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Ethiopia - "My Solidarity Forum" for Teddy Afro – An Ethiopian Hero & a Prisoner of Conscience

By Golto Aila

Teddy Afro is a son of Ethiopia in the purest sense of the word "son"! He has used his talent to entertain us, all of us - young and old, from all backgrounds, and from all walks of life! What many of us preach on this kind of FORUMS, Teddy takes with him on the road - city to city, country to country and continent to continent! Teddy does not only entertain us with music, but he has used his musical as the most effective medium to convey the pain our people live through, day in and day out!

This advocate of justice for our people; this voice for the voiceless; this champion of the oppressed; this ultimate entertainer could have lived in luxury abroad and enjoyed life as most of us do, but knowing the risk to his own life, he returned home to continue the mission he has set for himself! Today he sits in the notorious Kaliti Prison, precisely because of what he does for his down-trodden compatriots! The humiliation he has suffered so far and will continue to suffer hence will be the most poignant symbol of our peoples' suffering for the last two decades!

The tyrannical regime in Ethiopia has spared no effort to silence the voices of those who dared to challenge them, and by locking up Teddy Afro, while simultaneously disenfranchising Ethiopia once again, it has clearly demonstrated its contempt for Ethiopia and its people!
The Ethiopian dictator is doing what all dictators do - eliminating those who pose a threat to their grip on power! What shocks me time and again is the utter paralytic inaction on the part of the people into whose eyes this regime has been poking its fingers with impunity!

In the absence of an effective defense of the people’s interest, the regime has been riding roughshod on all Ethiopians irrespective of their background, as long as they are not toeing the line. As I have warned repeatedly in my many write-ups our Tigrean compatriots may well be bearing the brunt of this oppression – history will tell! In my recent write-ups many of which have appeared on these pages, I have tried to lay out why it is imperative of Ethiopians inside and outside Ethiopia form a solidarity forum to try and prevent Ethiopia from slip down the face of a cliff on the brink of which it is currently tittering! As in any culture, our youth are our pillars and future depends on them. I recently lamented that our generation is proving ineffective in the face of an onslaught on everything we value in our culture, I appealed to our youth to make a covenant with our Motherland, and advised the formation of “My Solidarity Forum” youth league!

We have lacked effective tool against this heinous regime, and not because of its strength, but rather because of our weakness! There is no any other way one can explain such humiliation of a population of 80 million people by a handful thugs! There is no organization that I know of in Ethiopia or outside Ethiopia today, to which we can turn and that is a crying shame!!!!

Recent Articles by Golto Aila

Let us show that we have spine! Let us show that we still have some residue of self- respect, let show that we have a culture we value, let us demonstrate to the world that we have what it takes to regain the dignity which has been the trade mark of our forbearers. Let us show our SOLIDARITY with this young hero who has given all he has for the dignity of his motherland. Let’s honor his mobilization at grass-root level to carry forth his lyrics of emancipation! Let’s show him something as a token of our appreciation for what he has done and continues to do for us! Let us show we have SPINE!

In making this call, may I refer you to my recent write-up “When Our Home is Burning”! Please study and use principle listed therein, and take responsibility to help our Motherland move get out of this darkness. Avoid waiting for someone else to take action and take the lead - evidence from our recent history does not support such an approach! Accept 100% responsibility for Teddy Afro's freedom and Ethiopia's freedom. Do something new, establish a new contact, call a meeting, distribute a flyer, and initiate “My Solidarity Forum”, anything! Don’t let Teddy Afro perish in the hands of one of the most inhuman administration on the continent of Africa today! We can save him, and we can save Ethiopia – we just need to demonstrate self-respect and pride in ourselves and our heritage!

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Ethiopia - The Administration of Utter Destruction

By Golto Aila


Looking at individual trees often gives a distorted view or not so accurate view of the forest, hence the saying -can't see the forest because of the trees!

When Woyanes matched into Addis Abeba in 1991 I was a resident in Britain, and watched it all on the BBC television! In the aftermath of Mengistu's rule, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but by their actions they their intentions clear - that is to destroy Ethiopia! What we see today is, therefore, not a surprise to me! What surprises me is the Ethiopia has just decided to take it all on the chin for nearly two decades!

