As the Bob Dylan song goes, the times they are “achanging”. But, do the lowly tyrants and dictators of our world, or those Western powers who are bonded to their hypocrisy, double standards and greed, see eye to eye with good old Bob?
Is Africa to blame for the “return-of-the-dictators” malady? An extension of a disease that makes the deadly Ebola and other viruses we are believed to have infected the West with look like mole hills at the foot of the Everest.
One notable dictator who got back to power after being ousted was Uganda’s Milton Obote. In his quest for power, Obote ended up butchering more human beings than the blood thirsty Idi Amin. Africa’s autocratic species maintain both their eccentricities and strong urge to maim or kill to satisfy nothing else but their very own whims. Benin’s “call-me-Socialist” Kerekou, crocodile-tears Kaunda and blood-drenched Mengistu are still “awaiting”, thanks to the spirit of our ancestors, as the late Chadian dictator Tombolbaye would have said.
But confining the notion of autocracy to the African continent would do no justice to people of African descent, especially Haitians whose “Americaness” has been questioned time and over again. Their penchant for voodoo, disasters (both natural and man-made), misery and tyrants screams Africa! Even more disturbing is the hero’s welcome the bloody tyrant, Baby Doc Duvalier, got upon his return to northern hemisphere’s bellwether of failure and misery. The priest dictator Aristide’s recent return satisfies an alien logic that only a few can fathom. For me, questions abound: Why do Haitians need these pests if not to put them on trial? Why were not these fellows arrested at the airport? How come tyrants have no qualms, shame or guilt about their actions, past or present?
Tyrants are obdurate and, most of the time, delusional. They imagine they are loved and missed by the very people they had tormented and killed. They think even the dead exhibit the Stockholm syndrome. How can anyone love his/her killer or tormentor? But as Gaddafi put it with cheeky conviction whilst his army ruthlessly slaughtered his own people: "They love me. All my people with me. They love me all. They would die to protect me"…
If, as in the case of Haiti, tyrants stage a comeback (from exile or unto the political stage) are they not boldly telling us that it is up to them to decide to stay in power even when the majority of the population tells them to go to blazes? The presence of Mubarak, who tried to linger on after the people decided to get rid of him, is still felt in Egypt as his system is more or less still in place. And should he decide to stage a comeback into the political setting, as in the case of Haiti, would anything have been achieved?
But at the look of things, Saleh of Yemen is finished although he is refusing to grasp his irrelevance. He is still posturing as a unifier and a bulwark against the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Assad in Syria is trying to weather the storm whilst his administration denies that the protests are, in fact, not protests at all. Gelleh of Djibouti has arrested and tortured opposition leaders and sought help from fellow dictator Meles in Ethiopia who is himself apprehensive of a mass uprising has tried diverting attention by suggesting a possible war with Eritrea. As for Gaddafi, he has sworn to fight on. An act that has forced to him to confront a destructive array of western powers whose alleged concern for Libyan civilian lives in Benghazi has not hampered them from bombarding Tripoli with the savagery the world witnessed some years ago in the former Yugoslavia. The same hype is activated, the media manipulates public opinion and Gaddafi, who is very much like Milosevic and Sadam, an already unsavory fellow for whom only a handful have any serious sympathy, has thus become a proper scarecrow.
And through it all we observe the ugly head of Western hypocrisy and double standards that had for long been a scourge on democracy at world wide level. Hilary Clinton criticized the UAE for sending soldiers into Bahrain along with the Saudis but lamented against it for not joining the so called coalition against Gaddafi. One wonders why the West, especially America, goes through this ridiculous charade of coalition when the whole world knows the main protagonists are America and its western allies. Come to think of it, even Ethiopia was part of the coalition against Iraq!
America refused to label the Saudi intervention into Bahrain as an invasion without explaining how many foreign soldiers have to cross a border with tanks and armored cars for the action to be called an invasion. Are the Saudi soldiers in Bahrain just tourists? It was interesting to hear Obama pronounce the names of Libyan towns with excellent diction whilst at the same time sounded hollow as he expressed concern for the safety of Libyans in those places. There is no doubt that the Libyan upsurge which started in the oil rich and often separatist Cyrenaica has been aided and abetted by foreign elements and later taken over by those who had for long sought the ouster of Gaddafi in order to control its oil riches. The captured Dutch mercenaries, the infiltrated American and British intelligence agents and special force elements may very well prove the assertion.
