I have this vision of a peaceful and serene Ethiopia once in a blue moon when I am at my jaded moments with my community. This vision I have is one of eleven children with empty bellies but eyes full of hope. This vision that captivates me is of these eleven children who have are poverty stricken who refuse to be sickened with hopelessness. Thus, they tie up 40 dirty kalsis full of holes and form a soccer ball full of hope. These same children use their dingy t-shirts handed down to them by people of good charity as goal posts. They then play Qwas—their imagination running faster than their feet by barely a whisper—and they whisper sweet tunes of competition interlaced with friendship and fiker.
Grant it, this vision is a fleeting dream most of the time—I wake up to a nightmare of a reality where my community is divided by politics and torn asunder by ethnic expectionalism. But I refuse to accept this as the eternal reality for my motherland and my people; I expect more from us—I expect us to act with the friendship and fiker of those very same bole lijoch who don’t see politics and ethnic differences as they play Qwas on a field where dirt and mud is home to their dreams. How is it that we—as adults—act more childish then children? How is it that our offspring give birth to hope while we stare at each other with shovels in hand digging mass graves to bury the very emnet of our our children? … [read more]
9 thoughts on “Qwas”
If you try NOT to dictate but to understand, most of your concern will go away. People become tyrants and dictators because they think people should listen to them and follow their vision.
It is better to do research, understand why people act a certain way, make scientific attempts at a solution. Otherwise, the more you try to make people follow your vision, the more you are going to get frustrated.
this is a good article Ted.
What is the point of crying and moaning about communities and localities being divided along political and ethnic lines because natural pluralism brings diversities and innovations along democratic lines. Even in Europe, the USA and other advanced countries societies and communities are divided along political lines in order to better serve their communities and constituents who elected them to office. Only in tyrannical societies pluralistic democratic healthy political competitions are missing. If it were not for the democratic political pluralism even Brother President Barack Obama might have still been playing the magic Qwas and wouldn’t have been in the place where he is now. All what one needs to wish is for positive and democratic political pluralism based on the principle of, “from the people for the people by the people” democratic constitutional “Qwas” social contract.
Even during the reign of King Hailee Selassies I rule
Oromos, Tigrians and other Ethnic groups were herded to the Mesqel square every single holiday events, then infiltrated by the king’s plain cloth security agents known as the CID who divided the celebrating innocent citizens and provoked them along ethnic lines to fight and break each others’ heads as well as blinding each others eyes.
Teddy Fikre,
Image-googling your name resulted in collage collections that included a bleached-faced Meles Zenawi; it is apparent that you are an admirer or supporter of the current Ethiopian leader specially given your ignorant blame and aversion toward the Emperor in your last articles on Miqegenet and the previous one, on self-dillema. As soon as you start attacking a great king, you’ll automatically lose a large segment hands down especially the older genration who know better. The online magazine, Seleda, used to feature articles like yours and while it was fun reading it for its entertainment, it could not have been accepted as a serious magazine for serious times like ours. The shot you took at Haile Selassie was a cheap one (in one of your pictures, you look like Dereck Fisher of the OKC Thunders). So while freely and more and more consuming a lot of space lately on ER, please refrain from confusing an already confused readers by penning irresponsible, unverified and unresearched articles.
–Eugenics, Past and Future – By ROSS DOUTHAT, June 9th, 2012; NYT.
Look how one destitute wanted to gain access and instigate murder. he wanted anonymous to post Hailu is Desitute, so he can divert taxpayers’ dollar through his own destitute ring of enslavement, bondage, false claims and critique. God destroy that ring of Northern Voo Doo and fearless showmanship which is 478 yerars old tradition of organized scandal., and setup. Yegi’r esat? Enen ete’?
“CENTER FOE EXCELLENCE” Vs. The Howard Hodal Beelaas; and BEELLEESSOOMMAAs lie and job racketeering, is the result= CENTER OF EXCELLENCE.
Sintoon bela’w affer’?
