The demonstrators holding placards outside the Royal Court Theater in London on 16 March 1987 were made up of Ethiopians and Ras Tafarians (the sect originating in Jamaica that reveres Haile Sellasie I.) They were protesting the denigration of the deceased monarch of Ethiopia in the play, “The Emperor,” which was about to open in the 50- seat, Theater Upstairs. They warned theatergoers not to believe everything they heard in the play.
Putting historical figures and events on the stage or in film has been common since both art forms began. The question becomes “Is it good theater?” not “Is it true?” In this case it was very good theater, and played to sold-out houses.
As the historian C. Vann Woodward has said, “….Far surpassing works of history as measured by the size of their public and the influence they exert, are the novel, stage works, screen and television… From these sources millions derive…conceptions, interpretations, convictions… about the past.”
My aim here is to focus on dramatic efforts in the English-speaking and romance-language worlds whose content was inspired by Ethiopia. Ethiopian playwrights and filmmakers are not included and the ubiquitous “Queen of Sheba” genre will be slighted. Country of origin obviously colors the slant of the creative effort.
ITALY
The Italians peripherally involved in Ethiopia since the 15th century and deeply involved from 1885 onward account for many contributions. “La Figlia di Ras Alula” was presented in Milan in 1885. A romance between “Sheba” (not the name of any of Alula’s daughters) and an Italian explorer is the background against which Alula is the heartless villain and Debebe the admirable collaborator with Italy. It ends with the actual event of the ambush of 550 Italians by the forces of Ras Alula. The next year, a five-act play about a Catholic missionary in Ethiopia, “Il Seminarist in Africa” was performed and in 1890, Corazzini’s play “Pantera nera; scene Abissine.” Twenty years elapsed after the defeat of Italy at Adwa (1896) before another drama based on Ethiopia was created. It was the story of the Ethiopian converted to Catholicism, Gabra Mika’el.
After the conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-’36, Italian filmgoers saw “Il Grande Appello” which was shot entirely in Ethiopia and Djibuti. It was the story of a father, Bertani, an innkeeper and gunrunner in Djibuti, who had deserted the mother of his son, Enrico, years before. Enrico turns up as a radio operator with the Italian army in Addis Ababa. Obese, unkempt, disloyal father, Bertani, is contrasted with youthful patriot son who is wounded in an Ethiopian attack by weapons traced to Bertani’s arms sales.
“Scipione, l’Africano” won the Mussolini prize at the Italian film festival of 1937. This was an allegory comparing the Punic Wars to the war in Ethiopia, with the Carthaginians depicted as impotent aristocrats contrasted with the benevolent and dynamic Roman legions. Years later, in 1979, “Eboli,” adapted from Carlo Levi’s novel with an anti- fascist theme, showed a village lad going off to the Ethiopian war; he is singing the tune, “Facetta Nera” in which there is the verse, “I’m coming to love you, little Ethiopian girl.” Mussolini had banned this song because it implied miscegenation. A film about Father Gugliemo Massaia, important to Emperor Menilek, was made, but the print has been lost.
An Italian-French production called “Una Stagione all’Inferno” (Season in Hell) was filmed in 1970-’71, half of it in Ethiopia. It told the story of the French poet Artur Rimbaud, as an arms merchant dealing with Menilek II and Empress Taytu. Terence Stamp played Rimbaud. Mulu Mesfin played Empress Taytu, Debebe Eshetu acted Menilek, and Wogayehu Negatu was cast as Ras Mekonen – one of the rare times that Ethiopian actors were employed by foreign film makers. The film was a flop.
FRANCE
Two dramas about Emperor Tewodros were performed in France, one in 1868 and the other in 1869, both drawing on the British expedition to Magdala. Seventy years later, in December 1935, the word “Ethiopia” resounded on the French stage. At the “Festival Noir” Louis Aragon read “Ethiopia” by the American poet Langston Hughes.
GERMANY
With all the colorful German characters that have walked through Ethiopian history, it is disappointing that there is only one play on record, “Der Prinz von Abessinien,” performed in 1913.
GREAT BRITAIN
Only “The Emperor” mentioned earlier has appeared, although a million pounds was invested and lost in an effort to make a film about the 1868 Napier expedition.