Sarkozy “the Libyan” also appears as ridiculous as the Westerners’ concern for the lives of Libyan civilians. The strutting of France as a super power, a delusion of grandeur — often exercised on small countries like Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti and Mali — would have been amusing if it had not been destructive. Sarkozy whose harsh and brutal action against Romas (Gypsies) is fresh on the minds of many; Sarkozy who is being walloped by low popularity ratings in his own country; Sarkozy who has been surpassed at the polls even by the far right wing leader of the National Front only a year away from general elections; Sarkozy, who has had to endure blunders in Tunisia where his foreign minister offered security help to dictator Ben Ali in order to quell popular demonstrations. The sudden posturing of the French President as the guardian of Libyans, arguably, has little to do with concern and everything to do with political gimmicks.
Franco Libyan relations, meaning ties with Gaddafi, were strong and financially beneficial to France and Western powers. Blair and Condoleezza Rice trekked to Tripoli as did Berlusconi who publicly kissed the hands of the Libyan dictator and praised him for being a bulwark against African immigration. In their quest for oil, Britain forgot the Libyan strong man’s sins — the death of police woman Yvonne Fletcher and Lockerbie plane bombing. Instead, they acquiesced to his whims and dealt with Gaddafi as a clean and deserving partner. Gaddafi had become kosher, an ally, halal so to speak.
Thus the task for the Western media in the face of Libya’s unrest was gigantic. The international “bedeviling” of the Gaddafi regime had to be fast. Minutes after the Feudal despot King Idris’ flag was resurrected the image had been beamed across the world. Shortly afterwards, the poorly armed but heroic rebels appeared on our TV screens waving the newly re-adopted flag. And the appearance of Gaddafi “the butcher” on TV was Sadam Hussein redux. Western mass media has indeed not revised its modus operandi.
Why did the West not intervene in Bahrain? In Yemen? Let us take it further: what has the West done to stop the bloodshed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a tragedy that has caused close to 6 million deaths by virtue of the former’s own greed for the central African country’s mineral wealth? President Obama argues that it is US policy that Gaddafi needs to go. Good! But what about pro-American tyrants like Kabila Jr, Meles, Nguema, and the despots in the Middle East?
In 2005, Meles Zenawi stole an election and murdered more than 275 people in Addis Abeba alone — snipers on rooftops as in Sana’a — but he still enjoys massive US, British and EU financial and military support. There is much hue and cry as concerns Darfur and not a peep on the carnage in DR Congo. France did fine business with the dour and bloody generals in Burma and still pumps oxygen into the life support systems for many African dictators. Any claims by Britain, in the past or now for the matter, to be concerned about the welfare of other peoples, though not funny, is quite laughable. Hence, if Putin calls the campaign against Libya something like the Crusades he does have a point. Only this time it is not a religious Crusade. A crusading political gimmick at its best. It all smacks of an ill concealed colonialist arrogance and violence. Base and crude economic interest is at the bottom of it. Oil.
The times they are “achanging” for sure, but as the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. Mubarak and Ben Ali were allies of Washington. And like them, Gaddafi and Saleh will go as it is the will of the people. The war of the West against Libya, however, has nothing to do with democracy or defending civilians. Other pro-American dictators in Africa and the Middle East will also, undoubtedly, face popular uprising. Meanwhile, Bahrain, as at now, is an indicator that helps us to judge how the West will try to salvage their allies until it becomes diplomatically impossible and it is forced to sing another tu
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
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.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
check her out
Magdalawit Makonnen
Magdalawit Makonnen was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She read an English degree at UCLA and is currently studying for an MFA at Antioch University, Los Angeles. She has been published in many journals.
Wheat on Grass
Moon, you nursed my childhood bruises.
Stream, I only knew you in dreams.
Rain, you were a visitor I welcomed,
face pressed onto window-panes.
Wind, I felt you ripple in the sun.
Those who held hands know how to scatter like wheat on grass.
How to pick peaches from the old peach tree
in the backyard, leaning out from a windowsill,
and pile them in heaps for aunt Azeb
to make a pot of peach-soup with.
To make dreams from the everyday
we’d find objects with dull surfaces to smooth
with our small hands and keep:
candy-wrappers, rusty coins dug from the backyard,
and tiny beads in drawers under piles of old letters…
Knotting elbows, we’d always go walking, and would
look back for the treasures we might have left behind.
It was okay for us to look back then;
for children can do so and survive.
Magdalawit Makonnen was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She read an English degree at UCLA and is currently studying for an MFA at Antioch University, Los Angeles. She has been published in many journals.
