On Tue, 4 Mar 1997, Mobae Afeworki wrote:
>
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> Selamat everyone,
>
> It is a great pleasure to read several thought-provoking posts on the
> recent hot issue: democracy. It is also disheartening to see people engage
> in petty name calling rather than debate the issue based on sound
> arguments, pro or con. (BTW, it is very comforting to be a "silent
> dehaier".)
>
> When people talk about democracy and why we need to have a democratic
> culture, and governments that accept, respect, and protect the
> constitution, I would like to see it as a call not for the next year or so,
> but for the coming generations. Anyway, let me state my opinion--trust me,
> I am neither an American nor a philosopher, thus missing two-out-of-three
> definitely makes me not an Americo-Eritrean Philosopher :-)
>
> As far as the literacy of our people vis-a-vis democracy is concerned: one
> of the central themes of democracy is tolerance to views and opinions other
> than your own. When talking about the people of Eritrea, we are talking
> about people who respect not only each other but also, and with full heart,
> their beliefs. [Tewelde and (part 1 of) wedi-Hamde (I don't remember seeing
> part 2) had beautiful stories on this last year.] We have the culture of
> respecting even the religious beliefs of others, a Muslim respecting the
> Christian and vice versa--that's why we still have churches next to
> mosques, that's why you see in some villages the Muslims contributing to
> building a church and Christians helping Muslims build a mosque. If we
> think that we could teach this people democracy, I believe our efforts are
> misplaced. We should bang our heads together in perfecting the
> village-style democracy into a national agenda, for our own sake. We could
> teach them a lot of different things, but it just seems to me that when the
> subject is tolerance to views and opinions of others, we are, and we should
> be, the students. Let's just figure out what made them live with each other
> and what is increasingly making us (their off springs) live side-by-side.
>
> So, please let's stop this arrogance of 'you can't have democracy with
> illiterate people.' Finally, since we are accustomed to asking the
> definition of every word, let's stop for a moment and ask our selves:
> illiterate in what?
>
> Mobae
>
>
>
>
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SELAMAT SEB ERITREA ABBAY
WELL AFWORKI I HOPE AFRICAN WEE START VOICING AND REDIRECTING
THE ENERGY WE WASTE IN AROGANCE, ETC.. .
YOUR POINT IS MORE COMPLET THER IS NOTHING TO ADD.
THANKS FOR EFFECETIV COMMENT.
Solomon Ghirmay.
bv404@torfree.net
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