A photo of a new graduate from Ethiopia’s prestigious AAU campus, carrying firewood on his back as his mother wore the cap & gown, went vital on African social media today. The heartbreaking image symbolizing the struggle by millions of Ethiopian mothers, due to lack of electricity, was trending at the same day that US President Joe Biden promoted Egypt’s agenda to control & deny Ethiopia’s hydroelectric development.
Ethiopians worldwide praised the Addis Ababa University (AAU) graduate, Efrem Belete, for honoring his mother’s painful sacrifice to help him attain higher-education. Efrem’s mother was visibly emotional as he reflected on her support for his education since childhood despite their economic circumstances. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian women nationwide are known to carry such heavy bundles of firewood daily just to provide cooking power & heat for their families. Efrem’s commendable act during his university graduation ceremony put a spotlight and recognized both his mother and hardworking mothers around the country.
Many observers in social media also noted it is unacceptable that Ethiopian mothers, even those living near urban centers, lack basic human rights in the 21st century due to Western geo-political support for Egyptian monopoly of the Nile river.
In Ethiopia, under 4% of women have access to clean fuel for cooking and over 50 million Ethiopians have no access to electricity.
Ethiopia is the source of 80% of the Nile but most Ethiopians have no electricity because Egypt was empowered by the West to dominate the water usage & provide electricity to over 99% of the Egyptian population.
US has provided tens of billions of dollars worth military aid, developmental and infrastructural assistance to Egypt since the mid 1900s. After decades of Egyptian proxy wars against Addis Ababa, Ethiopia recently built the hydroelectric Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) by spending over $5 billion of its own hard money because United States and UK blocked international bank financing for the GERD. This Western diplomatic & financial blockage on Ethiopia also caused several delays in the GERD dam construction as well as reduced quality bidding options to hire international contractors and sub-contractors.
After Egyptian leaders threatened to bomb the GERD, as its construction proceeded, notorious Egyptian lobbyists in Washington DC recently influenced more US politicians to support Egypt gain a legal control on the filling & operation of Ethiopia’s own GERD project. Accordingly, earlier today, President Joe Biden confirmed this prevailing US bias promoting Egyptian interests, by declaring his support for a legal binding agreement between Egypt and Ethiopia “on the filling and operation of the GERD without further delay,” as published on White House gov website.
On top of American diplomatic and financial support for Cairo, President Biden acknowledged continued US “military equipment and security assistance for Egypt,” which include weapons reportedly being smuggled to rebels destabilizing Gambella state of Ethiopia. In coordination with the TPLF rebel insurrection in the northern Tigray, the regional government of Ethiopia’s Gambella state accused Egypt’s military equipment support for GLF rebels operating at the Western border with Sudan as well as rebels in Benishangul-Gumuz. Recently, popular Gambella activist Jekap Omod also confirmed that Egypt is smuggling its US-funded weapons directly to the rebel leader Gatluak Boum Pal who committed atrocities during its attacks.
African governments have repeatedly attempted various initiatives to peacefully address Egypt’s US-backed monopoly of the Nile and Cairo’s destabilization role in the horn of Africa. Since 2010, seven upstream black-African countries (including Ethiopia) signed a Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) promoting equitable sharing of the river, but Egypt refused to share the water resource and even used its Arab League leadership role to damage Ethiopia economically and diplomatically.
The inspiring message demonstrated by the Addis Ababa University (AAU) graduate today carrying his mother’s firewood has not only economic implications for millions of Ethiopians but also an impact on women health. Lack of clean energy produces health problems from firewood use for nearly 80 percent of Ethiopia’s rural women while household air pollution is responsible for 46,000 deaths annually, according to a 2018 study at the University of California.
Ethiopian and regional analysts say virtually all of America’s destructive foreign policy decisions in the horn of Africa, including its recent support for Tigrayan rebel insurrectionists in Tigray, connect back to its support for Egypt’s geo-political interests against Ethiopia.
awasaguardian
What a moving story! Let’s give that young man. Roaring round of applause for having his loving mother by his side while savoring the moment. Good luck our son Ephrem!!!
Quote: “A photo of a new graduate from Ethiopia’s prestigious AAU campus, carrying firewood on his back as his mother wore the cap & gown, “Unquote
Emotional Commentary
I am overwhelmed. I can not see my typing.
My eyes are full of tears..
And I cannot continue typing ….
Hi!
NB: Over 85% of the Nile is from Ethiopia’s rivers [Abbay (Blue Nile), Baro & Akobo (White Nile tributaries)]. Over 60% of Ethiopians don’t have access to electricity!
Extra-ordinary Ethiopians like Efrem Belete who make it in this world against-all-odds make my day! If Efrem’s mother & these mothers https://youtu.be/WSdYyYqsljw?t=1 don’t rally us behind Poverty Eradication in Ethiopia, what will?
Irony: Abiy was ridiculed for his efforts to give training to women like Efrem’s mother and hire them at the Entoto Park as permanent employees. Nevertheless, Abiy went ahead & many like Efrem’s mother got jobs in the various businesses at the Entoto Park.
Empower: The day Addis Ababa’s homeless kids were taken for the Menelik Palace tour, they were finally taken to the Menelik Dining Hall for lunch. Abiy showed up and said: “I left home at 13. I could have ended up homeless just like you! I am here talking to you from this podium because of the choices I made. So, you can make it, too, with self-discipline, right choices and personal efforts! You will be given the tools to help you…”
i_Mognu / don_Q
A roaring congratulations to this young man and his angelic mom! I wish him the best in his career.
On the issue of the reported meeting between President Biden and el-Sisi, rather than dwelling on speculations can somebody present an ocular proof that either el-Sisi or the US President has come to a one-sided conclusion that those black folks do not need to get electricity? By all indications el-Sisi seems to have learned how to live with the reality of the dam. That is because our super genius engineers had designed the dam well before the corner stone was laid in a way that will not adversely affect downstream nations of Sudan and Egypt. It has gone two phases of filling but those did not and have not reduced the amount of river water flowing through Sudan or reaching Egypt all the way to the Mediterranean coast. By now the third filling might be in progress but still we have not Khartoum going dry or Alexandria dying of thirst. I am also quite sure that all outsiders know one fact. If Egypt or Sudan tries to be funny with the nearly completed dam where every ounce of concrete and metal was paid for by the citizens of that country the Blue Nile as we know it today could be lost forever. It will be just chillin’ right there inside the country with no need to travel thousands of miles in foreign countries through arid deserts. You dig? Not only that but any destructive action on the dam being built by black folks who want to bring electricity to their home will create an uproar throughout Africa no one will be able to control. I am 100% sure both President Biden and his advisors are not such haters that they want to see those black folks continue to live in dark in this day and age of 2022. What President Biden might have told el-Sisi could be that the issue should be resolved in a way to benefit all share holders. What I want to bring to my dear countrymen is the people who produced us were never found to be doing anything to harm their neighbors near or afar. They know very well that their Egyptian brothers and sisters depend on the waters of the Nile in general and more particularly the Blue Nile. That is why they have been so generous for ages. But now they want to share the piece of the pie. I have been thinking about the sea of hostile options for Egypt but ended up with only one end result. It may kiss and say goodbye to the waters from the Blue Nile and a billion raging black folks from the Cape of Good Hope to the seashore of Dakar. So let’s not come to a conclusion about this alleged meeting based on sheer speculations just to feed our raw emotion.
On unrelated news the UN has just announced that the famine in Tigray is averted and over. That is a sigh relief for me to hear our sisters and brothers in Tigray do not have to deal with this lethal calamity. Eternal peace should be next for them. Insha’Allah!