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'This page has been approved by the United Grand Lodge of England’
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MESSAGE FOR SEPTEMBER 2004 MERITOCRACY Much has been said about the ethos of the Olympics over the recent weeks and months but for me one over-riding singularity of the Olympics stands out – it is a meritocracy. Although external influences and so-called substances have attempted to bolster and improve performances, at the end of the day, Sport as a meritocracy has to win – meaning that the innate ability of the athlete or sportsman has to prevail. You cannot be any artificial means foist a Carl Lewis or a Sachin Tendulkar on to the podium of medalists and match-winners. Truth and Talent will out. If this hypothesis is granted, and there can be no gainsaying it, then we must give the administration of sport the kind of supervisors who are qualified to recognize merit and talent in a given area of athletic activity, and more importantly to support and nurture such talent! We then have to ask ourselves the question whether such an administration is available to us, before we go on to discuss why a country of a billion people cannot yet boast of a single Gold Medal. Carrying this thought over to other administrations even such as ours, we must always keep trying to discover merit where available, and to support and encourage it. To discourage merit by sins of omission and commission is to destroy the potential for organisational achievement, and this is particularly why Masonry at all levels recognizes merit. The word itself recurs over and over again in our ritual and discourses, for good reason. In whatever walk of life we find ourselves, let us recognize and reward Merit so that little meritocracies are widely spread over our social landscape. The Olympic spirit can be carried over into other spheres and walks of life in general – the Olympic rings also symbolises that.
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Designed and maintained by
H. L. Ratan for
the DGL - Madras |
