IF THEY ARE YOUNG ENOUGH TO DIE, THEY ARE OLD ENOUGH TO KILL
OR
(WHY YOUNG CHILDREN SHOULD FIGHT IN WARS?)
Hama Tuma
Or, it can be called a timely call to end the hypocrisy over child soldiers. I know my position would draw some fire even from close quarters who had been dealing with the issue of child soldiers. But, let the abscess be pricked and opened-- young boys and girls should take part in wars especially in those wars that can possibly render their lives better. In other words, if they are old enough to die they should be considered old enough to kill.
The hue and cry over the use of children in wars, that is to generally refer to those who are under 15, is currently made against those in the so called developing countries while some have even gone as far as arguing (mostly without basis ) that African traditional society called for the use of children as warriors . Imagine a child carrying (let alone throwing) a spear! Actually, the use of children in wars was very much practiced in the West. Tsar Nicholas I recruited by force Jewish children (called "cantonists") as young as eight years old. In the battle of Waterloo, children were used and many died--they were called "powder monkeys" and carried gun powder and other military items. In the First World War Baden Powell used minors as scouts and later modelled the Boy Scout movement after them. Many 13 year olds enlisted in the British Army to escape the numbing life as chimney sweepers, workers in the coal mines or in the dreary British industry. In the American Civil War, many children were used by both sides and bugler John Cook, who was 15, was among those decorated by the Army. The same happened in the Second World War--- Hitler had his Hitler Youths and young Jewish boys fought in the Warsaw Ghetto and in the resistance against Nazism. Children were incarcerated and sometimes even killed by orders of courts. In 1642 Thomas Graunger of Plymouth was executed for a crime he committed when he was 16. In present day Iran, minors are hanged by the ayatollahs and the Mollahs of Afghanistan were also ruthless. Nowadays, many in America rile against the "lunacy of lenience" and want minors severely punished and many (it must be said mostly blacks and Latinos) are actually executed for crimes they allegedly committed as juveniles. In the face of vindictive States, the child is always a victim.
Children die, children get killed. If you are old enough to be killed why are you young enough not to kill? There is no logic to it. Modern society commits crimes against children. The sanctimonious reference to children losing their innocence in war is empty talk. Victimized at an early age, many of the world's children are old enough before they reach puberty. They are victims of abuse of all sorts before they even reach puberty as the Vatican can adequately inform us. Early marriages are common in many countries. Children are labourers starting from an early age. Thousands of them are street children exposed to all kinds of suffering and abuses, the pain of which the constant sniffling of petrol and glue cannot sufficiently cover up. Of the 2 million deaths every year from dehydration and diarrhoea 95% of the victims are children under 5. Thousands of children die daily from preventable diseases and poverty. All over the world, at least 750 million people are malnourished and the majority are children as is the case now in the famine stricken Ethiopia where a heartless tyrant does take good care of his own three children. We can continue with the grim statistics of Europe and America spending 17 billion dollars on pets while the spending of 9 billion dollars for safe water and 13 billion for basic health and nutrition could save millions of lives, and effective investment in education and fair trade practices could lift 300 million people out of poverty by 2015. After all, life expectancy in most parts of the world is at 40 while it is 80 years in the West. So, what life are we really talking about?
The argument in favour of letting children take part in wars is not only derived from the need to have them fight for their own well being like the Jewish children of the Warsaw Ghetto or like the children of Soweto who fought against Apartheid (how many school children were killed by the racists!) There are other arguments too. Children who become soldiers can be far away from their parents. Many a Western expert has told us that parents in the Third World are uneducated and resort to beatings and mistreatment of children. This is not entirely false by the way and thus children can escape early marriages, brutal beatings and onerous work (especially in rural families) by going off to war. For once, they will be at the other end of the gun or the ones dealing the punishment like the child soldiers of Sierra Leone chopping off hands and arms. The other basic argument is that children have no life, no future to speak of. If they survive to reach puberty, they would still face horrible conditions and odds, starvation, abuse, sleeping on the streets, and can also be shot by trigger happy policemen from Rio to Addis Ababa. So why not go to war and have a fair chance of survival or die trying? Not all children can be adopted by a Madonna or a Jolie. Mercenary as they are, our rulers cannot sell all the children to foreigners. Their blood thirsty, vampire nature demands that they keep the majority for their own savage oppression. On another level, if children do not go war what will all these Save the Children and Protect Children from Violence groups do? Thousands of employed Western youths would be out of work. Do imagine this in the present times of recession. Are African children expected to compound the economic problems facing Barack Obama, a kin, just because he has become American? If no children do the dying in different war fronts where will the charity business be?
Victor Hugo wrote: "the deepest misery, an opportunity for obscenity". The system is obscene; it is responsible for the existence of the child soldiers. All the Bill Gates' and Sarkhozy talk about creative or responsible capitalism is, as they say, hogwash. It is a world where the pets matter more than the child. It is a system that needs "powder monkeys", children to exploit, children to be blown up. Soweto and Intifada showed the result of the injustice. In Ethiopia, thousands of minors were killed by the previous regime and the present one came to power by using child soldiers, both male and female. The road to power and riches is built over young and frail corpses. The obscenity of the system is such that innocent children are exposed to death every second (2000 children are infected by AIDS every day) and millions are already AIDS orphans. Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is 15 but considered old enough to suffer Guantanamo. Old enough for the pain? Old enough to inflict it too. That is how we see the hypocrisy over child soldiers. In Sierra Leone, the government also used child soldiers and chopped off hands and heads of its enemies. Children were not spared this way or that. The movements using children, from Renamo of Mozambique to the Lord's Resistance Army of Joseph Kony have found out that it pays--Renamo shares power and Kony is being prepared for that. Who cares for children when children killers come to power?