There are many shapes and hues of government and governance, and I'll name a few obvious onces:

1. Government by the indigenous people
2. Government by a colonizing power
3. Government by default, or Government by accident (I made this one up)

Government by the indigenous people may be democratic, undemocratic, clean, corrupt, efficient or inefficient. It reflects its people's level of sophistication, education and culture, etc. Whatever its faults it does not set out to DELIBERATELY DESTROY its country, not to my knowledge!

A colonizing power governs to fulfill certain requirement for the benefit of its parent territory. Such requirements may be economic, political, national security, or combinations thereof! It usually improves the economy, self reliance, and education of the colonized so that the colony becomes profitable for both the colonizer and the colonized!

An administration by default is one which may not fall in either of the above categories, but may have some of their characteristics. What is not important to such an administration is the VIABILITY of the country that is governed. Its viability may in fact be detrimental to the default government! The Woyane government (if you care to call them a government), in my judgment is Ethiopian Government by default! As such its only logical function (based on its objective to LIBERATE itself from Ethiopia) is to destroy the country! Why do I say that? Well, from its inception, the goal of TPLF was to liberate itself from Ethiopia and be independent! The alliance with EPLF was a defense alliance - defense of each other against the future regime in Ethiopia! Nimble Meles, realized at the tail end of Mengistu's regime that he could benefit by joining up with others in Ethiopia and administer until it is so crippled that it will never be a threat to an Independent Tigrai and its sister Eritrea (simultaneously with this calculation, is another one which protects him should his erstwhile friend Afewerki turn against him!). The need to maintain a strangle-hold on Ethiopia and the pursuit of the crippling process became even more urgent when TPLF and EPLF fell out and engaged in the war of attrition. But how will he now manage to hold down a nation of 80 million people - most of them hostile, and at the same time hold back his erstwhile friend and now a mortal enemy to the north, without losing his grip. So here is the genious (if that's what you want to call it) of Meles in his epic struggle to stay in power and keep the dream of Independent Tigrai under the TPLF rule alive:

1. Divide and rule Ethiopia: The population is split into ethic camps or parcels. Each group is supposedly autonomous while in reality he maintains an iron grip on each entity. But he breathes and breeds suspicion among the different groups and monitors their activities closely.

2. Ration food production: People worry about democracy and individual rights, or even fight for their country when they have food in their stomachs! By rendering one of the most fertile countries with water resources enough to feed three nations, incapable of feeding itself, he managed to cripple a nation of 80 million people, a large number of them, today, depending on foreign food handouts for their survival!

3. Rationing Education: I have seen young, bright men and women who have gone to the 12th grade in Ethiopia, and who cannot speak English or even good Amhargna! The aim is to render Ethiopia illiterate, while Educational opportunities abound in Tigrai.

4. Rationing Health care: If the Woyane secret service kills someone, of course, that lost life will be marked against them, like the 193 who were shot and killed while they demonstrated peacefully in Addis Abeba nearly three years ago. But who will take Meles to the International Court of Justice for millions who died because of HIV-AIDS. All he had to do was go easy on AIDS education, obtaining medications, and counseling (I am referring to anecdotal reports for this). Remember the story about detainees in the concentration camps following arrests during the demonstrations? It was claimed that one razor blade was used to shave the heads of 10 detainees! I don't know the authenticity of that story, but if true, here is a government who is deliberately spreading a lethal disease among innocent young people. Even a hostile, invading power doesn’t do that to prisoners in its captivity.

5. Disenfranchisement: It has never been the intention of this administration to bring democracy into Ethiopia! For what purpose? But it was important to go through the motions, why?
1. Fool the country into believing that she is tasting DEMOCRACY
2. To avoid embarrassing its foreign supporters, who preach democracy throughout the world
3. To continue getting foreign aids from foreign countries
They were caught by surprise when the nation that had been in a state of semi-coma suddenly woke up and voted against them, before it went back to its slumber! Of course, they had to react the way they did to retain power, because, can you imagine what would happen if democracy was established in Ethiopia and power changed hands. Here are a few things that would happen have happened:

1. Arrest and prosecution of Meles and his collaborators in the murder of so many people
2. Arrests and prosecution of many officials for corruptions and misappropriations
3. Arrests and prosecution for high treason for violation of the sovereignty of the nation of Ethiopia – Dismembering the nation first to parcel out Eritrea and now Ethiopian territory to Sudan!
4. End of the dream of Independent Tigrai
5. Rush out of Ethiopia to seek asylum
6. Most unacceptably, Isayas still in power and Meles in jail or a refugee!

