‘Ethiopia Tikedem’ (Ethiopia first)

Ethiopia first was the chorus of the song.

‘Tenesa Teramed’ (Stand up and stride) underlines unity in diversity. It is the name of a patriotic song aired by Radio Voice of Ethiopia in July 1974 or thereabout. This all-inclusive song resonated throughout the country and lifted the spirit of all Ethiopians regardless of their gender, age, ethnic background or creed. Though for a short time, it set us on a course of enthusiastic desire for change without bloodshed. I wish to tell how I got to know and sing ‘Tenesa Teramed’ on one of those of my ‘zemecha’ (a collaboration campaign) days that I will never forget.   ‘Zemecha’ was a philosophy of education for national reconstruction by general mobilization and successful ‘zemecha’ (campaign) for the future advancement and growth of the country.

Without going into detail and immodest about it, I was proud and privileged to take part faithfully in the ‘Ethiopia Tikedem’ ‘zemecha’ to loyally serve and advance my country as the song explained the whole scheme.

At the end of the song, we all applauded in a vivid aura of togetherness, display of joy and determination to push for bloodless change.

The song was unanimously and enthusiastically approved with one brilliant amendment suggested by a highly respected officer of Oromo origin from Wollega province. He commented that the song should reflect ownership thereof by all children of Ethiopia and not only by members of the Air Force who initiated the song first. The amendment was accepted with deafening applause even before the officer could finish his comment. The phrase in the very last of the section of the song which red “says the Air Force” was substituted by the all-inclusive phrase “say your children”. I repeat that it was a brilliant amendment underlining the virtue of inclusiveness of all sectors of the Ethiopian society contrary to the immoral policy of TPLF regime using ethnicity as its weapon to divide and misrule Ethiopia.

It was then decision was made to take the tape immediately to the Provisional Military Coordinating Committee later renamed Derg, The song was aired by Radio Voice of Ethiopia on the same evening of that unforgettable day.

The text of the song and the music were the work of young members of the amateur Music Club of the Air Force. The devoted call for change, by putting Ethiopia first, brought civilians and men in uniform of all ranks together on a band wagon for progress. Interestingly, there is nothing in the text of the song even remotely embracing a specified ideology.

Regardless of the inadvertent mismanagement of the ruling military regime of the time, (novice military personnel incapacitated by incompetence, following the same status quo they only knew through history, to rule by force in order to maintain law and order), the song rather, in contrast, clearly depicts the new dawn and unity for Ethiopian people to front a new transformation with a battle on hand since the Italian aggression.

The song was made up of six sections of four to five lines each separated by one line of repetitive chorus, Ha Hu ‘Ethiopia Tikedem’ sang twice. ‘Ethiopia Tikedem’ means Ethiopia first; ሀ (Ha) and ሁ (Hu) are the sounds of the first and second fonts in the first row of the unique Ethiopian Alphabet.

Ha Hu was the philosophy of mass education ideology evidently demonstrating the need to educate Ethiopians to make ‘Ethiopia Tikedem’ (Ethiopia first) a reality.

Unfortunately, the current TPLF regime is doing the very opposite to the all-inclusive rallying call for change rightly articulated by the song. ‘Tenesa Teramed’ underlines unity in diversity; it advocates the virtue of hard work; it underscores the importance of building dams across our rivers for irrigation neglected without benefit for centuries; it expresses firm resolve to safeguard the territorial integrity of our Motherland, Ethiopia.

 

The call for fundamental change to the way we do things in our world is all universal in our global village. The quest for freedom is steadily enduring.

It is time to stand up in harmony and break the handcuffs in which Ethiopians are held as subordinates by the brutal TPLF regime reinforced by its own walls of armed forces.

TIME FOR CHANGE.

LONG LIVE ETHIOPIA UNITED IN DIVERSITY!

“THAT ONE” is THE GREATEST PRESIDENT

“THAT ONE” is THE GREATEST PRESIDENT

When Barack Obama took office, it was assessed the US faced the worst recession in eighty years, but he managed to fight back with swift decisions. We've seen deficits coming down, the American auto industry setting new records, unemployment reaching eight year low and bouncing back and businesses creating over a million new jobs.