Not that stories recounted by "we were child soldiers"("as told to someone" from the West in most cases) sound true. One Eritrean woman whose tale has been made into a film wrote of carrying an AK-47 at the age of six in rebel ranks and those who have little inking of the size of a six year old female child's hands and arms and the weight of a full fledged Russian or Bulgarian Kalashnikov did believe her. Sierra Leone and Southern Sudanese "child soldiers" have also come out with tales that made them stare down ferocious lions where no lion roamed. No matter, the story, as Blair would have said, has to be "sexed up". The Western media and the NGOs need that. This said, the tragedy of the situation is not to be taken lightly. Ethiopians who do know much about dying say: "may God make my death nice and beautiful"; rather than (to) die in cold streets hungry and diseased it may be better to die with guns blazing and the staccato of machine gun fire accompanying their last breaths. I will not pretend to know the feelings of child soldiers in the face of death--I am no Bernard Henry Levy, the French media man, who wrote in detail about Daniel Pearl's last thoughts before being killed by fanatics. Yet, I do know that the life our children live under the brutal systems is no life at all. Who am I to tell them not to be soldiers? After all, the civilized West worships its armed forces and soldiers. The obscene part of it all is that children are exposed to suffering and death in the first place and not that they die lying under stinking bridges or shot by criminal policemen in a dilapidated City or in a fire fight. Death is death and the child soldier is but a victim of the obscene system imposed on us by greedy child killers who will never admit to their crime.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Goma Darfur--Of Competitions Aplenty
GOMA --DARFUR: OF COMPETITIONS APLENTY
An Ethiopian proverb says: someone who has been out in the rain will not worry of getting wet. Having been out in the rain for far too many times than I care to remember I am presently unperturbed by the slack I may pick when I deal with weighty and sad subjects in what some may consider a lighter vein. Of course, satire being an altogether different ball game, some fail to grasp its core and often accuse me and others of trivializing "serious subjects". Here goes anyway.
I contend that the present mayhem and havoc in Goma and Eastern Congo is caused by jealousy and fierce competition with Darfur. Someone claiming more knowledge than poor me, has authoritatively stated that jealousy first originated in Africa much like human kind-- Dinkinesh or Lucy of Ethiopia being the first one to date. It is evident that this assertion is flawed, as jealousy and the rivalry engendered by it are to be found all over the world. According to Bush junior, the Al Qaeda attack on America was motivated by their jealousy and envy of America which suggests that at least Arabs are also jealous. Huntington's clash of civilizations is really a jealousy theory. Most Ethiopians think the world is jealous of their beautiful country, the Japanese think they are a special race envied by others and the Chinese consider the whole world inferior and jealous of their aged civilization. To come to the mundane or what the French, trying to be Anglo chic, call "people" topics, Madonna was red hot jealous of Angelina Jolie and when the latter adopted a small girl from Ethiopia/not an orphan but poor/ and so she went farther South and adopted a small boy from Malawi/not an orphan but poor/. Will Madonna next go to Asia to compete is not an issue that is riveting anyone's attention but let it be said that even rich pampered dolls are jealous of each other.
That said, the contention that Eastern Congo became jealous of Darfur needs a reminder in that the havoc in the Congo predates the one in Darfur and is not comparable at all. Four million Congolese have perished in a free for all carnage that was ignored even by Kofi Anan and led to the Armies without Borders phenomenon when numerous African countries intervened in the Congo to destroy or prop up a regime and, in the process, rob the mineral rich country blind. The war in the Congo was sponsored or pushed ahead by multinationals like the British Anglogold Ashanti corporation and other gold diggers and Coltan chasers, with rowdy militias being paid by the companies to wreak havoc and assure the mineral extraction. Congo lost its patriotic nationalist son Patrice Lumumba in the same way when Washington and Brussels collided to have him murdered brutally and to bring in puppet Joseph Desiree Mobutu. You are rich and everyone bothers you, you are poor and no one lets you alone to enjoy your poverty--this has been the sad fate of our continent. Did anyone hear the two candidates for the American presidency mention Eastern Congo? The Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise promised to give 20,000 dollars to a charity against hunger if and every time Obama or McCain mention world hunger--they did not. What chance could Goma have had then? Darfur is another matter altogether and there is why Eastern Congo has flared up in envy and jealousy. The problem of Darfur has a whiff of oil in its wake but it hogged the limelight because of the nature of the regime in Khartoum which, if truth be told, is not anymore odious than the mercenary one in Kinshasa. The hatred for the fundamentalists in Khartoum made Darfur very, very interesting. All of a sudden, right wing Christian fundamentalist groups and the White House got interested. Even Britain that has funded and still supports many a murderous group in Africa cried foul at Khartoum. Beshir of Khartoum was cornered and the casualty figures in Darfur went up. Well known actors like George Clooney chimed in. Who talked of Eastern Congo? Maybe Ben Affleck from the actors group, no more. Ghanaian Kofi Anan talked more of Afghanistan than Eastern Congo where his UN troops were not protecting anyone but raping young girls. And so Darfur became a hit song....and every George and Brad was mouthing the word Janjaweed taken by some to mean ganja weed or marijuana. Poor Goma. Poor Kivu. Sad Eastern Congo. 4 million dead and no one to rile and cry-- no one to pull out his or her hair and wail!
I am particularly sympathetic because my country Ethiopia gets little or no attention unless Mr. Famine visits it as it does, lucky us, every few years. Take the Enough Project of concerned Americans--they are concerned about Somalia but not Ethiopia. Take the International Crisis Group--the same. The stars in these bodies from John Pendergast to Gayle Smith were former groupies of the Meles Zenawi cabal who chose to castigate all opposition as Amhara chauvinist and the nostalgic of the deposed military regime. Ethiopia has had its massacres from Arba Gugu, Areka to Water and Gambella but not many bothered. The blood stained regime of Meles is presently dancing with joy at the possibility of Hilary Clinton being named as Secretary of State and with reason as she had hailed in the past the most ruthless dictator in the Horn as a democrat and was only topped by her husband who added the Great Lakes dictators as democrats too. Talk of the short end of the stick! Eastern Congo lost four million--is this comparable to half a million in Darfur? Eastern Congo has many regimes and forces battling over it--is this comparable to Darfur where disparate rebel groups have to confront just one regime? Take any measurement and by all standards eastern Congo deserved the primary attention that Darfur was basking in instead. So, who is to blame if Eastern Congo raises the ante and calls on all of us: "hello, there is a bigger mess here, please take notice"? Does Darfur have flamboyant rebels like Laurent Nkunda of Eastern Congo, who changes chairs and uniforms and attire so often right there in the jungle and tells foreign journalists his idol is Charles De Gaulle of France , the very country accused by his backers in Rwanda of supporting the genocide in Rwanda? So, Eastern Congo had to explode and attract foreign attention away from Darfur. If only....! And then the Somali pirates had to appear, chewing their kat and swaggering in their "shirit" skirt- like wear, brandishing their ordinary Ak-47s. Given the fact that the Somalis have been at it for the last 20 years, Nkunda could not be expected to cope, could he? And where could the rebels around Goma find so many ships and super tankers to sea jack? And to cap it all, most of the Congolese of all hues in the East are not even Moslems !
