A student who has shown an interest in "participative governance"

There are some Lebanese citizens, and particularly youth, who are interested in the future of their country. The following exchange of emails is reproduced below to provide some concrete examples of that fact.

A message that I received from a student (family name withheld)

June 5/6/15 

Dear Georges,

My name is Elias and I am an undergraduate student at AUB. I recently saw your post concerning participative governance on the 3V group on Facebook, and was interested to know more about it. How does it work, is the system functioning well in the other countries you mentioned? Could it be applied in ours? I wish to contribute to this country and change it to the better.

June 7/6/15

 Dear Elias,

I was pleased to receive your enquiry. I shall, not fail, to reply to it next  tuesday, if you allow me. I intend to gather, during the next few days, as much information as possible in order to enlighten  you on the subject that you are rightly interested in. Suffice it to say, at this stage, that the participation of citizens, and particularly the keen undergraduates like yourself, is, in my humble opinion, the only effective way to rebuild our country, rid it of sectarianism and corruption, and put it on the right path toward national development, stable growth, and social justice. I keenly look forward toward pursuing our discussion on this subject, as early as possible.

Sincerely,

George Sabat

June 13/6.15

 Dear Elias,

I regret that family circumstances prevented me from replying to you earlier. I notice that you are interested in finding out if the participative governance approach is working elsewhere and to which extent that approach succeeds in furthering the economic and social development of the country that adopts it.

If you refer to our website at http://www.cpi-lebanon.org, pages 15 to 19 you will be able to see how “participative governance “works in the Philippines, Brazil and South Africa. These countries are fast moving from their status of developing countries to soon enter the developed stage.  In those pages I have tried to describe, with the elements in my possession, the various aspects of the approach and I trust that it will interest you. If you need additional information on the subject, kindly let me know and I shall try to ferret it for you.

On the other hand, if you go to pages 34 to 37 you can read how a fully developed country, such as the Irish Republic, has so successfully implemented that system and has succeeded, in a relatively short period of time, following its entry into the European club, to acquire the title of the “tiger of Europe”.

I trust that this information will assist in providing you with the answers that you are seeking.

I would like also to insist that you advise me of any new development, as far as you are concerned. I may also be able, in the near future, to inform you about a very important project for Lebanon that we hope to start working upon in the near future. You will be one of the first to know when it is decided to execute it.

Sincerely

George Sabat