By Yilma Bekele
The headlines screamed ‘Ethiopian court convicts 24 of terrorism charges’. As usual it was a misleading and incorrect statement. There is no such animal called Ethiopian court. There is a TPLF controlled judicial arrangement in Ethiopia. Prime Minster Meles and his politburo are the directors behind the scene of this farce. For the last twenty-one years they have been using the power of the state to marginalize, terrorize, demean and undermine the Ethiopian citizen. We are so used to their bullying the average Ethiopian does not even dwell on it. We make that peculiar noise with our lips you know that hissing sound and move on.
Our brothers Eskinder Nega, Andualem Arage, Wubshet Taye our sister Reyot Alemu and the others whose names are not publicized were convicted for exercising their right to speak and write freely. They only used their voice and their choice of weapon was the pen and paper. There was no evidence to show otherwise. Ato Eskinder has the audacity to speculate the chance of Arab Spring migrating to Ethiopia. Ato Andualem was simply trying to organize and recruit people to his legally recognized party. Reyot and Wubshet were doing their job as journalist and reporter. In any other country this is a normal and routine kind of job. But we are not like any other country or any other people. Our Ethiopia has always been different. Not only we got strange and bizarre leaders but we also have a different breed of people.
Yes we are different both inside Ethiopia and in the Diaspora. A vast majority of us have decided to accept shame as normal behavior and we even celebrate it loudly and wear it with pride. We victimize each other our country and people and we are the first ones to holler foul. It is done so much and so often it is becoming a little boring. I am afraid we have lost any semblance of respect for our selves and what is sad is others are losing respect for both victim and victimizer. They deserve each other is what comes to mind.
Asians have this philosophy referred to as Ying and Yang to describe how opposites are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world. Nothing is totally yin or totally yang. Female and male, dark and light, cold and hot, water and fire are manifestations of yin and yang. ‘Just as the state of yin is reached yang begins to grow. Yin contains seed of yang and vice versa. They constantly transform each other. The classics state ‘yin creates yang and yang activates yin’. I am afraid that philosophy is not true in our country. Our yin and yang are not in balance. The harmonious change envisioned in the philosophy has gone haywire when it comes to us. Too much of one is bound to weaken and consume the other. That is happening in our society. This phenomenon is so clearly manifested in the Ethiopian Diaspora community.
Let us start with our yearly soccer tournament. It is such a beautiful and positive activity that it has energized our community for the last twenty-five years or more. It should be our pride and a showcase of how much good we can do when we work together. Unfortunately it is also the other side of us where a few can use this positive energy for negative purpose. Those that have been leading the organization have been using the proceeds as cash cow and also as a vehicle to undermine our unity and sell our country to the highest bidder. We let them do that. We see, we hear but we choose to be silent. We have this notion that ignoring bad deed will make it go away.
Thus the Ethiopian Soccer Federation in North America (ESFNA) governing body at long last voted to start fresh and reform this rogue outfit. Of course those who are so used to working behind the scene in the dark were not willing to go silently. They were taken to a real court that ordered to cease and deceit from using the name of the organization and also answer a few question regarding finances and book keeping. What did they do? They went to their sugar daddy and applied for welfare. The same person that is fully integrated with that other rogue outfit called the TPLF supposedly gave them $2 million US to carry out their mission of dividing us and setting us against each other. They, like their father and mentor Meles Zenawi do not believe in self-imitative but run to the nearest welfare donor to get their funding. He sells our land, borrow in our name and steals in consort with his friends, sells our daughters to Middle East degenerates and ours squander their payment in renting stadium to entertain the rich and greedy. Money can buy you anything including entertainers that got their start from the Diaspora but now serve a new master to undermine their benefactors. Definitely Yin and yang are not in harmony or in balance.
