Posts

Showing posts from March, 2021

Becoming Victims of a Single Fictional Narrative (part 2)

Ethiopians as well as other African countries have numerous genuine but untold stories of the past that emanate from their historical roots and values - rich cultures, different languages, vast local wisdoms, close upbringings and unity, pride in their black color, great flavors, the fertile lands and other natural resources. These are great blessings to us and are very proud of them. Well, we cannot finish retelling them here in this short article. But these stories were not properly passed on to the generations in their original forms. Not because they were vast, but because they were meant to tie Africans with one another and become difficult to exploit their resources by westerners if presented in a genuine way. So sad that these stories were untold to the present youth in their upbringing as children (at least in their original versions) that all conflicts we are seeing now became the results of them. These youth (I'm referring to) comprises 70% of the current African popu

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 t