So, the 2005 election was a close shave and Meles will never repeat that mistake again - for him that is suicidal! To hell with DEMOCRACY! But Meles will hold elections all the same after disqualifying all the oppositions, and then his party will win and he will call it free and fair elections - take it or leave it!

So the only way I see to change the political, economic, societal and moral directions in Ethiopia is by coming together, form "My Solidarity Forum of Ethiopia" and join hands in Ethiopia and all over the world and demonstrate that the determination and the drive for a democratic change in Ethiopia is alive and well!

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Ethiopia - Soul of the South, where art thou?

By Golto Aila

Published on April 13, 2008

Part of my early childhood was in southern Ethiopia and by all measure it was the best time of my life. Not because of its bounty, not because of its sophistication, but because of my culture and because of my family values. The rule in my home and among my relatives was in stark contrast to the way the region was ruled! To drive home the importance of treating people with dignity, it was a rule that the family and household workers all ate their meals together from the same sahin. I addressed our servants with titles depending on their gender and age. It is the lesson I carry with me everywhere to this day and I’m proud of it.

In those days, the realm was ruled from the North. The south served the north in every sense of that word. Ironically the advent of Mengistu’s era ushered in the period where the southerners dared to think they were equal to their compatriots in the North! Every cloud has a silver lining, but it was cloud all the same! When the current regime came along they promised autonomy and that somehow the southerners will be masters of their fate. But of course that did not happen – that was not the intention at all, the intention was to divide and destroy! Instead the South became a convenient tool of this regime’s political game! The government’s hand is, invariably, in every so-called inter-ethnic conflict that I have heard of in the South – neighboring ethnic groups and clans fight each other like never before! The latest clash was that between the Guji and the Sidama, near Wendo-Gennet! This regime took the concept of divide and rule to a new level – divide and destroy! So, left to its own devices, there will be no future to talk about by the time Meles is done with Ethiopia in general and the South in particular!

Because of decades of misrule of the South, the politics of the South is largely driven by the psychology of the subjugated, much to the disadvantage of the south itself! Every strategy appears to be a reaction to the previous and current misrule, hence, the drive for “liberation” by the likes of OLF! While such sentiments are perfectly understandable it would be utterly irresponsible to pursue policies which will only lead to more suffering of the citizens of the South and the entire country! It would make some sense if an independent South can just transfer itself to another location in the world where it can be at peace! But that is impossible! So, now “independence” is created in a hostile environment where the people become hostages of their own actions!

We need not go far for examples of what will happen – look at Eritrea who “liberated” itself from Ethiopia! Our brothers and sisters in Eritrea are suffering like they have never suffered before in our history, in spite of having a long coastline of one of the most important and strategic waterways in the world! Eritrea is one big prison camp which they fought for and won! The fact that OLF and ONLF are camped there is no coincidence – it is worrisome that in their efforts to free their people from tyranny they have gone to seek help from tyrant par excellence! The South should learn from their past and make every effort to prevent its recurrence in the future. The most sensible path is for the South to get to the center of Ethiopia’s MARCH TO DEMOCRACY and claim its rightful place in the reconstruction of their great country!

Today is a new day, a day full of challenges and opportunities for Ethiopia in general and the South in particular! Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy! The South should embrace democratic principles, throw off the fears of former misrule (most people in Ethiopia were misruled), embrace the democratic future, and stand up to be counted. The South should stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the country and fight for the survival of Ethiopia in which everybody will live with dignity. It is self-doubt, morbid suspicion, complacency and paranoia that force people to make bad choices! It is incumbent on the Southern leaders (political or otherwise) to come out and join hands with fellow democratic minded Ethiopians irrespective of ethnic, religious, social and economic backgrounds, and lead the way to a brighter future for ALL!