If we look at our Church in exile it is something to be proud of. It is a place where our rich culture and ancient religion is celebrated like never before. It is a place where our fathers and mothers in exile find peace and happiness and every week and mentally transport themselves to that place they call home. It is a place where our children learn how social we are and how we respect and value our culture and country. It is such a beautiful feeling to see our children come in front of the congregation when they graduate from high school to be blessed by the priest and proudly inform us their choice of college. Then we have the troublemakers in every city and town. Their mission is to disrupt and divide us. There is no church spared from these prince’s of darkness that scheme behind the scene and attempt to take over the leadership. If that does not succeed they have no qualms in waging a relentless war to undermine and weaken and disparage all those that stand between them and their evil scheme. Our city is going thru such a painful process and it is sad to see families and friends in turmoil. Most of us allow them to do that by our silence and apathy. It is another instance yin and yangs are not in harmony.
A few days ago we had a fund raising activity for ESAT and also celebrate Ato Abebe’s heroic stand for his people and country by exposing the tyrant in front of his enablers and the whole world. There was no question a vast majority of our people was empowered by his action. There are most certainly over ten thousand Ethiopians in the Bay area where the event was held. Less than two hundred brave souls showed up to help raise fund to make ESAT a powerful force in the struggle against tyranny. A good amount was collected from those who came. We are happy and grateful. But I find it odd that out of all these country and freedom loving folks only a handful showed up. Why do you think it is so?
They all seem to harbor negative feelings against the TPLF regime. It is odd to meet some one that would speak favorably regarding the actions of the dictator or his polices. Every Starbucks and every coffee house is full of these talkers parsing the actions of the TPLF party. How come they don’t take the next logical step, which is to help bring this ugly regime to its knees? Why is there such a wide gulf between talk and action? Here is what President Obama said on his visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Washington a few months back speaking of the victims of nazi horror:
He said “Let us tell our children not only how they died, but also how they lived—as fathers and mothers, and sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters who loved hoped and dreamed just like us — we must tell our children about how this evil was allowed to happen – because so many people succumbed to their darkest instincts, and because so many others stood silent – We must tell our children. But more than that, we must teach them. Because remembrance without resolve is a hollow gesture. Awareness without action changes nothing. In this sense, “never again” is a challenge to us all—to pause and to look within.”
‘Awareness without action changes noting’ is the key phrase and that is what is escaping us. That is so many of us talk but are unable to move beyond that. We kid ourselves or we expect someone else to do the job for us. Is that why when Kinijit kicked Woyane’s ass so many people were pushing each other to get to the center of the action? We had a visitor to our church from Canada. Abune Michael of Calgary gave a memorable sermon a few Sundays back. What stuck in my mind was his saying ‘meswatenet yelelew emnet’ or belief without sacrifice I believe that is ying without yang.
Fear not all is not lost. We also have our Ethiopian Heritage Society of North America (EHSNA). They are celebrating their second anniversary from July 27-29 in Washington DC. Last years event with Judge Bertukan Mideksa was a huge success. This is one venue where our flag fly high our culture is celebrated with all its diversity and our history is told with all its glory. It is a family affair and our young ones and children are given the respect and attention they deserve. The March 2012 Adwa Victory celebration organized by EHSNA gave our ancestors gallant effort the highest honor reserved for such Herculean deed. We salute the organizers for shining a bright light on our accomplishments as people in this time of doom and gloom. This is one organization that is trying to bring balance between our yin and yang. We can see perfect harmony between the opposites.
Each one of us is faced with a choice. We can be carriers of change or we can follow the path of destruction. Change does not happen without effort. Those that are hell bent in bullying and dividing us are not going to leave voluntarily. No one willingly gives up his privileged position. It has never happened. They are unable or unwilling to see the freedom train coming at them at full speed. That is what happened to Mubarak, Gadaffi faithfully believed his people loved him and we see Assad for some reason thinking that he can save himself and his clan by killing all Syrians if necessary. Dictators are a rare breed of people. Meles honestly believes he can last a while longer. Locked in his palace surrounded by his yes men reading his own review and watching his one channel TV he is intoxicated by his own lies. Twenty-one years is a long time to be isolated from normal people. It is possible to create ones own make believe world.
