality.  To embrace one theory to the exclusion of others will put us at the risk of trying to make reality serve our preferred theory. 

     Instead of embracing one theory, then, it would be better for a diplomat to adopt what I would call a “revolving perspective” on international relations.   By that I mean:  a diplomat should use as many theoretical and conceptual tools as possible when analyzing international relations.   He should view the subject from all the perspectives at his disposal – trying this one first, then the other next, and so on and so forth.   He will soon realize, of course, that taking a revolving perspective is not as comfortable as settling down with a single theory of one’s choice.   A revolving perspective often yields different, nay, contradictory ideas about the international issue one is trying to understand.  On the other hand, a unitary perspective yields more “consistent” insights into the same issue.

     This takes us back to our previous statement on the price of adopting a theory to the exclusion of others.   Reality is often too complex, too fluid, too dynamic to be neatly captured by one single theory.   While a revolving perspective does not give us the comfort and ease that a unitary perspective gives, it is more likely going to give us a better, more holistic picture of the international reality we are trying to understand.

     The second element of the diplomatic imagination that every diplomat must develop is its nationalist bias.  This is what distinguishes it from the imagination of the international relations scholar.   This is what separates the mind of the diplomat from that of the political scientist or theorist.

     The international relations scholar, the political scientist and theorist strive to analyze international relations from as objective a vantage point as possible.   This is of course  a Sisyphean project since, as every social scientist now acknowledges, there is no such thing as a totally objective, bias-free, or unprejudiced knowledge.  Whether he likes it or not, a scholar’s biases and prejudices will find their way into his eyes as he views his subject.   Every scholar is biased in one way or another, although he must strive to rid himself of his biases as best he can.

     The diplomatic imagination is also biased but –  and I must underline this – it is consciously so; which is to say that it is, by its own choice,  “prejudiced” in favor of something.   The diplomat surveys international relations with one overriding aim in mind:  to find out how he can direct and influence the flow of international relations to his sending state’s advantage.   Unlike the international relations scholar, he cannot afford the luxury of studying international relations merely for its own sake, nor even for the purpose of eventually writing an article or a book about the topic, or delivering a lecture on the subject, or providing “expert advice” to foreign policy makers if and when his advice is sought.  His search for knowledge has a definite motivation which he must never lose sight of:   to place his knowledge of international relations in the service of his nation’s interests.

       This does not mean, of course, that he must only have his nation’s welfare in mind.  As everybody now knows, our world has become more than ever a “global village” (to borrow Marshall McLuhan’s now famous term).   Our personal lives as well as those of our nations have become so interconnected with one another that what happens in one country to a number of individuals will certainly have an impact on our own personal and national lives.   A diplomat will sooner or later realize that he must strive to serve the interests of the world community if he wants to serve those of his own country.  He must, therefore, temper his nationalism with an internationalist sense.  But (unless he is a UN diplomat or a diplomat serving in some other multilateral or regional body) even his internationalism must be anchored on his nationalism.  He must strive to serve the interests of the global village in such a way that, by doing so, he will ultimately promote the welfare of his national “household.”   The diplomatic imagination is imbued to its core with this nationalistic spirit. 

 

     Last but not least, the diplomatic imagination cannot but be a “grounded” perspective.  The international relations scholar, the political scientist and theorist can have the luxury of remaining in the stratosphere of theories and concepts; but this cannot be the case with the diplomat.   Whatever ideas he comes up with while exercising his imagination, he must bring down with him, as it were, to the ground.  His ideas cannot exist for their own sakes.  They have to serve him in his never-ending efforts to promote the interests of his state in the arena of international relations.

     The diplomatic imagination, in short, is practical and experiential in the fullest senses of those terms.  It maintains a constant and dynamic link with the actual realities on the ground.   It is of one mind with Carl Von Clausewitz when he states that “in the same way as many plants only bear fruit when they do not shoot too high, so in the practical arts the theoretical leaves and flowers must not be made to sprout too far, but kept near to experience, which is their proper soil…  Investigation and observation, philosophy and experience, must neither despise nor exclude one another;  they mutually afford each other the rights of citizenship.”⁶

     In his biography of Henry Kissinger, Walter Isaacson wrote:  “At the core of [Kissinger’s] brilliance was an ability to see the relationships between different events and to conceptualize patterns.  Like a spider in its web, he sensed, sometimes too acutely, how an action in one corner of the world would reverberate in another, how the application of power in one place would ripple elsewhere.”⁷

     To develop in a diplomat something of the spider’s total grasp of its web is what the diplomatic imagination seeks to achieve. 