Wheat on Grass
Moon, you nursed my childhood bruises.
Stream, I only knew you in dreams.
Rain, you were a visitor I welcomed,
face pressed onto window-panes.
Wind, I felt you ripple in the sun.
Those who held hands know how to scatter like wheat on grass.
How to pick peaches from the old peach tree
in the backyard, leaning out from a windowsill,
and pile them in heaps for aunt Azeb
to make a pot of peach-soup with.
To make dreams from the everyday
we’d find objects with dull surfaces to smooth
with our small hands and keep:
candy-wrappers, rusty coins dug from the backyard,
and tiny beads in drawers under piles of old letters…
Knotting elbows, we’d always go walking, and would
look back for the treasures we might have left behind.
It was okay for us to look back then;
for children can do so and survive.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Anthology
20 September 2010
Book: "No Serenity Here"
NEW BOOK INFORMATION: No Serenity Here
An Anthology of African poetry in English, French, Portuguese Amharic and Arabic translated into Chinese, edited by Kaiyu Xiao, Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
244 pages
Publisher: World Knowledge Publishers, Shanghai
October 2010
ISBN 978-7-5012-3895-8
Six months, about 1000 e-mails, one facebook chat and here it is: No Serenity Here, a contemporary anthology of African poetry to be launched during the Shanghai Biennale in October 2010. Original poems in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Amharic will be published alongside their Chinese translations. The volume includes Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, along with voices from 25 African countries, and was translated by a team of Chinese poets under the guidance of Kaiyu Xiao.
Edited by Xiao in China, Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre in Berlin and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers in Johannesburg, No Serenity Here celebrates established writers such as Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), Makhosazana Xaba and Lebo Mashile (South Africa), Veronique Tadjo (Cote d’Ivoire) and Fatima Naoot (Morocco), and introduce lesser known yet brilliant voices like TJ Dema (Botswana), Shailja Patel (Kenya) and Tania Tome (Mocambique), as well as Amanda Hammar and Joyce Chigiya (both from Zimbabwe).
Besides the veterans like Soyinka (Nigeria), Kofi Anyodoho (Ghana), Chirikure Chirikure (Zimbabwe), James Matthews (South Africa) and Keorapetse Kgositsile (South Africa’s Poet Laureate, whose poem lent the title to the anthology), the volume also showcases the prodigious talents of Shabbir Bhanoobhai (South Africa), Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Ghana), Tolu Ogunlesi and Obododimma Oha (Nigeria), Stanley Onjezani Kenani (Malawi) and Beaven Tapureta (Zimbabwe), Keamogetsi Molapong and Dorian Haarhoff (Namibia), Hama Tuma and Alemu Tebeje Ayele (both from Ethiopia).
“We read widely, but it was the contact with contemporary poets that brought the project to life and delivered its unique vibrancy and varied voice,” says Ferrin-Aguirre, who also worked until recently as a programmer for the Berlin Poesiefestival and researcher for the Literatuurwerkstatt, a global database of poets which collects recordings of poets reciting their work in their original languages in its Lyrikline project.
Acclaimed Chinese poet and academic Kaiyu Xiao admits in his foreword: “the poems … would make me physically quiver as the poems shattered my expectations.” Many of the poets are appearing in print for the first time, and most of them for the first time in Chinese.
“African writers have made an important contribution to the world reservoir of thought on the human condition; this is just a small part of the literary wealth that we have to offer. China has given us so much, and I’m proud that we are reciprocating,” said writer and performer de Villiers.
Published by World Knowledge Publishers and commissioned by artist and philanthropist Mr Hu, the tri-continental project also received support from the Jiang Nan Art and Design Foundation and the Moonchu Foundation.
…/ends
For further information contact Phillippa Yaa de Villiers phillippayaa@gmail.com
Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre aguirre_siemer@hotmail.com
Kaiyu Xiao kaiyu@gmx.de
Book: "No Serenity Here"
NEW BOOK INFORMATION: No Serenity Here
An Anthology of African poetry in English, French, Portuguese Amharic and Arabic translated into Chinese, edited by Kaiyu Xiao, Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
244 pages
Publisher: World Knowledge Publishers, Shanghai
October 2010
ISBN 978-7-5012-3895-8
Six months, about 1000 e-mails, one facebook chat and here it is: No Serenity Here, a contemporary anthology of African poetry to be launched during the Shanghai Biennale in October 2010. Original poems in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Amharic will be published alongside their Chinese translations. The volume includes Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, along with voices from 25 African countries, and was translated by a team of Chinese poets under the guidance of Kaiyu Xiao.
