Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” opens with the Duke of Orsino declaring to the assembled musicians, “If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it…
The Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) has pulled out all the stops to stop Teddy Afro (Tewodros Kassahun) from playing on his music of love; his music of joy and celebration that has been soul food for millions of Ethiopians for so long.
The T-TPLF is making Teddy’s life as miserable as their own. “Misery loves company.”
But Teddy is not about misery. He is about joy and cheerfulness.
He is of no use to the T-TPLF. He does not sing songs of misery.
Teddy is incapable of singing T-TPLF songs: songs of hate, songs of revenge, songs of injustice and songs of bitterness and acrimony.
He sings happy songs, love songs, songs of peace, songs of unity, songs of love of country and continent, songs of Ethiopianity, songs of Africanity and songs of humanity. That’s all he can sing as a musician. Love.
There is an old saying that some people are born to hate, others destined to love.
Teddy was born and destined to spread the gospel of victory in love.
Why do they want to drive Teddy out of his beloved Ethiopia?
According to recent online reports (in Amharic), the T-TPLF is determined to drive Teddy into exile or worse.
For years, the T-TPLF has been waging psychological, legal and economic warfare against Teddy in the hope of forcing to leave the country he loves.
They have tried to vilify, demoralize and humiliate him.
In 2008, the T-TPLF arrested Teddy on trumped up charge of hit-and-run resulting in a fatality.
He was brought before a T-TPLF kangaroo/monkey kriminal kourt and railroaded to prison for six years.
His sentence was commuted to two years and released early for good behavior.
I wrote a commentary entitled “The Artist as Hero: The Ballad of Teddy Afro”, examining the alleged evidence against him and enumerating the real reasons for his imprisonment by the T-TPLF.
When Teddy released his album “Tikur Sew” in 2012, the T-TPLF got its vilification campaign in high gear.
Using faceless drones hiding behind Facebook and other social media, the T-TPLF unleashed a clever social media smear campaign.
The T-TPLF trolls took to cyberspace claiming Teddy musically glorified Ethiopia’s 19thcentury Emperor Menelik II as a champion of African dignity and liberation when he was allegedly a ruthless conqueror.
Of course, that was all a load of crap since Teddy lionized other prominent Ethiopian heroes from all ethnic groups who shed their blood to defend Ethiopia’s sovereignty and dignity in his album.
In December 2013, the T-TPLF orchestrated another campaign behind the scenes to demonize, smear, tar and feather Teddy.
They hatched out a propaganda campaign around a single statement he allegedly made: “For me, Menelik’s unification campaign was a Holy War”. In other words, Menelik’s “Holy War” was actually a genocide.
The overt purpose of the campaign was to demonize Emperor Menelik by demonizing Teddy.
Of course, that is total bull.
To read the rest of the commentary, CLICK HERE.