The Power of One

When someone thinks about the power of one, what often comes to mind is the power of one person who can make tremendous change through their diligence to a cause and over time change a community, a country or even the world. We have examples of these types of people scattered throughout history. There is Martin Luther King Jr. with the Civil Rights movement in the USA; Mahatma Gandhi with the push for Indian self-determination in non-violent resistance of the British Empire, and Galileo who dared to think the world was round in a time when all learned men “knew” it was flat.

Well, that’s not what I am going to speak to here. What I have noticed over time in the Turks and Caicos is that we find ourselves in the position where we have only one go-to person for whatever field, profession, or industry. That’s not to say in reality we do not have more than one person with said expertise within the TCI in any given area; however, once we deem someone the “Guru of X”, well, without any doubt that’s usually the person used. In politics, we look to the same few families for leadership. When it comes to hosting shows, we have a few go-to people on each island and the same applies in the education or tourism sectors and others. The interesting part is that once that trust is placed in a person they hold the designation until it is seen fit to designate someone else, and the prior holder becomes immediately obsolete.

I believe that this practice is the lingering effect of actually having only one expert in any given area in our recent history; precisely because of our relatively small size and islands segmentation, in addition to our late development as a country. This resulted in your doctor being the only doctor you had for many years. You knew only one mechanic, one dentist, one primary school teacher, one grocery store owner and so forth. I say that to point out that all this has now changed and we do have many Turks and Caicos islanders with significant expertise often in multiple sectors.  All they need is that opportunity to contribute. We have grown to the extent that we are more than a singularly minded people. I believe this type of Power of One is perpetuated by the insecurities of some that love being the gate keeper of knowledge and to be looked upon with reverence. If there is someone else who knows what the go-to person knows, this is of no consequence; they are of no use. They fail to realize that the more knowledgeable people we have, the greater the possibility of building a strong nation.

One of the reasons I respect President Obama more than most of the current leaders on the world stage is that when he was to select his Cabinet, he chose the most talented persons available to get the job done. Most notably was Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. Think about it for a minute; he picked his rival to be the face of USA Foreign Affairs after having gone through a sometimes acrimonious primary process that went on way longer than it had to. No doubt he put his country first and was comfortable enough in his own skin to choose competent persons to shoulder responsibilities and not let the fear of sharing the spot light be his driving motivation. Imagine how much growth/ strength we will experience in our country if instead of restricting ourselves to that one go-to person, we also utilize the services of equally competent individuals.

Stay Blessed,

Jamell Robinson