There will always be differences of opinion between people (it happens within families) and that is not necessarily a bad thing; in fact the more the merrier, so that people get the opportunity of greater choices. If your object is to give your constituents the best opportunities in life, why should you have any difficulty in accepting a choice which may benefit even you!

When Eritrea got independence, the calculation from its leadership was obvious – they’ve got Ethiopia where they wanted - by the scruff of her neck! They had decapitated Ethiopia, it would not survive and if it did, it would be at their mercy! Miraculously, don't ask me how but Ethiopia sprouted another head/heads and survived - after some fashion! Little did the Eritrean leadership know of the fact that a head without a body to nourish it cannot survive either! No strategy of mutilating Ethiopia will work for anybody! It is simply foolish because it amounts to a deliberate self mutilation! Also it pays to understand that the task of retrieving Ethiopia from this anarchy and rehabilitating it is squarely on the shoulders of all Ethiopians. It will be Ethiopians who will determine whether or not the country and its peoples will be free and democratic. “Liberation movements” whose strategies are based on exploitation of peoples’ emotions based on past experiences, instead of using those experiences to craft solutions for challenges of tomorrow, are movements towards doom for the country and its entire population! Friends, however well meaning, can only help Ethiopia achieve what Ethiopians set out to do.

Conversely, no amount of outside assistance to Meles will keep him in power if the country doesn’t want him. History is replete with examples of such futility!

So, I appeal to the Soul of the South, to let reason prevail and work for the creation and preservation of a unitary Democratic Ethiopia and your beautiful South, for the posterity!

Waqi ha nu jabbessu!
gurmesa51@yahoo.com

Ethiopia - A Covenant with your Motherland!

By Golto Aila

Published on April 4, 2008

If you are a 30 years old Ethiopian or younger, you have only heard about Emperor Haile Silasie’s rein! You may have lived under dictatorial rules for your entire life, or you may have run away from your Motherland to live in the physical tranquility and the psychological turmoil in your adoptive country. Even in the far away land where you live, you cannot have peace because of the terrible miserable lives your loved ones, whom you left behind, go through day in day out. So you are physically in a free country, yet remain a prisoner of a monstrous dictatorship you left behind, after making a perilous trek out of your home into the unknown world! If you are 16 years of age living in Ethiopia, you are most likely preoccupied with strategies to avoid falling into the ever expanding net of an oppressive regime, which has been cast to trap a youth like you. A trap set by a government which is supposed to protect you against harm. No it’s not a foreigner hunting for people to take to foreign lands and sell you into slavery; it’s your own homegrown government, which considers your very presence a threat to its existence. Instead of nurturing you, protecting you, and strengthening you, your government is eliminating you, lest you prove to be a threat to them. Some of you have lost parents, siblings, friends – loved ones who have been shot and killed in your presence. You were afraid even to mourn because of the mortal threat to yourself. This was an action not by an alien but an agent of your own government! As a young person you are afraid to seek protection and help from your parents, for seeking their help may jeopardize their own lives!

History books tell you wonderful stories about your country’s glorious past, its old civilization, the fact that it has been the cradle of Christianity for about 1500 years, and the fact that the earliest members of our species may have originated in today’s Ethiopia and migrated to the rest of the world. While all this knowledge fills you with pride, the very air you breathe is filled with the stench of oppression emanating from your current rulers. You repeatedly ask why God has forsaken you! You live in a country that is blessed with natural resources. Your country is the source one of the longest rivers in the world that flow through four countries and gives livelihood to millions, yet your country is perennially begging for food from the international community because it cannot even feed its population. You wonder how you deserved such a curse. Well, you don’t deserve it! Your God has not forsaken you either!

The reason Ethiopia is in such a dire strait today is because of man’s primitive desire to dominate others by impoverishing them and by subjugating them. This morbid and incorrigible desire to dominate has led to:

1. Ethnic based regionalism which the powers to be used to divide people against each other under the guise of providing regional autonomy. So, diversity which in a healthy society is a sign of strength, has been used to weaken Ethiopia, for a selfish, myopic, and short- lived objectives.

