Habemus Papam!

By EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

     With only a handful of exceptions,  every “vaticanista” (the Italian term for an “expert” in Vatican affairs) was saying that the new Pope would be elected on the third day of the Conclave (20 April 2005) -- at the earliest.  The reasoning was simple and logically persuasive:   if the Cardinals elected a Pope earlier than that, it would give the world the impression that the Cardinals did not deliberate long and deep enough before making a decision on such a serious matter.  On the other hand, if they took longer than that, the watching world might think the divisions within their ranks were really quite serious.

     So, after making sure that I was at St. Peter’s Square when the first-ever “papal smoke” of the third millennium rose from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on the first day of the Conclave (18 April 2005), I surmised that I did not have to come back the following day since, most likely, the smoke from the chimney would still be black (meaning, no Pope would have been elected yet).   I would resume my “papal watch” on the third day, the day on which the experts predicted a new Pope would finally be chosen.

     But shortly before lunch on the second day (19 April 2005, a Tuesday), the secretary of the Philippine Ambassador to the Holy See called me up and requested me to drop by their Embassy later that day to notarize some documents.  The Philippine Embassy to the Holy See is literally just a dozen steps away, or even less, from St. Peter’s Square.  So, since I had no appointment later that day anyway, I said yes to the secretary’s request, with the thought of taking the opportunity to take a leisurely walk from their Embassy to St. Peter’s Square afterwards.

     At 5:45 PM that Tuesday, I finished my paper work at “the other  Embassy” (the Philippine Embassy to the Italian Republic) and prepared to leave for my appointment.  I was in no rush whatsoever since I did not set a specific time with the Ambassador’s secretary.  Besides, when I went to St. Peter’s Square the day before, the smoke from the chimney came out way past 8:00 PM.  So I figured that if a white smoke were to come out later that day (which, I thought, was a very remote possibility), I still had more than a couple of hours to catch sight of it. 

                                                                                

     But at around 6:00 PM, my own Ambassador instructed his secretary to call me up and ask if I would like to join him in watching the TV coverage of the new Pope’s first appearance at St. Peter’s Square.   “Why?”  I asked unbelievingly.  “Has a new Pope been elected yet?”  “Yes,” came the secretary’s reply.   “White smoke came out of the chimney just a few minutes ago.  The new Pope is expected to make his first appearance a few minutes from now.   We’re watching the proceedings on TV.”   “Oh, no!” I told her.  “Tell the Ambassador, thanks, but I’m leaving for the Square right now.  I’d rather witness the event with my own eyes!”

     I am normally a “slow-moving animal” (I have always believed that life is too short to be rushed), but that Tuesday afternoon, I suddenly moved with the speed of a high-powered athlete.   Before I knew it, I was frantically stepping on the accelerator of my car along Viale delle Medaglie d’Oro, determined to make it to the Square on time for the new Pope’s first appearance.   But I had barely moved a kilometer when I suddenly got stuck in traffic.  I realized that practically everyone in Rome was on the way to the Square.  People and cars alike were moving towards it like paper clips gravitating towards a magnet.   The difference was that those who were trying to get there on foot were making more  progress than those who made the mistake of trying to get there on wheels.   So I decided to do what, in hindsight, proved to be one of the best on-the-spot decisions I have ever made in my life:   park my car on the only free space I could find along the road – which happened to be the end of a pedestrian lane! – get off the car, and join those who were literally speeding on foot towards Saint Peter’s Square.  I knew for sure that I would get a ticket when I came back, but then I thought:   “What the heck!  This is one event I wouldn’t want to miss for the world!”*

     My recklessness paid off.  Soon, after wading through what seemed like a deepening sea of people, I finally found myself standing in the right colonnade of St. Peter’s Square, where I had a distant but fairly clear view of the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica.   From where I stood, the faces of the people on the balcony were hardly recognizable.  But, thanks to modern technology, the big screens that were put up on the Square gave us their close-up shots.  

     My feet had barely warmed the ground on which they stood when the Proto-Deacon proclaimed:  “Annuntio vobis gaudium magno:  Habemus Papam!”     

     As soon as the Proto-Deacon announced the first name of the new Pope -- even before he mentioned his surname -- the crowd instantly knew that the new Pope was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the former Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the consistent “bet” of many a Conclave watcher.  Warm applause rose from the crowd as the new Pope, with a broad smile on his face and with his hands waving generously, appeared.   Then he addressed the crowd with a voice that was – to my mind – a stark contrast to the public reputation that had been built around him as the Catholic Church’s “doctrinal watchdog.”   It was a very gentle voice, a bit timid in fact.  I could hardly follow what he was saying during that first public address of his.  But the voice with which he spoke – with its gentleness, its touch of timidity and, yes, the surprising compassionateness that it revealed about its source -- somehow told me that there was something about the man which had been unfairly overlooked by those who were saying that a “Ratzinger papacy” would be an ultra-conservative and compassionless pontificate.   