How come we see Libya, Egypt, Yemen and now Syria and do not learn? How come we do not work a little harder to avoid such catastrophe? Why do we allow Eskinder, Andualem and all the other fellow Ethiopians pay the price on our behalf? How come we are unable to say no and show outrage at such act of injustice by a handful of people? Do you think Meles jailed our brothers and sister or do you think we allowed him to do such ugly deed due to our indifference and apathy? Is the blame on the dictator or on the vast majority that lets him gets away with this criminal act? I am sure we are all disgusted with this farce of jailing people for life because they spoke what the regime does not approve of. What is next, to go to prison accused of bad thought? Why not the dictator has no incentive not to follow that route. He knows we will take it silently. Didn’t we when Professor Asrat was denied medical treatment, when Asefa Maru was gunned down, when Judge Bertukan was jailed twice, when Gambella was sold, when our children are left to die in the jungles of Central Africa and their bodies scatted on the highways of Tanzania and the waters of Lake Malawi or Gulf of Aden? Yes no question about it we are responsible for the jailing of Eskinder and all the rest. Frankly I am bored and tired of shifting the blame.
Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ying_and_Yang
By Selam Beyene
At a time when many Ethiopians in the Diaspora are disenchanted with President Obama’s gestures toward the Ethiopian tyrant Meles Zenawi, it is ironic that the work of an Ethiopian scholar, Dr. Berhanu Alemayehu, is cited as significant scientific evidence supporting the concurring opinion of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) decision. The article Dr. Berhanu co-wrote with Dr. Kenneth Warner, “The Lifetime Distribution of Health Care Costs”, was cited approvingly as evidence of the skyrocketing cost of health care in the U.S. The citation to the article follows the majority opinion which ends on p. 59. Justice Ginsburg’s concurring opinion immediately follows and the citation to the article appears on p. 4.
Asked about the significance of the citation, Professor Al Mariam of California State University, San Bernardino, wrote: “While such citation in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion may not mean a whole lot to those in the scientific community, those of us in the legal community appreciate its significance in the outcome of one of the most important constitutional cases of recent decades. It is a great honor to have one’s work cited by the highest court in the U.S. on such an important issue. I am sure there were thousands of other scientific studies on health care costs the Court could have cited, but Dr. Berhanu’s article was selected because it made a special impression. We should all be proud of Dr. Berhanu for his exemplary scientific work.”
The link to the U.S. Supreme Court Opinion is:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf
It is common knowledge that most Ethiopians in the Diaspora have stellar records of unparalleled sacrifice and unrelenting tenacity in their fight against tyranny and injustice perpetrated by successive authoritarian regimes in their native land. It is therefore befitting that the work of one such remarkable Ethiopian is used to support a landmark decision that will positively impact the lives of millions in his adopted country.
It may be recalled that Ethiopian-Americans passionately supported Barrack Obama’s presidential bid in 2008, and were optimistically inspired by his promise of support for those fighting against tyranny and injustice all over the world. Unfortunately, the misguided policies of his administration toward Zenawi and the continuing association of the Pentagon with the dictator as an ally “against terror”, have caused many Ethiopian-Americans to reevaluate their support and options in the coming presidential election.
Many observers now believe that Ethiopian-Americans have a unique opportunity to assert their electoral potency in the upcoming elections in the various swing states. It is important that all Ethiopian-Americans who stand for democracy, freedom and human rights should demand of their congressional candidates and presidential contenders before the November 2012 election to officially censure Meles Zenawi’s regime for its continuing abuses of human rights and denial of the democratic rights of the people.
(The writer, Selam Beyene, Ph.D., can be reached at [email protected])
In some cases, such as that of Ethiopian Review, it’s apparent why official frustration at the media boils over. The US-based website, the Ethiopian Review is virulently opposed to Meles’s regime, which has ruled the country since helping overthrow a Marxist military junta in 1991. It publishes a torrent of anti-government agitprop. Last year, Saudi billionaire Mohamed al-Amoudi, who invests huge amounts in the nation he was born in, won about $272,000 in damages in a British court from Elias Kifle, the website’s owner, after it falsely accused him online of hunting down his errant daughter so she could be stoned to death.