2. Inequitable distribution of resources with the home region of the ruling party taking the lion’s share of developments in the field of industry, education, health, infrastructure development and financial institutions. This is done to bribe the citizens of the region so that they will get the ethnic group’s support. The ethnic group is threatened like all other Ethiopian citizens to toe the line and have no choice but to do as ordered. The rest of the nation sees this ethnic group as the beneficiaries of the current administration and basically see them as an accomplice in the crime against Ethiopia. Hence, our compatriots, the Tigreans today are damned whatever they do and wherever they go! In today’s Ethiopia they, probably have the worst life of all Ethiopians, irrespective of the outward appearance of satisfaction!

3. Breakup of Ethiopia, purportedly to give freedom to the people of Eritrea! Today the population is experiencing untold suffering on either side of that border. If anybody has any questions regarding the objectives of Tigrean Peoples LIBERATION Front, just look at what Eritrean People’s LIBERATION Front has brought for Eritrean and the entire region of the Horn of Africa!

4. Failure to develop the natural resources of the country with the billions of dollars flowing into the country to make it independent of foreign aid, because of the fear by the government that such an empowerment will spell their own demise.

Our youth is the main pillar of our society! Even if you’ve taken yourself out of Ethiopia so many years ago and are now a citizen of another country, you cannot take Ethiopia out of yourself! The society in which you were born and raised is your reference point in life. Ethiopia defines you! Just look at, say, Irish-Americans. Their ancestors came to the USA some 200+ years ago, but today’s generation still go back to Ireland, their forbearers’ home as if they themselves were born there. The current generation has messed your heritage for you! Like drunkards, and insatiable gllutons, those who usurped people’s power have squandered the wealth and the dignity of your Motherland. Today Ethiopia is slowly but surely approaching the edge of a precipice! That same state of affairs also presents a unique opportunity to reverse this catastrophic trend, and you, the pillar of our society, though it is not your fault that we are where we are, must play a full role to reverse this trend and preserve your heritage! YOU MUST MAKE A COVENANT WITH ETHIOPIA FOR YOU ARE A PART OF ETHIOPIA AND ETHIOPIA IS PART OF YOU!

For those of us who are fathers of children born outside of Ethiopia, and cherish our Ethiopian heritage, it is our duty to put behind our political differences and rescue Ethiopia for generations to follow. WE, ALSO, MUST MAKE A COVENTANT WITH ETHIOPIA!

In your efforts to salvage your motherland I urge you to avoid the pitfalls that led to the failures of the generations before you, these include but not limited to:

1. Ethnocentric jingoism:
2. Intolerance for political dissent
3. Cultural insensitivity
4. Disrespect for those who disagree with you
5. Undemocratic behavior
6. Lack of ethical behavior
7. Lack of honesty
8. Lack of political transparency
9. Arrogance that tells you that you are superior than those around you
10. And above all the selfishness that puts your personal interest ahead of the interest of the nation we call our Motherland.

One of the most difficult problems Ethiopians face today, even in facing a common enemy is the emphasis on ethnic differences. Just like the current administration in Ethiopia has used ethnicity as a tool to divide Ethiopians against each other, the politicians of different ethnic groups have embraced the idea of exploiting ethnicity to advance narrow political agendas which, they very well know, will only hurt the constituencies they purport to represent and Ethiopia in general. Take pride in your diversity, in the many languages spoken in your motherland, in the many cultures and subcultures which are unique to your Motherland and which others lack. Be boastful of your diversity but don’t use it to bludgeon each other!

The most pernicious problem in Ethiopian politics, as indeed it is a problem of African politics, is the fact that opposition is not tolerated. Expressions of opposing views are viewed as insult to one's intellect. Differences of political opinions are taken personally and interpreted as a commentary on the person rather than a repudiation of an idea. Expression of opposing view- points is the strength of civilized and progressive people! The western world is what it is today because of the freedom to express one’s views. It is the height of ignorance that leads to rejection of this ingredient of social and political advancement.

Democracy represents a cultural norm. Democracy is not about just one man/woman one vote. It represents a code of behavior. A democratic way of life is reflected in how one deals with one’s children at home, and in everyday life, and is the reason why we don’t see conflicts in the West like we see in the developing world. Democracy is expressed by our actions and not by our utterances only!

