Sunday, February 13, 2011
Haro on Hama Tuma?
The article I posted, If Only they did not make us Laugh, was taken by Afrik.com,given another title and posted. As luck would have it, a web site said to be close to the Meles Zenawi regime(nazret.com) posted it and dozens of pro regime fellows have declared Haro on Hama Tuma and posted a barage of hate and invectives against poor me. Which of course made my day as anything that annoys the tyrant and his stooges is good.Meles Zenawi is a dictator, an ethnic chauvinist, corrupt and degenerate too.His wife is corrupt to her bones and as vicious as her husband. The system is rotten and hated by the Ethiopian people. I could say more. I did say some in the forementioend article and drove the supporters of the regime into a state of frenzy. Fine. More is to come.
If Only They Did not Make us Laugh
IF ONLY THEY DID NOT MAKE US LAUGH!
Hama Tuma
I have to admit that vicious and cruel as they are most of our dictators take time out from sadism and try to entertain us in one way or another. Take Egypt’s Mubarak, whose demise has already been concluded by its previous Godfather (Washington) in a hurry to stop a possible Moslem Brotherhood takeover. America is peddling El Baradei and a possible coup while Mubarak is telling Egyptians, who have had enough and are not that gullible, that he backs their quest for freedom and is dismissing all his ministers. Funny man Hosni is parading as a democrat opposed to his own hand picked ministers and expecting the Egyptians to laugh. They are not laughing at all but we from afar are smiling at his ḥaṣāfah (chutzpah or dirkina in Amharic).
As I said they do take time out from plundering and killing us to make us laugh instead at their antics. Take Gbagbo, in Cote d’Ivoire, who refuses to leave State House even if the people had elected another to reside there but who is now forced to stay in a Hotel. African tyrants continue to give the impression that they have dealt with all the major political and economic problems of their countries and can afford to play the political clown like the late Idi Amin and Jean Bedel Bokassa. Take Meles Zenawi going to Europe to take part in a climate change summit along with Western leaders as Ethiopians groan under hyper inflation, high food prices and one party one ethnic rule. The king of Swaziland decreed no girl who reaches puberty will be allowed to have sex for five years so as to decrease the risk of Aids. Gullible foreigners tried to fathom the wisdom of the edict while laughing Swazis knew that the King who married maidens at the yearly so called Reed Festival wanted the maidens untouched and fresh for his picking. The wife of Meles Zenawi, Azeb Mesfin, who was recently exposed for her corruption and spending more than 1.2 million Euros to buy haute couture in Europe, stated with a serious face that she lacks money to pay for her child’s school fees. Funny? You bet! Mubarak should have learnt from her.
Funny still, there was recently a report that Malawi is about to pass a law (Local Courts Bill of 2010) that would make farting in public punishable by law. An envious observer commented that the life of Malawians is going to be very interesting. Another called it a joke on democracy while a loyal supporter of the regime backed it declaring that the act is a disturbance of public order. Someone irritated by the proposed law said: "We have serious issues affecting Malawians today. I do not know how fouling the air should take priority over regulating Chinese investments which do not employ locals, serious graft amongst legislators, especially those in the ruling party”. Another quarter reported: The Bingu wa Mutharika led administration is to introduce a draft of legislation that seeks to criminalize an everyday natural occurrence of “passing gas” with the intention to “mould responsible and disciplined citizens”. For Malawians who are afflicted by starvation and famine much like Ethiopians and other Africans, where do they get the food to eat to their hearts’ content and to foul the air? What do they eat? Are those who do not foul the public air turned by the non- act into responsible and disciplined citizens? Did the tyrants who claim to be responsible and disciplined arrive at this exalted position by avoiding farting in public even if people actually hear them doing so verbally and otherwise at every podium and National Day celebrations?
It is clear that Ben Ali has fled with his family and Mubarak has entered the exit lane. Will others also follow from Algeria to Yemen and Jordan? The Gabonese have struck the match in Africa but will the most repressed like those in Ethiopia and the Sudan (North) follow? Events to watch. In the meanwhile, African lawmakers seem to have little or no work other than to promulgate dumb laws (banning trousers as in the Sudan, underwater sex as in Swaziland, no celebration of Christmas as in Equatorial Guinea under Macias Nguema, and no playing music as in Somalia of the Al Shabab). The list is long but the more the tyrants make a fool of themselves the more we appreciate their effort to be funny no matter our predicament (horrible in most cases). But if we are on the subject of dumb laws the aforementioned can find solace in the fact that other corrupt leaders also issue stupid edicts. Saudi Arabia not only forbids alcoholic beverages and women driving cars but has declared being poor to be against the law--any man not earning a “reasonable” income can be imprisoned. Even in America Bush land Texas has laws that state that when two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has gone or that it is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing. Dumb!