UNITED STATES
In 1918 a feature film called “The Savage Woman” was made by silent film star Clara Kimball Young. A ludicrous plot unfolds involving Prince Menilek falling in love with an abandoned French girl whom he believes is “his” Queen of Sheba. He gives her up to the Frenchman who has also fallen in love with her.
The stage debut for Ethiopia opened in January 1936, “George White’s Scandals,” in its 12th year as a singing, dancing and comedic melange. The week it opened, Haile Sellasie was on the cover of Time magazine as “Man of the Year.” The hit of the show was a skit by “Sam, Ted and Ray.” “They are three Ethiopian hoofers,” Time wrote, “one of whom impersonates the emperor, singing “Boy, our country am menaced; what is we gwine do?” Negro dialect, as this was called, reflected the national perception that if Ethiopians were people of color, they talked like American “negroes.”At that time this cliche about the way American black performers talked was not recognized as offensive. A regular column in a black newspaper was written in this dialect, and one of them began, “Good mawning, Mistah Selassie.”
In rehearsal in New York at the same time was a production called “Ethiopia.” It embodied a new theatrical idea, the “Living Newspaper.” The exact words of Mussolini, Hoare, Eden, Laval and Litvinoff would be used and the play would end differently each night according to the news from the war front in Ethiopia. Suddenly, on 24 January 1936, the production was canceled. One performance was given for the press that day and at the final curtain, Elmer Rice, director of the Federal Theater Project announced his resignation in protest against censorship from Washington. He had requested a transcript of President Roosevelt’s “neutrality” address and was refused with the rebuke that the words of living heads of state could not be used on the stage. This was nonsense. The American president did not want to offend either the appeasers or the aggressors.
NBC radio presented a one-hour drama on 23 November 1938, based on the threat to the American legation in Addis Ababa in 1936. As Italian forces neared the capital, angry mobs threatened any white person who appeared on the streets. Unable to contact the nearby British legation, the Americans sent a message on short-wave radio which was picked up in the Philippines, relayed to Washington, thence to London, Cairo, and the British in Addis Ababa–within half an hour. Sikh soldiers were dispatched to the American legation. This radio play, “Messenger of Peace,” pointed out the obvious– communications are basic to the conduct of foreign affairs.
Fleeting references to Ethiopia appeared in the movie “Too Hot to Handle” when the character played by Clark Gable admits faking the burning of a hut for a newsreel of the Italian invasion; and in 1942, Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca” is portrayed as having smuggled arms to Ethiopia. Two feature films with an Ethiopian angle have been “Shaft in Africa” (1973) and “Exorcist II: the Heretic” (1977). In “Shaft” the actor Richard Roundtree helps to stop slave traders and in “Exorcist” James Earl Jones plays an Ethiopian doctor. Simulated scenes resembling Debre Damo and Lalibella were used and Ethiopians living in Los Angeles played Amharic-speaking roles, with Fiseha Demetros receiving a credit as “young monk” and as “African technical consultant.”
The television series “St. Elsewhere,” throughout 1985-’86, had a doctor character who often referred to his voluntary relief duty in Ethiopia. In March 1987, ABC offered a two hour television about a relief worker in Ethiopia, “We Are the Children.” It was marred for those knowing Amharic by having “Ethiopians” speaking Swahili.
The Ethiopian immigrant experience may become a new category. Sean Harris and Joe Englert of Washington, DC have just made “Woobie’s Geography Lesson,” an 84-minute video chronicling the adventures of “Wube” (played by Wube Assefa) as he stumbles through a series of ill- fated encounters with women, bosses and loan sharks in the Adams- Morgan area of Washington.
If, as the historian asserts, people learn more history from movies and dramas, the public still has a lot to learn about Ethiopia. Will there be a film about 20,000 orphans in a children’s village told in the style of “Boys Town”? Will the hi-jacking of a relief convoy make an Ethiopian “western”? Will the trek of an Ethiopian dissident through the Sudan make a “Great Escape”? The creative writers of films and plays may yet be inspired despite the devastating realities of present-day Ethiopia.
