By Kiflu Hussain

Lately, in the past four years, I learned the hard way how deep pain and grief can penetrate due to the loss of someone you love or admire. Although I’ve always felt sad when someone I know very well or someone close to me dies, the grief I used to experience has never been all consuming; not until 28 October 2005.

That fateful day was the day I was bundled to the notorious detention center called “Maekelawie”whereupon I got transferred after a few days to Kaliti concentration camp to rot for one solid year. While I was there I learned the death of three people I cherished dearly. Two were prominent Ethiopians who had been distinguished in their own respective career. They were the late Poet Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin and the renowned former NASA scientist Kitaw Ejigu. Of course, Kitaw died in America and was buried there. Nonetheless, to learn of their loss in a highly congested place not even fit for animals which is mostly inhabited with all sorts of weirdos interspersed with guys like me and some other decent fellows was really devastating. But that’s what happens in a repressive system where your incarceration would surely be protracted indefinitely. And, so I learned about the third person’s death who had been a senior colleague and whose unsung integrity and patriotism I used to admire. Ato Aseffa Taye — a lawyer who worked for Ethiopian Insurance Corporation for nearly 30 years, before and after the nationalization of insurance companies by the military regime.

I thought that kind of ordeal would be over once I get released. But, no Sir! I had to come to exile in January 2007 and learn about three more deaths that really shook me up. Again, I had to learn about the death of a friend who was also another lawyer but much younger, even some three years younger than me. Apart from being known as a symbol of generosity in our circle, he was a genial man always with an exploding infectious laughter. Most of us beer drinkers in our office used to enjoy our nectar with him after a long hard day. Though Betre Dawit –that’s his name — had been terminally ill for some time due to the inefficiency of health care — no care really — system that was unable to diagnose his problem on time, his death still came as a shock. I witnessed before I sneaked out of my country that his positive mentality and cheerfulness never deserted him despite being bedridden for long. You go to cheer him up but you get back being cheered up. And, there was this friend of mine with whom I grew up in a neighborhood at Bole and whose bohemian lifestyle never failed to give me a kick despite his background from a stiff “petit bourgeois” family. Unfortunately, unlike Sebhat Gebregziabiher’s generation when one can afford to be a bohemian without running any fatal risk, this bohemian friend of mine called Abiy Gudeta bought the farm with his untimely death a couple of months ago. I was unable to bid him farewell except grieve in a distance as had never grieved before, while reminiscing all his mischief, witty remarks, sarcastic humor and his total disdain for the uptight society in which he grew up.

And, now came the passing away of the greatest Ethiopian celebrity to whom I became a fan just like any child in any modern Ethiopian family through inheritance. My love for Tilahun’s music, my perception of that great artist is no different than any other modern Ethiopian. I cannot tell a different story about how I passionately became his fan. Like Fekade Shewakena said in his piece titled “Tilahun’s passing away: End of an era,” once again I also felt bitter about “Sidet.” Yet, this time my bitterness emanated not only due to the frustration of not being there to salute this great Ethiopian artist for the last time. Rather, it’s due to the inability of transferring the legacy of Tilahun to my kids as had been transferred to me by my parents, especially by my father who was absolutely crazy about Tilahun’s music.

My father used to tell us how they used to waltz to their hearts content after inviting the Orchestra of the Imperial Bodyguard at Army Aviation where he served during the good old days before he joined Ethiopian Airlines in May 1974. At home we had loads of reel and later cassette tapes of Tilahun and his contemporaries. Perhaps, they would hook up again, up there in the heavens and waltz in the after-life for my father too became no more in August 2000. At any rate, the day I learned of Tilahun’s death was just like any other day. Expecting nothing out of the ordinary, I went out in the morning of April 20 to check my email. Before I settled down at the Café, a friend of mine and a fellow refugee in Kampala called me to break the sad news about Tilahun. Considering his declining health for some time, I wasn’t that much jolted. However, a creeping void began to overwhelm me as the enormity of it hit me. He was the first, the best and unparalleled vocalist in the modern Ethiopian music. He dominated the scene for over five decades. So, like everyone agrees, his death entails the closing of a big chapter in the formidable continuing Ethiopian saga. Anyway,to confirm the news, I went directly to ethiomedia.com. But no mention about Tilahun. Then to Addisvoice, nothing. Finally EMF confirmed my worst fear on which I scribbled some words about the loss I felt.

While leaving the café and still reflecting about Tilahun, I called my wife and broke the news to her which she naturally found shocking. Around lunchtime, I went to my kid’s school to pick my second daughter who only spends half a day there. She is eight years old. Though, normally I don’t discuss death or about dead people with her, this time I couldn’t resist.

