I watched PIA's town hall meeting with the residents and Governor of the Southern region. Unlike Weyane's rigged elections held for the consumption of Western nations, Eritrea's grassroots-oriented bottom-up version of democracy is one that addresses the real needs of its population while equitably distributing the nation's resources to all administrative regions. Democracy, at its core, is about solving the people's problems. It's not about staging a sham election for the global media that doesn't seem to give Eritrea its fair shake no matter what the circumstances. Even at this point in its history, Eritrea is far more democratic in its approach to development, governance, resource distribution and ensuring tangible improvements in the quality of life of all of its citizens than most other nations in the developing world. What matters to people, in the final analysis, is that they see real quality of life improvements in their daily lives. Watching
PIA freely interact with the villagers in a town hall setting, listen to their concerns without any filters and openly admit some of the shortcomings, resource-shifting and tradeoffs the government has had to make is the highest form of democracy. I truly believe that PIA and the current Government of Eritrea do recognize the inherent faults of mankind and are determined to bequeath the next generation of Eritreans a working, constituitional form of democracy when the timing is right. There is no question that Weyane's mischief has delayed that process. In the mean time, however, Eritrea should be given as much space as it needs to put down the pillars and foundation needed for its own home-grown version of democracy without any interference and mischief from outside powers. The Great Powers need to essentially get off Eritrea's back and let it determine its own destiny and form of governance as it sees fit.
Received on Fri Oct 26 2012 - 16:14:20 EDT