The economic downturn Obama inherited from President Bush was daunting with the US facing one of the worst financial crises: high debt, growing deficit, huge unemployment, financial institutions on the brink of collapse
After a century of trying, Obama declared the health care in America is not a privilege for a few; it's a right for everybody. Obama’s contribution to healthcare reform, by passing the Affordable Care Act, has been a praiseworthy. He has worked tirelessly in bringing down the cost of prescription drugs and making hospital care more affordable to the lower middle class and minorities.

Obama put equality of opportunity policies in place to support students a path to college giving the low-income students free tuitions.
He also controlled Wall Street's worst gluttonies and protected consumers from further fraud. Through countless acts of quiet courage, maintaining everybody’s full rights, marriage equality is now a reality across the land.

President Obama also launched the My Brother’s Keeper initiatives to inspire and encourage community leaders to address persistent opportunity gaps facing boys and young men of colour and ensure that all young people can reach their full potential.

Obama enacted the landmark legislation abolishing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the US Armed Forces.

One of the significant contributions of Obama has been his inclusive policy. He always stood for the rights of blacks, Muslims and other minorities. Obama’s visit to a mosque in Baltimore can be considered a bold move; keeping in mind the recent bitterness against the Muslim community. In spite of being called a Muslim on repeated occasions, due to his middle name being Hussein and managed to appease the feelings of Muslims in an increasingly anti-Muslim environment.

He also fought and doubled the country’s clean energy production, and brought nearly world nations together around a climate agreement that could protect our children from a climate that's beyond saving.

Through diplomacy, Obama managed to communicate effectively and passionately with countries building nuclear weapons and as a result to his credit, Iran agreed to shut down its nuclear weapons program.

Obama can be considered to be a votary of peace. His inclination of ending an American alienation of Cuba and restoring diplomatic ties is a testament to this.

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate was awarded to President Barack Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".

Obama also travelled around the world preaching a new world order. He visited European countries by making peaceful speeches in Brussels, Germany, England and other countries.

President Obama is also the first U.S. president to address the 54 members of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “Nobody should be president for life”, Obama tells Africans.   He also visited other African countries including his ancestral home Kenya by addressing the Kenyan youth with a captivating speech; equally, his inspiring speech in Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa was also astounding.

Obama clearly told African leaders on the future of Africans: “We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to Africans. I say this knowing full well the tragic past that has sometimes haunted this part of the world. I have the blood of Africa within me, and my family’s own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story. …”

“Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa’s potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans. …”

“Repression takes many forms, and too many nations are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers. … That is not democracy that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end….”

“Across Africa, we have seen countless examples of people taking control of their destiny, and making change from the bottom up. …”

“Make no mistake: history is on the side of these brave Africans, and not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions….”

With his family ties to Africa, the president has left a legacy of signature achievements such as power Africa with electrical connections to brighten up Africa.

He also launched the Young African Leaders Initiative –YALI, programs that mentors and funds projects for ambitious young Africans. Obama has also helped expand trade to the continent; he has visited Sub-Saharan Africa more than any other US presidents.

Now, Africa is watching so closely what this year’s candidates’ policies would be since either party mentioned nothing so far.

Obama also visited Eastern bloc countries such as Vietnam, South Korea, India, Indonesia and Japan, the US bombed city of Hiroshima, and gave moving speeches in all countries.

President Obama also visited Australia and addressed the Australian parliament.

Obama being the best organizer during his customary working years as a community development worker continues to assemble those abilities together to make every change he can believe in possible during his presidency.

A man who was referred to as “That One”, by Senator John McCain during their race to the Whitehouse, continued to practice what he wrote in his book, Audacity Of Hope, thereby making tremendous and conspicuous changes.  

Time and again, Americans and the world must appreciate his immense contributions to make our planet a peaceful and habitable place.

Amid all the promising changes, Obama said, “Through every victory and every setback, I've insisted that change is never easy, and never quick; that we wouldn't meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime. By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was when we started this work together. But there is more work to be done.”

