Last Monday Aiga Forum, the website reflecting the views and opinions of Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, the party in power in Ethiopia that is led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi posted a racial slur directed at the president of the USA. It said:
“The misguided extremist Diasporas have been cheering up for the last couple of days. You know why? Hillary
Clinton will not visit Ethiopia during her trip to Africa. Hmm! Who cares if the N**** administration ignores Ethiopia?!” Aigaforum.com
This posting was viewed by thousands of people as far away as in Germany and as close as San Francisco, CA. You can read Ato Abebe Gellaw’s investigative reporting on the subject here.
The fact that Aiga Forum posted the racial slur is undeniable. Aiga Forum used an ugly racial epithet to describe the administration of President Obama is a fact that will not disappear by the simple rearrangement of a web site posting. Once on the Internet it stays on the Internet. What is published on the web will stay there no matter what, unless of course a nuclear explosion obliterates the thousands of servers diligently saving all that is put in cyber space.
The way a person or an organization reacts to incidents is a reflection of their mindset, philosophy, or their general outlook in life. The way that Aiga Forum, as the mouthpiece of the TPLF regime, decided to respond to this shameful incident is a window into their standard operating procedure.
If I might digress a little bit, let’s compare two situations that happened within the last month. On July 16 a black Harvard professor was arrested by a white police officer in Cambridge, MA. The incident received wide coverage. During a press conference, Mr. Obama responded to a question and said the Cambridge police ‘acted stupidly’. He spoke too soon. Plenty of folks, both black and white, were hasty in their conclusion.
Our dear professor President, Barrack Obama, realized he was wrong. Upon further reflection, he later admitted that, “I could have calibrated those words differently.” He did not leave it at that. He decided to use the incident as a ‘teachable moment’ for all Americans. He opened the door for citizens and law enforcement people to discuss racial sensitivity, racial profiling, and the issue of race in today’s America. A positive outcome was created out of a bad situation.
Now, let us look at how Aiga Forum and the TPLF regime handled the ugly incident that they created. They wanted to shift responsibility away from their despicable act. They denied that what many people saw, did not exist. They attempted to make the story about me because I wrote an article pointing out their shameful insult against President Obama, and our African American brethren. That is not fair. The story is about Aiga/TPLF’s defamation of the first African American President.
The following is their response to their dirty deed:
Take for example a certain Yilma Bekele article that appeared on abbay media and ethio forum websites about Aigaforum. For the record Aigaforum did not write or post the comments attributed to us in the article! Yilma must be idle or hurt by the ongoing saga with UDJ! Else what was he smoking when he wrote such white lie about Aigaforum? Shame to those websites who posted the article without checking! The two websites could not even agree how to present the article to their readers. One is trying to cheat readers to make it more believable!
Yilma, ethioforum and abbay media you are wrong! When we want to say something we do not hide or speak /write in ‘qene’ we are straight. Next time quote us properly! And we ask you to apologize to your readers for misinforming them.
You see what I mean. The highlighted color is theirs, and the emphasis is theirs. What brought about idleness, smoking, and UDJ into the picture is not clear. After publishing this, they have the chutzpah to ask for an apology. Two Amharic sayings come to mind. The first one is ‘ye leba aynederek melso lib yaderq’ and the second one is ‘ke detu wede matu’. The explanation and the usual insult was posted on Wednesday, August 5th. The next day they came up with a whole new clarification. They claimed that their ‘nemesis’ used ‘disposablewebpage.com’ to defame their image. Of course, this new spin on the story is not true either. We have IT professionals that can prove the so-called disposablewebpage.com that they claim created the insulting posting, was made after the fact. This is just another feeble attempt to white wash the original blunder.
Aiga Forum/TPLF editors could have used this incident to reflect on their destructive behavior. They could have dug deep into their psyche and try to understand what we have been pointing out about their ethnic based mentality, and its negative effects on our country. They could have used this ugly uttering as a ‘teachable moment’ about the pearls of narrow ethnicity, racially motivated hatred, and using insults to demean a fellow human being.
That is not the style of the minority-based government in Ethiopia, the bankroller of Aiga forum. Aiga Forum has made it a habit to insult and demean fellow Ethiopians. Its web page sole reason for existence is to inflame inter ethnic animosity between our people. It is a cheerleader for the inhuman acts of its sponsors that are directed at the citizens of Ethiopia and neighboring countries. It is a factory of lies, innuendos, and half-truths used to split opposition parties and to pit one group against another to later enjoy the fireworks sitting on a high chair.