I said “Sophie, Tilahun Gessese died.”

Her response: “who the hell is he?”

Now that shocked me more than Tilahun’s death. It’s only been two years since we sought refuge in Uganda, a tiny country not very far from Ethiopia. Though there are many Ethiopian exiles here, because of absence of economic opportunities, the Ethiopian community is weak to address its basic needs let alone to pass on Ethiopian history and culture to children born in exile or who came to exile in their infancy.

The other factor is the majority of Ethiopian exiles here are waiting for resettlement to a third country which is an impediment to strengthen the community with people who can dedicate themselves with long term commitment. Thus, it’s impossible to even find a story book in Amharic. Consequently, many Ethiopian kids are finding it more and more difficult to speak in their own mother tongue. Reading in Ge’ez script, a truly indigenous and sole African script, has become a luxury to contemplate here. Personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s easier for an Ethiopian kid in Northern America to learn Amharic than an Ethiopian kid who is unfortunate enough to be exiled with his family in another African country such as Uganda.

In any case, to provide answer to my kid’s question, I asked her and her elder sister, who’s 12 years old, to listen to VOA Amharic service with me so that she will know or remember who Tilahun Gessese was. They both snubbed me for a fool who expected them to trade off their favorite program from the many channels of Ugandan TV. I was forced to listen to VOA alone through my headset. I didn’t give up hope. I just decided to bid my time and when the right time comes, I deluge them with the power of Tilahun’s music. After all, it’s the hallmark of Tilahun’s music to galvanize anyone without even paying attention to the lyrics.

Apart from being the first and the best in modern Ethiopian music, I think that is one of the factors that made Tilahun’s music abiding from generation to generation. The other factor was Tilahun’s ability to consummate a message in his music without appearing an activist for this or that cause. Also, despite the absence of his overt activism for any high sounding “lofty” cause, he never engaged in any scandal that compromised the sovereignty of Ethiopia nor the unity of its people. On the contrary, he moved heaven and earth with his shattering performance during the peak of the fight in 1977 with Ethiopia’s archenemy, TPLF and the then invading army of Siad Barre. The title of that song was “Atintem Yikeskes” which made him an object of hateful propaganda along with Neway Debebe, Tsehaye Yohannes and Tamegn Beyene by the current rulers of Ethiopia in the early 1990s.

So then, does the sending of letter of condolence on his funeral by Meles Zenawi, the number one enemy of Ethiopia and anything Ethiopian, mean that he has repented or modified his anti-Ethiopian stance? Or does it mean that he finally acknowledged the talent as well as the patriotism of Tilahun Gessese?

The answer is a resounding no! What forced Meles & Co. to put on a public charade was first, the universal appeal of Tilahun’s music, which even wooed tycoons and financiers of TPLF such as Al Moudi to the extent of becoming an unconditional patron for his past and current artistic works. Second, TPLF’s fall out with its erstwhile comrade-in-arms, EPLF, over a tiny barren land in1998-2000.

Woyanne realized then that its Eyassu Berhe et al weren’t enough to summon the public for that senseless war in the name of “sovereignty.” Hence, it had to dust off from ETV’s sound archive and play “Atintem Yikeskes” grudgingly. Later, it had even enlisted Tilahun in person as it had never detested him before so that he goes to the front and boost the morale of the army. When the war was concluded with the Woyanne side gaining the upper hand, Tilahun’s patriotic songs were sidelined. It’s also public knowledge that the current rulers of Ethiopia aren’t keen to hear any of Tilahun’s song that praises Ethiopia and Ethiopianess in the media they monopolized. The only time you get to hear these songs with ample opportunity is when the opposition political parties campaign once in every five year for farcical elections as the one that ended in bloodshed in 2005. Otherwise, it’s in your own private place. As the Ethiopian renaissance is in the horizon, to which Woyanne’s reluctant accession to Tilahun’s state funeral is a clear sign out of many, I will also find “Atintem Yikeskes” and play it again on a blaring gramophone to listen and make others listen to the following verses which is roughly translated.

Let my bone be crushed
Let my blood be spilled
Than to see my country
Be defiled by the enemy.

In the meantime, I say goodbye to the Ethiopian Star for the last time as the British bade farewell to their beloved Princess Diana to whom they dedicated a song titled “Goodbye England’s Rose.” Also all the dead I mentioned above: May they rest in peace, except Tilahun for he has an obligation there too to entertain his fans.

(The writer can be reached at [email protected])