Life is not fair in Africa. And so we simmer and boil in our jealousy and rivalry and competition and die in millions and not much changes. A half Kenyan has come to power in the USA but who said even full blooded Kenyans were ever sympathetic of anybody else. Obama will surely make some noises over Darfur and Somalia. Eastern Congo? They have to die more and hope for the best. And if Hilary Clinton becomes Secretary of State? Will a dove be hatched from an egg of a serpent? Between Nkunda, Kabila and Hilary... and Darfur and Somalia ....the Congolese will, if we can imagine it, be in a worse mess. Of course they can take solace in the fact that this is Africa as we know it and that there are others worse off than them that are forgotten even more.
An Ethiopian proverb says: someone who has been out in the rain will not worry of getting wet. Having been out in the rain for far too many times than I care to remember I am presently unperturbed by the slack I may pick when I deal with weighty and sad subjects in what some may consider a lighter vein. Of course, satire being an altogether different ball game, some fail to grasp its core and often accuse me and others of trivializing "serious subjects". Here goes anyway.
I contend that the present mayhem and havoc in Goma and Eastern Congo is caused by jealousy and fierce competition with Darfur. Someone claiming more knowledge than poor me, has authoritatively stated that jealousy first originated in Africa much like human kind-- Dinkinesh or Lucy of Ethiopia being the first one to date. It is evident that this assertion is flawed, as jealousy and the rivalry engendered by it are to be found all over the world. According to Bush junior, the Al Qaeda attack on America was motivated by their jealousy and envy of America which suggests that at least Arabs are also jealous. Huntington's clash of civilizations is really a jealousy theory. Most Ethiopians think the world is jealous of their beautiful country, the Japanese think they are a special race envied by others and the Chinese consider the whole world inferior and jealous of their aged civilization. To come to the mundane or what the French, trying to be Anglo chic, call "people" topics, Madonna was red hot jealous of Angelina Jolie and when the latter adopted a small girl from Ethiopia/not an orphan but poor/ and so she went farther South and adopted a small boy from Malawi/not an orphan but poor/. Will Madonna next go to Asia to compete is not an issue that is riveting anyone's attention but let it be said that even rich pampered dolls are jealous of each other.
That said, the contention that Eastern Congo became jealous of Darfur needs a reminder in that the havoc in the Congo predates the one in Darfur and is not comparable at all. Four million Congolese have perished in a free for all carnage that was ignored even by Kofi Anan and led to the Armies without Borders phenomenon when numerous African countries intervened in the Congo to destroy or prop up a regime and, in the process, rob the mineral rich country blind. The war in the Congo was sponsored or pushed ahead by multinationals like the British Anglogold Ashanti corporation and other gold diggers and Coltan chasers, with rowdy militias being paid by the companies to wreak havoc and assure the mineral extraction. Congo lost its patriotic nationalist son Patrice Lumumba in the same way when Washington and Brussels collided to have him murdered brutally and to bring in puppet Joseph Desiree Mobutu. You are rich and everyone bothers you, you are poor and no one lets you alone to enjoy your poverty--this has been the sad fate of our continent. Did anyone hear the two candidates for the American presidency mention Eastern Congo? The Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise promised to give 20,000 dollars to a charity against hunger if and every time Obama or McCain mention world hunger--they did not. What chance could Goma have had then? Darfur is another matter altogether and there is why Eastern Congo has flared up in envy and jealousy. The problem of Darfur has a whiff of oil in its wake but it hogged the limelight because of the nature of the regime in Khartoum which, if truth be told, is not anymore odious than the mercenary one in Kinshasa. The hatred for the fundamentalists in Khartoum made Darfur very, very interesting. All of a sudden, right wing Christian fundamentalist groups and the White House got interested. Even Britain that has funded and still supports many a murderous group in Africa cried foul at Khartoum. Beshir of Khartoum was cornered and the casualty figures in Darfur went up. Well known actors like George Clooney chimed in. Who talked of Eastern Congo? Maybe Ben Affleck from the actors group, no more. Ghanaian Kofi Anan talked more of Afghanistan than Eastern Congo where his UN troops were not protecting anyone but raping young girls. And so Darfur became a hit song....and every George and Brad was mouthing the word Janjaweed taken by some to mean ganja weed or marijuana. Poor Goma. Poor Kivu. Sad Eastern Congo. 4 million dead and no one to rile and cry-- no one to pull out his or her hair and wail!
I am particularly sympathetic because my country Ethiopia gets little or no attention unless Mr. Famine visits it as it does, lucky us, every few years. Take the Enough Project of concerned Americans--they are concerned about Somalia but not Ethiopia. Take the International Crisis Group--the same. The stars in these bodies from John Pendergast to Gayle Smith were former groupies of the Meles Zenawi cabal who chose to castigate all opposition as Amhara chauvinist and the nostalgic of the deposed military regime. Ethiopia has had its massacres from Arba Gugu, Areka to Water and Gambella but not many bothered. The blood stained regime of Meles is presently dancing with joy at the possibility of Hilary Clinton being named as Secretary of State and with reason as she had hailed in the past the most ruthless dictator in the Horn as a democrat and was only topped by her husband who added the Great Lakes dictators as democrats too. Talk of the short end of the stick! Eastern Congo lost four million--is this comparable to half a million in Darfur? Eastern Congo has many regimes and forces battling over it--is this comparable to Darfur where disparate rebel groups have to confront just one regime? Take any measurement and by all standards eastern Congo deserved the primary attention that Darfur was basking in instead. So, who is to blame if Eastern Congo raises the ante and calls on all of us: "hello, there is a bigger mess here, please take notice"? Does Darfur have flamboyant rebels like Laurent Nkunda of Eastern Congo, who changes chairs and uniforms and attire so often right there in the jungle and tells foreign journalists his idol is Charles De Gaulle of France , the very country accused by his backers in Rwanda of supporting the genocide in Rwanda? So, Eastern Congo had to explode and attract foreign attention away from Darfur. If only....! And then the Somali pirates had to appear, chewing their kat and swaggering in their "shirit" skirt- like wear, brandishing their ordinary Ak-47s. Given the fact that the Somalis have been at it for the last 20 years, Nkunda could not be expected to cope, could he? And where could the rebels around Goma find so many ships and super tankers to sea jack? And to cap it all, most of the Congolese of all hues in the East are not even Moslems !
Life is not fair in Africa. And so we simmer and boil in our jealousy and rivalry and competition and die in millions and not much changes. A half Kenyan has come to power in the USA but who said even full blooded Kenyans were ever sympathetic of anybody else. Obama will surely make some noises over Darfur and Somalia. Eastern Congo? They have to die more and hope for the best. And if Hilary Clinton becomes Secretary of State? Will a dove be hatched from an egg of a serpent? Between Nkunda, Kabila and Hilary... and Darfur and Somalia ....the Congolese will, if we can imagine it, be in a worse mess. Of course they can take solace in the fact that this is Africa as we know it and that there are others worse off than them that are forgotten even more.