This article is adapted from a paper the author gave at the International Conference of Ethiopian Studies in 1988 in Paris.
____________________ Chris Prouty is the author of Empress Taytu and Menilek II: Ethiopia, 1883-1990. (Red Sea Press). She is currently working on a catalogue of documentary films about Ethiopia.
Ethiopians have many problems when they arrive in the U.S. Usually their expectations are shattered by the realities of life in the U.S. Ethiopians coming to America face the same problems that African Americans do. Wouldn’t it be nice if Ethiopians first coming to the U.S. were welcomed, helped to get adjusted, and immediately employed by African Americans? Wouldn’t it be great if Ethiopians and African Americans jointly started profitable businesses? And wouldn’t it be nice if we could all sit down and drink coffee and talk together? Why doesn’t this happen?
The reason it doesn’t happen is that African Americans think that Ethiopians and all other Africans don’t want anything to do with them. They think Ethiopians hate and feel superior to them. African Americans believe that they are not considered to be Africans by Ethiopians and other Africans but rather as some good-for-nothing, mixed-down, lazy, poor American bums. Thinking these things causes African Americans to disassociate themselves from, and even dislike Ethiopians and other Africans. Being an African American myself, I remember believing these things.
African Americans are constantly subjected to movies, television programs and TV commercials depicting Africa as the so-called “Dark Continent”. African Americans see TV programs like “Feed the Children” which gives the impression that all of Ethiopia and the rest of Africa is starving and doesn’t have food. The information from magazines like National Geographic seem to imply that Ethiopia is a starving desert and Africa is one big jungle. Movies such as Tarzan have led African Americans to believe that whites are the “Kings of the Jungle” and that everything in Ethiopia and elsewhere i Africa is controlled by non-Africans.
There is no representation of cities or industry. Traditional doctors and natural medicine is said to be witch doctors and voodoo medicine. Languages are presented as the chatter of wild savages with the intelligence of baboons. Nothing is said about the fact that there is regular furniture in the huts of the villages. There are even people said to be “authorities in the field” who will say Ethiopians are not Africans! And the innocent cartoons get the children while they are young. Cartoons that African Americans have grown up with such as Popeye, Yogi Bear, Bugs Bunny, and others, at one time or another have depicted Africa as the untamed jungle. So from birth to death, African Americans learn to accept these false ideas as fact and are not quite able to escape them. I am sure that Ethiopians and other Africans are tired of being seen as poor, backwards, and uneducated by African Americans.
But Ethiopians, like all other continental Africans, too, receive and often believe misleading information about African Americans. They are subjected to the Western mass media both in Africa and here in the U.S. I have talked to Ethiopians and other Africans that did not even know African Americans existed before they came here. Some Africans believe the myths that African Americans are “lazy bums.” Ethiopians and other Africans see the news, TV shows, and movies which seem to portray African Americans as the country’s thieves, drug users, drug dealers and irresponsible drunken bums. There is no representation of African American as politicians, businessmen and women, engineers and designers, caring parents, happy children, concerned citizens, or even passionate lovers.
The result of believing untrue things about each other is that when we see each other we say and think bad things about each other. Because of this we decide not to acknowledge each other. We fail to talk to each other and miss out on the to find out who the other really is. We help the untrue information to live on, only to be believed just as easily by the next.
In order to solve the problems we have, we must begin to talk to one another to personally find out who the other really is. We have to visit places where the other goes such as clubs, restaurants, and churches and talk. We must visit each other at our homes. Ethiopians can show African Americans photographs from photo albums, and video tapes taken in the cosmopolitan cities, important towns, and of the beautiful countryside in Ethiopia.
A single picture placed in your wallet or purse can destroy all myths and misconceptions that African Americans have of Ethiopians. And I know this works because I keep a picture of an African country’s city in my wallet at all times. Realize that nobody else is trying to educate African Americans about Africa. African Americans need your help. Neither the library nor the schools offer the type of information that Ethiopians can give their country and continent. Once Ethiopians, other Africans, and African Americans begin helping each other understand who they are, we all can then live in co-operation and harmony together.
Mr. Jegede Legesse Allyn is an African American and founder of United African International, a newly national organization to teach African Americans about the culture from the cities of African countries.