     When I was still a seminarian, some of my theology professors spoke of Cardinal Ratzinger as an inflexible dogmatist who did not tolerate any form of dissent from Catholic orthodoxy, no matter how reasonable and relevant it was.  He was often pictured as theology’s version of George Orwell’s “Big Brother,” and as someone who stood in the way of the healthy growth of Catholic doctrine.  He was said to have frowned upon Liberation Theology and the other theologies that were trying to make Catholic doctrine more conversant with and more responsive to the new realities of the church and of the world in which it lived.  He was, in short, the last person a “progressive” seminarian would want to see at the helm of the Catholic Church.

     Yet, that Tuesday afternoon, in some strange way, Cardinal Ratzinger’s voice turned my prejudices on their heads.  There was something about it which assured me that the shape of the man’s heart was vastly different from the unflattering public picture that those who did not like his theological stands had painted of him.  I had the sense that he was, in fact, a warm-hearted man who was only doing his best to fulfill what he thought were his God-given tasks as the Church’s doctrinal guardian.  Now that his role and his tasks had changed, his mode of leadership was certainly going to change accordingly.

     We, Catholics, believe that, in the final analysis, it is not really the Cardinals who make the decision in a Conclave but the Holy Spirit.  The Cardinals are, after all, just the instruments by which the Holy Spirit Himself chooses the man who will be the next Shepherd of God’s Sheep.

      I, therefore, went home from St. Peter’s Square that unforgettable day,  confident that -- thanks to the guidance of the Holy Spirit   -- the College of Cardinals had elected just the kind of Pope that the Catholic Church needed at this time.

NOTE

     *I must add, of course, that one other thing enhanced my boldness that Tuesday afternoon.  Part of the privileges accorded to the members of Italy’s diplomatic corps is the waiver of penalties for traffic violations.  It is a great privilege, considering the enormity of the amount of such penalties (which can run up to four-digit figures when converted to Philippine currency).   In the end, the only “penalty” that a diplomat in Italy (as in most parts of the world) receives for his traffic violations is a reminder from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be more cognizant of the country’s traffic rules and regulations – a reminder which is given only when the Ministry notices that one has committed too many traffic violations in a given year.  

An Evening of Literature in a Southern Italian Town

by EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

“Poets today are liberated – free

From rhythm, rhyme, and structure – even sense,

Producing with their freedom an immense

Fog of unreadable obscurity.

So, at the risk of seeming orthodox

I’ll squeeze my words into the sonnet’s  box.”

           

-- Kenneth E. Boulding, “Sonnet for Sonnets”¹

     The tourist book I consulted on the eve of our trip was not very enthusiastic about Reggio di Calabria.  It said there were only two reasons why anyone would wish to go to this southern Italian town:  to get a boat to the neighboring island of Sicily, and to see the Bronzi di Riace (the bronze statues of nude Greek soldiers that were discovered in the Ionian Sea near the town of Riace in 1972, more than 2000 years after the ship that was to transport them to an unknown destination sank).  “Neither of these activities will take you far from the waterfront,” the tourist book noted, “which is good news because it’s the only part of town worth seeing” (sic.).²  It also warned the tourist about the town’s problem with organized crime, which should make him understand why there would be an unusually large police presence in the area.  

     We were going to Reggio di Calabria to attend the launching of a book on the history of Philippine-Italian relations.  It was authored by Domenico Marciano, an Italian married to a Filipina from Batangas, whose desire to learn more about his spouse’s country of origin had made him, in his own right, an ardent student of Philippine history.  (He had previously written a pamphlet on Jose Rizal’s sojourn in Rome.)  

     The plane trip from Rome to Reggio di Calabria took only an hour and fifteen minutes.   We touched down before 11 o’ clock on a sunny November morning.  After a sumptuous lunch of native Calabrian recipes and a very fruitful meeting with the leaders and members of the Filipino community in the area, we were driven to the venue of the book launch:  the Salone dei Lampadari of the Palazzo San Giorgio (Reggio di Calabria’s town hall). 

