Meles’ Hall of Fame turns out to be Hall of Shame

By Asfaha Girmay

The goal of the institution is “…to train competent leaders capable of serving the nation, the church in the spirit of Christ and to open new frontiers in the vast areas of teaching and learning grounded in a Christian world view.”  This is the goal of Hannam University that is located in Taejon in the Republic of Korea.  It is here where the fifth President of the university, Dr. Yoon-pyo Shin, with Dr. Ran Min Su and the Korean Ambassador to Ethiopia, has hatched the dubious “Peace Award,” bestowed to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi inside the National Palace of Ethiopia.  Apparently, these reverend doctors have been in the business of counterfeiting peace awards for those leaders who are desperately looking for recognitions.  Meles and other leaders (such as the Kingdom of Tonga and Vice President Annette Lu) who have received the “Peace Award” have characteristically welcomed the distinction and accepted it as an honor.  What a shame to accept an award tailored by scam artists.

It is a paradox, perhaps, but obviously true, that lack of recognition and intense personal love of oneself are inevitably destined to produce such kind of an ultimate hoax.  It also expresses a paradox not only in the teaching and action of churchmen and leaders of a university but also in secular ethical response in word and deed of a leader of a country.  Part of the paradox is reflected in Meles Zenawi’s speech of affirmation for the “World Peace Prize Awarding Council’s” dedication to peace during the ceremony.  But there never was and there never will be any dedication to peace by these Reverend Doctors.  They are in the business of black markets for recognitions.  Therefore, the real question for all Ethiopians is to figure out what the Koreans got in return from Meles Zenawi.       

The strains and stresses of every well-meaning Ethiopian during the announcement of this “Peace Award” were obvious.  What was not obvious for some of us during that time was the deafening silence of all credible news media about the award.  If this award was from credible organization with some kind of record on world peace, most of the mainstream media would have picked the story very easily.  To my own surprise, most of the Ethiopian web sites picked the story and took everything for granted. Some of the editorials start firing left to right blindly and started cursing the west.  What happened to their journalistic curiosity of verifying the credibility of the source of this “peace award.” For those individuals who raised their heads up and started digging the story behind the story, all credit to you and thanks to you all for your dedication in search of the real story.  Because of your tenacity, Meles’ Hall of Fame turns out to be his Hall of Shame. 

This brings me to the use and abuse of the most marvelous electronic methods of communications, the internet.  If our hopes of democracy are to be realized, the different web sites must supply full and accurate information on which the people can base their judgment on Ethiopia’s public affairs.  If the mushrooming web sites are not going to impart us with accurate and reliable news stories and are prone to misinform us by fabricating news items, could our people make themselves felt in the realm of political action?  I seriously doubt it. 

Some of the web sites obsolescent practices have already stopped the political dialogue in its tracks.  Having anti-Meles stand has effectively became a license to spread an unsubstantiated news stories into the body of Ethiopian politics.  As end users of such news items, Ethiopians are devoid of their political sense of reading their country’s political destiny.  The irony is that there is plenty of ammunition in terms of documented evidence that goes against Meles’ political stature.  If these documented evidences have been used effectively, I do believe that the real nature of Meles and his government could have been fully exposed and could have facilitated its demise.   Yet, for some unknown reason to me, some of the web sites seem to give an incredible amount of weight to the fabricated news items. True, these fabricated news items might give some kind of emotional satisfactions for those individuals who are myopic and for those Ethiopians who are addicted to the gossip mills of these dubious web sites. But all of us should realize that a poor country like ours cannot and will not be developed on pillars of short- sighted emotional bitterness and/or happiness.

These dubious web sites, I believe, want to substitute their editors’ personal and political desire for personal and political desires of everyone else.  Make no mistake about it such kind of propensity is driven by dictatorial complex.   Nevertheless, even though my distaste for the editors of tabloid based web sites is justifiable as a defense of journalistic ethics, the use of such distaste of mine to deflect these editors away from political participation is not.  Call it arrogance or/and ignorance, such web sites have failed to bring a minimum level of journalistic ethics to their platform.  

This is only an appeal for cleaning up their act.  I think this period is a period of self reflection and self-assessment and it is also time for understanding the real news from the deafening white noise that is created by some misguided “editors.” 

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