Ethiopian Review’s “insurgent journalism” and outspoken criticism from the likes of Fiteh make them enemies of the state in a divisive political landscape.
“They still have the guerrilla mindset,” a local journalist says about the former rebels now in charge. “They think the free media is the enemy of them.” … [read more]
The choice is simple, be about Hebret and charity or take part in evil and do Eskista as you protest AESA One as everyone—including me—laughs at you::
by Teddy (Ambessa) Fikre dated: Tuesday, June 26th, 2012
I am writing this open letter to my community to call you out on your own duplicity. I am directly challenging your love of Ethiopia and your professed desire to help the hopeless children of yena enat Hager. I have been a witness to our own inertia for too long, I have seen my own community cry crocodile tears for beloved Ethiopia while sipping buna at Starbucks yet do nothing more than say ye Habesha 911 as they say “MTS” every two seconds behind double-forked tongues.
I am sick and tired of supposed Jegnas who espouse war in Ethiopia while sitting in their lovely abodes in America. Today I say BEKA! Beka with your lies and your rank hypocrisy. Today is the day to separate the wheat from the chaff, today is the day to see how many Habesha men are wearing Habesha kemis—today is the day to expose the Woyanes in our midst. Today is judgment day. From this moment on, we will finally see who is about Ethiopia and who is prostituting our mother Ethiopia as they walk about town pleading poverty while they line money from our community in the name of helping our country.
I arrive at this day with pain in my heart. I have always thought that when the time of trouble arrives, our community would unite and meet challenges the way our forefathers did during the time of Adwa. This notion was dispelled when Eritrea broke away from enat Ethiopia. The saddest day of my life up to that point was looking at the map of Ethiopia and seeing her robed of her head—as if some evil axman came along and chopped her off at the neck. From that moment on, I have been crying blood embas, my innocence was robbed and I grew up to see the hatred of this world. I felt like a kid whose parents just divorced, I wanted to beg Eritrea to stay but I was a voiceless and a hopeless teenager. Thus, I turned to liquor at the age of 17 to numb my wounded heart.
Thus a plight towards misery commenced, I walked away from my community as my own community saw it fit to stab each other in the back over and over again. The Ethiopian churches I attended started to fracture just like Ethiopia—each supposed house of God ran by men with egos bigger than Bole and who don’t have the menfes of God in their hearts at all. It was then that I started to notice the duplicitous ways of our leaders in our community. I started to observe men of the cloth who at night wear the clothing of saytan. I started to see how supposed community organizers really rape the community as they line their pockets with our money. I started to sense the touch of the devil’s fingers when I realized that supposed doctors and professors who have so much respect from our community are not doctors and professors at all—instead of healing they just ripped open new wounds and instead of teaching they just professed hatred in the minds of our children.
It all made sense; we are colonized by our community leaders. We have no leaders at all; we are like Jews lost in the desert without a Moses in our midst. We are confounded and dumbfounded by lebas and hodamoch who go around DC and beyond professing their love of Ethiopia as they go home at nights and masturbate to the sound of their own voice. These people are poison, they are toxic to the core, they are the reason that children in Ethiopia die by the minute and the reason why the first page of Google image is populated with decayed bodies of Ethiopia’s lijoch. What a cursed people we are, we curse ourselves with our own meqegenenet and treacherous envy. We hold the gun to our heads and pull the trigger, we place the noose around the necks of dying children and break their necks with it, we feed our people back home Kitfo laced with arsenic only to turn around and have a community lekso filled by the tears of indifferent Habeshas who don’t give a shit about the country they cry for. I type these words without exclusion of any group in Ethiopia, I speak if of TPLF goons and of the 66 hodamoch opposition. I speak if of Tigray men and Amarha women alike, I speak it of Oromo or Wollo, not one ethnicity or religion in Ethiopia escapes this condemnation as I throw two iPad tablets at your collective foreheads the same way Moses threw the ten commandments at his lost tribe.