For the sake of your generation and the generations to follow, I urge you to stand up and be counted. You must change the paradigm of Ethiopian Politics and personal conduct! You must create something today, while you have your youth, your vitality, your prodigious imagination and daring, so that you can look back with pride at what you have accomplished for posterity. Today’s generation is looking at a waste-land which looks uglier and uglier by the day. It’s unbearable to watch what is unfolding. Promise yourself not to let this be your fate in the coming years. There are many things you can do to achieve this goal:

1. My Solidarity Forum of Ethiopia Youth League: This will be a forum of exchange of ideas about your history and current affairs in Ethiopia. It is an excellent forum in which projects can be initiated and progress followed. It will be an important and necessary complement to “My Solidarity Forum” in your communities!

2. Reach out to each other and be ethnic-blind for the sake of yourself and your Ethiopia. While you’re at it don’t forget your Eritrean brethren who are victims like yourself. You’ll ignore them at your peril! You cannot to divide and weaken your people, while the rest of the world is stretching across oceans to join hands for strength!

3. Be active politically and support the organizations which are committed to a unitary Ethiopia. You must demand civility between the different political organizations – remember you are all the children of Ethiopia! Above all remember Ethiopia first, political parties next –GET YOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT!

4. Avoid personalizing Ethiopian problem and ask yourself what you can do to bring about a positive change!

5. Establish communications with those in and out of the country and share ideas, projects etc.

Ethiopia - Disorganized, demoralized and disillusioned Diaspora

By Golto Aila

Published on April 1, 2008

Those who lived through the brutalities of the current and former oppressive regimes of Ethiopia will definitely have experienced it, and those who have lived in the West long enough to follow the news of those who have lived through the bloodshed of the Middle-Eastern wars are familiar with the term post-traumatic syndrome, but how many of us actually think this syndrome (which can have a devastating and lasting psychological impact on an individual) may be afflicting us! I am not a psychologist, but would certainly appreciate the input from a psychologist to help explain some of the behavior we Ethiopians, especially in the Diaspora, commonly display, and which seem to defy logic!

I have often wondered, quietly on my own, or thinking loudly in my articles, why we refuse to come together and stand united to, at least, honestly confront ourselves in pursuit of answers as to what is the reason for this very serious shortcoming!

If one observes a herd of buffalos from a safe distance, one observes all sorts of activities include fights between the bulls and these can be ferocious and may end up fatally wounding a participant! But when an outside intruder appears on the scene, either the herd stampedes away or turns to fight the intruder. It would be rear to witness a continued fight between the bulls in such a situation. One would observe a similar behavior in a pride of lions and other social animals! In a human environment this basic survival instinct exists, and the level of sophistication in the interpretation of the threat and subsequent defense needed against the threat are, of course, different depending on the prevailing circumstances.

So why such a consistent aberration when it comes to us, Ethiopians? The various dictators have disowned us, displaced us, taken away our freedom of speech, jailed us, tortured us, raped our women, killed our beloved ones, raped our Motherland, and even dismembered our motherland! Any humiliation one can think of has been perpetrated against our people in the most perverse and inhuman way possible! Yet we appear to be completely paralyzed in the face of all this! Why?

Consider the circumstances of most Ethiopians in the Diaspora:

1. The condition that led you leave Ethiopia: Lack of freedom; fear of arrest; arrest torture and imprisonment; killing of a beloved one; lack of the wherewithal to look after yourself or your beloved ones, etc.

2. The method of your flight from your country: walking through forests and deserts and across dangerous borders. In peril of being attacked by wild animals and in danger of dying due to starvation and thirst, while terrified of being spotted by the defenders of the regime – who would, most likely, kill you without even an interrogation or after sadistic torture!

3. Encounters outside your beloved motherland: Humiliation by the forces in the country of refuge - abuse, rape, murder, begging, and exiting from there by means no less perilous than the you used when you left your Motherland.

4. You somehow survive all the perils and obstacles that were thrown in your paths and arrive at your destination – the place you will call “home away from home”! At your arrival, tired and haggard as you may be, there is the inevitable sense of exhilaration and accomplishment, a well deserved self congratulation, and the very necessary sense of relief, until the following day, when you wake up to the necessary evil of learning to cope in your new “home away from home! As you go through this phase, you often ask yourself “why in the world did I put myself through all this and come to this horrible country”! This question has led to many suicides, many sufferings. Mercifully, the majority have found their feet in their “new home”! Many have taken all these in their strides and excelled. Today there are Ethiopian professors throughout the world, (many in the West), successful entrepreneurs, and so on and so forth!