Edited by Xiao in China, Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre in Berlin and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers in Johannesburg, No Serenity Here celebrates established writers such as Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), Makhosazana Xaba and Lebo Mashile (South Africa), Veronique Tadjo (Cote d’Ivoire) and Fatima Naoot (Morocco), and introduce lesser known yet brilliant voices like TJ Dema (Botswana), Shailja Patel (Kenya) and Tania Tome (Mocambique), as well as Amanda Hammar and Joyce Chigiya (both from Zimbabwe).
Besides the veterans like Soyinka (Nigeria), Kofi Anyodoho (Ghana), Chirikure Chirikure (Zimbabwe), James Matthews (South Africa) and Keorapetse Kgositsile (South Africa’s Poet Laureate, whose poem lent the title to the anthology), the volume also showcases the prodigious talents of Shabbir Bhanoobhai (South Africa), Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Ghana), Tolu Ogunlesi and Obododimma Oha (Nigeria), Stanley Onjezani Kenani (Malawi) and Beaven Tapureta (Zimbabwe), Keamogetsi Molapong and Dorian Haarhoff (Namibia), Hama Tuma and Alemu Tebeje Ayele (both from Ethiopia).
“We read widely, but it was the contact with contemporary poets that brought the project to life and delivered its unique vibrancy and varied voice,” says Ferrin-Aguirre, who also worked until recently as a programmer for the Berlin Poesiefestival and researcher for the Literatuurwerkstatt, a global database of poets which collects recordings of poets reciting their work in their original languages in its Lyrikline project.
Acclaimed Chinese poet and academic Kaiyu Xiao admits in his foreword: “the poems … would make me physically quiver as the poems shattered my expectations.” Many of the poets are appearing in print for the first time, and most of them for the first time in Chinese.
“African writers have made an important contribution to the world reservoir of thought on the human condition; this is just a small part of the literary wealth that we have to offer. China has given us so much, and I’m proud that we are reciprocating,” said writer and performer de Villiers.
Published by World Knowledge Publishers and commissioned by artist and philanthropist Mr Hu, the tri-continental project also received support from the Jiang Nan Art and Design Foundation and the Moonchu Foundation.
…/ends
For further information contact Phillippa Yaa de Villiers phillippayaa@gmail.com
Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre aguirre_siemer@hotmail.com
Kaiyu Xiao kaiyu@gmx.de
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Review by New Internationalist
The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and Other Stories
by Hama Tuma
(Heinemann ISBN 0-435-90590-2 )
‘Writers in Ethiopia are as rare as peace,’ asserts Hama Tuma and that alone could be reason for welcoming his book. But there are others. The first half consists of satirical stories set in a court of law where such dangerous criminals as queue-breakers and incurable hedonists are tried.
Though the stories are short on plot they have a Swiftean bite: the writing is deceptively simple and admirably taut. The Ethiopia that is revealed in this collection is a land of paradoxes where everyday people must have an array of masks ready to counter the machinations of the militia. As case follows case in the courtroom, the most topsy-turvy arguments are followed to more and more bizarre conclusions. Yet the reader finds the overall picture getting increasingly clear.
Like all good satire the details are worked out for maximum effect, giving the stories a sense of inevitability. The narrator acts as a naive observer who, like the child noticing the Emperor’s nakedness, reveals every discrepancy of an absurdly repressive state through what he says and what he leaves unsaid.
by Hama Tuma
(Heinemann ISBN 0-435-90590-2 )
‘Writers in Ethiopia are as rare as peace,’ asserts Hama Tuma and that alone could be reason for welcoming his book. But there are others. The first half consists of satirical stories set in a court of law where such dangerous criminals as queue-breakers and incurable hedonists are tried.
Though the stories are short on plot they have a Swiftean bite: the writing is deceptively simple and admirably taut. The Ethiopia that is revealed in this collection is a land of paradoxes where everyday people must have an array of masks ready to counter the machinations of the militia. As case follows case in the courtroom, the most topsy-turvy arguments are followed to more and more bizarre conclusions. Yet the reader finds the overall picture getting increasingly clear.
Like all good satire the details are worked out for maximum effect, giving the stories a sense of inevitability. The narrator acts as a naive observer who, like the child noticing the Emperor’s nakedness, reveals every discrepancy of an absurdly repressive state through what he says and what he leaves unsaid.
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