NOTES

     ¹C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, 40^th anniv. ed. (Oxford:  Oxford University

Press, 2000), 4.

     ²Of the sardonic definitions, the most popular are Wynn Catlin’s description of diplomacy as “the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ till you can find a rock,”  and Caskie Stinnett’s “A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.”  On the other hand, according to Nicolson, the diplomatic theorists of the sixteenth century contended that “the first diplomatists were angels, in that they served as ‘angeloi’ or messengers between heaven and earth.”  Nicolson, however, quickly points out:  “This is not a view which would be held by modern historians” (Harold Nicolson, Diplomacy [Washington DC:  Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 1988], 5-6.)

     ³Lord Gore-Booth, ed.  Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice, 5^th ed. (London:  Longman, 1979), 3.

     ⁴Nicolson, 4-5.

     ⁵R.G. Feltham, Diplomatic Handbook (London:  Longman, 1993), 1.

     ⁶Carl Von Clausewitz, On the Nature of War (London: Penguin Books – Great Ideas, 2005), 1.

     ⁷Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York:  Simon & Schuster, 1992), 760, italics mine.

Letter to an Aspiring Filipino Diplomat

by EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

Dear Henry,

     I am elated to hear that you plan to take the forthcoming Foreign Service Examination.   You wrote that, from what you have heard and read about diplomats and the work that they do, diplomacy seems to be a very exciting career.  I cannot agree more.  It is indeed a very exciting,  nay, an immensely fulfilling career.  But, and I would like to underline this, what is exciting and fulfilling for one person may not be so for another.  Career fulfillment, as I’m sure you know very well, is a relative concept.  It depends upon a multiplicity of factors.  One of them is the consonance between one’s personality and the requirements of the career in question.  The kind of person you are (including, to mention a few, your natural talents, your passions and your personal philosophy) should, at least, fit in some way with the path you would like to pursue.  Putting it another way, there should be what the former U.N. Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, once described as a congruence between the “elector” and the “elected”:

At every moment you choose yourself.  But do you choose your self?  Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I’s.  But in only one of them is there a congruence between the elector and the elected.¹

     Hammarskjold was, of course, thinking of something much deeper than the issue of “career fit” when he wrote those words.   But, since one’s chosen career eventually becomes a large part of who one is, I think Hammarskjold would not mind our applying his insight to the question of careers.

     So, since you have asked me what I think about your plan anyway, I would like to take the liberty of describing to you the work and life that await you as a diplomat, so that you can judge for yourself whether such a career can indeed give you the excitement and fulfillment it seems to promise.

     There are, sad to say, a lot of misconceptions about the diplomatic career.  Some of these misconceptions have been very beneficial to the image of diplomats in that they have given the public a rather rosy and romantic picture of diplomatic life.  Allow me first to disabuse your mind of some of these misconceptions.

     There are, for instance, many who think that diplomacy is one of the most glamorous careers one can have the good fortune of pursuing.   When they think of diplomacy, they imagine a man in a formal dinner suit with a glass of champagne in one hand and, perhaps, a cigar in the other.  They see him in the midst of men and women who are as formally-attired as he is; and although they seem to be of different nationalities, the imagined diplomat looks very much at ease talking with each of them.  He shifts from one foreign language to another with the casualness of a veteran golfer changing his clubs.  They talk about a variety of subjects – from art, to literature, to history, to music and what have you – and the imagined diplomat appears to be very well-read since he is able to say something about every topic that comes up.   Then they toast, and  then return to talking, then they laugh, and then turn serious again...until the host calls it a night and they all go home in their blue-plated Benzes and BMWs.