Unfortunately, whether one perished in one’s flight from the Motherland or made it in the “new home”, the experience takes its toll, and in our case it has been devastating! Devastating because whether we are at the top of our game or scraping the bottom of the barrel in our “new home” we seem to have lost a lot on the way:

1. As a people we seem to have failed to use our communal survival instinct!

2. We seem to have lost the capacity to come together for a common purpose, while seemingly appreciating the necessity and even the urgency to do so!

3. The individual successes we have achieved in our “new home away from home” seem to have instilled a quixotic sense of independence and pride in ourselves!

4. We are suspicious of any other Ethiopian who has a different view from us or even similar views, if he/she happens to hail from a different back ground!

5. We have totally lost respect for each other

6. We don’t tolerate each other.

7. We are perpetually in denial! Denial that we may be wrong; that our enemies may be right; that our Motherland is in a perilously unstable state; that we desperately need to do something to avert a looming catastrophe!

In the game of survival, people of different cultures and backgrounds, or even enemies, come together to fight against a common threat, be it natural or man-made! It is incomprehensible that a Tigrean who ran away from Ethiopia to save his life from the current regime back home, comes to America only to find an enemy in an Amhara who ran away from home and came here because of the same reason! It is the lowest, in terms of human values, that an Ethiopian in America gets help from a white American and an insult from a fellow Ethiopian! But what is the reason for this shameful and abominable behavior!

I don’t know the answer for sure, but I suspect a life full of trauma while growing up, torture in the hands of a government that is supposed to protect us, the trials and tribulation of crossing a dangerous border on foot in near starvation state, humiliation in the transit nation and the challenges in our “new home away from home” have inevitably turned us into people we were not, when we were happily growing up or running about our affairs in the tranquillity of our communities, in our motherland! What do I mean?

1. If you were a young boy whose family had to run away under the circumstances I described, you would hate Ethiopia because your memories are filled with pain and fear. That childhood traumatic experience sticks with you for the rest of your life. A caring and responsible family can be helpful in that situation, but as human, bearing the scar of torment and fear at your tender age it is natural to banish the thought of your Motherland out of your mind, because it equates to suffering!

2. If you were a member of a political movement during the early Derg era, you would have had opponents from other organizations with whom you had a bitter relationship that may have led to clashes and loss of lives. Today, you would blame the suffering of those days and the sorry state of Ethiopia today on that organization. Because of the errors of those days, which led to your suffering and a brush with death, you see yourself to have survived, no thanks to your opponents – whom you now consider your eternal enemies. Incidentally even your opponent has similar views about you! You don’t accept any fault and apportion all the blames to your opponents and they in turn do the same to you. There is no convergence – hate and recrimination in perpetuity!

3. If you are an entrepreneur: The current regime or the Derg regime took away your livelihood, locked you up on a trumped up charge of one thing or another. Eventually you make it out of your motherland in one of the ways I described above. Somehow you make it here, using the talents God gave you! You now want revenge against the regime that stripped you of everything you had. You would go as far as hurting any Tigrean or anybody related to the Derg regime, just because of some remote association with your tomentors!

4. If you were a government official in the Derg: You may have been engaged in the Derg atrocities against innocent people or you may have helped people against the Derg – that is, you used your office to protect innocent people against injustices practiced by your administration. Today you are a pariah – nobody will care to understand your circumstances – everybody is painted with the same broad brush!

5. If you were a government official in the Woyane administration at some point, there doesn’t seem to be an opportunity for you to rehabilitate yourself or even explain what risks you may have taken to protect innocent people. You are afraid for your life and people will be suspicious of your wherever you go!

6. If you are an Amhara: You may hate the Tigrean compatriots because of what the current government is doing to Amharas, irrespective of whether that individual had anything to do with the current regime!