I was banished from home and went from fairy-tale fortune to bare and continual poverty. I had spent a decade in Germany before I came to US; and now I am earning my daily bread in pettiness. To be frank, I am working any job to get nowhere. Why?
How long have I been here?… emh… a good while, a year and half. It is not big deal. What is the difference between yesterday and today? Ugly enough, time is recorded on my face, in my muscles; I see its shadow moving across my childhood friends. I suspect there would be many areas in which I wouldn’t grow; my spirits remain childlike.
Not long ago, I traveled to Washington D.C by Greyhound bus. We were driving on a free way. Life would be interesting if there were such kind of free way for each of us.
My mind is always filled with different questions that need to be answered. I like simple questions, though. Do I like it here? How can I tell myself how I should like it? The passenger who was sitting beside me on this bus stared me up and down.
Pretty soon, he turned his face away as if he thought I didn’t realize he was staring. The fact of the matter is he saw my cloth. I never wore fancy clothes because I am not a person who wants to conceal his true self. Why do you judge a people by their clothes?
Do you have time to think about your life? Who said ‘life is too short’? I have plenty of time to contemplate my life.
I am like a boat which starts sailing without an engine or boat-hook. Even now I don’t know who placed me in the middle of this big ocean, nor who put my head into the lion’s mouth.
Can you imagine a person who doesn’t have the slightest idea where he is heading? After all, nobody knows where he is going or whether the worth of his actions are worthwhile. Why?
What have I gotten from life? I couldn’t say I have gotten money, house or authority. My conscience needs something totally different. Of course, until the age of 26 I didn’t know specifically what I really wanted. I was too ambitious to pursue a profession.
Once in a blue moon, my voice burst with joy, then life and death mingled together; that is why I love life.
I always listen my inner voice as if someone is there. I have been told that there is a drop of hope that keeps our lives going. Only God knows how long we should hope.
To be honest, this idea was shaped for me as result of a conversation that I had long ago with an old woman in church. She was 90 years old, but looked young, energetic and healthy. I believe that something other than medicine has enabled her to live such a long life. If I were her, I would be bored. You know? I went to church to prepare myself for life after death. She was praying aloud, and her loud prayers attracted my attention. She was praising and thanking God; I couldn’t see what this woman could possibly have to be thankful for. I wondered whether she had been promised a place in heaven. I had asked myself – did she get promise to have a place in heaven?
“Why do you thank God?” I asked her. Interestingly enough, she smiled at me.
“Because he has given me what I wanted!” she responded.
“Did you get money, a house, what?” I asked.
“I don’t have all those things, but my son, I am a happy woman!” she said.
Why?”
“My son” she said, “don’t equate my happiness with material possessions. I have never asked God to give me money!”
“So what did you ask?”
“I asked for pure conscience!”
Her words convinced me, and have been instilled in me ever since.
The bus stopped somewhere for an hour layover, and I was brought back to the present. As did many of the other passengers, I went to the bar and ordered a beer.
Why do I drink beer?
I wanted to get drunk, not to forget, but to tell the truth if there is such a thing. I sometimes deliberately try to create misleading impression of myself; because I want to rise above depressing, wretched facts of life.
Do I sound pessimistic? I am and proud of it. If anyone examined life realistically he would say the futures will be darker and worse than today. You know what makes some of my friends blind to the reality? Hypocrisy! They see themselves the end of the downward progression. These hypocritical delusions can be perilous.
After my second beer, I ordered some food. Hey! … why do you eat alone!? Because I was born alone! Of course, if I had true love for any one, I wouldn’t have eaten alone. I have both material and spiritual poverty. The most disgusting thing in this unjust and unfair would is that there are families who have no food as well as those who have food no community. Both cause me great pain. One is the copy, the other is the original. How could the family eat together if secret police knock at one’s door and taken away one’s daughter or son to God-knows-where. In my lifetime, I have seen both dying mother giving her last bits of food to her children and desperately poor parents selling their daughter into prostitution. Both are a daily reality.
Are your bored?… me? Yes! I am sorry… mankind is bored! Perhaps this is the principal cause of all our problems. We no longer know what to do with ourselves.