     While attending dinner parties is going to be part of your job as a young Foreign Service Officer,  I must let you know in advance that you are not going to attend as many such parties as a lot of people seem to think.   Certainly, such a glamorous activity is not going to comprise a huge part of your regular schedule as a junior diplomat.  Your regular day will, for the most part, consist of tasks as unglamorous as signing visas, passports and an assortment of legal/consular documents, drafting notes verbale and other communications for your Ambassador, crafting speeches and writing all sorts of reports, attending meetings and addressing so-called ATN (or assistance-to-nationals) concerns.   In fact, if you get assigned to a Post with a large presence of overseas Filipino workers (or OFWs, as they are called for short), chances are, the bulk of your daily efforts will be spent attending to ATN cases.  ATN work is not a glamorous job --  unless you find glamour in such tasks as visiting prisoners, assisting in the shipment of the remains of a deceased Filipino national, or helping settle family and community disputes.   Filipino diplomats whose mindsets are still stuck in what may be called the “old school of diplomacy” do not like ATN work.  They believe that such tasks are below their dignity as their country’s representatives abroad.  Yet, the truth is:  ATN work is now an inescapable part of Philippine diplomacy.  Filipino diplomats can no longer think and behave just like their counterparts from other countries (particularly, from the affluent countries).   They can no longer go about their usual diplomatic tasks without bothering about the concerns of their countrymen within their jurisdictions.   Filipino nationals are now in every nook and corner of the globe, working mostly in occupations where their rights and welfare need to be constantly shielded from possible violations and abuse.   The close to nine million Filipinos now scattered all over the world need their diplomats to protect their rights and promote their welfare in their host countries.  No self-respecting Filipino diplomat can afford to let them down.     Fortunately, more and more Filipino diplomats now realize that Philippine diplomacy has more important things to do than engage in the glamorous activities that people have long equated diplomacy with.  The Philippine government has, in fact, made “assistance to nationals” a major pillar of its foreign policy.

     There are also those who think that diplomacy is one the most lucrative career roads one can take.  They surmise that since diplomacy involves a lot of partying and other forms of “socializing,”  then diplomats must be paid quite well lest they would not be able to afford such an expensive lifestyle.  Well, let’s put it this way.  As a diplomat, you will be paid enough to be able to represent your country abroad decently. Your government will make sure that you will be able to rent a place where you can invite your counterparts to dinner without spending too much time apologizing for the state of your walls and floors and furniture.  It will also make sure that your car won’t be mistaken for a taxi (although, in some countries, Benzes and BMWs are what they actually use as taxis).  You will also be given enough allowance to be able to buy the proper attires for the various occasions that your work will require you to attend.    But, if you are looking for a career that will make you rich, if you are looking for a job that will give you a fat salary and guarantee you a luxurious life after your retirement, then I strongly suggest that you look elsewhere.   There are a lot of better-paying jobs outside the field of diplomacy.  A good position in the private sector, in particular, will most likely pay you so much more than the titled positions that you will occupy in the foreign service.  Nevertheless, there are things that a diplomatic career will give you which no amount of money can equal.   I will talk about some of them in a short while.  In the meantime, let me disabuse your mind of one more common misconception about the foreign service.

     There are those who think that passing the annual Foreign Service Officers’ Exam is all it takes to become a “diplomat.”  They imagine that as soon as you pass the three-part exam, receive your appointment from the President and take your oath as a Foreign Service Officer, your making as a diplomat is complete.  

     The idea is self-flattering, but it is not quite accurate.  Passing the exam is just the start of your making as a diplomat.  It is literally your first step in a journey that will take a thousand miles or even more.  You can, of course, rightly take pride in the fact that you passed such an exam because almost everyone agrees that it is the most difficult government exam to hurdle (more difficult, they say, even than the bar).   And that is true not just in the Philippines but in most other countries where a career foreign service exists.    But don’t let that flattering fact get into your head.   If you do, you will be greatly disappointed by what you’ll find upon entering the door of the foreign service.

     During your first six months as a junior Foreign Service Officer, you will literally be sent back to school (at the Foreign Service Institute or FSI) regardless of the number and the altitude of the academic degrees you have already earned. You will undergo what is called a Cadetship Program where you will be trained in diplomacy from its most elementary skills to its most profound theories.   After six months of diplomatic training,  you will then be given your first real job in the Department.  If you are one of those who used to occupy a high position elsewhere before joining the foreign service, this will likely give you your first major “crisis” in your new career.   And if, in your previous career, giving orders and having the last say were part of your daily routine, this stage will literally be your “baptism of fire.”  As the lowest ranking officer in a highly rank-conscious environment, you will often be reminded, subtly – and, at times, frontally – that your place in the pecking order is not as high as you will sometimes be tempted to think.  But, my advice to you is:  just grin and bear it like a real soldier.  Look at the experience as the fire, hammer and anvil that your shaping as a diplomat requires.  Before you know it, the Department will decide that you are now ripe for a foreign assignment.  And if you have paid your dues well enough, you will start experiencing in full the rewards and challenges that only a diplomatic career can offer.  

