Becoming Victims of a Single Fictional Narrative (part 1)
I love my birthplace, Addis Ababa, my village, my town, and my country. How can I not? And I believe so do every Ethiopian. We all feel attached to the people, the culture, languages, the land, the weather, food, and all our belongings we grew up with.
Ethiopia, as most African countries, is large and has many people living in the south, north, west, and east. Just to give you a pictorial comparison, the eastern part of Ethiopia alone is equivalent to the whole of France. As huge nation as we are, we have rich and diversified cultures, languages, and resources.
Nevertheless, the generations were constantly told to believe a single fictional narrative about themselves – that they are “poor”, “uncivilized”, and “backwards” or “liquid” (a terminology the westerners coined to describe the third world, as opposed to theirs -“solid” countries:)
And now we know that there's no such thing as ‘solid’ versus ‘liquid’ countries. In fact, we are all living in liquid times, thanks to COVID19 that proved this fact. The renowned Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman told us of the current era, saying “We are all going to be walking on moving sands”. He meant that there's nothing as such as one single country or group of certain people living securely. We all travel on the same ship.
Despite many positive and negative scenarios the country has undergone over the years, Ethiopia has remained intact and never discussed with any other nation about her sovereignty amidst a lot of difficulties. Territorial integrity is not something to be compromised with any force on earth.
However, westerners employed another tool as a major influence to subjugate African countries in the post-colonial era. Sadly, Ethiopia wasn’t exempted from this. Although not colonized by the white powerful foreign nations previously (as all other African countries), we couldn’t escape from being victims of their cultural invasion. The westerners have literally dumped everything upon us in the name of financial aid, education and development; their cultural invasion was unstoppable decades after decades. We became victims of a single fictional narrative.
By the way, there are other emerging and possibly futuristic giant forces, like China, who are ready standing just by our doors like a beast waiting for its prey in hiding. They may also try to ooze, at least, just the same as the postcolonial westerners, if not more unless they’re limited in their economic involvements.
Mind you, all these subtle postcolonial strategies are conducted in the form of free trade, non-interest development loan, investment aid, etc. and in pretext to “helping out” the poor people in our continent.
Side by side with the above mentioned concocted single fictional narrative, which we were told to believe, was another one narrated in their history books they wrote for our consumption – “that one tribe/race was dominant over the other and suppressed all the others in the country for years”. This was a single fake theme that dominated in the history as well as western travel books found in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and elsewhere in Africa. The intention of this narrative was one - to divide the local people, make them vulnerable forever. Hence, African governments would always crumble and become economically dependent on western support. That was the goal of this single fake narrative. And it has worked for long.
Slowly in the past, these forged history books and travel writings served as references for those local political pundits, who mostly disseminate the western education without research and academic analysis to their people. These so-called elites started reflecting these forged fictions in the African nations when they came back from abroad. Upon their return to their respected countries, in collaboration with these few local bandits, disseminate these counterfeit, especially to the university students which were easy prey to incite hatred among each other. That single fictional narrative that started spreading from their fabricated history books, gotten into classroom education references, children story books, especially, in the last 3 decades.
Following suit, the regional activists and politicians impart the same hate-mongering rhetoric in the minds of the locals (especially, the youth), widening the long tying-bond among the same citizens who live in different locations within the same country. These attempts gradually made the locals to believe as if the same fellowmen belong to a different country, culture, and living conditions. The result, well, is what you see these days - conflict among races, regions, killings of brotherly and sisterly people in villages and not even willing to hear out one another for mutual understanding.
To put gas into the already started flames, social media and social networking advanced these sentiments further, amplifying and polarizing them so that this single bogus tale could travel around the country and far beyond quite swiftly, resulting in today’s era of anxiety, anger, distrust, resentment, and lots of fear.
What’s astounding now could be the answer we give to the following questions:
· Should we continue fighting with each other knowing the real cause of our fighting is not what we are told by our political pundits?
· Why couldn’t Africans wake up from their deep sleep and be aware of this trap the developed nations have long put in our midst to divide and rule?
· Why do Africans become blind to figure out that the developed nations came to take our resources in the form of economic support - the resources that should have been used to promote the wellbeing of African citizens?
· When do Africans as a whole learn that all these were deliberately enrooted to divide them?
· When do Africans stand together to see the real value of their worth and work hard, excel and act to end the ongoing hatred and conflict among the different tribes and races, brothers against their own fellow citizens and for once show the westerners we are wise?
(to be continued)
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