Like his Ethiopian counterpart, it turns out, Syria’s President is fond of Western P.R (public relations). While Meles Zenawi spends at least ($50,000 X 12 Months = $600,000 annually) for image cultivation with DLA Piper Global Law Firm, Bashar al-Assad, it was revealed, spends on his image no less. The Alawites and the Bashar dynasty for decades have been controlling Syria, and in a twisted turn of events, thousands of miles away, similar folks take power under similar circumstances, but the end of one means the end of the other.
June 10, 2012
Syria’s Assads Turned to West for Glossy P.R.
By BILL CARTER and AMY CHOZICK
For some journalists, Syria has been one of the least hospitable countries in the Middle East, a place where reporters — if they can get in — are routinely harassed and threatened as they try to uncover the repression that has propped up the Assad government for decades. For other journalists, Syria has until recently been a country led by the cultivated, English-speaking President Bashar al-Assad who, along with his beautiful British-born wife, Asma, was helping usher in a new era of openness and prosperity. That second impression is no accident. With the help of high-priced public relations advisers who had worked in the Clinton, Bush and Thatcher administrations, the president and his family have sought over the past five years to portray themselves in the Western media as accessible, progressive and even glamorous. Magazines and online outlets have published complimentary features about the family, often focusing on fashion and celebrity. In March 2011, just as Mr. Assad and his security forces initiated a brutal crackdown on political opponents that has led to the death of an estimated 10,000 Syrians, Vogue magazine ran a flattering profile of the first lady, describing her as walking “a determined swath cut through space with a flash of red soles,” a reference to her Christian Louboutin heels. Fawning treatment of world leaders — particularly attractive Western-educated ones — is nothing new. But the Assads have been especially determined to burnish their image, and hired experts to do so. The family paid the Washington public relations firm Brown Lloyd James $5,000 a month to act as a liaison between Vogue and the first lady, according to the firm. This web of politics and public relations ensnared Barbara Walters recently. After she conducted an aggressive interview with Mr. Assad on ABC News in December, she offered to provide recommendations for Sheherazad Jaafari, the president’s press aide and the daughter of the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, who was applying for a job at CNN and admission to Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Ms. Walters issued a statement on Tuesday expressing regret for her actions, which she called “a conflict.” Ms. Jaafari, 22, who has been accepted by Columbia, had worked as an intern at Brown Lloyd James. Last year, she expressed her feelings about the Assad family in an e-mail to Mike Holtzman, a partner at the firm who, according to his online profile, advised the Clinton administration on trade issues and worked in the State Department during the Bush administration. “I have always told you — this man is loved by his people,” Ms. Jaafari wrote in the e-mail, which was obtained by the British newspaper The Guardian. Mr. Holtzman replied: “I’m proud of you. Wish I were there to help.” Mr. Holtzman did not respond to numerous requests for comment. The Assads were in many ways ripe for celebrity treatment by the news media. The president, who was trained as an ophthalmologist, received part of his education in Britain, where he met his wife, a Briton of Syrian descent who grew up in London and worked as an investment banker in New York. Andrew Tabler, a Syrian expert with the Institute for Middle Eastern Studies in Washington who once worked for a charity sponsored by Mrs. Assad, summed up the appeal the Assads had for some news outlets: “He speaks English, and his wife is hot.” The campaign to make the ruling family the face of a more Westernized and open Syria began in 2006, when Mrs. Assad approached the public relations firm Bell Pottinger in London. Tim Bell, a co-founder of the firm and a former media adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said Mrs. Assad contacted the firm after several first ladies, including Laura Bush, began to hold annual meetings and conferences. “She wanted to be a part of that club,” he said in a phone interview. Bell Pottinger did not set up interviews for Mrs. Assad directly, but advised her on how to set up a communications office in Damascus to help shape her image. A few years later, positive articles began to appear. Paris Match called Mrs. Assad an “element of light in a country full of shadow zones” and the “eastern Diana.” French Elle counted her among the best-dressed women in world politics, and in 2009, The Huffington Post published an article and fashion slide show titled “Asma al-Assad: Syria’s First Lady and All-Natural Beauty.” “She