Am I really a man? I am like the character Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoveskey who wanted not a million dollars but an answer to his question.
I would be better off to turn a deaf ear to any question.
_____________________
Written in Ohio, June 1991
Most people buying a home, no matter how many times they may done it, find the process of applying for a mortgage mystifying and even intimidating. Considering that most folks don’t do it that often, this is understandable. After all, the lender does have the power of the pen to either grant or deny the loan with one fell stroke, and since “time is of the essence” in most real estate deals, borrowers must make every effort to get it right on the first application. But getting a home loan need not be a fearful leap into the unknown. The principles behind real estate finance are basically simple and straightforward.
The procedures for financing real estate can be broken down into just a few steps: 1) finding a lender, 2) filling out the application, 3) processing the application, 4) the underwriter’s analysis of the loan package, 5) the loan committee, 6) funding and closing in escrow.
Finding a lender
The first step and probably the most important in obtaining a mortgage is, of course, finding the right lender. The buyer or the real estate agent, acting on the buyer’s behalf, will arrange an appointment with a loan officer. Most real estate agents will have established business relationships with one or more loan officers who they have come to know as competent and trustworthy. If no realtor is involved, or the realtor can’t refer the buyer to a lender, the search is on.
For many of us, when we think “mortgage” the next words that come to mind are “bank” or “saving and loan.” This isn’t bad, but limiting your search to just these institutions narrows the choice of loan programs considerably. Most banks and S&L’s have only a few loan programs to offer and often they will try to fit a borrower into one of these. This is fine if the borrower’s qualifications really do fit the bank or S&L’s loan underwriting requirements. But in most cases, borrowers don’t come that neatly packaged.
This is why a mortgage broker or banker fits the bill most of the time. These lenders will represent a variety of investors offering many loan programs, one of which is bound to be just right for any legitimate borrower.
The Application Interview
Once the lender has been selected, an appointment will be set up and the borrower will be expected to have on hand personal and financial documents. Being prepared for this can save time and may avoid a string of “conditions” that will need to be met before the loan can be funded. Many of these conditions are requests for more documentation.
If the borrower will search out and supply these items at the outset, a mad scramble near the close of escrow can be avoided. The loan officer will supply a list of the items that need to be on hand.
The loan officer will have to ask a lot of personal and financial questions that may seem an infringement of privacy. Lending personnel are obligated to keep your confidence and only those persons who must be privy to this information will see it. Don’t be intimidated and do know that loan officers are looking for ways to grant the loan, not refuse it. They are your advocates, not your adversaries. Loan officers usually do not get paid if the loan doesn’t get approved and funded.
Processing the Application
After the loan officer submits the loan package to his processor, the processor will send out requests for more documentation, such as verification of employment, verifications of bank accounts, as well as current mortgage ratings, property appraisal, preliminary title report, credit report and a myriad of other stuff. This is the step that requires the most patience because it takes time to gather this documentation from the sources. Sometimes the processor will be unable to get all the documentation needed and it is not unusual for borrowers to get a phone call or a letter from the processor during this stage, asking for more documents or additional information. Borrowers should not be alarmed at receiving more requests for additional information; this is not a sign that the loan package is going sideways. Processors are simply trying to satisfy the requirements that predetermined underwriting guidelines have imposed on the particular loan program
being considered.
Underwriting
After the application and all required documentation and reports have been received and packaged by the processor, the loan package is sent to the underwriter. The underwriter studies the entire loan package. He or she will calculate the borrower’s debt-to-income ratios, analyze the appraisal to determine that the value of the collateral (i.e. the property) is there, study the title report to make sure that the house is free and clear of liens and generally “put the package together” for the loan committee with a cover letter outlining the strong points. Underwriters like to point out that underwriting is subjective and not a science and that, just as no two like snowflakes are alike, neither are loan packages. Therefore, as the theory goes, a borrower’s loan package should not be accepted or rejected without considering the weight and balances of all aspects of the loan package together.
Threading your way through the lending maze can be difficult even if you’re done your homework. This is why reliance upon the skill and experience of a savvy loan officer can effect an expedient transaction that will make everyone happy. I would be pleased to answer any questions about real estate loans.
