What's so special about specialists?

by Afreeha Jawad

Revered references have been afloat for some time - the kind which originates from external quarters that finds neat acceptance by us locals and even improvised, polished and embraced wholeheartedly doing one better than even those that initiated the endeavour.

Lest you sit out there all very non - plussed over my delivery, here I go .... Specialist doctors, special attendants, of recent emergence are special nurses, experts and top lawyers while artistes and businessmen share prefix commonality in what is called leading.

Then there are the bureaucrats or 'boorucrats' as scribes would have it, technocrats and even aristocrats - Ooops.... sorry the last of which kind seemingly are not around any more but operate discreetly because of caste replacement with class - nevertheless a failed endeavour as the topic itself even to this day is subject to subtle reference when the occasion arises.

Yet with all that kind of 'special' in expertise, we who should have really overtaken Singapore have failed even Lee Kwan Yew whose deep seated desire fifty years ago was to make Singapore a Sri Lanka. Now we stand at water's edge looking across the ocean for a reversal of that utterance.

Getting back to my kick start why is it the term specialist has been and continues to remain the exclusive preserve only of doctors?

This type of shall we say 'professional gradation' sees all other vocational competency into a state of less importance while highlighting only the healing hand who on consultation would wound your mind asking loads of questions quite unrelated to your disease perhaps even complicating what you are already suffering from.

An inquiry into where you work leads the questions he has in mind for you - a discreet operational tactic into finding out insurance coverage and if you are, be sure your visits to him will be far more frequent than you expect it to be.

There have also been numerous instances of inquiry into children, where they work, whether they are in Sri Lanka and that kind of vulgar probing. As he painfully locates your social class you can be assured of his extended entry into your wallet.

The intense disrepute some of these vulgar specialists have fallen into has even led some people of writer acquaintance presenting themselves at channel service shabbily dressed as being of the underclass.

Lest I digress from my mainstay, why are we so overwhelmingly concerned about specialization, specialists experts and what not. You can say it again and again - the undying love for social status. Oft' have I heard the hacked Sri Lankan expression, "Oh! he belongs to good family. The son is a doctor, the daughter is an engineer, the other boy is an accountant" -- and there you are.

So the basis of 'goodness' depends on skills based professional placement far removed from a value based one. At least a combination of both - No! they wouldn't even hear of it as money makes the Mayor go.

In achieved status environs what is 'good' is different from ascribed status based surroundings where expressions such as 'Oh! he comes from good Govigama stock' is often heard. Caste in feudal set up was basis for value based judgements.

The importance of variance, in reference to diverse vocational, adherents, (Ah! I almost forgot, what of those special teachers) shows the keen interest of agenda setters in 'profession prioritizing.' To be remembered is the medical profession's importance in relation to global money spinning.

In fact it is the worldwide medical fraternity that keeps going the world's pharmaceutical giants. Now then, I believe you've got the answer to why the speciality of reference only to medical men.

Talking of clever teachers, just contact one and you are sure to be assured of what is called 4 As - that magic number in almost every parents mind - never mind what becomes of the sibling that would end up a 'specialist' devoid of human values counting patients on the channel chit, or the so called intellectual - self seeking of course, mindful of his personal agenda.

I wonder whether today's children are even taught yesteryear's 'evergreen'. Here it goes!

'Its not whether you won or lost but how you played the game' - which contextualized today warrants change into: 'It is whether you won or lost not how you played the game.'

While the first emphasises values giving secondary importance to worldly glory, the innovative rendition is more into worldly attainment devoid of values.

While one emphasises traditionality, the other is into legality - not necessarily what entails morality.

For instance legality based territorial integrity in nation state environs runs contrary to human integrity and wholesomeness found only when man was tradition bound. The spirit of mutual respect, of trust and care cannot be engineered through legality for its origins are embedded in one's heart.

Again its a problem of 'specialist and specialising' - this time for constitutional delivery. Ah! here we go - constitutional experts that stick to the very letter are sure to miss out on justifiable means to moral ends - best seen in the Northern Ireland crisis - the basis being, a total absence of constitutional experts arising from the fact that Great Britain's constitution to this day remains unwritten. It is tradition that guides British democracy.

This then is not to disown specialisation yet in its restricted application is the possibility of particularistic tendencies overlooking the universalistic whole. Talking of legality and tradition - the gun cannot silence the heart's 'goings on'.

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