Word: peasant
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...artifacts underground, but cannot afford what they promise to pay for any finds. Says Josephson: "An Egyptian farmer will not report an archaeological find for fear his fields will be confiscated. So he either throws the object away or sells it to a cousin in Cairo." Though a peasant who finds an artifact makes a small fraction of its retail value -- one contraband Cambodian Buddha head on sale in Hong Kong recently carried a $37,000 price tag -- it is better than nothing...
...government control of the petroleum, mining and chemical industries. Even less encouraging to potential aid donors, who want to see evidence that capitalist inclinations have buried socialist leanings for good, private ownership of land is still forbidden. Meles regards this as critical to protecting the interests of the poor peasant farmers who constitute almost 90% of the population...
Meles sees this solution as practical, not polemical. "If the economic policy doesn't address the peasant's concerns, if the cities are bleeding the peasants as in most of Africa, then you cannot have democracy," he says. But such approaches have kept the foreign aid dollars from flowing. Some Ethiopians are resentful that the foreign aid spigot is still dry. "You said you would help those countries that formed democracies," says Tekola Hagos, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. "Where's the beef? Please send cash." But Meles appears more tolerant. "For us there is a commitment to democracy even...
...higher hopes. So does their weary brother Jack, a defrocked priest sent home from his mission in Africa for embracing local gods and customs. Suffused through the background are the inescapable memories of Ireland: pagan revelry and medieval Christian learning, invasion and oppression, the landlord's power and the peasant's scorn...
...peasant farmers alone. There's no need for those with money to compete with the peasant farmers. If democracy is based on the elite, it will fail as it has failed everywhere else in Africa...