Akkambulte

African children are human, not objects of fashion trend

2006-10-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

It seems like everyone is caught up in it. After all, it can't hurt those who do it and it can only help depict a positive, angel like image of you to the public. Especially if a person needs such image fixation badly and ASAP.

That person of the month, worthy of this image renovation is our famous "Queen of Pop" Madonna. Known for her outrageous but entertaining performances on stage, she still can't seem to rescue herself out of transgression. Of course, she does not need anyone saving her anymore since she has made herself the savior of the world. But hey, for those who still doubt her greatness & grandeur after her brave crucifixion performances, she saved her best for last by adopting a helpless Malawian baby. That is, a baby unable to save herself from a life long humiliation and isolation in exchange for eating more food.

Sure Madonna needed it badly. She has just finished a world wide tour of offending and degrading the religion of more than 2 billion people. By insulting Jesus Christ, she might have lost about 1/3rd of her fans. But she probably gained most of it back since what she did was the ultimate delight of Atheists of western nations, who make up more than 15% of their nations' population. Can we still call this the anti-crusade tour? Well, something like that. The difference is Jesus is also a respected & prized figure for another 1.1 billion of the world population of Islam. Few might argue that Muslims respect Christ more than Christians, but nobody can question how angry they get and how personal Muslims take it when their prophet Jesus Christ is insulted.

There is a saying “keeping up with the Jones.” I guess that can be changed to “keeping up with Jolie’s” since it seems adopting a helpless African baby is a new fashion trend for infamous celebrities and their likes. Just like Angelina Jolie, who also managed to get herself out of a deep hole the same way, Madonna just had to do it too. Especially when rumors that she adopted a baby spread out before she even decided to actually do it, she had no other choice. As the Americans say, she was stuck. But she does have millions and millions of dollars that it would seem to cost her almost nothing to raise one African baby. But who is counting? Forget about the baby's lifelong embarrassment for a second; is it an overstatement to say that she embarrassed a whole nation by doing this? Case in point, I have traveled many cities in America and met about five Ethiopians every week or so. But if you are an American, you wouldn't know you met an Ethiopian if you don't have the supernatural ability to detect an Ethiopian when you see one, like I do of course. They simply would lie to you and deny they are Ethiopians. The funniest moment I can recall was when I once asked an Ethiopian woman if she was from a certain town in Ethiopia by using one of our Ethiopian languages. Completely forgetting that I spoke to her in her own language, she replied to me in English saying "no, I am not Ethiopian, I am from Kenya." I was wondering how in the world she knew what I asked her if she wasn’t Ethiopian. Also one has to wonder how the woman concluded Kenya was better than Ethiopia since both are developing countries and equal in many ways. Somehow she found that being labeled Ethiopian is too embarrassing to admit.

Just embarrassing a nation or its people isn’t a small issue. It is not just an issue of an individual's pride being harmed. Especially if you are an Ethiopian, you sure know you have a lot of pride to begin with. After all, your country managed to defeat European colonization efforts two times. And it managed to defeat three other invasion attempts from non-European countries. Most of these occasions, your Ethiopian ancestors were using sticks to kill foreign invaders who attacked using guns. Even if you are a non-Ethiopian African, you still managed to free yourself after many years of being colonized by the likes of the British, French, and Italians etc.

Clearly, the road after the end of European colonization of Africa has been a rocky one for Africa. Adding to that have been the foreign policies of powerful nations that helps keep Africa poor and dependant. No magic here folks, and no supernatural ability is needed to see this one. We are clearly being colonized in a different but more destructive and venomous way. One can take a responsibility for his actions if no one else is influencing or affecting his actions. How can that person then be responsible for the actions that others are doing? Well for the confused Africans, it might appear like an invisible colonizer if you ask me. So with the internal economic crisis being created by foreign involvements, one of the only good things left for the new generation Africans, which is pride & nationalism, is now also being erased. The amount this humiliation harms the ability of the African countries to ignore yet another problem and come together as one, proud people remains to be analyzed. But we can be sure it is not helping us. For instance in Ethiopia, on one side, more and more ethnic groups try to separate themselves from the degrading label of being 'Ethiopian', on the other side Foreign Aid agencies spend 8 dollars of each 10 dollars they promise, for themselves (in return Africa gets to have puppet governments of course); while on the other side Western trade barriers and corrupt policies continue to destroy Ethiopian and African economies.

