DEMOCRACY (democratia,
from the Latin), is not the equal of the office
or tenure of the office of a dictator - neither,
for example, of the far-right or the
proletariat. Nor it is the act or ceremony of
crowning a sovereign or a sovereign's consort.
It is, rather, a form of government in which supreme power
is vested in the people and exercised by them
directly or indirectly through a system of
representation usually involving periodic free
elections. In a direct democracy, the public
participates in government directly (as in some
ancient Greek city-states, some New England town
meetings, and some cantons in modern
Switzerland). Most democracies today are
representative. The concept of representative
democracy arose largely from ideas and
institutions that developed during the European
Middle Ages and the Enlightenment and in the
American and French Revolutions. Democracy has
come to imply universal suffrage, competition
for office, freedom of speech and the press, and
the rule of law.
Serious decisions, in relation to national
affairs, must not be guided by gut feeling,
intuition and emotions, as unfortunately has
long being the case in Haiti. Rather, they must
be made on the basis of deductive logic or
reasoning.
Since the always dirt-poor Caribbean nation is a democracy, though fragile, the
earthquake-ravaged, minuscule Caribbean nation's
citizens indisputably have the right to
beforehand be permitted to know - both, in the
positive terms, the negative terms - as much as
possible about a person or persons' private and
public lives who have made their intentions
known that they will be candidates for public
offices. Only if the constituents possess the
relevant information can they intelligently,
honestly
express their electoral sentiments - not only
for quality leadership (the independent cause or
variable Y), but a better future (the dependent
cause or x1 variable), which they desperately
need given the multitude of unwanted problems
(not limited to blanket crushing poverty and
endemic corruption), which unfortunately have
long defined their lives.
One of the plethora of candidates (an explosion)
is hip hop singer and songwriter Wyclef Jean,
who does not possess a college degree (critics
rather say not even a fraudulent high school
diploma). Nor does he have even residual
experience in political and economic affairs.
The latter, too, and many others are all
requirements for serious political leadership,
not celebrity president - a joke.
Mr. Jean can sing, he can dance, but can he
lead, and ultimately can he deliver? World
leaders only take seriously a president who is
capable of changing, in the positive terms, the
vast majority of the Haitian people's quality of
life - from dirt-poor to something even less
than working class. Otherwise, they do not open
wide the big, fat purse, as they say in the
vernacular, of foreign aid monies, which Haiti
will principally be dependent (now, roughly 70 percent) on
to pay for the items of its niggardly budget for
decades.
Do not let fear, for example, to be a "prison
house" that constraints you from your capacity
to reason, to act as responsible citizens.
You see something, you know something, say
something. As a result "everything is going to
be alright," to borrow some of the poignant
lyrics of the late Jamaican Reggae music icon
Bob Marley. We urge both, Haitians and non-Haitians, to
forward us any information they may have in
their possession (or know about) concerning a
candidate, candidates for public offices in
Haiti. We will certainly not reveal to the
public or any other party our source(s) of
information, for example, for your own safety.
Since we, in full, adhere to the many principles
of the concept democracy, a contender for public
office or contenders for public offices will
have the right to go as far as disputing an accusation or
accusations made against him/her or them,
whichever applies.
SEND US THE URGENTLY NEEDED INFORMATION OR
TELEPHONE US TODAY:
E-mail:
letters@wehaitians.com
Telephone: 617-852-7672
Postal address:
Wehaitians.com
P.O. Box 390581
Cambridge, MA 02139 a |
