by Munish Duggal

09 October 2001

The word "Timorization" was as alien to most of us as the word "Development" in East Timor during its colonial past. Immediately after arriving here, I was deputed to work in the Civil Service Academy and impart training to the local civil servants so that they can have effective system of administration and governance in a time bound manner. In short, the mandate was to do a time bound exercise in Capacity Building for the People of East Timor, who in the words of James Dunn have been betrayed time and again.

The task of capacity building in this land, which was colonized for 4 centuries and then recolonised for another quarter of a century, is big and challenging. It all appeared impossible to start with. The kind of job we are doing is quite general so instead of narrating the specific stories, I will just concentrate on the general points and experiences, which surely have implications for the specific tasks of each one of us in our respective departments. The first challenge in East Timor was posed by unkind nature: constantly hot and humid climate, inadequate vegetation, and natural resources. This was coupled with the problems arising out of systematic destruction of whatever natural bounties this place had by 450 years of colonization and decolonisation. As a student of economics, I often read about an important indicator of "Economic Development", namely, quality of life. But till I came here, I never saw a practical demonstration of how poor the quality of life can be in a part of the world, which is so close to Australia- the developed World.

A Unique Mission in this Unique Country provided me an opportunity to relive the agony all the colonies of the present day Developed countries had gone through over a period of Colonialism spanning over centuries. The challenge of arranging specific teaching and reading material for training of our local civil servants which emphasise their local contexts rather than the contexts of the other rich and moderately rich countries was, however, more important than the ones previously mentioned.

To look for the local examples so that they can relate to the capacity building strategies being taught by us, we had to spend time in different parts of East Timor and with local people. But it was not easy because of the presence of language barrier. So we had to struggle to get good translators and interpreters. After assessing the difficulties, we focussed our efforts on just one person and taught him extensively about the technical terms used liberally in our course materials so that he can explain the same to "n" number of the local civil servants who formed the target public for our capacity building projects or training courses. So we built a team through a focussed approach.

In East Timor, we realized that the well-known examples in Management, Economic Development, and Public Administration being used and quoted all over the World are alien to local Civil Servants and inapplicable in this land. So we had to look within ET and explain the same concepts by deriving examples from the Cock fighting culture of Timor, the survival of the statute of Jesus along the beach and of Angels on the Comoro roundabout leading to the Airport despite all round destruction in post referendum fury! Apt handling of the local information and modest understanding of the History of ET clicked and these local examples often became the pivot around which the class room discussions about capacity building strategies would revolve. The local civil servants very often elaborated and criticized our examples and detailed documentation of all such discussions has given us rich teaching and workshop material which may be of no use in other countries but may serve as a replacement for the sandalwood plundered by the 400years of colonization here!

So despite the challenges of language, climate, law and order situation, resorting to local culture, values, and historical facts paved the way for formulating useful training and capacity building strategies. After these examples, the interest of an average Timorese participant increased manifold and pessimism gave way to optimism. An important reward, therefore, was that we could sensitize the local people about the issues that will be faced by them in the years and may be decades to come.

Apart from this reward of sensitization, I discovered that despite colonial plunder, the social institutions and culture of this place and its people remain intact. The future lies in using these institutions in a constructive way rather than imposing the Western Models here, and it works. Timorization is proving to be an effective way to undertake social reengineering and for building a sustainable country. As indicated in my class room experiences, I find that the capacity of local civil servants in assimilating the experiences of other countries and at the same time fine tuning these experiences to their own realities is tremendous and a silver lining in the whole exercise. Timorese with whom I have interacted, want UN to play only a catalytic role in providing enabling environment which ensures Timorese ownership of the governance and development processes. My short stint with Timorization tells me that Timorese are the best masters of their destiny and so second to none in safeguarding their own future which is bright given the enormous tourism potential, Timor Gap resources, and perceptive human resources. Therefore, in my experience, Timorization is the only way to ensure that people of Timor are not betrayed again.