It has insulted our tireless and successful community organizer Ato Obang Metho as a ‘phony’ leader, it has led the charge against Kinijit, and the massacre of peaceful demonstrators in the aftermath of the 2005 election. It is currently salivating at the prospect of a civilized argument inside Andenet turning into a full-blown war. Aiga Forum is adding fuel to the family discussion trying to turn it into a conflagration.
If Aiga Forum can prove that they are not responsible for that which was posted on their website, I will be the first one to apologize. I will go to great length to ask for forgiveness from Aiga Forum for defaming them. I am sure our independent web sites will not hesitate to print a retraction.
On the other hand, there is definitely no chance that this will happen. It is because we stand by our story that upon opening Aiga Forum site people saw the ugly post right on their front page. Unless Aiga Forum can prove that someone hacked into their site, and planted the ugly degenerate statement, the statement I made continues to be a verifiable fact.
What to do about it a good question. Thanks to the freedom we enjoy in the USA Aiga Forum is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Many people died to uphold that right we take for granted. The right to use the N word Aiga Forum is throwing at the President did not come cheap. Many of our African American brothers and sisters paid a heavy price, in order for us to live and enjoy life to the fullest. We Ethiopians should know better. When our country was attacked by Fascist Italy, our African American friends were the first ones to volunteer to help us stand up against a European aggressor. The great African American poet journalist Langston Hughes wrote the ‘Ballad of Ethiopia’ that included the words:
All you colored peoples
Be a man at last
Say to Mussolini
No! You shall not pass
We definitely owe quite a lot to many people, specially our natural allies, the Africans in the Diaspora. Aiga Forum wrote ‘we put a quick disclaimer and moved on’. It is not that easy my friends. A disclaimer cannot erase a deliberate insult and a shameful act. President Obama has been insulted in a vicious manner. I have been defamed by being called a liar, and the Ethiopian people have been included in this shameful act. The only way out is for the alleged Administrator of Aiga Forum, a certain Isayas Abay, to acknowledge this transgression, and to ask for forgiveness from all the injured parties, including the people of Ethiopia. I believe that Aiga Forum should have its own ‘teachable moment’ and refrain from becoming such a divider and a negative force in our country’s strive to attain democracy, respect for human rights, and the ushering of the rule of law into our ancient kingdom. There is no other way out.
If on the other hand, the Aiga Forum/TPLF owners persist on this fiction of blaming others for their hate crimes, they leave us no choice but pursue all legal means to stop them from hurting us again. We are in the process of finalizing a petition drive to ask Ethiopians, and all peace loving people to condemn the actions of Aiga Forum/TPLF and to make our feelings known in no uncertain terms. We are not afraid any more. We refuse to be bullied. We refuse to be victimized by the narrow ethnic based regime. We refuse to be insulted, degraded, and dehumanized when our country is crying out for justice and progress. We demand the removal of the unjust system that is keeping our country backward, illiterate, and center of starvation in the twenty first century. Enough is enough. We say to Aiga Forum/ TPLF camp, you can run but you cannot hide from the truth.
NEW YORK — The critically acclaimed and winner of the 3rd annual Addis Film festival Guzo screened at Helen Mills Theater in New York city Saturday August 8th taking theatergoers for one emotional rollercoaster ride. Organized by Abshiro Kids & Tsehainy.com it was a very successful screening.
Guzo tells a story of two young adults (Lidya and Robera) who are taken from their city life of Addis Ababa to live in the country side of Ethiopia. Both are firm believers that they are able to handle this shift. For twenty days we witness their ordeal of tackling farm life duties while formulating a bond with the families they stayed with. … [read more]
Part 1 documentary of the rarely mentioned rebel activity in southern Ethiopia. For the first time ever, rag-tag fighters of the shadowy Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) under the maverick leadership of Generals Kemal Gelchu and Haile Gonfa have been filmed in their bases in southern Ethiopia following an epic journey into the rebel territory by NTV reporter Yassin Juma and cameraman Eric Okoth. The OLF has been fighting a low key guerrilla war whose effects have occasionally been felt in the remote villages along the common border. The NTV exclusive inside rebel territory began with the drive up north for our crew.
PART 1
During the past three months of power shedding by the Ethiopian Electric Power corporation, more than half of the factories in Akaki and other industrial areas near Addis Ababa have shut down.
The executive director of the Addis Municipal Trade and Security office told VOA’s Eskinder Firew that more than 50 percent of the factories in the region stopped operations, let their employees go and closed their doors.
EEPCo began the power shedding three months ago. Many of the factories quit operations two and a half months ago. One cement company resumed operations recently with special government permission, but government officials have extended the rotation of power outages through the end of August.
