By Teodros Kiros
BOSTON — A supremely organized coterie of protesters rejected the mercenaries of Woyanne who came to beg for money to support a sham development without vision, without integrity.
Ethiopians celebrated resisting tyranny on March 9, 2011 in the historic city of Cambridge, home to Harvard University and MIT, the premier centers of higher education.
A mosaic of ethnic groups from metropolitan Boston and Cambridge defiantly challenged the regime. The banner of Ethiopianity united this group of Ethiopians. Tigreans, Oromos, Gurages, Amharas, Ogadenis and others chanted in unison:
Beka!
No to tyranny!
No to ethnic division!
Yes to unity!
Yes to Ethiopiawinet!
There was the Eros moment at work anchored on love, on care, on friendship and caring for one another. The outcome of the protest was so successful that a substantial number of us went to a local Ethiopian restaurant and celebrated our gains and strategized about our future plans, which are bound to be huge.
Parents brought their children with them to this momentous event. I was proud to be there with my brothers and sisters who stood for hours, when the tyrannical regime shamelessly sent them the Cambridge police, who had better things to do than keep an eye on a crowd that was conspicuously civil.
Sister protests in DC, in New York, Atlanta and other major cities also exhibited the Beka Movement, a movement that is being rapidly globalized as the distinctive mark of Ethiopian Uprising.
(Teodros Kiros, Ph.D., can be reached at [email protected])