Cyberspace:
The Virtual Tearoom
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A stone throw away from Ethiopia, across the Red Sea, lays one of the richest states in the world. Abundant in black gold [oil] with over 25% of the worlds known reserves the inhabitants of this rich nation enjoy a high standard of material life. At the same time that the simple, materially humble, and exaggeratedly romanticized bedu [nomadic] society partially transformed into a wealthy urban modern one, it lost its freedom. The tribe became tribes and then a state that turned into a brutal fiefdom of a single bloodline. In this land of abundance there is a poverty of freedom. Authentic choice. The common folk do not have the choice of expressing what’s on their mind and lending a hand in shaping the destiny of their collective lives as in the old days of the nomadic society. That much abused word, d-e-m-o-c-r-a-c-y is nowhere to be seen. The human spirit can never be content with simply eating. Whether the belly is empty or full there are other needs. These folks have a need for an authentic choice to participate in all aspects of their society. They may never even exercise that privilege, that hard won authentic choice, as is the case in the great land of the Eagles but they will never stop until having possession of it, freedom that is. They are full citizens quelled into silence by the mighty tentacles of the high-tech armed state with its sleepless minions eaves dropping on every conversation and breath. These minions are masters at sucking the public chat and squeezing it for substance and, as long as it is harmless-mindless gossip, letting it be. The unfortunate few who speak out of turn in a crowded tearoom will never be seen in that or any other tearoom. The quiet of the public in public is misleading. For that is not where the heated conversations, declarations, discussions, and passions are overflowing, it is hectic in cyberspace. The green house full of discourse in the middle of man made deserts of forced silence. In this garden with no gardener grow voices and ideas unbounded. The public space of cyberspace is the place to go and measure the mood and temperature of the people. In this space gender/age/race/ethnicity/nationality/education/profession/class are blank spaces left to be filled by the individual. In the virtual world one can assume any shape and if I were poetically inclined I would have chosen a more flamboyant pen as in the name Adonis. Fear doesn’t hold back the speedy fingers hungry to take the place of the mouth. The chatter is chatter but it is their chatter and as long as the minions are in the tearooms the chatter continues. Just like our neighbors, the most pressing and sometimes depressing issues on the minds of Ethiopians find voice in the virtual world. For now, cyberspace maybe the only place Ethiopians can act as full participatory citizens at all. The need to exercise and act as participatory citizens leads to foreas into cyberspace. Ethiopians in cyberspace are a population of virtual citizens teaching each other about the other and making freedom their dearest possession. TISJD Axumite Deki-Alula Tigrai.Org Justice In Ethiopia Reporter Walta EthiopiaFirst ESAU Back to main page! |