So, last week, I traveled to the Canadian Embassy in Addis Ababa to cast my vote in the Canadian federal election that is happening today (October 14). It was important to me to cast my vote and make my voice heard. In this election, voting has had a more tangible, immediate quality. I don’t know if it is the pre-eminence of the American elections in the world consciousness (and the sense of vote, vote, vote) or whether it was this sense of wanting to make my voice heard in some small way, but I felt compelled to vote in a way that I never have before.
In any event, I was in a foreign land under the auspices of a Canadian federal government program. I realized how much Canada has given to me and how important it is to maintain that connection. Furthermore, living in Ethiopia, a country where democracy is a relatively recent phenomenon and where the political and social landscapes are ever-evolving in a roiling, eruptive fashion, the right to vote has taken on a whole new level of importance for me.
So, for all of my Canadian family and friends, make sure to get out there and vote today! Hey, if I could manage to get out and vote in Addis, you have no excuse not to travel to the polling station nearest you and exercise the very same right. Voting, it’s in you to give….or is that blood (the Red Cross commercial)? – I cannot remember the slogan. Oh well, you get the point. Vote.