Grant it, not all Ethiopians are like this; there are some amazing Ethiopians who refuse to bend to the inertia of our people. They break their backs and never back down from the challenges they face when they try to convince colonized Habeshas to believe in Hebret as those same enslaved Habeshas accuse them of being lebas. I don’t speak of Ethiopians on this article; I speak of stupid Habeshas who call themselves Habesha even though that word is one that is used by Arabs to insult us to the bone. I speak of Habeshas who have evil intent and intentionally rape our community so they can have the finest dulet in the city. I speak of Habesha promoters who would quickly sell their own mothers to get a dollar. I speak of Habesha listros who sing the devil’s tune in order to get a few birrs from their fat cat pimp by the name of Al Amoudi from back home. I speak of Habesha political parties who advocate the death of Woyane; trying to start a revolution by openly espousing the eradication of Tigray people. What kind of sickness is this, who have we become as a people?
But most importantly I speak of Habeshas like you. Yes you, the one who gave up tesfa and walked away from your own community. I did it once myself so trust me I am not preaching. Gin I know one thing, I don’t blame evil people, evil people do evil because—well they are evil. But my ire is reserved for those people who should know better, my anger resides at those who chose indifference instead of action. I blame you—the reader—if you gave up and chose to walk away. I blame you if you choose to call out the evil ways of some in our community because you are afraid to rattle the boat. Again, I ask, what have we become as a people. We have supposed Jegnas who use the name Jegna on Facebook with fake pictures and then have the audacity to call others cowards. We have fereri trolls who create fake email accounts to spew some of the most vicious rhetoric but refuse to identify themselves. We have a people who see the work of the devil right in front of their face and walk away by saying “well everyone has a bit of evil in them”. I can’t believe we are the seed of Adwa, we have become tainted and rotten as a people—we went from Jegnas to niggas as we call ourselves Habesha which means nigger.
So I am here today to say ENOUGH! BEKA! I am calling you out on your own bullshit. I arrived at this juncture when I decided to attend an ESFNA fundraiser on Saturday at Maeza Restaurant. I went there with Fana from Sheba Post, Luladey, Liyou Gennen and a few other friends. We went there thinking we would not be able to get in or find an empty chair. Yet we arrive and not one person is in sight except the ESFNA soccer players and the organizers? Two hours pass and the room was empty except a few folks. Yet I hear assholes on Addis Demse screaming bloody murder about AESA One, but when the time comes to put their money where their mouth is, they slither away and disappear into the midnight sky. These people—ye Saytan lijoch—are organizing a march on RFK to oppose AESA One yet when the time comes to support our beloved ESFNA, they are nowhere to be found. AESA One is the essence of evil, we all know this, but those that oppose AESA One yet do nothing to support ESFNA are leflafa hodamoch! Ayeeee, our community, always against something but never standing for anything. CLICK! CLACK! KAPOW! Ethiopia murdered by the bullshit of her own children.
Now you know why I cuss liberally. Don’t think for a minute that this is due to my upbringing. My parents raised me well, I am respectful to the fullest and I defer to my elders ALL the time. I have love in my heart, I don’t have to list the many ways that I help out my own people—that is between me and God. Alas, I have become radicalized by my own people. A gentle soul has become a fire breathing dragon because I have swallowed the bullshit saytan kibrit of my own community for far too long. As much as I respect my community and my country, I will not stand pat and observe the germs that are killing us and our children. I am not the maker of Habesha, but I sure will be the shaker and breaker of Habesha. If you call yourself Habesha and have any ill intent towards the children of Ethiopia, consider yourself the enemy of the people and I will invest all my energy to breaking you in a trillion little pieces.
