Social Capital (Berredel A Chad) Not in pounds or amount of money! In my thinking, this is the ultimate (tkul er a bab) measurement of value any person can have in other people’s eyes in a Palauan community. It includes just about everything on a person like his/her parents, upbringing (uulukurulel), attitudes, personality, character, level of knowledge and skills both from school and life experiences, association with other people, responsible, professionalism, personal appearance and good manners. But it cannot be just one of these factors that create one’s social capital. More importantly, how a person naturally carries himself /herself in the eyes of others. So it means that it is a result of a unique combination and how these factors work together to make the final picture of your value. The tricky thing about it is it can only be measured by other people not by you. Social instinct (SI) is a basic ability for a Palauan person to use to read and interpret any situation to know what to do or say or to know if and when to butt in. This is complex skill to enable one to know when people say yes but they are actually not really agreeable to whatever you are saying. People saying the nicest things in your support but in that instant you know that the opposite is true. Being Palauan is not easy because one has to constantly maintain good appearance even with people you dislike for many reasons like they are related to you or friends of your friends or related to your in-laws or members of a clan that is somehow connected to your clan. In any case, SI is important skill for a person to navigate through complicated and intertwined (cheliseksikd) relations with varying degrees. You need to know so not to make a fool of yourself or avoid becoming labeled as an idiot or being ostracized (ke mo ra kemiker). Sadly to say, many people, especially youth, seem to lack SI. It takes a lot for Palauan to build his/her social capital because it depends on how well you do things or avoid social blunders (ke di ketmorch e remuul a diak el kirel malechub e ng mekngit). In line of this thinking, Palauans in general use social capital excessively (diblechoel) when expressing their opinions of other people. And Palauans do not forget mistakes easily. Little wonder it is almost impossible to find good candidates with right social capital to fill critical jobs, especially public positions like board members or public appointments. Every time I find myself in a group of people tasked in looking for a candidate to fill a job or position we end up knocking our heads to no avail (soual lobached a btelud). But the result is always the same…there are always very few people you can come up with and most likely more women than men on the list. In recent weeks, I have found myself in a group tasked in looking for a person to fill the position of Executive Director of Palau Red Cross. Here is one of the qualifications: good community image and reputation. So a known drunkard with high education credentials might not fulfill this requirement. Out of frustration I personally have called three people that I can think of to consider looking into this opportunity. Here is what I said to one of these people. I know you growing up being involved in sports as an athlete, a good Christian, a good employee where you work now, good mother and wife, showing enthusiasm and commitment in community activities you are involved in, sincere and good mannered, incredibly good first time MC at Independence Day to everyone’s surprise, and above all have a respectable image at her age. In short, she has the right social capital. She thanked me for recognizing these qualities in her. Looking at social capital one will soon realize that Palau is really in serious short supply of good people that we can put in positions of responsibility or authority that will in turn increase public good for Palauan people. One can easily give up looking for Palauans, especially the youth, with the right social capital. So whatever role you play as a parent, teacher, uncle, auntie, elder, spiritual councilor, employer/boss, chief, or political leader think on how you can add to the social capital of Palauans. Or else Palau will be left with only “kas” as in Hanafuda playing cards if this trend continues!
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 22:50:33 +0000
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