ቅኔ ከድሮ
ቅኔ ከድሮ
ዋለልኝ መኮንን 1968
ቦረሳው ካሳ መካር አጡ
አንዳይሆን ሆነው ቀበጡ
ብዙ እያወቁ አንደጅል
የማይሆን ነገር መከጀል
ለድሃ እንዳይሆን እያወቁ
ዘውድ እምጡ ብለው ደረቁ
---------
ከለበሱ እይቀር ሱሪ
የጥንቱን ነበር የተፈሪ
ግና እይመችም ለስራ
አጣብቆ ይዞ በቀኝ በግራ
ደንዳር ደንሳሞ (1968)
ባውዳመቱ ዋዜማ
ስሰማ ከርሜ ላህየ ዜማ
በመጨረቫ ሲደክመኝ
ግዋደኞቼ መከሩኝ
ሊነጋ ነው እሉኝ
እሮገ ዘመን ልንቨኝ
ጸገየ ወይን ገብረመድህን (1968)
ነፎ መስዬ እባያ
ባዶ እጀን ቆሜ ከገበያ
እንገበገበኝ ንደቱ
ሲቨጥ ሲለወጥ ማየቱ
ብዙው በርካታው በጥቂቱ
ዋለልኝ መኮንን 1968
ቦረሳው ካሳ መካር አጡ
አንዳይሆን ሆነው ቀበጡ
ብዙ እያወቁ አንደጅል
የማይሆን ነገር መከጀል
ለድሃ እንዳይሆን እያወቁ
ዘውድ እምጡ ብለው ደረቁ
---------
ከለበሱ እይቀር ሱሪ
የጥንቱን ነበር የተፈሪ
ግና እይመችም ለስራ
አጣብቆ ይዞ በቀኝ በግራ
ደንዳር ደንሳሞ (1968)
ባውዳመቱ ዋዜማ
ስሰማ ከርሜ ላህየ ዜማ
በመጨረቫ ሲደክመኝ
ግዋደኞቼ መከሩኝ
ሊነጋ ነው እሉኝ
እሮገ ዘመን ልንቨኝ
ጸገየ ወይን ገብረመድህን (1968)
ነፎ መስዬ እባያ
ባዶ እጀን ቆሜ ከገበያ
እንገበገበኝ ንደቱ
ሲቨጥ ሲለወጥ ማየቱ
ብዙው በርካታው በጥቂቱ
POEMS FROM THE OLDER GENERATION
Poems from the Older Generation
Laureate Tsegaye Gebre Medhin (1967)
VOW
As long as there are morning birds,
To fill the air with songs
As long as there are folk tales
To be told by the fire side
As long as there are offsprings
To kick and riot with joy
I shall bathe in the shimmer of the moon
I shall inherit the sun
I shall follow the rainbow trail.
Baalu Girma (1959)
CROWS
Crows from the south, west and east
Gather round the kitchen for a morning feast
Nature gave them right to share
the crows considered this unfair.
The dove and the sparrows got their alright,
And went their way, content and quiet.
For the crows nothing is enough
Nothing is fair, all is rough.
Crows must have all things their way,
And leave the rest astray.
Over matters trivial they croak and moan,
And make mountains of a mole.
Contented they need fly up and pray
And keep their tempers and dirty play.
Eshetu Chole (1967)
SILENCE
Silence
Is like Infinity
Majestic
Its depth unsurpassed
By talk-glib, gossip, proud talk
And other human trash.
Silence is beauty;
For truth is silent
And truth, they say, is beauty
Silence is peace--
Peace absolute
Peace consuming.
Silence is joy
Unparalleled
Undiluted by the cheapness of our lives.
A tear is silent
A smile is silent
And is too silent.
And death is silent
Oh! If only life were
As pure as silence.
Shiferaw Asfaw (1968)
" "
Yes, between Today's dim light
And Tomorrow's complete darkness
I am.
Rolling naked on a cold wave
Of a vast, indifferent ocean
I live
To observe
My fellow man drown.
Tamru Gobena (1960)
THE SUNSHINE
The sun shines bright , they say
After a rainy day:
Behold the shooting of the bay
As if it came to say.
O yesterday was grim and cold
Like a rainy day
Yet today is so fresh though old
Older than yesterday.
Yesterday was so dim and dull;
Bleak was life with me:
But yet today I sleep and lull
Though busy as a bee.
Behold that poor old man:
So cold is life with him
But yesterday the Sun did tan
His skin. His fill was to the brim,
Day doth follow night.
And night doth follow day;
Darkness doth follow light
And so we drift away.
to be continued
Laureate Tsegaye Gebre Medhin (1967)
VOW
As long as there are morning birds,
To fill the air with songs
As long as there are folk tales
To be told by the fire side
As long as there are offsprings
To kick and riot with joy
I shall bathe in the shimmer of the moon
I shall inherit the sun
I shall follow the rainbow trail.
Baalu Girma (1959)
CROWS
Crows from the south, west and east
Gather round the kitchen for a morning feast
Nature gave them right to share
the crows considered this unfair.
The dove and the sparrows got their alright,
And went their way, content and quiet.
For the crows nothing is enough
Nothing is fair, all is rough.
Crows must have all things their way,
And leave the rest astray.
Over matters trivial they croak and moan,
And make mountains of a mole.
Contented they need fly up and pray
And keep their tempers and dirty play.
Eshetu Chole (1967)
SILENCE
Silence
Is like Infinity
Majestic
Its depth unsurpassed
By talk-glib, gossip, proud talk
And other human trash.
Silence is beauty;
For truth is silent
And truth, they say, is beauty
Silence is peace--
Peace absolute
Peace consuming.
Silence is joy
Unparalleled
Undiluted by the cheapness of our lives.
A tear is silent
A smile is silent
And is too silent.
And death is silent
Oh! If only life were
As pure as silence.
Shiferaw Asfaw (1968)
" "
Yes, between Today's dim light
And Tomorrow's complete darkness
I am.
Rolling naked on a cold wave
Of a vast, indifferent ocean
I live
To observe
My fellow man drown.
Tamru Gobena (1960)
THE SUNSHINE
The sun shines bright , they say
After a rainy day:
Behold the shooting of the bay
As if it came to say.
O yesterday was grim and cold
Like a rainy day
Yet today is so fresh though old
Older than yesterday.