One must keep in mind that it’s unfair to ask leaders of powerful nations to solve all global issues and then hold them accountable for not responding to any peaceful demonstrations by the country’s long-suffering people. Every trouble ridden countries, including my own, are blaming Obama for not taking swift action to fix their atrocious fate. We should learn from our past that time and again we must stop urging, begrudging, critiquing and name calling of any leaders for not responding to our calling. He has already told us that “Africa’s future is up to Africans”.

It’s easy to take someone for granted until we see the unimaginable person/candidate emerges to replace the existing ones. As the Ethiopian saying goes, በጅ የያዙት ወርቅ እንደመዳብ ይቆጠራል - “gold in hand is presumed as copper.” It’s time to appreciate all the golds we own in our possession. We have seen all the candidates with pompous and goofy personalities and delivered very little policies, not persuasively, with no perceptible substance.

One of these unlikely candidates of this game of the thrones is Donald Trump who is unfortunately contrasting against all the tsunamis of “change we can believe in” and sailing and assailing with his bunch of hoodwink moralities with the same old rhetoric of business as usual.

Today, it’s not enough to create change at the level of symptoms and structures. We need to work even more deeply to change the underlying paradigms of thought and to connect with our deeper sources of creativity and self.

The governing structures and models we currently find ourselves in are remnants from the old beliefs and outdated corporate era. These are still hanging over our heads in majority of our working lives and can’t understand the bigger picture that people are only interested in money and power.

As Obama’s tenure comes to a close, history will perceive him as one of the most balanced and inclusive presidents the US has ever had. He is leaving behind a legacy that will be difficult for his successors to emulate, let alone surpass.

He will be remembered and cherished for long time to come for his contributions to social changes and instilling inspiring and motivational slogans such as “Change We Can Believe In”, “Yes We Can” and “The Audacity of Hope” –thoughts on reclaiming the American dream –that encourage every walk of life to tap their full potential in their pursuit of peace, happiness and equal opportunity regardless of “who they are” and wherever they live.

I, for one, certainly, haven’t seen any sincere and charismatic leader in my life time on the planet or didn’t catch any leaders past and present with the statesmanship and compassionate leadership capacities as good as Barack Hussein Obama.

Thank you.

I wish you and family a healthy and joyful life.

RIO OLYMPICS 2016 HERO

Congratulations to Feyisa Lelisa winning silver in Brazil, RIO Olympics 2016, finishing behind Kipchoge of Kenya. Feyisa may have won Olympic medal, most of all; he has also won his people’s heart standing for his family and people unlawfully & awfully languishing in the country’s prison.

He strode across the finish line of the marathon event with his arms crossed over his head in a sign of solidarity for the Oromo people, his native group and the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia and as a protest against the Ethiopian government's crackdown on political dissents and for all others suffering as a result of their demonstration for their right to live in freedom.

The reality is, Oromo people have been marginalized traditionally and for decades, with tensions rising recently as the government promoted development that took over their farmland.

Feyisa wanted to draw attention to the government's ongoing persecution of the Oromo people. He probably be imprisoned or killed if he returns back in Ethiopia. He already mentioned that his family members are now in prison and he worries about the safety of his wife and children.

It’s easy to figure out what will happen to him should he return to Ethiopia. If he chooses to remain, his chances of owning the medal might be put at risk by IOC, as this will drag on as a politically motivated gesture. Although the incident happened at a different time and belief setting long ago, I believe the idea of stripping their hard earned medals from athletes with political intentions at the Olympics still stands. I would like to hope otherwise.

In 1968, when African-American sprinters, Tommie Smith and fellow American John Carlos, won gold and bronze, respectively, at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, the Olympics committee has stripped the athlete’s medals for political protests raising a Black Power salute in a black glove covered clenched fist in a stand for human rights protest against discrimination in the United States.

But what the two African-American men did on the podium afterward has been talked about ever since. It was an iconic image from the turbulent '60s.

The year, of course, was the “Unforgettable” 1968. Months earlier, Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated and major riots took place that year across the US and in the years prior.

