True leadership needed from electorate

For more than two weeks now, officials at the local, state and federal levels of government have taken a richly deserved and long overdue beating at the hands of the media and the general public about their response to Hurricane Katrina. Especially prominent among the many messages haunting American eyes and ears has been the irresistible yet ultimately rhetorical question: “Doesn’t the government care?” The answer, of course, is a resounding “No.”

The question we should be asking, however, is in danger of becoming lost in the present wave of recriminations. We must find out what can be done to ensure this failure — indeed, this complete absence — of leadership at all levels of our government never happens again. And, unfortunately, we all need to face an uncomfortable truth: Our leaders may be guilty of negligence, incompetence and indifference, but the American people are responsible for putting these individuals in office in the first place.

Therefore, if we are to make any progress, if we are to learn anything from this most recent crisis and benefit from our knowledge for any appreciable length of time, we Americans need to rethink how we choose our leaders. This is not a question of Republicans versus Democrats. Both parties, frankly, are filled with reprehensible and irresponsible people who are making our country worse rather than better. Instead, we need to examine the criteria we use for deciding who should lead us.

Comedian George Carlin put it best: “If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders.” He is absolutely right. We worship wealth, power and material success at the expense, perhaps even the exclusion, of true leadership qualities such as compassion, competence and conscience. Too many Americans have repeatedly proven, in every context imaginable, to be short-sighted, petty, self-serving and willfully ignorant of other people’s needs, and the moral and practical failures of our elected officials inevitably reflect those priorities. As a result, our country is — and has been for some time — merely a world power, instead of a world leader.

If we want a change in our government, we first have to change ourselves. We need to shoulder the responsibility of producing and electing people who possess genuine leadership qualities. As it stands now, we assume far too often that people with money and power must have done something to deserve it and are therefore qualified to lead us. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is showing us just how dangerous and foolish that assumption can be.

We must take at least three steps, starting now, to guarantee that future leaders possess the empathy necessary to manage a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. First of all, every potential leader should have at least five years of volunteer experience. If something along the lines of Habitat for Humanity, the Houston Area Women’s Center or the Humane Society does not appear on a person’s resume, that person has no business serving as a public official.

Second, no one should even be considered for public office unless he or she has demonstrated the ability to hold civil, constructive and substantive conversations with people who do not share his or her opinions. For the most part, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans currently holding federal office are able or willing to do this. They may want progress, but not nearly as much as they want to “win” or be “right.” We need to fight this insecurity in others and ourselves, and recognize that none of us is so important to be above compromise.

Most importantly, we need to remember what Americans went out of their way to forget when we invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power: It isn’t enough to do the right thing. We have to do it for the right reasons. Otherwise, even if there are short-term benefits, the rest of the world’s awareness of our ulterior motives will ultimately whip around and bite us hard on the ass. When we extend aid to others, we must do it for no other reason than caring about their plight. A leader’s concern for human beings should be the central, fundamental motivation for all of his or her actions.

To produce such a leader, we must be attuned to our own level of sincerity at all times. Unless we get this right, we will make no progress in our ability to completely govern ourselves and meet challenges as daunting as Hurricane Katrina.

Raj Wahi graduated from Wiess College in 1999 and received his Ph.D. from Rice in 2004.

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