Yesterday was so dim and dull;
Bleak was life with me:
But yet today I sleep and lull
Though busy as a bee.
Behold that poor old man:
So cold is life with him
But yesterday the Sun did tan
His skin. His fill was to the brim,
Day doth follow night.
And night doth follow day;
Darkness doth follow light
And so we drift away.
to be continued
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
OF ALPHABETS AND DISASTERS
OF ALPHABETS AND DISASTERS
Jean Paul Sartre once said that words are loaded pistols. The same can be said of alphabets, at least where it concerns Ethiopians. Back in the late sixties and seventies, there was tendency within leftist groups and parties of the world to split, with the splitters still keeping the mother name but adding alphabets to it. CP (R), CP (ML), CP (D) and a whole parade of qualified names. The R stood for Revolutionary or Renovated, ML defined true blood Marxist- Leninist, the D stood for democratic, and so on and so forth. There were many times good reasons for the splits but the alphabet soup, as it became known, was like a poor man's soup, short on the meat and just plain water.
In Ethiopia, since the nineties, the D tag has spelt disaster and betrayal, often given to pro-regime or satellite groups that existed in name only. Given the fact that the ruling front was not itself democratic its offshoots or stooges could not deserve the democratic tag. The same can apply to other groups who took up the D to be attached to names that really neither belonged to them nor defined them. That being the case D defined other things like:
• D for disaster;
• D for division like the ethnic politics of the regime, article 39 approving secession, being a faction to weaken the patriotic forces;
• D as in deadly, massacring innocent people, committing genocide;
• D as in deterioration, a catastrophic setback, a fall unto the pit of ethnicism;
• D as in dilapidated, worn out, old, hopeless;
• D as in destruction of a country or an organization,;
• D as in degrading of a country's culture and history, the valiant struggle of an organization;
• D for dismantling of a country or a party;
• D for dissolve, break up and liquidate;
• D for deracinate;
• D for demolish.
D has not stood for democratic, alas. D has often stood in for dog as this is the only friend you can buy for money but then the D tag on groups signifies disloyalty and not the loyalty of even a dog.
And when an R has followed the D it has not been a relief at least in the Ethiopian context. I venture to quote Alexander Pope:
"The bookful blockhead ignorantly read
With loads of learned lumber in his head."
The Drs have become in many instances Disasters Refined, pedants and snobs, elitist to boot. The African intellectual or/and politician , the one castigated by Fanon for his/her black skin and white mask, disappoints as it acts as if bravery or courage are out of fashion. I agree intellectuals are "of their time"; they should be situated within the specific, country and culture, and era too. The demands on an intellectual in Africa and the one in America may not be the same. It is possible to be generous and to define the intellectuals or, as in the Ethiopian case, those who devotedly attach the Dr and PhD tag to their names, as a minority "pursuing knowledge and research", surfing in the realm of pure art, aloof in its own ivory tower, untainted by the mundane that is the reality. There is also what Edward Said called "political trimming, a technique of not taking clear positions but surviving handsomely nonetheless". Most intellectuals of this inclination have proved a curse for Africa, survival becoming their main preoccupation even in/and especially in/exile.
Given our own historical context and problems, it is imperative for us to refer to the public or the real intellectuals, those who are friends of critical discourse, who are committed to justice, who take the side of the weak and the dispossessed, the disadvantaged. This goes beyond sheer exaltation of the national, the identity. Those who not only champion their own culture and national heritage but go above it to "universalize the crisis" as was said, to not fall into national jingoism or narrow ethnic exclusiveness, to seek the alternatives shrouded by the priority of the so called main battle. The task of the intellectual is therefore not to organize what Julien Benda (who wrote "The Treason of the Intellectuals" in 1928) referred to as "collective passions" such as sectarianism and national belligerence. There is often a reference made to the Meji Restoration of 1868 in Japan which brought the monarchy back, abolished feudalism and charted a way towards building a new Japan but the facts show that the process led to extreme and even fascistic nationalism. Shido minzeku, the notion that Japan was a leading/special race (an ideology that justified the massacre of the Chinese and the crimes against Koreans and other peoples) was upheld by intellectuals that championed their national Japanese identity and interest as it were. During World War II, American intellectuals reciprocated with a similar debasing attitude towards the Japanese. In other words, intellectuals who are said to be in tune with their nation and time can also veer off and create havoc. Tagore of India and Jose Marti of Cuba are admired because they were nationalists whose position did not hinder them from being critical. They fought the main battle but did not lose sight of the alternatives. Fanon's critical appraisal of the FLN of Algeria and the struggle against French colonialism is to be seen within this context. That is to say the struggle against the existing malaise (colonialism then or dictatorial regimes now) should always be accompanied with a critical appraisal of the struggle for change and a clear understanding of the substitute for which sacrifices are being paid. This is crucial because the oppressed can become oppressors before the euphoria of victory has even calmed down. The victorious FLN imposed a dictatorship on the Algerian people. The Boers who fought against British imperialism brought apartheid on the South African people. The February Revolution of 1974 in Ethiopia overthrew the feudal autocracy but the military took power to establish one of the bloodiest dictatorships in History. Those who preach liberation will not necessarily be liberators and, alas, every would-be dictator vows in the name of democracy.
During the prevalence of the one party system in Africa any talk of justice or any critic of the regimes was considered as treason. The "national cause and national interest" drum was beaten to silence any critical voice. Parties were not the results of existing class and interest differences but taken as creators of these conflicts. This was how the one party system was justified, through an illusory common interest and identity, with the ruling party embodying the whole nation and the dictator being its symbol. Anyone one who opposed the American war in Indochina was considered a traitor for quite a while. In such a situation and in critical times, the intellectual is called upon to rally to the flag, to be silent on the crimes being committed in the name of the nation. Leave the sixties aside and observe the present reality in which under the cover of national interest or so called national liberation, crimes are being perpetrated. The Rwandan intellectuals who broadcast Radio Mille Collines and championed genocide, the Algerian and Somali intellectuals who expounded extremism and the warlord carnage, the Ethiopian intellectuals who shamed their age old country with ethnic chauvinism, were not patriotic and loyal at all. They sought refuge in their own ethnic or national cocoon to justify their inability to be intellectuals worthy of the name.