To come back to the main subject, the absurd theatrics of a Mubarak or a Saleh or even of an Ali Bongo is not going to cut it this time around. The wind of change or even Revolution that is blowing in many countries augurs bad for the tyrants. The fall of Saleh and the separation of South Yemen are on the agenda for Yemen. The change of regime and politics in Egypt will impact on the whole Middle East and that Israel and Washington should worry is only proper. The whole process rings the bell of revolt and one hopes the ears of oppressed Africans as a whole are open to hear the chiming to rise up and grasp their destiny to forge a new and fairer day. Better than hearing the pathetic declaration of new, ever strange and stupid laws and edicts which may make us laugh but at the end of the day parody our own self respect as individuals, nations and continent.
Hama Tuma
I have to admit that vicious and cruel as they are most of our dictators take time out from sadism and try to entertain us in one way or another. Take Egypt’s Mubarak, whose demise has already been concluded by its previous Godfather (Washington) in a hurry to stop a possible Moslem Brotherhood takeover. America is peddling El Baradei and a possible coup while Mubarak is telling Egyptians, who have had enough and are not that gullible, that he backs their quest for freedom and is dismissing all his ministers. Funny man Hosni is parading as a democrat opposed to his own hand picked ministers and expecting the Egyptians to laugh. They are not laughing at all but we from afar are smiling at his ḥaṣāfah (chutzpah or dirkina in Amharic).
As I said they do take time out from plundering and killing us to make us laugh instead at their antics. Take Gbagbo, in Cote d’Ivoire, who refuses to leave State House even if the people had elected another to reside there but who is now forced to stay in a Hotel. African tyrants continue to give the impression that they have dealt with all the major political and economic problems of their countries and can afford to play the political clown like the late Idi Amin and Jean Bedel Bokassa. Take Meles Zenawi going to Europe to take part in a climate change summit along with Western leaders as Ethiopians groan under hyper inflation, high food prices and one party one ethnic rule. The king of Swaziland decreed no girl who reaches puberty will be allowed to have sex for five years so as to decrease the risk of Aids. Gullible foreigners tried to fathom the wisdom of the edict while laughing Swazis knew that the King who married maidens at the yearly so called Reed Festival wanted the maidens untouched and fresh for his picking. The wife of Meles Zenawi, Azeb Mesfin, who was recently exposed for her corruption and spending more than 1.2 million Euros to buy haute couture in Europe, stated with a serious face that she lacks money to pay for her child’s school fees. Funny? You bet! Mubarak should have learnt from her.
Funny still, there was recently a report that Malawi is about to pass a law (Local Courts Bill of 2010) that would make farting in public punishable by law. An envious observer commented that the life of Malawians is going to be very interesting. Another called it a joke on democracy while a loyal supporter of the regime backed it declaring that the act is a disturbance of public order. Someone irritated by the proposed law said: "We have serious issues affecting Malawians today. I do not know how fouling the air should take priority over regulating Chinese investments which do not employ locals, serious graft amongst legislators, especially those in the ruling party”. Another quarter reported: The Bingu wa Mutharika led administration is to introduce a draft of legislation that seeks to criminalize an everyday natural occurrence of “passing gas” with the intention to “mould responsible and disciplined citizens”. For Malawians who are afflicted by starvation and famine much like Ethiopians and other Africans, where do they get the food to eat to their hearts’ content and to foul the air? What do they eat? Are those who do not foul the public air turned by the non- act into responsible and disciplined citizens? Did the tyrants who claim to be responsible and disciplined arrive at this exalted position by avoiding farting in public even if people actually hear them doing so verbally and otherwise at every podium and National Day celebrations?
It is clear that Ben Ali has fled with his family and Mubarak has entered the exit lane. Will others also follow from Algeria to Yemen and Jordan? The Gabonese have struck the match in Africa but will the most repressed like those in Ethiopia and the Sudan (North) follow? Events to watch. In the meanwhile, African lawmakers seem to have little or no work other than to promulgate dumb laws (banning trousers as in the Sudan, underwater sex as in Swaziland, no celebration of Christmas as in Equatorial Guinea under Macias Nguema, and no playing music as in Somalia of the Al Shabab). The list is long but the more the tyrants make a fool of themselves the more we appreciate their effort to be funny no matter our predicament (horrible in most cases). But if we are on the subject of dumb laws the aforementioned can find solace in the fact that other corrupt leaders also issue stupid edicts. Saudi Arabia not only forbids alcoholic beverages and women driving cars but has declared being poor to be against the law--any man not earning a “reasonable” income can be imprisoned. Even in America Bush land Texas has laws that state that when two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has gone or that it is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing. Dumb!
