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
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
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
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.
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.
