The "security and
sovereignty" has always been an important factor for every nation.
Moreover, our royals and particularly His Majesty the King reminds every
Bhutanese about this in most of his national addresses. When we look back to
the history of Bhutan, we will find that Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal has already
seen this as paramount importance and started Bhutan's own unique identity
through national language and the national dress. For years, every king in the
throne has also considered the same and always worked for it. I too believe
that security and sovereignty is very important for any citizen and this is one
main factor behind the independence of our country, Bhutan.
The unique identity of our language,
dress and culture alone cannot safeguard the security and the sovereignty of
our country. With the development and challenges of the modern time, we need to
look at many other areas of threat from which we need to safeguard. Never
forgetting the above mentioned areas, I feel that the country's self-reliance
is equally important for the safeguard of the country's security and
sovereignty. In the present time, our country is almost fully dependent on
other nations for almost everything. For instance, from a simple labour force to
equipment for large developmental constructions, from the oil needed for
cooking to the chillies for Ama-Datshi,
which is the most important Bhutanese dish.
It is good to see that government has
already started to work for the self-reliance in the agricultural area. It is
the responsibility for each Bhutanese citizen to support and work for it. The
nation is facing a huge unemployment problem where we need to import so many
foreign workers. If only our youths work productively and develop a sense of
being skilful rather than only graduating with high degree, I am sure we can
have enough jobs for our youths in the country. We can set up many micro
industries to produce our own home goods. I really appreciate those business
entrepreneurs who have already started with their business. We as a Bhutanese
should support their effort and try to be self-sufficient rather than fully
depending upon the foreign goods. Such initiatives also create lots of job vacancies
within the country to keep the unemployment rate low. However, it does not mean
Bhutan can fully avoid being reliable to other countries. In this global
economy era, it does not make a good sense to produce everything within the
country neither can our domestic companies run every industry. For instance, to
we cannot have our own petroleum companies. The country can yet start to do our
best in the best possible way we can and make a strong economy of our own.
The other area which alerts me of safety
of our sovereignty is our nation's high debt. Through media, we have learnt
that our country has acquired huge sum in debt for the development of our
country. Large amount has been used in the hydro-power industries. The turnover
of this industry is very good. However, with the increase in pollution and
global warming, these industries seem to be in danger before it could repay the
debt. We might need to look for other alternative source of income rather than
fully depending upon our live supporting rivers.
In my conclusion, I believe that the
country's security and sovereignty not only lies in our unique identity of our
national dress, language and the culture, we also need to work to make our
country self-reliance. I also believe that taking huge debt is not a good
option for the country's development.
