By Baran Bahan
I love and respect carpentry and dentistry as much as I do love and respect all other disciplines and professions. I know that both carpenters and dentists do amazing things for us in their respective professions. However, trying to apply the rules and principles of carpentry and dentistry to other fields, especially politics, is not only counterproductive, but also a dangerous one. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened to Ethiopia since the establishment of the empire.
The unfinished Ethiopian empire building started around hundred and thirty years ago when Minilik captured territories far larger than he had when he was a local warlord. Haile Sellasie latter annexed Eritrea to the one he inherited from him. Then, Mengistu Haile Mariam fought seventeen years to keep the so called “mother land” intact. The current regime already lost Eritrea, and is soon to lose even more territories such as Ogaden and Oromia. The rulers of the empire for more than a century engaged in the work of carpentry and dentistry that involved cutting, nailing and hammering, uprooting, removing and shaking all along the way.
The act of carpentry and dentistry started when the invader warlord Minilik from the north, motivated by economic needs, moved south ward to loot the wealth and resources of Oromia and other nations. After many lootings, this warlord realized that the new nations had more wealth and resources than he had ever imagined and, hence, decided to put the whole region under his control with the weaponry and training he received from the west. Like a learner carpenter who carelessly uses his/her tools to cut woods and hammer and nail them together, the terrorist Minilik and his thugs used their firearms, knives and whatever they had at their disposal and brutally massacred, dismembered, disfigured, amputated and made fun of human beings. The “visionary king” mercilessly shattered the bones of human beings, let their bloods flow, and committed unforgettable genocide. Like a careless dentist, who extracts a healthy tooth and replaces it with the fake one, the Habeshas also displaced the Oromos, Wolaitas, Kambatas, Somalis and, etc from their lands and resettled their own people. They further imposed their language, culture and religion on indigenous people and made a terrible ethnocide.
It is really weird to hear that the Habeshas today are trying to tell us that his motive was to “unify the country”. Why didn’t he seek unity with other warlords such as Takle Haimanot and Yohannes?
Haile Sellasie also did the same criminal act of uprooting the indigenous people. To justify the impunity of his criminal act and atrocity, he told his subjects that he was ‘named by God’ to rule Ethiopia. The feeble “king”, however, did not say a word if the same God who named him as “king of Ethiopia” also told him to flee the country when Italians invaded. What on earth can explain his decision to annex Eritrea, a free county that had to latter fight for more than thirty years to get independence, more than his stupidity and political immaturity? The “wise king” was ironically failed to understand even the “land to the tiller” simple logic that school kids lectured him on the street of the capital and other cities.
Mengistu Haile Mariam, who came to power behind tank, also turned out to be the worst carpenter who thinks that a hammer and a nail are the only tools that can fix everything. He killed an estimated two million people during his seventeen years reign. Today, more than seventy countries in the world have population less than two million, less than the number of people he killed in civil war and different color terrors. It is, however, sad that even today he has no any contrition when he says he did everything “in the interest of the country” to defend the country against “secessionists”. Like Halie Sellasie did, he also fled the country to save his own life when he realized that his life was at risk.
As if the empire was cursed by God, woyyanes are no different today. They killed tens of thousands in a meaningless war with Eritrea. They sent our kids to Somalia and made the whole world watch them being dragged in the streets. The brutal and extrajudicial killings of innocent people have continued nonstop. As the derg labeled the victims “antirevolutionary” and “secessionists”, the woyyanes also found new tags for the people they kill and incarcerate at will: “terrorists” and “Shabia mercenaries”. They violate their own constitution and accuse others of violating it. They jail people both for speaking and not speaking.
The answer for hundreds of questions regarding why the Habesha rulers continue to apply the rules and principles of carpentry and dentistry to politics and kill and suppress the Oromos and people of other nations is clear and simple: they think that they cannot rule without it, a mark of pure ignorance and stupidity. Of course, they cannot rule because democracy always favors the majority.
It is odd that the Habeshas today praise those terrible carpenters and dentists. Close-to-god honorific title such as “His Majesty,” the feminine love name such as “Immiyye,” and “visionary” they use to describe the monsters are nothing but a vain attempt to delude others. They are making terrible mistakes if they think that their “golden past” will come again. The light should be for all, or else for none! They should stop deafening us with their fake stories of civilization. What else can better describe their claims to have territories in Jerusalem, Eritrea, Djibouti, Yemen, and Sudan than a pure delusion?
Finally, I want them to understand that our history is stronger and deeper than the one they learned through short story telling at night around fire, and that our victory and the victory of all the oppressed people is very soon.
Victory for the Oppressed!
To find the author, email to astsech@gmail.com