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Mayra Trujillo Alvarado AN EMPTY SHELL If people are hungry and there is no food for them; if they are sick and there are no medicines for them; if there is no work for them; if ignorance persists; and if the fundamental rights of all individuals are not respected; then democracy is an empty shell, even if the citizens vote and have a parliament. On reflection, and taking as a starting point the thoughts of Nelson Mandela on what is required for a system of goverment to be a true democracy, it is with pain that I admit that democracy in my country is an empty shell, full of paradigms and legends which hurt the soul and the life of every Ecuadorian who dies from lack of medicine, who pokes through the rubbish for scraps of food, children who stop studying because at home there is no cash, not even for food, much less for these things. Ecuador is a country, though small territorally speaking, that it is pluricultural and multi-ethnic, with a "representative democracy" according to what can be read from various sources, but I ask myself: representative of what, of whom? Hardly those hundreds of children who sell sweets, clean windows, juggle among cars, or clean shoes on the streets? Or those who live on rubbish dumps surrounded by germs and disease? Might it represent the woman with limited means surrounded by her ten children because she didn't know about contraceptive methods, or even family planning? No, it doesn't represent them, nor the man who works 12-hour days in the fields to try to get a loaf of bread for his family, or even those who go to vote and have to place their fingerprint because they don't know how to read or write. Once, in a youth workshop on democracy, the following question was raised: What does democracy mean to you? We all replied almost in unison: "voting", but we all felt a doubt in our hearts that this wasn't the democracy we were hoping for, or worse still that we which we wanted for future generations; it wasn't a democracy that satisfied us - now I am able to realise the mistake we were making. What is truly worrying is that 80% or more of Equadorians have this view of democracy: somone who enters an electoral precinct, searches among the crowds of people for their voting table, grabs their ballot papers, hides behind a screen which doesn't even guarantee a secret vote and puts all their hope in the candidate who had the best political campaign. Or the most expensive, that gave out rice, sugar, oil and a T-shirt with the best photo when they passed by their house - located in some margin of the city and built of sticks, cardboard boxes, and old plastic instead of a roof - and promised them insulation, electricity, clean water, asphalt, and other things. Why? So that after ten years they realise many times, even with tears in their eyes, that the conditions in their area haven't really changed and that they were vilely deceived and their democractic action of voting was bought for a few provisions which sometimes last just a couple of days. However, even when all these characteristics make democracy in my country an empty shell, there is another, a real one, hidden among the people, a democracy that comes out to walk on the empty streets of the cities and fills them with unknown perfumes, that makes every flag flutter, that sings in Quechua from the Galapagos Islanda to the Shuar towns in the Amazon, that enchants foreigners and makes the native people proud, that makes my people charismatic and friendly, that makes the bureaucrat and the field labourer equal, that which makes us untouchable from oppression and brave in the face of danger, that which brings us together at each goal scored by the nacional team, that which makes us feel Equadorian is for me the greatest example of democracy, the power of the people that only the people know. Even so, the doubt remains: how can we improve the democracy that is seen by the rest of the world, that which is full of political conflict, struggle of power, controversies and instabilities, examples of corruption, contempt, and wastefulness? How do we cure the sickness that tries to strangle the democracy that lives among the simple people, the beautiful democracy, that makes us feel proud to be Equadorian?... The common excuse is: "that's the job of the politicians." I say that isn't true; it's the job of every one of us, from the child just beginning his life, to the pensioner who walks desolate along the sidewalks with three legs and a thousand dollars. We cannot wait for the good intentions of the politicians; the problem isn't the context, but rather that which shapes it and we, the citizens, shape the context, therefore the problem at its root is us. And we will be the problem until we start to change, to look with understanding eyes, to prepare ourselves and to prepare others, until we make heard our voice of protest, not with sticks and stones thrown at public buildings, or with exploding bombs against the police or military, but with attitudes - when we don't let pass unpunished those days which kill us with pain and destroy the future of all of us, when we are ready to be better. We have to leave aside the fear to lift our heads, and to express our thoughts no matter what others might say. The later we begin to change, the further away the day of victory will be. The key word is change, for true democracy, to not have children in the street, delincuent young people, corrupt adults, or frustrated elderly, but to have children in schools, young people active in the nacional scene, adults working hard to give the best to their families and pensioners satisfied with the work they have done. Translation by Marta Diez, WYMD Secretariat (1) English translation from Mr. Mario Jorge Yutzis's citation of Mandela at a regional preparatory meeting for the UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, 2001, report online at http://tinyurl.com/2oocw4 |