     Earlier, I said that the foreign service will give you some things that no amount of money can equal.  Well, here are a few of them.

     For one, the foreign service will provide you with the opportunity to literally make a difference in the world.  You will have a part in the making of decisions and the shaping of policies that will have an impact not just on your country’s life but on the lives of countries beyond your own.   You will be involved in programs and projects that will be truly global in scope.   Initially, of course, your say in such matters will not be as weighty as those of your more senior colleagues.  Your contributions as a junior diplomat will often not be given as much value as theirs.  But, there will be times when your apparently minor contributions would suddenly acquire a value you yourself did not expect (such as when a draft you have written gets adopted – verbatim – as the country’s official position on a current international issue).   The satisfaction that experiences like this bring can never be paralleled by money.

     The foreign service will also give you the opportunity to literally brush elbows with world leaders and other international figures.   Even as a junior diplomat, you will have countless chances to meet and even exchange words with people you would otherwise only read about in newspapers or see on TV.  I remember how thrilled I was to shake hands and chat with John F. Kennedy’s former speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, when I represented our Embassy at a symposium on JFK at the Rome City Hall in 2003.  Sorensen was one of the invited speakers, along with the well-known American historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,  who was also one of Kennedy’s men.  Sorensen was someone I looked up to as a speechwriter.  I admired his speechwriting style and, for a time, even tried to emulate it.    It never crossed my mind that I would one day meet him in the flesh.  I do not think  I would ever have the chance to get that close to Sorensen if I were not a part of the diplomatic corps.

     I also remember how grateful I felt to have the chance to see the remains of the late Pope John Paul II up close, when the members of Italy’s diplomatic corps were invited to pay their last respects to the deceased Pope at the Sala Clementina, before his remains were transferred to St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing.  Seeing the long queues that people had to stand in for countless hours just to get the chance to have a glimpse of the Pope’s remains inside the Basilica,  and realizing that I did not have to do that, made me feel truly fortunate to be part of the corps. 

     Last but not least, the foreign service will give you the opportunity to go to a country and stay there not just for a week or a month as tourists do, but for three to six years or even longer.   You will have the opportunity to really know the country and its people well, to learn its language and understand its culture, and to bring back to your country the helpful lessons you have learned from living in that other land.   In time, your exposure to a wide variety of cultures will give you a truly global outlook, a genuinely international perspective, if you will.  And in a world that is becoming even more globalized with each new day, nothing can serve someone in better stead than the internationalist paradigm you will have the chance to develop while in the foreign service.

     But let me close with a caveat.   Despite the many perks it offers, the foreign service is still – in the main – a highly demanding career.  It will, at times, require you to accomplish missions you cannot fully believe in,  go to places where your very life will be in danger, and  serve in countries where your wife and children would not want to go.  It can even go so far as to tear you apart from your loved ones.   What the novelist Vita Sackville-West,  wife of the English diplomat and writer Harold Nicolson, once wrote in a letter she sent him in 1928 is a sentiment shared by many diplomatic spouses:

Oh God, how I hate the Foreign Office!  How I hate it, with a personal hatred for all that it makes me suffer!  D**n it, d**n it – that vile impersonal juggernaut that sweeps you away from me.²

As Paul Theroux suggests in his short-story “Diplomatic Relations,”³ “continual parting” will be a permanent feature of your life as a diplomat.

     So, Henry, I advise you to look well before you leap.  Meantime, enjoy your review.   I look forward to attending your oath-taking a year hence.

NOTES

     ¹Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, Leif Sjoberg and W.H. Auden, trans. (New York:  Ballantine Books, 1983), 12.

     ²Nigel Nicolson, Portrait of a Marriage (New York:  Bantam Books, Inc., 1974), 232.

     ³Paul Theroux, The Consul’s File (Middlesex, England:  Penguin Books, 1978), p. 190.