     No less than the young mayor of Reggio di Calabria, Dr. Giuseppe Scopelliti, opened the book launching ceremony.  Then came the speeches of the invited guests which included a university professor, a journalist, and a couple of government officials dealing with international cooperation. They talked about the book’s merits and how its insights could help enhance Philippine-Italian relations.  As I listened to their speeches and surveyed the crowd that had gathered there for the occasion, I remembered the self-deprecating joke told by the Filipino scholar, Dr. Florentino Hornedo, during a joint book launch of the UST Publishing House about two years ago.  We were launching our respective books, along with some other authors.  When it was his turn to speak, Dr. Hornedo wondered aloud why authors like us keep writing books despite our knowledge that hardly anyone actually bothers to read them!  (Unlike novels, scholarly works and other so-called “trade books” hardly sell, much less make it to the bestseller list.)

     Indeed,  I wondered as I sat underneath the huge chandeliers of the Salone dei Lampadari, how many of those who had gathered there were actually going to read this pioneering book which took its author almost three years to produce.

     Yet, writers like him will continue to write even if they know that only a few people will actually read them.  For there are a number of reasons why writers feel the need to write, regardless of how low their prospects are of being actually read.  George Orwell, in his famous essay, “Why I Write,”  proposed that writers are driven by four major motives (putting aside the need, for professional writers at least, to earn a living):  sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose.  “It can be seen,” Orwell added, “how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time.”³

     Whatever his motives were for writing the book that was being launched that evening, I found myself wishing that its author would continue to write, regardless of how many or how few his immediate readers would be. 

     After the book launch, the author and his family hosted a dinner for us in a restaurant along the shore of the Ionian Sea.  It turned out to be the most “literary” dinner I ever had.

 

     During the dinner, one of the invited speakers, Professor Pasquino Crupi (the Deputy Rector of the Universita per Stranieri Dante Alighieri in Reggio di Calabria, and a recognized expert in Calabrian history and literature) literally enchanted us with his spontaneous recitation of Italian poetry.  With a glass of wine in one hand and a cigar in the other, Professor Crupi would ask each one of those gathered around the table what his or her name was, then he would recite an appropriate poem where he could insert one’s name in perfect rhyme and rhythm with the rest of the piece.  He recited the poems with such passion and eloquence, one literally found oneself cast under the spell of his words.      

     Listening to him, I realized what a powerful art oral poetry could be.  Poetry, as everyone knows, was originally an oral art – something to be heard with one’s ears, not just read with one’s eyes.   That was probably the reason why rhyme and rhythm were very important in those earlier days of poetry.  Not only did rhyme and rhythm make poems pleasurable to hear, they also served as mnemonic devices for the poet delivering them.   A poem that only seeks to be read as a text on a page by a pair of silent eyes does not have to worry about these.  It can afford to have lines that do not rhyme, a structure that lacks an easily decipherable pattern, and words and phrases that only another poet can understand.   But, when recited, it can never have the power of the poems Professor Crupi recited that November evening in the southern Italian town of Reggio di Calabria.

NOTES

     ¹Kenneth E. Boulding, Sonnets from Later Life:  1981-1993 (Wallingford, Pennsylvania, 1994), 3.

     ²Damien Simonis et al., Italy (Lonely Planet Books, 2004), 696.

     ³George Orwell, Why I Write (London:  Penguin Books – Great Ideas, 2004), 4-6.

A Second Life

 

(On Graham Greene’s “The Second Death”)

by EMMANUEL R. FERNANDEZ

     Anyone who has been given a “second life” should read Graham Greene’s “The Second Death.”¹  It will remind him of why he was given a second chance to live in the first place.

     True to his reputation as one of the twentieth century’s master story-tellers, Greene starts his story in a way that leaves the reader with no clue as to how it is going to end.   

     A dying man begs his mother to bring his best friend to his death bed.  Since this is not the first time for the friend to hear the mother say that her son is dying, he at first thinks it is another one of those times when either the mother is overestimating the seriousness of her son’s illness or the son is using his illness as an excuse for something else.   He initially hesitates to go, but later on changes his mind when he senses that his best friend’s illness may indeed be serious.

     When he faces his dying friend, the latter tells him why he has asked to see him.   “I am dying,” he says, “and I want to ask you something.  The doctor’s no good  -- he’d think me delirious.  I’m frightened, old man.  I want to be reassured.”

      The dying man then narrates to his friend that many years ago, before the two of them met, and he was not much more than a boy, he fell badly ill and was thought to be dead.  He was, in fact, going to be buried.  But on the way to the cemetery, a doctor emerged from somewhere, stopped the funeral procession and touched the stretcher on which his corpse lay. Next thing the man knew, he was out of the stretcher and was alive again.  The funeral procession resumed; but this time, the doctor had taken his place on the stretcher.