The intellectuals need, in the words of Edward said, to "speak the truth to power". This is no easy task, it requires not only transcending the narrow confines of stunted nationalism but also demands courage as the power holders are not keen to hear or heed any criticism. The intellectual must not only question authority but strive to undermine it wherever it is illegitimate. Reciprocating the evils of the system in reverse (fighting ethnic chauvinism by preaching ethnic genocide for example) is not an option. As Edward Said so aptly put it, 'to regress into hand wringing impotence or into muscular reassertions of traditional values, as characterized by the global neo-conservative movement, will not do. I think it is true to say that the critique of objectivity and authority did perform a positive service by underlining how, in the secular world, human beings construct their truths, and that, for example, the so-called objective truth of the white man's superiority built and maintained by the classical European colonial empires also rested on a violent subjugation of African and Asian peoples, who, it is equally true, fought that particular imposed "truth" in order to provide an independent order of their own. And so now everyone comes forward with new and often violently opposed views of the world: one hears endless talk about Judeo-Christian values, Afro centric values, Muslim truths, Eastern truths, Western truths, each providing a complete program for excluding others.... One of the shabbiest of all intellectual gambits is to pontificate about abuses in someone else's society and excuse exactly the same practices in one's own". (Underlining mine --HT).
Aime Cesaire wrote of the need for the "invention of new souls". Beyond the victory over a regime or system, there must be a vision of a new construction, a new society to be born from the sacrifice, new souls to be invented so to speak. It is in this realm that real intellectuals have their role. Not to reboot the same system anew but to forge an alternative. Not to regress back to traditional times (Africa had no golden age before colonialism for example and Ethiopia's imperial past was an unmitigated disaster), nor to seek some "centrism" or ethnic ghetto that excludes others but to soar high and beyond and above mediocrity and more of the same to seek a new and brighter vision, to build the country on a democratic basis that unites the people on the basis of equality. In this the role of the intellectual is to "actively represent the truth", to stand with the people, to look ahead and never to regress back into the pit of a nostalgia of disaster. It is said the "true intellectual is always a secular being", that is to say very much different from the Christian or Islamic fundamentalists that are trying to drag us back to the dark ages of ignorance and intolerance. Morality is defined in the concrete, here and now, in whom it serves and benefits. And the real intellectual should thus find his/her place in the public role, in the upholding of truth, in refusing to be directed and ordered about by the authority in place. Blind obedience to power, to greed, to selfishness, to an arrogant superpower, to harmful and narrow ethnic or sectarian interests will in the end turn the intellectual into a historical coolie of shame and cowardice.
PhD can define knowledge and a continuing search for it or, alas quite often than not in the Ethiopian and African context, it could mean a pile of horse dung. We can struggle to invent new souls or to reboot the rotten ones. The choice is limited and gratuitously labelling oneself democratic or an intellectual is just an exercise in futility.
Jean Paul Sartre once said that words are loaded pistols. The same can be said of alphabets, at least where it concerns Ethiopians. Back in the late sixties and seventies, there was tendency within leftist groups and parties of the world to split, with the splitters still keeping the mother name but adding alphabets to it. CP (R), CP (ML), CP (D) and a whole parade of qualified names. The R stood for Revolutionary or Renovated, ML defined true blood Marxist- Leninist, the D stood for democratic, and so on and so forth. There were many times good reasons for the splits but the alphabet soup, as it became known, was like a poor man's soup, short on the meat and just plain water.
In Ethiopia, since the nineties, the D tag has spelt disaster and betrayal, often given to pro-regime or satellite groups that existed in name only. Given the fact that the ruling front was not itself democratic its offshoots or stooges could not deserve the democratic tag. The same can apply to other groups who took up the D to be attached to names that really neither belonged to them nor defined them. That being the case D defined other things like:
• D for disaster;
• D for division like the ethnic politics of the regime, article 39 approving secession, being a faction to weaken the patriotic forces;
• D as in deadly, massacring innocent people, committing genocide;
• D as in deterioration, a catastrophic setback, a fall unto the pit of ethnicism;
• D as in dilapidated, worn out, old, hopeless;
• D as in destruction of a country or an organization,;
• D as in degrading of a country's culture and history, the valiant struggle of an organization;
• D for dismantling of a country or a party;
• D for dissolve, break up and liquidate;
• D for deracinate;
• D for demolish.
D has not stood for democratic, alas. D has often stood in for dog as this is the only friend you can buy for money but then the D tag on groups signifies disloyalty and not the loyalty of even a dog.
And when an R has followed the D it has not been a relief at least in the Ethiopian context. I venture to quote Alexander Pope:
"The bookful blockhead ignorantly read
With loads of learned lumber in his head."
The Drs have become in many instances Disasters Refined, pedants and snobs, elitist to boot. The African intellectual or/and politician , the one castigated by Fanon for his/her black skin and white mask, disappoints as it acts as if bravery or courage are out of fashion. I agree intellectuals are "of their time"; they should be situated within the specific, country and culture, and era too. The demands on an intellectual in Africa and the one in America may not be the same. It is possible to be generous and to define the intellectuals or, as in the Ethiopian case, those who devotedly attach the Dr and PhD tag to their names, as a minority "pursuing knowledge and research", surfing in the realm of pure art, aloof in its own ivory tower, untainted by the mundane that is the reality. There is also what Edward Said called "political trimming, a technique of not taking clear positions but surviving handsomely nonetheless". Most intellectuals of this inclination have proved a curse for Africa, survival becoming their main preoccupation even in/and especially in/exile.
Given our own historical context and problems, it is imperative for us to refer to the public or the real intellectuals, those who are friends of critical discourse, who are committed to justice, who take the side of the weak and the dispossessed, the disadvantaged. This goes beyond sheer exaltation of the national, the identity. Those who not only champion their own culture and national heritage but go above it to "universalize the crisis" as was said, to not fall into national jingoism or narrow ethnic exclusiveness, to seek the alternatives shrouded by the priority of the so called main battle. The task of the intellectual is therefore not to organize what Julien Benda (who wrote "The Treason of the Intellectuals" in 1928) referred to as "collective passions" such as sectarianism and national belligerence. There is often a reference made to the Meji Restoration of 1868 in Japan which brought the monarchy back, abolished feudalism and charted a way towards building a new Japan but the facts show that the process led to extreme and even fascistic nationalism. Shido minzeku, the notion that Japan was a leading/special race (an ideology that justified the massacre of the Chinese and the crimes against Koreans and other peoples) was upheld by intellectuals that championed their national Japanese identity and interest as it were. During World War II, American intellectuals reciprocated with a similar debasing attitude towards the Japanese. In other words, intellectuals who are said to be in tune with their nation and time can also veer off and create havoc. Tagore of India and Jose Marti of Cuba are admired because they were nationalists whose position did not hinder them from being critical. They fought the main battle but did not lose sight of the alternatives. Fanon's critical appraisal of the FLN of Algeria and the struggle against French colonialism is to be seen within this context. That is to say the struggle against the existing malaise (colonialism then or dictatorial regimes now) should always be accompanied with a critical appraisal of the struggle for change and a clear understanding of the substitute for which sacrifices are being paid. This is crucial because the oppressed can become oppressors before the euphoria of victory has even calmed down. The victorious FLN imposed a dictatorship on the Algerian people. The Boers who fought against British imperialism brought apartheid on the South African people. The February Revolution of 1974 in Ethiopia overthrew the feudal autocracy but the military took power to establish one of the bloodiest dictatorships in History. Those who preach liberation will not necessarily be liberators and, alas, every would-be dictator vows in the name of democracy.