7. If you are a Tigrean: You are suspicious of Amharas and others who are suffering under the yoke of tyranny, not because of your support of the current administration, but because you assume (and you are right more often than not) these other ethnic groups would consider you a sympathizer of the current regime and identify you with it.

8. If you oppose the Woyane regime: You are in mortal danger especially if you are considered as serious threat to their survival! You would, therefore, be very fearful of any Tigrean or anybody who has ever been associated with the Woyane!

9. If you are an Oromo: You are likely to consider Amhara, Tigreans and everybody else to be against you because of the suffering through ages and under various administrations. Your suffering and your circumstances of today are all attributed to the inhuman treatment, real or imagined, suffered in the hands of these entities!

All these experiences are etched in the hearts and minds of these survivors and the bitterness is retained in perpetuity. But every now and then things happen that briefly take your mind away from your own terrible experiences of the past and face the realities of today, such as:

1. The abject poverty of our compatriots at home!

2. Starvation in Ethiopia

3. Political unrest in Ethiopia

4. Lack of security and perpetual fear under the current regime

5. Blatant abuse of power and killing of innocent people, etc!

The outrage temporarily makes you forget your own experience and bitterness. You set out demanding redress - removal of the dictatorial regime in Ethiopia! As you travel down that path, you realize that you are heading toward reconciliation with your old enemies in order to effectively counter the current regime, something you cannot stomach! You have psychological barrier, and you don’t know how to overcome it or even may have no intention of overcoming it! Suffice that you have appeared at some protest meetings, participated in a few demonstrations, and also contributed towards some cause! Your conscious is now clear, you have done your best and the rest is in the hands of God and ?America! The plight of Ethiopia continues, the suffering of your people continues, and in spite of all the effort to wring your hands off the problem facing Ethiopia, your guilt conscience also continues, until another cycle of atrocities! And so it goes on and on and on!

The world knows Ethiopians as decent people, as hard working people, as conscientious people and as intelligent people. The world is right about us because all those things are true! But how come we are completely paralyzed when it comes to making a united stand against injustice perpetrated decade after decade against our Motherland and our people? To me the answer seems to lie in our failure to:

1. Separate our individual pain from the pain our motherland is suffering today.

2. Separate the errors of organizations from its individual members

3. Appreciate that given the right opportunity people are capable and are willing to admit to their errors and make amends!

4. Our inability to let the by gone be by gone

5. Our failure to confront ourselves and accept at least part of the responsibility for what went wrong

6. Our utter lack of appreciation that we can make the best of friends out of our former enemies

7. Our failure to give ourselves a second chance to study a situation with the view of finding a positive resolution

8. Our unhealthy attitude of self confidence and defiance emanating from our ability to survive against all odds to reach where we have, forgetting that we achieved what we have with the help of others. Such unhealthy attitude adds to our false perceptions that we don’t need each other!

9. Our strange pride in the ability to hate our perceived enemies more than our enemy has the capacity to hate!

Even as we live among the Western societies and use their principles of reconciliation and civility to survive here, we have failed to apply the same principles for the betterment of our people! We have allowed ourselves to be stunted and frozen in a primitive mindset that the best way to deal with people you disagree with, is to excommunicate them, hate them and pretend they don’t exist. This has led to our failure to execute the most elementary measure of coming together to address the problems that afflict each one of us today!

Notwithstanding our claims and appearances to the contrary, we all hang our heads in shame for the abject failure to respond to the call of duty, to help our Motherland and our people! As the days, weeks, months and years go by our people are descending into sub-human levels of existence, and we have failed to stand up for them, instead we perpetually engage in irrelevances to take our minds off the problems we can prevent today, instead of waiting for another disaster to strike, to which we respond with our ritual of wailing outside the seats of power in the West!

Once again, I appeal to you to use the tool we introduced recently – Solidarity Forum of Ethiopia, so that we can all learn to talk with each other, appreciate each other, and do something meaningful for our Motherland – however little, we owe that to ourselves! The cause of our Motherland and our people should help us see beyond the grudge we hold against each other – forgiveness and understanding are higher principles than revenge any day, anywhere! We shall all be a better people if we paid hate with love; neglect with caring; lack of civility with civility, irresponsible behavior with responsible conduct! We must all try to turn enemies into friends – that is the real triumph, not an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth!