Ethiopia

The Values of Ethiopianess and Contemporary
Ethiopian Youth in the Diaspora

By Paulos Milkias
Ethiopian Review, Jul-Aug 1997

How beautiful is youth! How bright it gleams;
With its illusions, aspirations and dreams.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Morituri Salutamus, 1874

Young Ethiopians should, first and foremost, know their roots and they should imbue themselves with their history, their heritage and the ironclad moral fibre that is the bedrock of their societal and existential world. They should be self-conscious (nñT-hLŽîn ígOt) and make Ethiopianness (AŽtYû{ûù÷£Nt) the basic frame of reference (ôhôy M÷qr) of their humanity (ínNt).
All Ethiopians should, in their social relationships,  reflect and exhibit the majesty of their culture. Why? Because we have one of the best cultures humanity has ever produced; because our character is a sum total of our noble culture: because our noble culture elevates and reinforces our everyday behavior; because our mores define our reason for living; because our millennia-years old tradition attempts to bring out the best in our humanity; and because there is nothing better, nothing nobler than being brought up in the best tradition of Ethiopianness.
Wherever you are, you should feel proud of being an Ethiopian. Mark that it is an honor to let the whole world know that you are an Ethiopian!

Emerson once said “manners make the fortune of ambitious youth”; and our sages remark: “MWDq YKJLW KgºBRGºB YLW” (To be impolite is to grope for a fall). Bad manners (ºBlgî) which the Ethiopian culture derides spoils every human relationship; it distorts communication. In the Ethiopian tradition, an impolite person is tagged as one who lacks breeding (AóäGŽ YBDLW Wym MRn YD).

Elegant breeding and good manners (sNmgâò÷£Nt Wym gºBRGºBNt) that the Ethiopian tradition venerates, on the other hand, sweeten communion; they remove an individual from the purgatory of barrio life and place him on the pedestal of harmonious existence.

Our young men and women at home and in the Diaspora should never lack civility (AkºBÒt) and decorum (X÷Nt), which are the hallmark of traditional Ethiopia.

Another enduring values of Ethiopianness is sincerity (HQoNt). As young Ethiopians, you should be sincere, because it is through sincerity that you can pay your country the best homage  and your  people the highest complement.

You, young people of today should know that Ethiopians are not only proud of being Ethiopians (BAŽtYû{ûù÷£Nt MK²òt). They also have humility (thtî). And humility is one of the noblest  values of a great people. But the humility of the Ethiopian is not by any means a  renunciation of pride (K²¹Nt). Contradictory as it may seem, the humility of the Ethiopian derives from pride, for one cannot grasp the concept of pride without grappling with the concept of humility.

Pride and humility, when they are juxtaposed, are like a beautiful art etched on a solid brass sheet. The Ethiopian people’s humility is a voluntary submission to others to make them feel at ease, to invite them to respond in kind. Anybody who misunderstands this gesture and crosses an Ethiopian faces the anger of a wounded lion (AtnK²o âyNt).

Young Ethiopians should learn to seek wisdom (uBºB) and be prudent (ºBlh) like the mainstream men-folk and womenfolk of Ethiopia.

The venue for prudence is the acquisition of knowledge. You should always be thirsty for knowledge as our Debteras tell us. Knowledge here is interpreted in a wide sense. It is not limited to what you learn from schools or from books. It is also what you learn from your wise elders. One way or other, when you gain knowledge your acquire wisdom. When you add experience to wisdom, then you have prudence .

It is through prudence that Ethiopian men and women such as Taitu Bitul and Abebe Aregay, who had no formal education, showed the capacity for a military genius outwitting officers trained in the best European military academies. It is through prudence that illiterate statesmen such as Fitawrari Habte Giorgis were able to mesmerize the most seasoned European ambassadors with their unorthodox but nevertheless ingenious diplomatic moves.

Young Ethiopians have, I am sure, heard their country’s most important adage: “tgÌt ­L²n ùVnæl” (Patience is the ultimate victor). Patience carried through in faith can move mountains, not metaphorically but really. Ethiopians always maintain patience guarded with vigilance. Hence, the adage “SWn WDDW anêŽ AtMNW” (Invest total love in people not total trust). It is through patience guided with prudence that Menelik defeated the armies of Baratieri at Adwa. It was through patience that Haile Selassie outlived Mussolini and presided over the ultimate liberation of his country.

Caution is called for here. Patience succeeds only when it goes hand in hand with appropriate action. Most importantly, one should guard against the fury of a patient Ethiopian. When the rubicon is crossed, when the other party misconstrues his patience for fear and resorts to provocation (tnËó) it is a direct invitation to kindle a survival instinct, (DMNfs) and the Ethiopian, in this case, would surely strike back, and swiftly.

Young Ethiopians should learn that perseverance is one of the enduring characteristics of an Ethiopian. When they tell you again and again “Tsæ AtQžRu” (do not loose hope), they are telling you to persevere.

The Ethiopian peasant’s way of doing things is a good teacher in this regard. He will not stop sowing even after experiencing the worst harvest. And in history, the Ethiopians, who had no rifles, won the war against the Musket armed forces of Ibrahim el-Gazi (Gragn) who was a surrogate of the Ottomans, by persevering against great odds and waiting for help from the Portuguese allies for fifteen years. The war against Fascist Italy was won with the perseverance of our patriots who never gave up on their just struggle and won independence for their country five years later. The Ethiopian saying that “repeated strokes will bring down the tallest Qerero tree” can be instructive in our struggle to frustrate the aims of those who want to destroy our country.

Following in the footsteps of your predecessors, you should learn self-reliance (òsn Mãl). You should  strive for excellence, and you should aspire to be the best in your field of endeavor. You should have the strength and prove that you can measure up to the challenges and responsibilities entrusted to you. If you believe in yourself, anything is possible. You must be the first in study, the first in professional development. You should be the first in helping your people and the first in defending your country.
Never do things by half. Do one thing at a time and do that well. Do everything with your might as our ancestors did for thousands of years.

One thing that today’s youth lack is organization, (aqämNt/sNsrÝt) something that our ancestors understood and practised almost instinctively, as for example when they organized themselves on the battlefield. You should not allow recklessness to spoil your plan of action. Whatever you do, you should do with style and elegance. You should organize yourselves and your program with precise directives and ideas for action. If there is no organization, all ideas, no matter how small or how noble, after an initial momentum, start to loose expediency. They become routine and degenerate into conformity thus loosing appeal. You must always set yourselves systematic and definitive tasks, and once you do, you must stick to them and not allow them to fleet out of your sight and out of your attention.

You should always try to be creative. To be creative is not alien to the Ethiopian culture. If you take the Qine (q) school in Gojam, the first thing the master tells you to do is that you should  produce ‘your own’ stanza. If you do not create one which is uniquely yours,  you are dubbed  a G²nän (ant) by your peers.
Be inventive and make your people proud with your achievements. You should never allow yourself to be a deadwood, paralyzed by complacency (arëô) and stagnation (agät).

You need to set a goal in life and continue to pursue it until it is achieved. Delve into empirical knowledge (äSó÷£ aWQt) and be productive because it is through the quest for new knowledge and through productiveness (mrô÷£Nt) that you can ultimately  crown the fruits of your labor with success. If you cannot go to Ethiopia and fight for the motherland, that is the minimum you can do to make your country proud.

As Ethiopian sages tell you, handle everything with care. Our tradition requires that you should separate the good and the evil (Sîy aî aK²y). You should believe in community-mindedness and social consciousness (í;Bò÷£ nñT hLŽî) and care about how others judge you on that score (yL²oô).

You should always be generous  and giving like our ancestors. In traditional Ethiopia, when the poor or the rich show generosity they act spontaneously and without ulterior motives. I remember years ago an elderly peasant Ethiopian lady in Dega Damot Gojam from whom I asked a glass of water but got a jug of milk instead. When I tried to pay with dollars I received a categorical “no” with the kind words: “My son, it is a privilege that God has sent someone like you to my hut so that I can be of help. I am not rich as you can see but nothing gives me more pleasure than giving anything in my possession to God’s guest.” That is the spirit of Ethiopianness, the same generosity that Herodutus was speaking about in the Iliad more than two thousand five hundred years ago.

That is the spirit of Ethiopianness that inspired the prophet Mohamed’s biographer Ibn Hisham to refer to our people as the most righteous.

That is what separates our values from the bohemianism of Western societies.

According to the tradition of Ethiopianness, general good will,  the spontaneous rendering of a service or an offer of valuable gifts, and even genuine reciprocity are welcomed as signs of friendliness, camaraderie and fellowship. However, when an Ethiopian bids to do something noble for his fellow man or to give him something of valueand the person on the receiving end may be a total strangerit is without strings attached; it is not with the expectation of a pay-back.

The spirit in which an Ethiopian gives is determined by altruism not by barter. And it is the intention and not the face value of the gift that matters.

When I reflect on the sense of helplessness and apathy that permeates the Ethiopian youth in the diaspora today, it worries me. It worries me that they seem to be loosing hope (Tsæ). Do not forget that love for your country lives on hope. Hope is like a wax on a candle. When it is no more, the flame is also no more. When your hope dies, your love for the motherland also dies and that permits those who want to destroy it to carry out their evil deeds without challenge, without fear, without equanimity.
Our younger generation should mark that the Ethiopian people’s commitment to independence and liberty and their eternal fixation on vigilance is unfathomable. For our people to be denied independence and liberty is to be denied the very essence of their  humanity. For them, their unique national character of Ethiopianness can be nurtured only when they are free. They could make no compromise on that.

One way in which Ethiopians ensured  their national independence, their freedom and their liberty has  been through adopting a life of eternal vigilance. They are always wary of people who seem harmless-looking but are fundamentally infiltrators (Sr GÂc), saboteurs (AuRÎÏc) who intend to crate confusion and havoc. That was why Ethiopian emperors during the Middle Ages never allowed European ambassadors sent to their courts to lead the most luxurious lives but to never leave the country again. That was why Taitu Bitul kept the Machiavellian Italian diplomat, architect of the Trickery of Wuchale Count Antonelli, under constant watch. If we are not vigilant, we open the door for those who want to destroy our independence, those who want to destroy our unity which gives us the capacity to guard our cherished values of freedom and dignity, a reality that had always made us unique on the whole African continent.

That being said, as young people, the worst sin you can commit towards your country is to remain indifferent (gdYLvNt) because the opposite of loving your country is exhibiting indifference towards its predicament, its peril, and its agony at a time when its very existence is clearly threatened.

When those courageous young Ethiopians saw their county sink into the abyss of Derg’s tyranny, they did not sit back and criticize. They fought and died to prevent it from happening. The fact that they did not succeed in the short run does not detract from the aim. The point is that they did their part. They believed in the nobleness of their cause.  If we simply sit here and heap criticism upon criticism on the ethnic balkanizers without taking concrete action to stop the rot, we are becoming like the man who stood in the dark and heaped curse upon curse on darkness instead of kindling a fire to overcome his predicament.
Have courage (JgnNt^ âLWNt^ G²ºBzî) like the heroes of Adwa and the young revolutionaries of the period of the red terror and fight to the end for your principle.

One cannot counsel only for courage. You should also be magnanimous when adversity strikes your enemy. Our tradition has it that victory that is followed by cruelty (xë) deserves no honor. When our ancestors triumphed over the enemy, they never pushed it too far. They felt if sufficient to let the protagonist know that under the circumstances, it is in their power to do anything  but that they are too magnanimous to take cruel revenge (Q£m BQl). They were led by reason not by emotional outburst. The ultimate conquest, the true seal of victory is magnanimity. A permanent conquest is achieved when you win the deference of the vanquished.

Weighing  the norms of your actions (íŽúî÷£Nt) when you are in the position of authority recognizes the existential predicament of the powerless no matter how insidious and how cruel that individual might have been previously. Menelik had shown that at Mekele when he provided escorts, means of transportation and rations to the defeated enemy troops that were dying of thirst to leave with their weapons intact. That group was said to be the first one to lay down its arms at the battle of Adwa. Likewise, in 1941, Haile-Selassie had instructed all Ethiopians that despite the abominable atrocities they had committed during the five years of occupation, Ethiopians should never take revenge on the defeated Italians.

I remember one sister, Hirut Abebe Jire, a member of the EPRP, whom I interviewed at length about her terrible torture by Derg henchmen and her narrow escape from death, if she has an insatiable desire to see the perpetrators of that heinous crime to face the ultimate punishmentwhich is death by hanging like those who were tried at Nuremberg after the second world war. Her reply to me was  “No, I am not after revenge; I want them to have a fair trial. A fair trial will by itself render the punishment that fits the crime.” This is a call for universal justice (­Lnô÷£ fth). That is a perfect example of magnanimity: a spirit of Ethiopianness that all young people at home and abroad should emulate.
Young Ethiopians should know that their ancestors had a sense of duty to the motherland. If you want to be true to your traditions, you should follow in their footsteps. The best example for that is found in the zemecha (ZMã). Zemecha for the traditional Ethiopian man and woman is war mobilization against an enemy: a total mobilization against a total enemy. It implies total commitment and participation and ends by total success or failure. There is something shameful about a zemecha which is neither a success nor a failure. Zemecha is more than an obligation; it is a duty. Zemecha is not based on class, social distinction, ethnic or religious background. It is a special event  which transcends all these boundaries to bring the full participation of all. It has a religious tinge to itself. It is like the drum beat to call the dead to rise and everybody has to answer his motherlands call.

Take the battle of Adwa. As British, Russian and Italian as well as Ethiopian writers of the period observed, there were not only an emperor and an empress; there were kings, princes and princesses, peasants and landlords, priests, monks and azmaries, women and children as young as twelve years of age on the battlefield. It was a call to duty and everyone of them knew that he or she could die at any moment. But they considered it a sacrifice for the motherland; not a personal tragedy but the greatest honour. Our young people of today should never let this tradition which ensured their country’s independence die. They should elevate it and live by it. They should declare a zemecha on any force that works to destroy Ethiopia, that wants to weaken it though balkanization. Without the spirit of the zemecha, there will be no Ethiopia tomorrow. Our country would be remembered only by historians, like Hanibbal’s Cartage, like Troy and Atlantis of mythical legend.

Mark again that as Ethiopians, whatever we have, we have together and whatever we have not we have not together. Yes, unlike what Meles tells us, Aksum is not only for Tigres; it is also for the Gurages. The magnificent rock hewn churches of Lalibela are not only for the Agews; they are also for the Oromos. The castles of Gonder are not only for the Gonderes; they are also for the Wolayittas. And one can also add, not in a metaphorical sense but in a literal sense, that the white teff of Gojam and Shoa, the gold deposits and coffee productions of Oromoland which are the lifeline of the country are also for the Tigres as it is for the Amharas and the Oromos. The kind of idea that is opposite to this can emanate only from people who have no sense of patriotism, who have no sense of Ethiopianness and who are bent on destroying the very solid foundation it has been built on during the last several thousand years.

As young Ethiopians, your patriotism, your commitment to the motherland should be like that of the heroes of Adwa, like Damtew,  Chacha, Gebeyehu, Tekle and  Tafessemost only in their twenties and thirties who fell upon the enemy relentlessly and sacrificed their lives regretting that they could die only once to save the motherland.

The time for patriotism (YHGr fqr/ArBoNt) is now, for as Lao Tzu observed in the 6th Century BC, it is when a nation’s existence is threatened and its society wallows in an unfathomable strife that indifference vanishes and patriotism flourishes.

As young people, you should love your country. To love your country means to want it to live. And the more intense your love for your country, the more violent your anger at those threatening its very existence. You should not bow when adversity strikes your motherland with the frightening possibility of your birthright  being maneuvered to self-destruct.
As young people, you have every reason to get angry, to be patriotic, to be ready to sacrifice your life when someone shrugs off truth that everyone can see with shameless falsehood and tells you directly in your face as the notorious turncoat, Dawit Yohannes, did that Ethiopia does not exist, never existed and  if it has to exist, it has to be created by him and his ilk in the future. You have every reason to be angry when someone calls your flag a peace of cloth, and a symbol of oppression and tyranny. Tell misguided individuals Meles that our flag does not depict oppression and tyranny, that it is a symbol that was built upon the ashes of our heroes, who held it aloft at Amba Alagie, Amba Aradom, Mekele, Adwa, Maichew and many other heroic battlefields where they took their last breath.

You should tell them that everything that our tricolor banner stands for is written with the blood of our martyrs, that our flag is the embodiment of our freedom and dignity and that we cannot tolerate its desecration.

Each and every Ethiopian in the diaspora wants someone to go and fight for him. Well, it is time that you young people say enough is enough and follow the dictates of your party, the EPRP or any other, party for that matter, to go to fight like your grandfathers and grandmothers did before you.

When the human rights of any Ethiopian, be he Asrat Woldeyes, Abera Yemaneab, Mekonnen Dori, Tsegaye Gebre Medhin, Taye Wolde-Semayat or Mohamed Ada Tuko and many others who are incarcerated in the TPLF’s dungeon for no other reason than for exposing evil, then it is not only an affront to them, it is an affront to you; actually, it is an affront to all members of humanity. That is why you cannot remain silent in the face of the antidemocratic deeds of the present regime  which has been documented at great length by EHRCO and Amnesty International.

You should employ every medium available to you and expose to the world the abuses and crimes committed against the Ethiopian people in the name of Ethnic democracy since 1991.
You should expose the denial of personal liberty, civil liberty, political liberty, social liberty and economic liberty, the denial of the freedom of association, the right of demonstration and assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the right to publish and disseminate ones own ideas without being obstructed.

You should expose the absence of  judicial independence and the rule of law and the EPRDF’s arrogant defiance of court orders to correct malfeasance; the unlawful incarceration of journalists opposed to the EPRDF’s policies; the harassment targeted against parties opposed to the EPRDF; the TPLF’s refusal to allow the formation of Trade Unions and Professional Associations such as the Akaki Textile and Fibre Factory Workers’ Union, the organization of the Workers of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Teachers’ Association; the numerous detentions without due process; the plight of persons denied their rightful pension on political grounds; the terrible state of displaced persons from Asmera and Asseb in Mereb Melash; the denial of the citizen’s right of movement within Ethiopia; the rigging of elections to ensure EPRDF/TPLF monopoly of political power in Ethiopia; the plight of employees dismissed from their jobs on ethnic and political grounds; the plight of those who’s property rights were unjustly violated; the denial of the right to work on ethnic and political grounds; the plight of the victims of torture and cruel and inhuman punishment by the TPLF; the sorry state of the numerous involuntarily disappeared persons, such as Tsegaye Gebre Medhin, some of whom  may already be, according to Amnesty International, victims of TPLF hit squads; the extra-judicial executions and massacres carried out by TPLF soldiers such as those committed at Areka against unarmed and peaceful demonstrators; the maltreatment of prisoners of war and conscience; the plight of Addis Abeba University students who were massacred for showing opposition to the dismemberment of their country; the unjust treatment of Addis Abeba University professors whose academic and basic human rights were violated when they were expelled on political grounds; the terrible massacre perpetrated on worshipers at a Gonder church and at the Grand Anwar Mosque in Addis Abeba.

Ethiopian youth should know that their predecessors knew when to remain peaceful and when to engage in war. They have never engaged in violence for the sake of violence. They did recognize the intrinsic difference between unjust violence and just violence.
Just violence is resorted to in self-defence. Just violence is resorted  to when someone denies you the right to life, liberty, freedom and independence. Just violence as in the zemecha tradition is not only a right, it is a duty. If someone tries to destroy your country, and your appeal to stop it falls on deaf ears, then the only course remaining is a violent one.

There is no dignity without a country. There is no freedom without a country. Despite what pacifists may tell youand I have no doubt about their convictionyou can not get everything you want by peaceful means. Actually, freedom is never given on a silver platter; freedom is taken!

We are now face to face with the possible disintegration of our motherland; we are  face to face with calamities which for us are a misfortune but to their architects a fortune, at least in the short term. I say at least in the short term because Meles and company have put themselves in a bind. They should have been wiser to know Nietzsche’s dictum: “He who is not a bird should not build his nest over abysses.”

As for us, it is our common duty to try to stamp out the calamities facing our motherland in concert not to flee them by refusing to listen to the agony of our people since it is in trying to remove such calamities that the grandeur of our Ethiopianness is found.

As I pointed out earlier, Ethiopia has never faced greater calamity since the invasion of Ibrahim El-Gazi (Ahmed Gragn) in the 16th century and the Italian occupation of 1936. But this one is more insidious because it parades in the name of Ethiopia even when it tries to destroy it. Do not forget your country’s adage: “KWäJû Uìt AdNo” (Save me from an enemy who parades as  a friend).
The threat to us all existentially, socially and nationally should unite us. We should learn to work in concert to face the challenge like our ancestors did when they faced an invader from without, for as Aristotle pointed out 2,300 years ago, a common danger unites even the most bitter enemies. And how instructive the dictum of Benjamin Franklin for our youth: “We must all hung together, or we shall all hung separately.”

Today, Ethiopia beckons its youth because of the danger it is facing. The Ethiopian people who had been hoping that their educated children would return from abroad and save them from the clutches of tribalism are wondering if they have been forsaken.
Ethiopia deserves more. Its people are the most  noble, the most courageous. They are persons with the highest human and moral fibre. Their capacity to sacrifice, to give, to show generosity is unfathomable. You are the children of these people and your motherland deserves better.

Compare yourselves to the youth of Ethiopia of yesteryear. Compare yourselves to those who picked up their shields, spears and swords, those who picked up their guns at a moment of danger to their county and showed their readiness to defend their country. Compare yourselves to those who, in order to make sure that Ethiopia would continue to exist, courageously fell at Adwa, Amba Alagie, Amba Aradom, Mekele, Dogali, Arogie, Dabarki, Gundet, Gura, Galabat, Metemma, Senhit, Ashangie, Walwal, Maichew and many others. Compare yourselves to those courageous children of Ethiopia who went to their deaths during the Red Terror campaign, defying the bloodthirsty Derg killers.
When these patriotic children of Ethiopia died whether on the battlefields fighting against foreign enemies or as in the case of the Red Terror with enemies within, despite their minor or major ideological differences, despite coming from many different religious backgrounds and linguistic groups, they understood each other and what they stood for perfectly well. They definitely did not have a tower of Babel in their midst.

If you love Ethiopia, that should be your guide; if you love Ethiopia, and if you want to preserve the glorious pages of our history which had been written with the blood of our martyrs, that should be your guide; if you love Ethiopia and you want to see the tricolor Ethiopian flag green, yellow and redto continue to flutter that should be your guide; if you love Ethiopia!
________________________________________________
Paulos Milkias, Ph.D., is professor of Humanities and Political Science at Marianopolis College and Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He is also Associate Editor of ER. The above article is taken from a speech delivered at a conference that was held in Los Angeles on July 1, 1997,  commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the EPRP. The “Ethiopian Value” part of the speech was prepared for a similar but nonpolitical conference that was planned by Wr. Misrak Elias and her group a few years ago but was cancelled due to logistical problems. Part I appearing here is aimed at the youth. Three more sections dealing with the tribulations of the Ethiopian youth from 1960 to 1991 will be published in the next issues of ER. The entire speech will also appear with bibliographical references in the Proceedings of the EPRP Colloquium. Since by sheer coincidence, the two complement each other, readers would find it useful to juxtapose this piece with Hamrawit Tesfa’s opening speech (p. 58) to the EPRP conference on the same day.

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