responded beautifully, because she speaks well and is beautiful,” said the Italian writer Gaia Servadio, who worked for Mrs. Assad in Damascus. She added that Mrs. Assad hoped the coverage would deflect some of the negative attention her country had received. None of the articles about Mrs. Assad struck a nerve quite like the 3,200-word March 2011 profile in Vogue titled “A Rose in the Desert.” In it, the writer, Joan Juliet Buck, called Mrs. Assad “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.” In a phone interview, Ms. Buck said that shortly after the profile was published, she began “steadily speaking out against the Assad regime,” including in an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN and elsewhere. In April, on National Public Radio, Ms. Buck said she regretted the headline that Vogue put on the article. But she said Mrs. Assad was “extremely thin and very well-dressed, and therefore qualified to be in Vogue.” This spring, the magazine removed the article from its Web site. On Sunday, Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, issued a statement about the article saying, in part: “Like many at that time, we were hopeful that the Assad regime would be open to a more progressive society. Subsequent to our interview, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue. The escalating atrocities in Syria are unconscionable and we deplore the actions of the Assad regime in the strongest possible terms.” Even among the world’s most repressive governments, Syria stands out in its treatment of journalists. The only way for many reporters to cover news emerging from the bloody crackdown on dissidents is to sneak into the country — often putting their lives at risk. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 13 reporters have been killed in Syria since November, including Marie Colvin, a veteran war correspondent from Long Island. (Anthony Shadid of The New York Times died of an asthma attack during a clandestine reporting trip to Syria.) Syrian officials have denied targeting journalists, but state media outlets have said that foreign reporters killed in Syria “must be spies or have links to terrorist organizations.” Ms. Walters, who has a lifetime of experience chasing and winning interviews with world leaders, said she spent six years establishing a relationship with the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, including once dining at his home. The connection eventually paid off. “Assad decided he would do an interview; according to the ambassador, he had requests from all over the world,” Ms. Walters said in a telephone interview last week. “And he chose to do it with me, based on the recommendation of the ambassador, and also because I had been to Syria twice before and knew something of its background and history.” Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said this kind of interview is highly sought after. “In a strange way, political leaders, presidents and prime ministers who are highly repressive and restrictive are good ‘gets’ for these types of interviews, precisely because there’s no fair media coverage in their countries,” he said. Ms. Walters’ interview, broadcast in December, made worldwide news, with Mr. Assad issuing claims that he was not responsible for the Syrian military and that people were not being killed by his government. Ms. Walters said, “I went to Syria and conducted what was a very tough and strong interview that President Assad did not like.” But her offer of help to the ambassador’s daughter has cast a shadow on that interview. Two people close to Ms. Walters said she had reacted to a plea from Ms. Jaafari for help because Ms. Jaafari was being removed from her position as a media adviser to the Syrian president. Mr. Tabler said that he didn’t “find it surprising what Walters did for her.” The issue, he said, was the timing. “At that point, how many had been killed — 7,000?” he said. “This is an attractive young woman, and she speaks English. Maybe you help her with an introduction. To get beyond that is a little difficult to swallow.”
Zefenachen leqso, Deramachn leqso, Tsehufachn leqso: Rehab, Kedada Kwas, Bututo, Ferefari, menamen menamen menamen… Gobez yehen dehenetachen meche tefan, Deham eko chegerun lemersat andande yezefnal.
Guys hold it on for a moment and cheer-up on whatever we have now. I am tired of listening and reading agonizing Ethiopian Songs and Articles.This one is yet not different from “Asleqash”.
Collision of FRESH ideas sharpen the archaic and dull Ethiopian mind. Don’t PANIC.
Please press on. Fikre is FRESH. Be tolerant and and answer him equally with respect.
NEW ETHIOPIA WILL PREVAIL!!!! Amen
In history, perpetration made many inept criminals, so very highly respected and rich. If perpetration and bully, were not created, and cyber-crime/bully/perpetration, never gave million per shot, the world could be more worst place. I love it.
For Excellence and aganis excellence, she killed twenty by rope, twenty by interpreters, and twenty by plagiarism bondage.