To come back to the main subject, the absurd theatrics of a Mubarak or a Saleh or even of an Ali Bongo is not going to cut it this time around. The wind of change or even Revolution that is blowing in many countries augurs bad for the tyrants. The fall of Saleh and the separation of South Yemen are on the agenda for Yemen. The change of regime and politics in Egypt will impact on the whole Middle East and that Israel and Washington should worry is only proper. The whole process rings the bell of revolt and one hopes the ears of oppressed Africans as a whole are open to hear the chiming to rise up and grasp their destiny to forge a new and fairer day. Better than hearing the pathetic declaration of new, ever strange and stupid laws and edicts which may make us laugh but at the end of the day parody our own self respect as individuals, nations and continent.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Of Paper Tigers
PAPER TIGERS ARE STILL AROUND
Hama Tuma
The ongoing mass protest and popular change going on in North Africa, the Sudan and the Middle East highlights that the Western powers, for all their strutting, are in most cases paper tigers who cannot prevent a people’s revolutionary uprising. Paper tigers have no teeth and, as a Wiki leak cable revealed vis a vis Egypt, they have no ears either.
Years ago, an Egyptian activist of the April 6 group visited Washington and told the American officials that Mubarak would go before the 2011 general election but they found his information baseless, unrealistic and unsubstantiated by any other intelligence. Talk of being warned! The American officials did not listen and when the Egyptian people rose up to shake the regime to its dirty boots Washington had no other program other than to rush El Baradei to Cairo and conduct a media blitz to present him as a credible opposition leader (which he is not by any measure). Hilary Clinton said Egypt “ is stable” right after the Tunisian uprising started, then went on to call reform from Mubarak, changed tune to “ a transition to democracy” and so forth in confusion and all of it very late. The strongly organized Moslem Brotherhood organization may agree that Washington’s man el Baradei represent the opposition in the negotiations with the regime knowing full well that the main enemy is the Mubarak regime and El Baradei, with no organization behind him, would easily be dealt with. If the Brotherhood comes to power as Israel fears then the fault is Washington’s for backing a dictator to the hilt just as it had done in Iran with the Shah. Egypt under Mubarak has for long been the major US ally in the region (annual military aid US$ 1 billion) and one wonders how come Washington and Israel (the famous Mossad) were caught by surprise. For those who imagine these quarters to be all knowing and omnipotent this is a good lesson indeed. The same happened to France in Tunisia which under Ben Ali was for long the backyard of Paris (let alone the spies, more than a million French tourists visit Tunisia every year). The French were caught off guard, following the people’s protest almost just like you and me. Paper Tigers!
It has been a longstanding confirmed fact that Western powers hobnob with dictators and corrupt officials so much that they lose sight of the reality of the people no matter the number of their spies. Their persistent arrogance also covers their eyes and especially their ears and no matter how often you tell them the storm is brewing they tend to believe it is always a storm in the tea cup. They also rely on their own self declared experts who, more often than not, recycle their own pet conclusions and even prejudices. I remember a week or so into the February 1974 Revolution in Ethiopia, an expert and historian called Edward Ullendorff telling his BBC audience that the Emperor had everything under control. A week before the former prime minister (and now Pentecostal preacher) Tamrat Layne was to be thrown into prison by his former comrade (and now PM), Meles Zenawi, the French ambassador in Addis Ababa sent his government a cable affirming “ Tamrat Layne is on the rise and he is a good friend of France”! In short, they do not know and they do not listen. The more you appeal to the Western powers the more they think you are pathetic, weak, lying, besmirching the name of their favorite tyrant and, as the cable on the Egyptian activist’s warning showed, that you are dreaming and fantasizing of a people’s uprising. In Ethiopia, we have the propagandist Paul Henze and others who categorize every opposition as “remnants of the former regime and Amhara chauvinists” and sing nauseating eulogy of the petty tyrant. And then there are the lobbyists of K Street, down town Washington.
