Teodros Kiros - A short response to Dr. Tecola Hagos's Endorsing...

A short response to Dr. Tecola Hagos's Endorsing Medrek :
Liberal Democracy vs. Participatory Democracy vs.
Revolutionary Democracy

14 May, 2010 | By Teodros Kiros (Ph.D)

I applaud Dr. Teco l a Hagos’s characteristically honest response to my recent
article, “in defense of Participatory Democracy and against Revolutionary
Democracy" and Liberal Democracy".

I think Dr. Hagos is very much mistaken in judging the article as neither
enlightening nor timely. I think it is both, depending on the reader’s mood.

Infact the article is very timely. I am a

committed supporter of Medrek, but

Medrek needs to provide the Ethiopian

people with a new thinking. The

so-called revolutionary democracy of the

moribund ruling regime and liberal

democracies are tired concepts. There i

nothing emancipatory for the ordinary

Ethiopian in these polities. The ruling regime’

s revolutionary democracy has

given us a tyranny that must be overthrown,

and liberal democracy typically

benefits the rich and powerful, its benefits never really trickle down to
concretely the change the life chances of the Ethiopian poors.

Participatory democracy and deliberative democracy as I argued in my
subsequent article,” Participatory democracy and deliberative democracy”,
(published in Ethioquestnews.com, Abugida and Ethiopian Unity Diaspora
Forum) offers a new thinking that aims at empowering the Ethiopian poors.

All my published books and forthcoming books on the Ethiopian condition are
attempts at articulating a vision of a just polity anchored on participation
and deliberation. My goal is always to remove the injustices inflicted on the
Ethiopian poors.

I am making a modest attempt to equip Medrek with a substantive manifesto
guided by the concept of the Ethiopian person and her capacitates, capabilities
and possibilities, as the Ethiopian people are seeking to replace the moribund
ruling regime, at this momentous time and the reality of the post election
fights at the parliament and on the streets of Addis.

My intent is not to polarize but to empower Medrek with new thinking.

Dr. Teodros Kiros, is a Senior Editor at Ethio Quest News. His weekly
column appear here