Sunday, September 10, 2006

“MY WAY OR THE HIGH WAY… PART II” of ETHIOPIAN’S APPROACH!


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The story goes like this:

A peasant raised a dog, this dog used cause all kinds of troubles. This peasant repeatedly warned the dog, but the dog did not cease its misbehaving and its mischievous acts.

One day this exasperated peasant took the dog to the weekly market, and then he started yelling … “Mad dog, Mad dog … Watch out!”. The crowd started to throw stones at this mischievous dog……

The peasant got his revenge… and the story of the dog foiled down sadly….

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Selam All,

Some of the comments I have received after the last ‘my way or the highway’ blog implied that it is a worthy/healthy thing to self-examine. I agree with you. As Socrates once said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living. ... Wisdom begins in wonder. ... There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.' “

Then I don’t see why some of you readers think, shining a light up-on my Ethiopian way of thinking, my brain wiring and my expression in the world would be wrong?

And then again, I asked my self the job of 'teyaki' in 'ethiomind' is to ask questions on how we Ethiopian’s think. A Question that tickles our inner most brain cells. And the hope is that some day many of us might find ourselves awake from our day dreaming.

The one and most absurd comment I have received is that I might be a banda, who is hired by the government. An idea like this seems to be one of the recent fad, which is spreading faster than the Californian wild fire. What a stretch!

Pointing out that the idea of ‘my way or the highway approach’ doesn’t serve Ethiopia and Ethiopian’s doesn’t mean upholding the government philosophy. Or it doesn’t require being a hired pen to express my opinion. Thanks to the technology.

Of course, I had said that the so called ‘intellectuals’ pretension to know ALL the answers to Ethiopia and there is no other view than their ‘sophisticated’ approach… is just an eerie feeling.

This extends to all disciplines of study and walk of life. Our strength and our power is in our mutual acceptance to one another and respect the other person’s opinion. At the end of the day the winner is the all inclusive person/race.

But, it triggered another issue that is equally important in Ethiopian’s way of thought process. It is label giving and calling names. Especially those we have a ‘beef’ with. Well, the world was supposed to revolve around us – I guess.

Zemene Mesafint, Zemene Negestat, Zemene Derg, Zemene Zenawi… it is imperative to know that the years, days ‘zemenochu’ are changing and we are in the year of technology & communication zemene siltane….. but we haven’t graduadted from the SAME school of thought.

It is sickening to hear and see us ‘Ethiopian’s’ (especially the once living in the western hemisphere) still dwell in our ‘comfort zone’ while in reality we live in amnesia. That we don’t know or remember we are suffering from sleep paralysis. We are W-A-Y behind from the whole world. We can’t afford to live in a very narrow approach of life, in a narrow kind of circle, in a very narrow kind of existence.

I found it to be very comical that we demand even the ‘westerns’ should accept this bias of ours. Well for some-one who defines the boundaries and the standards, it might be a legitimate demand to make. But, are we, can we???? Not really.

Let’s stop putting name tags and labels. Let’s stop hair splitting, and see our REAL stance on face of the world. Physicians tell us the awareness of the problem is the first step in finding the real solution.

These are my two cents, I blog on

So, hang on… write back

Selam Qwou.
(ethiomind@gmail.com)