To Ermias’, a former player and member of Ethiopian
national football team & a good friend of mine for a long time, remarks response
and benefit all others who might have similar or their own side of comments who
are modest and coy as always and reserved themselves scared of the maltreatments
by others, this details hopefully, should justify their intended queries and curiosities.
Hi brother Ermias, thank you for your opinion
regarding this sensitive issue that have come to light by our own sister, Toltu
Tufa. We both know how our unity is important as we’ve been instrumental in uniting
our community that served all Ethiopians. As we’ve also seen in many occasions
in the eroding conditions of our members carrying their cultural stigma with
them to this day. However, nothing altered our solidarity determined to keep our
community that maintained to serve all Ethiopians. Please, understand young
Toltu and try to grasp all the messages, before trying to punch the messengers,
relating to this sensitive issue.
Sorry, Ermias, for taking your time to read overly
written reply to your opinion. I needed to carefully explain this touchy subject
carefully without taking any sides as I never did and never will. We are in a
different century now, not 13th, 14th, or 17th
century, where people of all races are tied together in all sorts of
interactions. Denial of anything is not a solution to our problems, but
mistakes done by all parties and time to move forward to build new venues that
can take all of us where we wanted to go.
Please, also I suggest you read all the given sites for
more clarification. I also trust you that you’ve read the other sites to answer
your remarks about Europeans changing their names, which actually happens all
around the world. However, my point is not about changing names, it’s about the
significance of changing names in order to have all the social status,
belonging, success in life and among others. There’s nothing fabricated about
all these incidents taking place in our country and I’m not perturbed about all
our past dead issues, but we can’t deny this sort of disparities have existed
in all of Ethiopia irrespective of one ethnic group. However, you and people
like you who have lived different lifestyles would not realize and feel the
pain of the less fortunate.
Every time we Ethiopians discuss issues of cultural
belonging and talking about concerns, we tend to take sides and label each
other unnecessarily. However, as you know, I have never fallen, irrespective of
the juicy remarks people make, in the issues of ethnic trap and I always,
unequivocally, valued myself as a passionate Ethiopian who struggled so much to
bring all our people together, but because of our upbringing cultural endemic
problems of shunning and favouritism, enforced into an inescapable desertion
like the rest of people who have done so.
The fallacy of identity politics is its mishandling
that created our disunity and ethno-cracy instead of democracy. Take for
example someone who was born in Addis Ababa (a cosmopolitan city by all
account) whose parents came from two distinct ethnic heritages - say Amara and
Oromo- and yet the only language s/he has spoken is Amharic. Which ethnic group
this person ought to be “allocated”? What if by virtue of his/her upbringing
and the multicultural environment of his/her surroundings s/he does not feel
allegiance to any of his/her parent’s ethnic heritage? The issue could be
complicated even more if we add to the mix of the unavoidable dynamics of
intermarriage with other group that constitute the Ethiopian cultural mosaic. I
can go on with other complex scenarios, but there is no need to press the point
further, for only in the context of democracy that the questions of choice
arises.
With all the chaos and horror of Cultural
Revolution, it’s not something to be engaged in lightly, but it’s sometimes
necessary. Error necessitates sacrifice to correct it and serious error
necessitates serious sacrifice. To accept the truth means to sacrifice and if
we’ve rejected the truth for a long time, then we’ve run-up a dangerously large
sacrificial debt.
Forest fires burn out deadwood and return trapped
elements to the soil. Sometimes, however, fires are suppressed, unnaturally.
That doesn’t stop the deadwood from accumulating. Sooner or later, a fire will
start. When it does, it will burn so hot that everything will be destroyed,
even the soil in which the forest grows. Please, refrain yourself from
misinterpreting this as a support for any revolt against society. Far from it,
I don’t condone any violence to achieve peace or personal gain.
When we hear something incomprehensibly brutal, such
ideas have manifested themselves. There’s no blaming any of this on
unconsciousness, either, or repression. The process of bureaucratic stagnation
and oppression is in the process and we’ve contributed by pretending everything
is/was ok in the past. We couldn’t complain then, why not now? Why not take a
stand about the issues we care about? If we do, other people, equally afraid to
speak up, may come to our defence. And if not, maybe it’s time to transform.
Good on you for making your point.
Moral problems, repression and lies by both
individual and society warp the structure of Being and corrupt us all.
I’ve repeatedly observed the transformation of more
existential desolation into outright hell by betrayal and deceit. Old enough to
observe all the scenarios unfold. Obsessed by our unresolved past, we gather
like ghosts around the deathbed, forcing tragedy into an unholy liaison with
cowardice and resentment.