Shmuel Beru, who arrived in Israel in 1984 in the first wave of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants, tells his people’s story in the award-winning ‘Zrubavel.’ But not that many white Israelis are listening.
Reporting from Tel Aviv — Growing up, they called him the “chocolate boy” and worse. Shmuel Beru arrived in Israel at age 8 with the first wave of Ethiopian immigrants in 1984. Classmates, who’d never seen a black person before, rubbed his skin to see if the color would come off.
“I was like the new animal at a zoo,” recalled Beru, now 33.
Today the actor-writer has turned his childhood struggle for acceptance into the first Ethiopian-made feature film exploring what it’s like to grow up black in Israel. Drawing inspiration from filmmaker Spike Lee’s stories about racial conflict in the United States, Beru examines an Ethiopian family’s dreams of building a new life in a white-dominated and sometimes-racist Israeli society.
“I love my country,” Beru said of Israel, “but I don’t want to lie.”
In a nation with so many competing well-documented narratives — Jewish, Palestinian, Christian — Beru’s “Zrubavel,” which opened in cinemas here in June, offers yet another perspective from one of the Holy Land’s newer arrivals.
Since the 1980s, more than 80,000 Ethiopians have immigrated to Israel, many escaping famine and poverty in the Horn of Africa nation.
Known as Beta Israel, many of the Ethiopians were considered by some to be a lost tribe of Israel. Though living isolated in northern Ethiopian villages for centuries, they preserved customs remarkably similar to Judaism, which sometimes led them to be ostracized by other Africans.
They became the first large-scale immigration of black Africans to Israel and their adjustment to Israeli society has not been easy. For every success story about an Ethiopian Israeli being elected to parliament or becoming the latest singing sensation on Israel’s TV version of “American Idol,” there are a dozen more about Ethiopian gangs, domestic violence and the high rates of suicide and joblessness among Ethiopian youths.
Hebrew University expert Steven Kaplan, who has studied the Beta Israel, said that despite the government spending more money and energy trying to assimilate Ethiopians than it has for other immigrant groups, Ethiopians remain among the poorest groups in Israel.
“The most disturbing thing is that even after 30 years, if you ask me if we’ve turned the corner for the second and third generations of Ethiopians, I can’t say we have with any real confidence,” he said.
Beru said he hoped his film would counter negative stereotypes about Ethiopian immigrants.
“I wanted to show that no matter what your culture or color is, we all have the same stories,” said Beru, interviewed recently at a Tel Aviv cafe. “We cry in the same language. We hurt in the same language.”
For him, making the film was a deeply personal journey, enabling him to reconnect with his African roots and ultimately strengthen his appreciation for his adopted country.
“Zrubavel” is a classic immigrant saga, showing a younger generation fighting for acceptance and an older generation striving to keep its children rooted in the traditions of home.
The film follows the hard-working grandfather, a former Ethiopian army colonel reduced to sweeping streets in his new life; the son-in-law whose embrace of ultra-Orthodox Judaism alienates his family; the ponytailed college dropout, trapped between his father’s dream that he become Israel’s first black fighter pilot and a society pushing him toward more “suitable” work as a restaurant cook.
Beru’s is a gritty, largely segregated world. White Israelis are bit players here, mostly one-dimensional authority figures, such as the police officers who taunt, beat and even kill Ethiopians with little remorse.
But Beru pulls no punches when portraying his own community’s faults and responsibilities. His characters often wallow in self-pity, drink and use drugs, steal and beat their wives. In one scene, the troubled dropout robs and beats an innocent white senior citizen, before he is caught and beaten by police.
“My commitment was to tell the whole story,” Beru said.
The film is based partly on Beru’s personal experiences. He still hears the occasional racial epithet or is prevented from entering a Tel Aviv nightclub on the excuse that a “private party” is taking place.
As an actor, Beru often found himself typecast as a bodyguard, bad guy or pauper, despite his small build and easy smile. That was if he found roles at all. “It’s hard to be a black actor in Israel because everything on TV is about white people,” he said.
When he complained of the scarcity of good parts, he said, producers told him that white Israelis wouldn’t “relate” to black characters.
But Beru said it’s the artist’s duty to provoke audiences and explore new territory. That’s why he decided to write his own movie and hire Ethiopian actors for most of the roles.
The project provided him with the chance for a brief homecoming when he visited Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, for a screening this year, his first trip there since his family made the two-month trek to a Sudanese refugee camp 26 years ago.
“It was a shock to see a country of so many black people like me.”
