GIJ Politics The Self Promotion

“When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone.

When you’re great at something, they will tell you.

 – Unknown

II.   The Self Promotion

Need I say any more? The opening quote summarizes the point excellently. Unfortunately, that is a risk many student politicians in GIJ wouldn’t dare to take for obvious reasons: They are not sure their deeds are enough to carry them anywhere so they carry their deeds everywhere.

As early as the first weeks in school, I saw stickers, read posters and received motivational WhatsApp messages from some students and assumed, rather forgivably, that they were students in level 200 or 300. Few weeks down the line, the reality hit me when I gathered from a friend in 300 that the promoted personalities, who were first years, had done that themselves. I was excited as I was astounded. Clearly, some first years had come better prepared. 

Admittedly, I was startled but the mere fact that people are going about pasting stickers or hanging banners of themselves doesn’t imply they have political ambitions. In fact, that is a good argument. Unfortunately, as it turned out a semester later, these fellows were early birds trying to catch political worms.

The other set of self-promoters are the wily opportunists who would strategically nominate themselves for class positions and seek to ride on the wave of that position into the main arena of student politics. I have witnessed firsthand how such people can cordially inconvenience the incumbent and bombard them with pleas to have them ‘release’ their position to them. On the flipside, that reflects a certain disinterest, almost nonchalance, we attach to 'political' issues until something negative happens - but that is an issue for another post. About the self-promoters, the worst encounter comes when they are rejected after the self-nomination. They take offense and go on living bitterly ever after.

 Exposition:
Personally, I believe a good meal will draw seats. Period.

Exception:

Every human being who seeks to distinguish himself in any endeavour must build a brand as distinct as a thumbprint and individual as a signature. That decision comes with a sense of packaging to mark ourselves out from the crowd and that makes perfect sense to me. We’re made to stand out; not fit in. But, to go about quipping at the least opportunity about who you are and what you can do, to be insubordinate with a delusion of grandeur and assume that it makes you politically relevant is what I find bogus.

There's a story about the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson's discovery of Cristiano Ronaldo as a youth player at Sporting Lisbon. Interestingly, the young CR7 did not mount posters of himself with the tagline reading “The Next Big Thing in World Football” as his team welcomed  Manchester United to Portugal. He just did what he does best: playing football. End of story. After all, which PR move surpasses honest actions?