On the next issue I will finish this subject about the Loan Process and continue writing about the Underwriter, the Loan Committee, the Funding and Escrow.
____________________
Woldu Yoseph is a regional loan manager with IBF Mortgage Capital. Los Angeles. For more information on subjects in this article contact Ato Woldu Yoseph at (213) 680-9601
It is important for Ethiopians to be informed about the current crises in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, the international press addresses most any bush war in the boondocks of the world, but rarely finds time to address the war in Ethiopia, now some three decades at work.
It is also interesting that people who have continuously financed the insurrectionist rebel factions from Arab lands desire the Ethiopian Coastline, Massawa, Assab and whatever they can grab to totally isolate Ethiopia and hold them captive without access to the Sea, with ultimate absorption and conversion of the Christian Ethiopians to Islam “by force.”
While it is true that in Ethiopia itself there is little derision between the Christian and the followers of Mohammed, however, the folks across the pond and on their East and North have continuously acted to cause derision between the faiths and to use military force to overthrow and takeover the Ethiopian Government, by force. The support of the rebels by Iraq and by Libya, including Libyan forces operation with the rebels, is evidence in fact of the conspiracy by the Arab governments to destroy Ethiopia.
Make no mistake, President Mengistu Hailemariam is no “Prince of Peace.” He is in fact a dictator who offers the nation total destruction following his lead.
Moreover, Mengistu’s methodology for problem solving, i.e., firing squad methodologies inevitably produce the same results wherever they are used. e.g. in France during the French revolution and ever other country in the world where the folks with guns come to power, they always kill off all of the intelligencia or exile them and try to “wish skyscrapers, bridges, ships, aircraft and technology into existence.” What they gain is another dark age where the poor that survive are further impoverished and destroyed.
The question many Ethiopian ask, “What is the policy of the opposition?” is most appropriate at this juncture. Armed thugs replacing Armed Thugs never solves problems but further exacerbates them. The replacement thugs only kill off the remaining thinkers and replace them with a different group who still steal under the color of law.
I would urge that those who plan to replace the present power with another think carefully on what they replace them with. i.e., if to carry on the same politics of self destruction, nothing is gained by
the change in the long run.
If indeed, those contemplating a new government stop to gather those from abroad who have the professional technical ability to think and evolve plans, programs and rational budgets, and produce and introduce a Constitution with a Bill of Rights protective of the Right to Life, Right to lawfully acquired property, and the right to self-defense against criminal aggression, then it is possible for a Government of the People to exist and prosper.
There is more to the development of a rational system of government of the people, by the people and for the people — than expounding of all laws, rules and regulations which impact the marketplace such that a Free Market Economic System can have the opportunity to evolve creating the opportunity to excel and create such that those risk takers may do so without any greater penalty than the loss of their investment capital. Without such opportunity there never has been and can never be progress in any nation on earth toward greater individual liberty and greater economic prosperity.
It is important to know the platforms and principles of the opposition and the Philosophical underpinnings of those who propose to “offer better government”. i.e., “better than what” and “at whose expense.” The incentive to excel and create exists only when individuals have the opportunity to advance their position in life and make more money. Take away that incentive and people don’t.
I believe the U.S. should have at the very least provided technical assistance and such support as may be essential to bringing the criminally acting separatists under objective control, which along with technical and life support aid such as food, clothing, etc. would help bring a cease fire and an opportunity to negotiate differences.
I urge the Ethiopian Review and other Ethiopian publications to ferret out the facts concerning “who the opposition folks are” such that readers may determine their competence and credibility to run the government in trust for the people of Ethiopia, with a constitution protective of their inalienable right to life and its only meaningful corollary, the right to own property and right to self defense.
Although revolutions are sometimes necessary to overcome tyranny, it is abundantly clear that the biggest product of revolutions is DEAD BODIES.
The Ethiopian Civil War, now approaching its thirtieth (30th) year, records 5 Million Human Beings have been slaughtered during that period. Were the truth known, the count is more than 10 million. Include those who die from war induced causes, quadruples that number. Conservatively 20 million human beings dead over a 30 year period.