Money can’t buy me love sang the Beatles. The same in politics. The financial power of dictators can’t buy them popular support. Money can’t buy you love but sure can buy you scribes and trumpeters or mouth pieces. In our case, and in Africa as a whole, the tyrants are not so greedy as not to buy lobbyists. Still, America may be a super power but it cannot in the end block the popular revolt of oppressed people be it in Egypt or Ethiopia and beyond. Final decisive power is in the hand of the sovereign people. That this is not a cliché has been once again proven by the events in Tunisia, Egypt, etc and perhaps tomorrow in Ethiopia itself. The 2005 missed change in Ethiopia was sabotaged by America and Britain but the main culprits are the spineless leaders of the Opposition who sold out and brought defeat on the people despite the heavy sacrifice paid. If one imagines the heavy presence of America in Egypt and the massive backing it gave to Mubarak one would be excused to conclude that Mubarak would not be moved by any challenge. This appeared as truth to many so much so that Mubarak himself believed it and was conspiring to name his own son as his successor like in North Korea, Gabon, Togo and Syria. It is safe to conclude now that Washington abandoned Mubarak from the outset and is now trying to salvage the situation in one way or another. Salvage in their vocabulary means sabotaging the people’s struggle in ours. The tyrants who appear invincible are actually paper tigers when confronted by the people’s determined uprising. That is the lesson of Tunisia and Egypt for now and perhaps of Algeria, Yemen and Sudan tomorrow. And who knows of Ethiopia and other countries too. We can say with certainty that Mubarak would go the soft or hard way depending on how the situation, the uprising progresses. The Mubarak attempt to short circuit the people’s revolt through reforms and using the military is bound to fail too. The people are demanding an end to the regime and reform, sincere or otherwise, is not the agenda and would be coming too late. In the broader sense, the time of the tyrants is up. Egyptians gave warning in Mahalla in 2008 and other times too—too bad if Mubarak and his allies slept on their ears as the African tyrants that Washington still defends and supports are doing and failed to listen.
Alas, Ethiopian activists who were not easy dupes in the past –they were actually anti imperialist as they defined themselves—are in a worse situation than the hesitant Egyptian opposition from Wafd to the Nasserites and the Brotherhood. The new animal called politician in Ethiopia is a bizarre creature indeed. It is made up of some, whom we shall politely call naïve though their name is another, who seriously believe that Western troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring democracy to those people and if we beg them hard they will do the same for Ethiopia and others too. The other part of this new animal does not even know who is the enemy and thus accepts the diktat of the local tyrant and the so called advice and “kurkum” of the Western officials. These hope that their patient knocking at the conscience of the West will melt its hard heart and merciless greed in their favor. They know not History. Those who have succeeded to achieve meaningful change or have sent the tyrants packing are usually those who opposed the politics of the Western governments in their countries. The go ahead and green light for a people’s revolution cannot come from Washington, London or Paris. It would be contra nature, a strange occurrence, a sad and never to happen wishful thinking. Won’t happen ever. That is the lesson of all Revolutions and of the events we are witnessing in Tunisia and Egypt. The outcome of the uprising in Egypt is still not settled but the Rubicon has been crossed. One hopes the aspiration of the Egyptian people would not be short circuited or sabotaged as was the dream of Ethiopians for change in May 2005.
Hama Tuma
The ongoing mass protest and popular change going on in North Africa, the Sudan and the Middle East highlights that the Western powers, for all their strutting, are in most cases paper tigers who cannot prevent a people’s revolutionary uprising. Paper tigers have no teeth and, as a Wiki leak cable revealed vis a vis Egypt, they have no ears either.
Years ago, an Egyptian activist of the April 6 group visited Washington and told the American officials that Mubarak would go before the 2011 general election but they found his information baseless, unrealistic and unsubstantiated by any other intelligence. Talk of being warned! The American officials did not listen and when the Egyptian people rose up to shake the regime to its dirty boots Washington had no other program other than to rush El Baradei to Cairo and conduct a media blitz to present him as a credible opposition leader (which he is not by any measure). Hilary Clinton said Egypt “ is stable” right after the Tunisian uprising started, then went on to call reform from Mubarak, changed tune to “ a transition to democracy” and so forth in confusion and all of it very late. The strongly organized Moslem Brotherhood organization may agree that Washington’s man el Baradei represent the opposition in the negotiations with the regime knowing full well that the main enemy is the Mubarak regime and El Baradei, with no organization behind him, would easily be dealt with. If the Brotherhood comes to power as Israel fears then the fault is Washington’s for backing a dictator to the hilt just as it had done in Iran with the Shah. Egypt under Mubarak has for long been the major US ally in the region (annual military aid US$ 1 billion) and one wonders how come Washington and Israel (the famous Mossad) were caught by surprise. For those who imagine these quarters to be all knowing and omnipotent this is a good lesson indeed. The same happened to France in Tunisia which under Ben Ali was for long the backyard of Paris (let alone the spies, more than a million French tourists visit Tunisia every year). The French were caught off guard, following the people’s protest almost just like you and me. Paper Tigers!