Smith and Carlos were deplored. Ultimately, they were expelled from the games. “How dare they!” as an IOC spokesperson put it. Then, he went on to say, “they breached the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit"

History vindicated Smith and Carlos. Today, as we have vibrant movements in the US demanding that “Black Lives Matter”, it is easier to see why the outrage directed by the American mainstream towards Smith and Carlos for their protest then should have been directed towards the atrocious racism and institutional discrimination upon which their country was built and continues to suffer from instead.

Four years later, in 1972, at the Summer Munich Olympics in West Germany, Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September have taken eleven Israeli Olympic team members as hostage and eventually massacred along with a German police officer, demanding the release of more than two hundred of their people jailed in Israeli prison. 

I've thought about this episode much over the last several days as the Olympics in Brazil took place. Much attention was paid to three incidents between Arab, Israeli & Ethiopian athletes.

In one, a Lebanese group of athletes refused to share a bus with Israeli athletes, and in another instance, an Egyptian judoka refused to shake hands with his Israeli competitor after a bout.

In the other incident, An Ethiopian marathon athlete crossed the finish line with his fisted hands crossed in protest against his government’s unlawful treatment of his people. Is it fair to say, like Smith & Carlos, history also vindicated Feyisa?

In the Western media, the Arabs were ridiculed for their stances. This was supposedly childish behaviour and did not fit with the spirit of sportsmanship.

No one notices and take it seriously when athletes, from the so-called third world countries, do something in protest of the ongoing unjust treatments of their governments.

How realistic is it to expect a global event to be entirely detached from global politics? What is this "Olympic spirit" that exists in a vacuum where the hearts and minds of humans and their connections to the political world suddenly go unnoticed?

I can understand the desire for sportsmanship and, as a lover of sport myself; I appreciate the ways in which it, as a human language, can transcend divides.

What I cannot understand and cannot accept, however, is when there is outrage over simple acts of protest without outrage, or even discussion, in those same conversations about the reasons behind those protests, the mass denial of basic human rights to millions of Ethiopians, Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, and the list goes on.

Ethiopia is one of the most mosaic nations in the world, mothering over 80 different ethnic groups. I do not mind if my president is from any group or minority nationalities as long as s/he demonstrates the capabilities that people yearn for. Indeed, I will be extra glad if the president comes from the tiniest ethnicities. That should be celebrated as it is one powerful way of ensuring social equity and justice. Remember, this is a government elected by the people to work for the people without despotism, nepotism and hatemongering corruptions.

While core beliefs are hard to change, because they develop so early in life, there are many habits that we can definitely amend with the changing times. The IOC and the world community must wakeup to their responsibilities and acknowledge that nobody intentionally disrupts this treasurable world community’s events and undermine the integrity of institutions that serve the world community, unless they’re deeply overwhelmed by personal and social tragedies they extremely care about.

‘Hate the sin and not the sinner’ is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world….” If one hates another because of race, colour, religion, ethnicity or other factors, the result is more hate. Madiba said, “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite”. If hate is learned, it can also be unlearned. If love can be taught, it can be spread across the land.

We all know that no one is safe in any multicultural society. If we still cling to our past grievances and attempt to carry badges of vengeance from one generation to the next, we’ll not be able to sustain our profound opportunities that can navigate us toward peace, freedom and enduring happiness. It’s time to forgive, value, appreciate and help each other as we’ve always done in our societies. It’s TIME FOR CHANGE!

We must follow Gandhi’s precept that if we must hate, we “hate the sin and not the sinner.” It is a tough precept to follow and live by. We have all been part of the problem and part of the solution at one time or another. If this is not true, then “He who is without sin should cast the first stone”. But now all of us have an opportunity to become part of the grand solution to the political problems facing Ethiopia. It is a rare chance that comes once in generations. Let’s not squander it! We all must watch each other’s back!

Let’s also wish the government that nothing should happen if Feyisa decides to return home with his Olympic winning glory.

We salute all those who sacrificed their lives and those who continue to struggle for possessing strengths in the face of adversity, courage in the face of danger and the willingness to stand up for their beliefs no matter what the cost.

TIME FOR CHANGE!