Even well lived lives can, of course, be warped,
hurt and twisted by maltreatment and infirmity and uncontrollable catastrophe.
The difficulties intrinsic to life itself are sufficient to weaken and
overwhelm each of us, pushing us beyond our limits, breaking us at our weakest
point. Not even the best lived life provides an absolute defence against
vulnerability.
But the society that fights in the ruins of their
earthquake devastated dwelling place is much less likely to rebuild than the
society that are united and made strong by mutual trust and devotion. The honest
human spirit may continually fail in its attempts to bring about paradise on
earth. It may manage, however, to reduce the suffering associated on existence
to a bearable level with communal allegiance.
The tragedy of Being is the consequence of our
limitations and the vulnerability defining human experience. With love,
encouragement and character intact, we can be resilient beyond imagining. What
can’t be borne, however, is the absolute ruin produced by tragedy and deception.
The western world wrapped a dream like fantasy about
the nature of evil around its central religious core. That fantasy had a
protagonist, an adversarial personality, absolutely dedicated to the corruption
of Being.
Remember, it’s deceit that makes people miserable
beyond what they can bear. It’s deceit that fills human souls with resentment
and vengefulness. It’s deceit that killed hundreds of millions of people in so
many of the wars. It’s deceit that still threatens us, most profoundly, today.
We must,
always, remember that every difference of opinion & ideology is not a
difference of principle and shouldn’t be construed as a personal vendetta and
all opinions should be discussed or expressed with respect.
If there is
one thing I detest and reject in the diaspora Ethiopians, its political
bluffing, power mongering, egos and self-promotion/centeredness and hypocrisy.
Breaking up, narrow group think, personality worships, nepotism, arrogance, enviousness,
hidden agendas, one group trying to undermine the other and so on will not
advance the common cause and or respond to the unity of our people, especially,
the new breed of future generations.
Playing the
ethnic card game is to fall victim to destructive identity politics that breeds
division, hatred, conflict, and cynicism.
It is common to read history backward and assume
that a particular group is destined to become dominant, but conflict is part of
the historical narrative and as such unavoidable part of human experience
marked by complex relations and a never ending alternation between the
oppressed and oppressors, families, friends and foes. A significant component
of the walls of suspicion and hatred among us is the baggage that we carry in the
form of historical narrative and particularly a deterministic notion of
identity. I am not in any way suggesting we should not be unmoved by the past
history of suffering and humiliation. After all, our experiences and memories
help to shape our identity. Only by acknowledging our historical legacy, even
when it might be painful, can we come to terms with our past as a way to better
understand ourselves, identify our weaknesses and strengths and bridging the
divide to a better future for all Ethiopians by challenging abusers,
appreciating our diversity and bestowing our unity.
However, when we let our ego convince us that we
have done no wrong and instead of repent begin to justify our actions, then we
have chosen a state of denial over truth, flesh over Spirit. If we consciously
war against our conscience, refuse to repent, ask for forgiveness and doing the
right thing, choosing rather to justify our actions by whatever theory we can
come up with allowing our ego defeat our conscience.
We might choose to go to war with our morality and
reassure ourselves with our ego by saying… it was not my fault, I was born this
way, it is genetic, my father or mother was this way, I was abused as a child,
God made me to act this way…, it is a way of life – all men or women do this
–everybody is doing it and so forth.
The list of excuses we might come up with abounds,
every time we justify our sinful actions for self-glorification, it seems our ruthless ego (opinion of
ourselves) has defeated our humane conscience to value somebody else’s good
thoughts.
Don’t get me wrong, brother Ermias, you probably
have seen it or sensed this action was taking place and there is nothing
negative about telling the truth, “nothing but the truth”, rather than pretend
and act as everything is hunky-dory.
Remember, we may not have the prestige of
celebrities, the power of Pope or all other academic luminaries, but our
differences of opinion and stories are unique and equally valued, effective and
say something no one has expressed before. So, we all can make comments as one
Ethiopians about the problems that hamper our transformation.
I take my hats off to those who are being resilient
to care and share to disseminate what will be pivotal information for all of us
to learn our past and absorb all as much as we can and put out the valued side
of story and correct the blemished with good intentions in order to walk
together.
The realities
today are different than they were five, ten or twenty or fifty years ago.
Aligning one’s thinking and actions with the changing times (realities) and
circumstances is a sign of wisdom and humane maturity.
Let’s not waste time, it is time to stand with new
reformers, rather than throwing barrages of unwarranted criticisms, cynicisms,
envies, nepotisms & preferences, which honestly stand for all of us
irrespective of one’s ethnic or racial backgrounds.
Let’s march together by joining “MEDEMER”.
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