It has been a longstanding confirmed fact that Western powers hobnob with dictators and corrupt officials so much that they lose sight of the reality of the people no matter the number of their spies. Their persistent arrogance also covers their eyes and especially their ears and no matter how often you tell them the storm is brewing they tend to believe it is always a storm in the tea cup. They also rely on their own self declared experts who, more often than not, recycle their own pet conclusions and even prejudices. I remember a week or so into the February 1974 Revolution in Ethiopia, an expert and historian called Edward Ullendorff telling his BBC audience that the Emperor had everything under control. A week before the former prime minister (and now Pentecostal preacher) Tamrat Layne was to be thrown into prison by his former comrade (and now PM), Meles Zenawi, the French ambassador in Addis Ababa sent his government a cable affirming “ Tamrat Layne is on the rise and he is a good friend of France”! In short, they do not know and they do not listen. The more you appeal to the Western powers the more they think you are pathetic, weak, lying, besmirching the name of their favorite tyrant and, as the cable on the Egyptian activist’s warning showed, that you are dreaming and fantasizing of a people’s uprising. In Ethiopia, we have the propagandist Paul Henze and others who categorize every opposition as “remnants of the former regime and Amhara chauvinists” and sing nauseating eulogy of the petty tyrant. And then there are the lobbyists of K Street, down town Washington.
Money can’t buy me love sang the Beatles. The same in politics. The financial power of dictators can’t buy them popular support. Money can’t buy you love but sure can buy you scribes and trumpeters or mouth pieces. In our case, and in Africa as a whole, the tyrants are not so greedy as not to buy lobbyists. Still, America may be a super power but it cannot in the end block the popular revolt of oppressed people be it in Egypt or Ethiopia and beyond. Final decisive power is in the hand of the sovereign people. That this is not a cliché has been once again proven by the events in Tunisia, Egypt, etc and perhaps tomorrow in Ethiopia itself. The 2005 missed change in Ethiopia was sabotaged by America and Britain but the main culprits are the spineless leaders of the Opposition who sold out and brought defeat on the people despite the heavy sacrifice paid. If one imagines the heavy presence of America in Egypt and the massive backing it gave to Mubarak one would be excused to conclude that Mubarak would not be moved by any challenge. This appeared as truth to many so much so that Mubarak himself believed it and was conspiring to name his own son as his successor like in North Korea, Gabon, Togo and Syria. It is safe to conclude now that Washington abandoned Mubarak from the outset and is now trying to salvage the situation in one way or another. Salvage in their vocabulary means sabotaging the people’s struggle in ours. The tyrants who appear invincible are actually paper tigers when confronted by the people’s determined uprising. That is the lesson of Tunisia and Egypt for now and perhaps of Algeria, Yemen and Sudan tomorrow. And who knows of Ethiopia and other countries too. We can say with certainty that Mubarak would go the soft or hard way depending on how the situation, the uprising progresses. The Mubarak attempt to short circuit the people’s revolt through reforms and using the military is bound to fail too. The people are demanding an end to the regime and reform, sincere or otherwise, is not the agenda and would be coming too late. In the broader sense, the time of the tyrants is up. Egyptians gave warning in Mahalla in 2008 and other times too—too bad if Mubarak and his allies slept on their ears as the African tyrants that Washington still defends and supports are doing and failed to listen.
Alas, Ethiopian activists who were not easy dupes in the past –they were actually anti imperialist as they defined themselves—are in a worse situation than the hesitant Egyptian opposition from Wafd to the Nasserites and the Brotherhood. The new animal called politician in Ethiopia is a bizarre creature indeed. It is made up of some, whom we shall politely call naïve though their name is another, who seriously believe that Western troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring democracy to those people and if we beg them hard they will do the same for Ethiopia and others too. The other part of this new animal does not even know who is the enemy and thus accepts the diktat of the local tyrant and the so called advice and “kurkum” of the Western officials. These hope that their patient knocking at the conscience of the West will melt its hard heart and merciless greed in their favor. They know not History. Those who have succeeded to achieve meaningful change or have sent the tyrants packing are usually those who opposed the politics of the Western governments in their countries. The go ahead and green light for a people’s revolution cannot come from Washington, London or Paris. It would be contra nature, a strange occurrence, a sad and never to happen wishful thinking. Won’t happen ever. That is the lesson of all Revolutions and of the events we are witnessing in Tunisia and Egypt. The outcome of the uprising in Egypt is still not settled but the Rubicon has been crossed. One hopes the aspiration of the Egyptian people would not be short circuited or sabotaged as was the dream of Ethiopians for change in May 2005.
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