So how much is Madonna paying her publicist? He or she doesn't seem to have much creativity or sensitivity. A likely scenario, “Dear Madonna, you have made me one of the richest publicists on earth, but me and many others are having an ethical issue here. I just had a chat with my Angelina counterpart and she suggested that you should just adopt one of those African babies. Just do 'ene mine mo' and pick one baby- they are all impoverished. That should shut up your Christian critics, make you look compassionate, and oh I also got a phone call from CWA, DOVE adoptions, Inc. and Help the Children."

Making the case for a new Ethiopian foreign policy against the DV lottery/ immigration exodus.

2006-10-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

Why isn’t America drastically raising taxes for its rich or wealthy? After all, the gap between the poor and the rich has been increasing steadily. Even though democrats and republicans always disagree on the exact amount of tax burden to put on rich Americans, we can all trust the republicans not to drastically raise the tax on the 100G plus club and on small business owners for another millennium or so. The same goes with democrats. Actually such policy is simply un-American. Clearly, people are attracted by the endless opportunities found in America. And when one says endless that doesn’t mean just positions or types of jobs, but the amount of $$$, ching ching, or capital, dough or whatever they call it these days. No wonder the American billionaire Bill Gates can wake up tomorrow morning and choose to do a little “country shopping.” For Christ’s sake, this man can afford to buy Eritrea, Djibouti and Kenya combined! Maybe drop a couple of Islands on that.

Of course, Mr. Gates is mostly untouchable even for the filthy rich Americans. He is like a living legend. But the typical Americans have their Donald Trumps, their ball players and their big company owners to aim for as a measuring stick and a role model. Countries must have their Donald Trumps so that their citizens can fancy about such big fortunes and strive for success in the free market. This is the hidden message of the “endless opportunities” in America. Having ridiculously rich people to look up to is a must for capitalism to succeed. So folks, who are the Donald Trumps of Ethiopia? If you answered Sheik Alamoudi, please raise your hand up, point your fingers straight 45 degree from the ground, aiming directly at your face & moving at high speed…well you know what to do from there.... Translation: - there is NO group like that in Ethiopia! Alamoudi is Ethiopia’s Bill Gates not Ethiopia’s Donald Trump or the typical celebrity in Hollywood. Sadly we don’t have the Donald trumps. Heck, we won't even have 1/5 of our university students in Ethiopia by the end of every year. They leave the country through DV, student visa etc. Do you think it is our farmers, the uneducated ones and peasants going on the internet and applying daily to get the hell out of Ethiopia? Don't be mistaken. They are our educated and workforce that are leaving our country. Not to mention losing one fifth of Ethiopia’s most prominent professionals, doctors and professors to immigration and foreign employment. Doesn’t this just suck? We are fighting against an uncompromising force of brain drain. We are fighting a lost battle, perhaps not a lost war yet. Education is no joke. It is one of the main important factors needed for both economic prosperity and the democratization of a nation.

Not Meles Zenawi, CUD or OPDO nor OLF neither UEDF can do anything to stop this brain drain problem. Most likely, when Meles leaves and our government changes the D.C. Ethiopians will be marching in front of the White House against the next government once again. Actually since TPLF took power more than a hundred new secondary schools and various colleges have been opened. But such development is not anywhere good enough to challenge the brain drain crisis. It is useless.

For the sake of a complete argument, forget about thousands of students and educated Ethiopians leaving the country. Forget about hundreds more leaving to Kenya illegally and thousands more leaving to Arab countries, Australia and Europe. Folks there are approximately half a million applications made by highly educated Ethiopians anticipating (yearning!) to get into Europe and America. And most get rejected. But hey, that won't stop them, they know more about the US state department website than their local job listings. You might say, “Ethiopia has 74 million people, so doesn't half million people leaving, in the process of leaving and trying to leave Ethiopia an insignificant amount to worry about? Wrong! Ethiopia has one of the lowest literacy percentages in the world. That makes every single migrating educated & literate Ethiopian a huge loss and a stab in Ethiopia's wound. And basic mathematics tells us that this low percentile will stay very low even if hundred more schools are opened every year. With numerous students and highly educated Ethiopians willingly leaving the country, we will remain a backward nation for many more years. The children and students in Ethiopia are thought to and programmed to come to America or die trying. America is paradise to them. It would have been less disastrous if those Ethiopians who leave their country give back frequently. Isn't it funny when the same Ethiopians who were picky & too proud to do the dirty work in their homeland all of the sudden start driving taxis, bend down & get dirty cleaning bathrooms in America? This always amazes me, but it’s a different topic which i might discuss in the future. For now consider this; even if they did give back to Ethiopia, unless they send 25% or more of their income back to Ethiopia, it is all useless. Currently forget about 25%, let us try even 2%. Even that would be hard because diaspora Ethiopians are one of the lowest contributers to their homeland in the world.