Reports out of Ethiopia evidence groups opposing the Government of Mengistu Hailemariam, not one of which have clearly announced and defined platforms and principles which might evidence who they are, their education, background, and experience to operate the Government “if” they are able to take it over.
Absolute certainty is a term that can rarely be applied to any thing but death and taxes, however, in this case I will make an exception and point out that “the replacement of one collectivist regime with another, will not solve the problems Ethiopians face,” in the same way it did not solved problem for any other bankrupt collectivist ideology, any where else in the world. Collectivism, and all of its variants – simply do not work unless a free market system “feeds them”! Without LAISSEZ FAIRE CAPITALISM such ventures are a prescription for self destruction and failure.
Throughout history the first act of take over leaders that throughout history their first act is to kill off all of the intelligencia, the only individuals who could saving them; leaving only farmers and riflemen to “wish the infrastructure and an operations govt into existence.” Such acts by the replacement butchers and robbers only inevitably usher in another dark age with the hell on earth it brings for the people who only know how to RULE BY FORCE. Ask the leaders of the potential replacement Government leaders:
1) What is it that you propose to provide the people of Ethiopia that they do not already have?
2) Who are your leaders?
3) What is the educational background of your leaders?
4) What form of government do you propose to replace the present collectivism, socialist, communist system with? a) Collectivism? b) variant of a? c) A market economic system e.g., Capitalism? d) A variant of c.? If so, what?
5) Do you propose a Constitution of by and for the people? a) That will prohibit the use of Government force to violate the inalienable rights of the people stated in a Bill Rights? b) To limits use force by government to the protection of the Rights of individuals living under its jurisdiction, internally & externally? c) That prohibits the Government from making laws, rules or regulations concerning the economic sector. d) That prohibits absolutely all presumptive, supportive victimless crime laws, and provide for automatically removal from office elected officials propose or attempts to initiate legislation in derogation of the constitution by proliferation of victimless crime laws which impose collective quilt on the people to create victims so lawyers can profit from it. e) To require GOLD STANDARD to back the currency, to keep the elected representative of the people, at the insistence of lobby groups from endlessly picking their pockets “in the name of the public good” by dilution of the currency with infusions of worthless paper money without backing and resultant government created inflation, further impoverishing citizens, and a self destructing system.
6) Do you propose a Bill of Rights to establish the Right to Life, the Right to property legally acquired, traded, inherited, the right to freedom of speech, religion and uncoerced freedom of choice, freedom of choice, freedom of movement, freedom from illegal search and seizure, the right to vote. Rights established as a function of one’s birth as a human being and not a grant of government.
7) Do you propose any free services for the people? If the answer to this question is yes? Answer this questions: At who’s expense? i.e., There is nothing in life that is free. The money, labor, materials have to come from somewhere. Do they propose to use the force of govt to take away from someone else & redistribute to those who want other to pay their way? Answer the question!
I have provided a few fundamental and essential ingredients of a system of government of, by, and for the people which ultimately would have a chance to survive, given the people are sufficiently educated to understand what they gain by its adoption.
There are no rights for some individuals which are to be provided by the sacrifice of other individuals in their behalf. Rights are conditions for mankind existence and survival as human beings. The right to life is the primary, and the ownership of property lawfully acquired, traded or brought into being through the physical or mental activity of an individual is the implementation of the right to life. The right to life presupposes the right to self-defense, to maintain ones right inviolate against criminal aggression.” A right to be a right must be co-equally held by all individuals at the same time.” If you initiate the use of force to violate another equal right to life or property, you are a criminal.
Let us ask what the opposition forces offer the people of Ethiopia, and, while we are waiting let us write our leaders all over wherever in the world DEMANDING they DEMAND that the United Nation swiftly to bring a cease-fire in Ethiopia by diplomatic means if possible. To use troops where all diplomatic attempts fail within a 30 day period fail. The continued killing and starving of 1 to 3 million human beings per year expended in the Ethiopian civil war cannot be further tolerated. Evil exists to the extent that humans sanction it, and is impotent without human sanction.
That is an axiomatic expression. The continued ignoring of the killing in Ethiopia by the U.N. is in fact the U.N. sanction of it. Now put your pens and telephones to work. The future is what you make it.