During the prevalence of the one party system in Africa any talk of justice or any critic of the regimes was considered as treason. The "national cause and national interest" drum was beaten to silence any critical voice. Parties were not the results of existing class and interest differences but taken as creators of these conflicts. This was how the one party system was justified, through an illusory common interest and identity, with the ruling party embodying the whole nation and the dictator being its symbol. Anyone one who opposed the American war in Indochina was considered a traitor for quite a while. In such a situation and in critical times, the intellectual is called upon to rally to the flag, to be silent on the crimes being committed in the name of the nation. Leave the sixties aside and observe the present reality in which under the cover of national interest or so called national liberation, crimes are being perpetrated. The Rwandan intellectuals who broadcast Radio Mille Collines and championed genocide, the Algerian and Somali intellectuals who expounded extremism and the warlord carnage, the Ethiopian intellectuals who shamed their age old country with ethnic chauvinism, were not patriotic and loyal at all. They sought refuge in their own ethnic or national cocoon to justify their inability to be intellectuals worthy of the name.
The intellectuals need, in the words of Edward said, to "speak the truth to power". This is no easy task, it requires not only transcending the narrow confines of stunted nationalism but also demands courage as the power holders are not keen to hear or heed any criticism. The intellectual must not only question authority but strive to undermine it wherever it is illegitimate. Reciprocating the evils of the system in reverse (fighting ethnic chauvinism by preaching ethnic genocide for example) is not an option. As Edward Said so aptly put it, 'to regress into hand wringing impotence or into muscular reassertions of traditional values, as characterized by the global neo-conservative movement, will not do. I think it is true to say that the critique of objectivity and authority did perform a positive service by underlining how, in the secular world, human beings construct their truths, and that, for example, the so-called objective truth of the white man's superiority built and maintained by the classical European colonial empires also rested on a violent subjugation of African and Asian peoples, who, it is equally true, fought that particular imposed "truth" in order to provide an independent order of their own. And so now everyone comes forward with new and often violently opposed views of the world: one hears endless talk about Judeo-Christian values, Afro centric values, Muslim truths, Eastern truths, Western truths, each providing a complete program for excluding others.... One of the shabbiest of all intellectual gambits is to pontificate about abuses in someone else's society and excuse exactly the same practices in one's own". (Underlining mine --HT).
Aime Cesaire wrote of the need for the "invention of new souls". Beyond the victory over a regime or system, there must be a vision of a new construction, a new society to be born from the sacrifice, new souls to be invented so to speak. It is in this realm that real intellectuals have their role. Not to reboot the same system anew but to forge an alternative. Not to regress back to traditional times (Africa had no golden age before colonialism for example and Ethiopia's imperial past was an unmitigated disaster), nor to seek some "centrism" or ethnic ghetto that excludes others but to soar high and beyond and above mediocrity and more of the same to seek a new and brighter vision, to build the country on a democratic basis that unites the people on the basis of equality. In this the role of the intellectual is to "actively represent the truth", to stand with the people, to look ahead and never to regress back into the pit of a nostalgia of disaster. It is said the "true intellectual is always a secular being", that is to say very much different from the Christian or Islamic fundamentalists that are trying to drag us back to the dark ages of ignorance and intolerance. Morality is defined in the concrete, here and now, in whom it serves and benefits. And the real intellectual should thus find his/her place in the public role, in the upholding of truth, in refusing to be directed and ordered about by the authority in place. Blind obedience to power, to greed, to selfishness, to an arrogant superpower, to harmful and narrow ethnic or sectarian interests will in the end turn the intellectual into a historical coolie of shame and cowardice.
PhD can define knowledge and a continuing search for it or, alas quite often than not in the Ethiopian and African context, it could mean a pile of horse dung. We can struggle to invent new souls or to reboot the rotten ones. The choice is limited and gratuitously labelling oneself democratic or an intellectual is just an exercise in futility.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Lessons of the Obama Victory
Some Lessons from the Obama Victory
I was wrong and as I said before this was one time I was happy to be proved wrong. I was one of those who said America would not elect a black man or a half black man to the White House. America has surprised me and many others by stretching its hands towards hope, daring to swim the current of prejudices and conservatism, looking foreword and defeating the apathy that was said to have gripped the young generation.
Barack Obama will face very hard and difficult hurdles and it is not clear, as he himself admitted, that the jump would be easy. That aside, the lesson of this Obama victory is not, for me, in the bright possibility that Africa would now get a better deal from callous Washington. Those Ethiopians who dream of Obama giving us Ethiopians and Africans the moral and other tools to achieve liberation are still missing the mark. Hail Obama but be real is my message. The gracious concession speech by McCain did show that American democracy for all its failings is still worthwhile to observe and educational in that such a similar situation in Ethiopia would have to be based on years of struggle, sacrifice and experience. The Obama victory gives us the lesson on the primary importance of organization. We now have half baked politicians who rile against political organizations and imagine they can achieve victory over a ruthless enemy like the TPLF by just acting like a movement. The Obama machinery was based on an extensive and meticulous organization, from the grassroots up and in the Ethiopian context this highlights the need for patriotic political organizations to be strong enough to reach out and mobilize as many people as possible for the all round struggle. We do not have in Ethiopia a peaceful democratic situation in which we can go from door to door to rally people. Yet, in our context, this does mean not the dissolution of political organizations but their consolidation, not the adoption of tactics that make the struggle victim to the machinations and whims of the ruling clique but makes the people part and parcel of the final push for radical change--the downfall of the regime. In other words, the lesson is get up/wake up and strengthen the political organizations genuinely fighting against the anti people regime instead of prattling about a non party movement from exile or setting up laughable exile "government" by political nonentities.