So here is the point of this article, I am now calling bullshit on anyone that professes to be a supporter of ESFNA. If you go to RFK stadium on Sunday to protest AESA One, you are not Ethiopian; you are an Habesha nigger of the worst kind. Go there and I will call you what you are, a banda who is trying to destroy our community and a Woyane who is trying to confuse us. How dare we—proud Ethiopians and supporters of ESFNA—go down to RFK to march against a people who are beneath us? That is like Obama holding a march against racist Tea Party Baggers. This is nonsense, if you want to help ESFNA and embarrass AESA One, then support us in what we are trying to accomplish.
Our plan is to have a free picnic on Sunday and Wednesday as well as a sendoff party for ESFNA on Saturday night. We will finance as much as we can to put these events together, but what we are planning will take thousands of dollars. Thus, here is your opportunity to actually be about the community if you say you are of Ethiopia. I am asking each and every one of you that is reading this article to give what you can by clicking on the picture below. There will be over 10,000 people who will read this article between Ethiopian Review and Brown Condor in the next 24 hours. If each one of you donates $1.00, we can put together an event that will utterly embarrass the TPLF goons at RFK. I do not want to cede DC to AESA One; initially I was going to go to Dallas to take part in the real soccer tournament. But upon further though, I am needed in DC and so are my friends who were going to go on an epic road trip with me. The bus convoy to Dallas has been promptly cancelled; all energy and focus will be putting on an epic event here.
I ask you my fellow Ethiopians, please believe. For once stop being jaded, give the next generation of organizers like me, Fana, Mastewal Sebro, Mo Nursani, Aster Tadesse, Fino Habte and the rest a chance to succeed where the older generation failed us miserably. Forget how young we are; value our vision and our audacious dreams instead of mocking us for being IBD or crazy. Stop calling us leba because others stole from you, open up your hearts and give fiker a chance. Give us chance to do something special and if you support us I swear it what we will do will be remembered in history as the third coming of Adwa. Give us a chance, give us a rock to work with and I promise you that we will slay the Goliath that is AESA One.
In the process, we will show you how all non-profits should operate going forward. We will track EVERY penny donated on a spreadsheet, we will update the spreadsheet on a day to day basis until our last picnic on July 4th. Not one person affiliated with this effort will get a penny; we are doing this for FREE and on a pro bono basis. Every dollar collected will go towards the expenses associated with putting these free events for our community. Every dollar after expenses will go towards feeding homeless people in DC (some of which are Ethiopian) and the rest will go to a non-profit that will feed children back home. We are negotiating with a few non-profits, if they can prove that every dollar will go back home to feed children, we will publicly announce them and make sure that all monies raised will go to that non-profit.
Semu, this is something big we are planning—something we can all be proud of. I want you to imagine Sunday and Wednesday—AESA One’s big days. I want you to imagine a sea of Ethiopians celebrating the true beauty of Ethiopia while half-way around the city a bunch of TPLF goons are doing Eskista and dancing to the devil music of gangster jigaboo bandas. I want you to imagine free food and free music, a big cultural celebration while AESA One is drowning in a sea of misery as their feature performers are rapping on stage yelling.. (CONTINUED)
PLEASE I BEG YOU READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE! IF YOU CONDEMN WITHOUT READING FULL ARTICLE, YOU WILL REVEAL YOURSELF TO BE A WOYANE AND A LEFLAFA HABESHA KEMIS WEARING MAN. CLICK ON THESE WORDS TO READ FULL ARTICLE!
Now watch the Woyanes attack me, Teddy Fikre, instead of either attacking the message or debating what I wrote. I told you today is judgement day, all those who attack a message of hope and unity are WOYANES. There, I just exposed them:: For those that are not WOYANE, please help us out by giving us HEBRET so we can give HEBRET to our community::
[click on picture to donate and help us put together this magical event]
As I promised, every penny raised from this event, EVERY PENNY, will go towards putting together this event. The remaining revenue raised will go towards feeding homeless people in DC and feeding hopeless children in Ethiopia. A detailed spreadsheet of expenses and reveune will be published on a daily basis on www.browncondor.com. Believe, please believe, I ask this of my community. Give us, the younger generation a chance and we will give you desta for a lifetime for it. Enamesegenalen!
