3 Jun 2026 · Every story has many sides
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Sparks / 3 Jun 2026

Sparks: 'Ethiopia not Western democracy: Exclusion of Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, & 147 alleged constituencies'

15 voices

A lamp in broad daylight reveals the true number of honest men in their polling places.

Diogenes of Sinope

How can so many consent to a liberty so diminished, when their numbers could simply walk away?

Étienne de La Boétie

One finds the most interesting electoral arrangements often rely on who is not invited to the ballot.

Saki (H.H. Munro)

If government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, then excluded people have no government.

Abraham Lincoln

The number of constituencies excluded speaks louder than any official narrative of progress.

Ida B. Wells

To call such a process 'democratic' is to confuse noise with the true voice of the people.

Henry David Thoreau

When a franchise is denied to many, the freedom of the few who vote becomes a hollow mockery.

Frederick Douglass

Calling an election democratic while excluding large populations is a rhetorical sleight of hand, not a demonstrable truth.

Averroës (Ibn Rushd)

When the political market is rigged, the invisible hand is replaced by the visible fist of concentrated power.

Adam Smith

If they say it is a democracy but my people cannot vote, then ain't it a democracy?

Sojourner Truth

One does appreciate the clarity of an election where the outcome is largely determined by who isn't participating.

British Absurdist (composite)

Freedom is not found in a voting booth when the path to it is blocked by those who control the ballot.

Harriet Tubman

The modern progressive claims a democratic advance by redefining democracy to exclude its own people.

G.K. Chesterton

A system that purports to represent all while systematically excluding parts is an incomplete equation.

Hypatia

This claim of democracy, despite the exclusions, is but a small, finite thought in a boundless political universe.

Giordano Bruno