He said he was heartened by the public support he received in Ethiopia, but was troubled by the poverty from which he narrowly escaped.
Though his movie won an award at the Haifa International Film Festival last year and he visited Los Angeles this spring for a screening, Israeli moviegoers have given the film a lukewarm response.
At a recent screening in Tel Aviv, one white viewer attributed the low turnout to Israelis’ preoccupation with the country’s political strife.
“I guess we are people with so many of our own problems that we don’t want to hear about other people’s,” said Ronit Avronin, a Tel Aviv office worker.
Some anonymous Israeli critics have attacked Beru and the film on the Internet, calling him a “monkey” and accusing him of being ungrateful for being rescued from a life “living in the trees.”
Beru said he remains unfazed. Because so many Israelis have endured their own struggle, persecution and trauma, he said, they sometimes come across as less sympathetic to others facing a similar ordeal.
Overcoming the struggle and surviving on your own, he said, is part of the Jewish experience.
“Israelis appreciate strength. If you’re nice, they’ll think you’re weak. But if you fight [for yourself], that’s when they respect you.”
WASHINGTON DC — The Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF) held its first official meeting in Washington DC on Sunday, August 9, 2009. The meeting was organizing by the Washington EPPF Chapter. (Photos and video will be posted shortly)
Head of EPPF’s press office, Ato Demis Belete, opened the meeting with a one-minute silent prayer for martyrs of the struggle and welcoming remarks. Representatives of the Washington Chapter also welcomed the guests and participants.
Ato Melke Mengiste, secretary general of the EPPF International Committee, then took the stage. He spoke about the founding mission of EPPF, how it was created 10 years ago, and made a call to the participants to volunteer their time and resources for the struggle to liberate Ethiopia from the Woyanne tribal junta.
Following Ato Melke’s speech, Wzr. Sophia Tesfamariam and Dr Berhe Habtegiorgis from the Eritrean community made brief remarks in a show of solidarity with Ethiopians who are fighting against the anti-Ethiopia Woyanne junta. Dr Berhe’s speech, which was based on his first-hand experience as a one-time resident of Addis Ababa and a member of the Ethiopian armed forces under HaileSeliassie’s government, had captivated the audience.
The next speaker was Ethiopian Review’s editor-in-chief Elias Kifle who briefly talked about Ethiopia-Eritrea relationships and Eritrean government’s role in preventing the Woyanne tribal junta from dismembering Ethiopia and implementing its Greater Tigray Republic manifesto.
Several prominent Ethiopians such as Cmd. Tassew Desta, former head of Ethiopian Navy, Dr Daniel Kindie, Professor of History at Herderson State University in Arkansas, Ato Fekade Shewakena, an Ethiopian political analyst, Lij Seifu Zawdie of Medhin Party, Ato Abebe Belew of Addis Dimts Radio, Abakia, a writer and videographer, Ato Billilign Woldesenbet, human rights advocate, and Wzr. Meseret Agonafer, chairperson of Ethiopian Review’s Board of Trustees, graced the meeting with their presence.
Dr Daniel Kindie briefly talked about the need for some kind of federation between Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibiouti.
The keynote speaker of the meeting was Ato Sileshi Tilahun, EPPF’s head of organizational affairs for the International Committee. He spoke about how EPPF was created, its mission, organizational structure and current activities.
Ato Sileshi is playing a key role in reorganizing the EPPF structure around the world. He is responsible for the creation of EPPF chapters, the recent launching of its radio program that is being broadcast to Ethiopia, a new web site, eppfonline.org, and the opening of a large headquarters in Asmara that is currently housing EPPF Radio’s studio. Sileshi’s remarkable achievement in a span of short time in transforming EPPF’s political and external operations has caused him to be a primary target of various groups.
The last segment of the August 9 public meeting was a Question and Answer session in which a lively discussion took place.
The meeting was concluded in a strong note by Ato Melkie Mengiste who repeated his call to all the participants to join him in going to the field and support EPPF.
The EPPF August 9 meeting in Washington DC has for the first time in decades brought together Ethiopians and Eritreans under one roof as allies. It is a fast growing alliance that is capable of building a foundation for peace and prosperity in the Horn of Africa region.
Similar events are being held around the world that involve interactions between Ethiopians and Eritreans. On Sunday, a delegation of Ethiopians led by Ato Melkie Mengiste and Ato Sileshi Tilahun attended the Eritrea Festival at the Washington Convention Center. Next week, Ethiopian Review editor will take part in a panel discussion that is organized by Community of Eritreans in the Bay Area (Click here for more info).
