Dear friends,
You all have made my 2021 bearable in many ways.
The past two years have been dystopic for most of us.
Covid 19 altered many ways of doing things: ways of formal learning, conduct of careers, livelihood, travel & leisure took a backseat.
Many of us are into a work from home set- up which is mostly done digitally.
Group meetings & conferences are being done online;
food & basic necessities are being ordered online, too.
But, there are really many things like services which cannot be downloaded online.
To keep our sanity, we planted greens & flowers, watched films & shared notes on what K dramas to watch on Netflix;
reading or entertainment is the escape mode.
Covid 19 is forever mutating & as I write this, new variants are emerging, along with Omicron.
It seems that we will have to live with this virus & mutants for a long time.
As determined by Charles Darwin, ages ago, adaptation to these changes (& of course preparation) are the ways to go to survive.
We had worst moments, too: not only that our homes were destroyed by changing climates & human folly but lives were lost, too, in the name of laws & enforcement that are unjust and inhuman.
My wishes for 2022 are focused on the May elections & electoral - agenda - compliance - monitoring after the elections which should be part of our duties as citizens towards our common causes.
I hope that from here-on, we think seriously of the May 2022 elections & choose well our next leaders.
Surveys in the run up to elections, which are pictures at points in time, can still change. There is plenty of time.
The campaign period still has to start in February 8, 2022, for national candidates.
Messages can be manipulated in a way that the masses of voters who are earning less than the minimum wage can believe in some fake “golden” promises.
Machinery, money, & mind manipulation in media & even in academia can make an incompetent win.
For now, each voter thinks that her/his vote cannot win a candidate. Or that whether or not, s/he condones vote buying will not matter as governance will go on, whoever wins.
Which is why, it is important to look at the background & track record & competencies of candidates.
Let us choose the best candidate who can represent us & who can deliver what we hold dear in our hearts: our children’s future, employment & livelihood for all, policies & programs which will ensure the enforcement of our basic social & economic rights.
The good governance narratives are well known to the literati in academia & in the world of social development.
I hope that these narratives are translated to policies that will have impact at village levels.
Cheers,
I. B. Solamo
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