     The dying man assures his friend that the experience really happened.  He had indeed been dead.  In fact, he had seen what awaited him beyond the door of death and it scared him.  But now, ironically, he wants his friend to reassure him of the opposite:  that the experience he just narrated was only a dream, a nightmare and nothing more.  He is afraid, and he wants to be reassured.

     The best friend tries his best to convince him that, yes, of course, it was only a dream.   The truth is, he himself is starting to get scared and he needs to reassure his own self that the story was indeed just a dream.  It is at this point that Greene delivers his coup de theatre.   In a sudden shift of dimension which only a master wordsmith like Greene can pull off, the reader is made to realize that although the story appears to be happening in the twentieth century, it is actually the continuation of a story that began centuries ago, during the time of Jesus.  The dying young man Greene is talking about is actually the dead young man we read about in the Gospel of Luke (chapter 7, verses 11 to 17).   He was being carried out to burial in a town called Naim when a healer named Jesus approached and touched his stretcher, and  then commanded him to wake up.  He got up and received his second life.

     All this happened so long ago, he has forgotten all about it.  But now, everything is coming back to him.   Realizing that he did not make the most of the second life he was given, the dying young man is understandably scared of the consequences of his choice.  He confesses to his friend that after he was brought back to life, he went “straight” for a couple of years.  “I thought it might be a sort of second chance,” he says.  “Then things got fogged and somehow… It didn’t seem really possible.  It’s not possible.  Of course it’s not possible.  You know it isn’t, don’t you?”  His desperate attempt to convince himself that it was all a dream stems from his realization that he has wasted his second life -- his second chance -- and now it is too late to do anything about it.

     At the same time, Greene makes us realize that the dying man’s best friend is also a character whose own life story began during the time of Jesus.   He was the blind man who was cured by Jesus and given a chance to see.  Like his dying friend, he too has forgotten all about the gift that he received from Jesus a long, long time ago.   He has, over the years, become “blind” again – no longer in the physical sense, but in a spiritual one.  As a consequence, he has lived a life as morally reprehensible as that of his dying friend.  

     Unlike his dying friend, however, this other man is being given a chance to change the direction of his life.  Through his encounter with his dying friend, Jesus has cured him anew, this time of his spiritual blindness.  Now, he can see things clearly once more.  If he is willing enough to learn from his dying friend’s experience, he can start living a good life all over again.

     The first time I read Greene’s story, I remembered the second chance I myself was given in the wee hours of May 16, 1998.  A raging fire struck the Lung Center of the Philippines where I had been serving as resident chaplain for six years, and turned much of the building into a huge heap of ashes and useless debris.  Several people died in that fire, including our ICU patients.  I myself could have burnt to death in my room on the third floor of the building, had I not been fortunate to have my cousin-priest, Father Raymond Oligane, as my visitor on the night before it happened.  He was awakened just before the fire spread.   The first thing he did was to run to my sleeping quarters and knock on my door until I woke up.  We were able to depart the burning building before it was too late.

     If Father Raymond did not visit me that night, I would never have been awakened.  I have always been one who is not easily roused from sleep.   That, plus the fact that I had no neighbors on the third floor of the Lung Center building at that time, would have spelled my certain death.  Luckily, God sent my cousin-priest to be my visitor on the eve of the fire.

     I lost everything I had in that fire – including most of the poems, essays, spiritual reflections and academic articles I had written since I started writing many years before.  They all perished in that merciless fire.  But despite the fact that it was not easy coming to terms with the loss, it was nothing compared to what I was given that fateful day:  a second life, a second chance to live and fulfill whatever it was that God still wanted me to accomplish in this life.

     It has been many years since that tragedy happened.  I often ask myself whether I have done justice to the second life I received that day.   It was not difficult to keep in mind the obligations that the “gift” entailed when the memory of the experience was still fresh.  But, to borrow the words of the dying young man in Graham Greene’s story, “things get fogged” after a while, and you begin to lose sight of the gift you have received and what it requires of you.  Greene’s story was a timely reminder sent my way by The Giver of that gift.

     In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote:  “Take it that you have died today, and your life’s story is ended; and henceforward regard what further time  may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.”² 

     It is unfortunate that even we who have actually been given a second life and, hence, should have no difficulty following Marcus Aurelius’ advice, often forget the priceless lessons of our own experience.  But, then, it is never too late to learn the lessons anew.

NOTES

     ¹Graham Greene, Twenty-One Stories (London:  Vingate, 2001), 186-191.

     ²Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Maxwell Staniforth, trans.  (London:  Penguin Books, 1964), 114-115.

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.