Still what Ethiopia lost can never get replaced by a couple of hundred dollars any Ethiopian in America or in Europe sends to help his/her parents, siblings etc.

It was those who left that were supposed to build Ethiopia’s economy.

It was those who left that were educated enough to commence our infrastructure.
After the end of the “Red Terror”, it was those who still kept leaving that were supposed to lift Ethiopia on their shoulders.

But sadly, none of that has happened yet. And it doesn't seem like it will happen any time soon. That is unless Ethiopia changes its policy. I believe that it MUST change its policy.
What if all our students, professionals, scholars and business men mostly stayed in Ethiopia? I mean if one hundred or so Ethiopians left to America, that is not a big problem. The problems starts when more than 6,000 educated Ethiopians leave via DV lottery every year, hundreds more via doctoral & other professional work, thousands more via voluntarily as refugees, thousands more through working visa to Arab and other nations and almost a million more educated Ethiopians waiting, yearning to go out of Ethiopia instead of tackling the problem. It is a pity but comical how these people would scorn & look down upon a secretary job in Ethiopia, but happily wipe the shit off American restrooms!

So what if everyone ignored politics and just worked hard to make Ethiopia economically stable? That would solve the economy problem and set a strong foundation for democracy. A British scholar once said "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."
To say that 70% of Ethiopians are politicians is an understatement. And history tells us that there is no successful country with that amount of politicians in it. We need statesmen, hardworkers. At this time in Ethiopia's history, we need less people who sacrifice themselves to put their likes on top to bring justice. The chances are when these people get on top they will forget what justice meant and forget how injustice felt. So we need people who sacrifice themselves to feed the underprivileged and the privileged equally, so that everyone becomes too fat to find the need to oppress others. A full stomach can keep everyone around the table & away from the rifle.

Observing the domestic politics, how can we accuse the Ethiopians “left behind” of blowing with the wind of propaganda? With their stomach empty and with an uneducated majority, you can make up a story this exact second and tell a bystander in Jimma, "hey, your brother made you this poor, you should do something about that." Then the next minute, the bystander would go home and revenge his brother. My college teacher 5 years ago said, "Sometimes the real struggle might not be between justice and injustice, it is a fight between solving reality and valuing propaganda." Yet following propaganda is the new fashion in Ethiopia. That is why we have 50+ political parties, 20+ armed fronts and groups. Even if it takes them to a bottomless pit, propaganda has the ability to blind people and they won’t know it until its too late.

Still it is not just their fault. It becomes their fault once they cross out of Ethiopia’s border like us. Until then, they are left to fight our fight without us.

It wasn't too long ago. Noticing how other European and Asian countries are growing strong faster than America, a US national news journalist once asked an American scholar what America should do to solve this issue. The scholar said, “America just needs to stay smarter than everyone else as it has always been." But we all know a nation can't stay on top in this way forever. Case in point, America needs not just to outsmart others; it needs to take the smarts out of others.

Maybe it is time Ethiopia stops her's from being taken away.

http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1317.html http://www.visaforyou.org/green-card/f/50/0/ http://www.educationusa.state.gov/scholars/admissions.htm

I hate the internet but i can't get enough of it

2006-10-09T23:58:00.000-07:00

fittingly and as the title shows, thats my view about the internet. i can't get enough of the internet! i am on it atleast 2 hours a day somedays even more (kind of embarrassed b/c i feel kind of too old for this). But i also hate it because saying it has been one of the top propaganda mechanisms (esp. in ethio politics) is an huge understatement.
anyway (i forgot to say this) WELCOME to my blog! i hate to be so unoriginal but (heck) you will get the most unbiased commentary about ethiopian politics and other issues right here in - Akkam bulte! oh yes i am oromo, and i am proud of it! but don't expect to get the usual "long live OLF!!" outcry from me. i am no less tired of watching africans fighting each other than watching GW deny the iraq mess.
oh by the way i am pentay too!! yes yes as my amhara girlfriend said, i am a "menafik"...whatever that means, you are now guaranteed to get the truth and nothing but the truth...afterall, a lying pentay is not really a pentay.
now most of you are probably wondering "uh, but, but, i thought you hate the abyssinian colonizers and all that staff OLF programmed you to say, what is going on here? aren't you supposed to hate those neftengas?" blah blah blah...

my answer is yes and no. (be patient)