The other lesson is that people should put their money where their mouth is. Ordinary people worked hard and donated their hard earned money to Obama. Have we worked that hard to help the struggle advance? In our context, have we done the necessary to push the struggle ahead, to make the people's organizations strong? This is one primary question that must be asked to derive the pertinent lesson from the Obama victory. Of course, the other issue concerns leadership and strategy. Obama doggedly followed a course charted with clarity and was able to go against odds to achieve victory. Do we have such determined leaders with a clear idea of who is the enemy and how to go about defeating it? Or have we been backing false prophets while heaping insults and attacks against those who were and are practically struggling to bring the regime down? The ongoing attempt by some groups to take part in the fake 2010 election of the TPLF is but a wrong strategy and choice and fails to realize that you must know what fights to fight and avoid the wrong path to the wrong destination.
Obama has mentioned a new dawn of American leadership of the world and this is one thing no genuine African can or should accept. We do not need American leadership be it by Bush or Obama as we want to lead ourselves. We do not want a world dominated by one super power however enlightened it may claim to be. We want to lead ourselves; we want to be free and so the new dawn of American leadership that Obama is talking about cannot be ours. In fact, it may be a continuation, albeit softly softly holding the big stick, of the arrogant "I am your leader" stance of Washington. The American assumption that it is the world or the world wants it to lead should be laid to rest. But it is still there and this is yet another lesson that e have to digest in the place of our baseless hope that America under Obama will deliver us wretched souls from pro Washington dictatorships. The election of Obama shows that America has still the capacity to surprise us and we can only hope that it continues to do so pleasantly and not be being more of the same, demagogy notwithstanding. Obama owes his victory to massive vote of the youth in his favor and this was a youth that was said to be deep in political apathy. This has a lesson for Ethiopia too. The politicians who holler at the "apathetic youth" need to rise up and mobilize it for action. Obama showed this can be done with new ideas, hopes and dreams of change that touch the youth at its core. In the Ethiopian context, a replay of the fetid ethnic chauvinism that ruined the country up to now cannot be galvanizing. Elites who recycle worn out political clichés (and badly at that) cannot fire up anybody but their own illusions. Leaders who dare not lead and pay the sacrifice necessary cannot lead the people out of the desert.
We Ethiopians can and will defeat the Meles dictatorship and we can save our country and reclaim it for democratic change. This is the task of the people. Let us not short-circuit ourselves by handling over our destiny to others or by shirking away from the sacrifice that the struggle demands. Obama's victory has this lesson too. We can bring change but we as a people must fight for it. There is no other way.
I was wrong and as I said before this was one time I was happy to be proved wrong. I was one of those who said America would not elect a black man or a half black man to the White House. America has surprised me and many others by stretching its hands towards hope, daring to swim the current of prejudices and conservatism, looking foreword and defeating the apathy that was said to have gripped the young generation.
Barack Obama will face very hard and difficult hurdles and it is not clear, as he himself admitted, that the jump would be easy. That aside, the lesson of this Obama victory is not, for me, in the bright possibility that Africa would now get a better deal from callous Washington. Those Ethiopians who dream of Obama giving us Ethiopians and Africans the moral and other tools to achieve liberation are still missing the mark. Hail Obama but be real is my message. The gracious concession speech by McCain did show that American democracy for all its failings is still worthwhile to observe and educational in that such a similar situation in Ethiopia would have to be based on years of struggle, sacrifice and experience. The Obama victory gives us the lesson on the primary importance of organization. We now have half baked politicians who rile against political organizations and imagine they can achieve victory over a ruthless enemy like the TPLF by just acting like a movement. The Obama machinery was based on an extensive and meticulous organization, from the grassroots up and in the Ethiopian context this highlights the need for patriotic political organizations to be strong enough to reach out and mobilize as many people as possible for the all round struggle. We do not have in Ethiopia a peaceful democratic situation in which we can go from door to door to rally people. Yet, in our context, this does mean not the dissolution of political organizations but their consolidation, not the adoption of tactics that make the struggle victim to the machinations and whims of the ruling clique but makes the people part and parcel of the final push for radical change--the downfall of the regime. In other words, the lesson is get up/wake up and strengthen the political organizations genuinely fighting against the anti people regime instead of prattling about a non party movement from exile or setting up laughable exile "government" by political nonentities.
The other lesson is that people should put their money where their mouth is. Ordinary people worked hard and donated their hard earned money to Obama. Have we worked that hard to help the struggle advance? In our context, have we done the necessary to push the struggle ahead, to make the people's organizations strong? This is one primary question that must be asked to derive the pertinent lesson from the Obama victory. Of course, the other issue concerns leadership and strategy. Obama doggedly followed a course charted with clarity and was able to go against odds to achieve victory. Do we have such determined leaders with a clear idea of who is the enemy and how to go about defeating it? Or have we been backing false prophets while heaping insults and attacks against those who were and are practically struggling to bring the regime down? The ongoing attempt by some groups to take part in the fake 2010 election of the TPLF is but a wrong strategy and choice and fails to realize that you must know what fights to fight and avoid the wrong path to the wrong destination.
Obama has mentioned a new dawn of American leadership of the world and this is one thing no genuine African can or should accept. We do not need American leadership be it by Bush or Obama as we want to lead ourselves. We do not want a world dominated by one super power however enlightened it may claim to be. We want to lead ourselves; we want to be free and so the new dawn of American leadership that Obama is talking about cannot be ours. In fact, it may be a continuation, albeit softly softly holding the big stick, of the arrogant "I am your leader" stance of Washington. The American assumption that it is the world or the world wants it to lead should be laid to rest. But it is still there and this is yet another lesson that e have to digest in the place of our baseless hope that America under Obama will deliver us wretched souls from pro Washington dictatorships. The election of Obama shows that America has still the capacity to surprise us and we can only hope that it continues to do so pleasantly and not be being more of the same, demagogy notwithstanding. Obama owes his victory to massive vote of the youth in his favor and this was a youth that was said to be deep in political apathy. This has a lesson for Ethiopia too. The politicians who holler at the "apathetic youth" need to rise up and mobilize it for action. Obama showed this can be done with new ideas, hopes and dreams of change that touch the youth at its core. In the Ethiopian context, a replay of the fetid ethnic chauvinism that ruined the country up to now cannot be galvanizing. Elites who recycle worn out political clichés (and badly at that) cannot fire up anybody but their own illusions. Leaders who dare not lead and pay the sacrifice necessary cannot lead the people out of the desert.
We Ethiopians can and will defeat the Meles dictatorship and we can save our country and reclaim it for democratic change. This is the task of the people. Let us not short-circuit ourselves by handling over our destiny to others or by shirking away from the sacrifice that the struggle demands. Obama's victory has this lesson too. We can bring change but we as a people must fight for it. There is no other way.
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