Why Ethiopia Stayed Behind (part 2)

By: Timothy Kalyegira, Kampala, Uganda

To me, the admirable love for Ethiopia that almost all Ethiopians feel is also the most frightening thing about Ethiopia, and something I feel is the country’s greatest danger. It is this trait which, if not checked, will make Ethiopia take 10 steps forward in economic and political progress, only to suddenly plunge back 40 steps into war, ethnic tensions, and factional fighting within whichever government is in power. Here is the paradox: how can people like Ethiopians, who love their country so much, be the same people who do the country its greatest harm, yet people like Kenyans and Tanzanians, who seem indifferent to their country, have actually helped their countries remain so stable for so long? Could it be that too much patriotism can be more harmful to a country than not caring about one’s country?

Usually when an Ethiopian is not pleased by what you have said about Ethiopia, he gets so angry, and can even stop talking to you over that. It happened to me in Addis Ababa. I also got a taste of it when some Ethiopians and Eritreans in America and Europe visited my Africa Almanac web site. They disagreed with some of the content there regarding Ethiopia and Eritrea. This is a website which I launched in December 2000, long before I knew either of these two countries well. Of course I was bound to make a few errors, because as a human being, I did not know enough to get their complex histories correct. But you should see the e-mail from these Ethiopians and Eritreans! “You are the most man in the world!”, read one. I wrote back to them calmly asking that, even if they disagreed with what I had written, they did not have to lose their self-control and insult me. Should they not rather have informed me of the facts, instead of blowing up in anger? Unable to reason this out, they wrote back to me with even more abusive words. I told them that this is the central crisis in their countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Before Ethiopians and Eritreans visited my web site, the letters from other Africans were gentlemanly, respectful, rational, and even when they disagreed with what the web site had said; they did so in a reasonable manner. But as soon as the Ethiopians came in and began giving their comments, suddenly the tone became aggressive and unreasonable. I reminded them that, even after spending so many years in America, these Ethiopians writing from the United States had still not developed the tolerance of other people’s views that is required for democracy to flourish. Many of the Ethiopians are in America as political exiles. They blame Prime Minister Meles Zenawi for all the problems in Ethiopia, saying he is crushing and suppressing all views opposed to his. But I told them that, just from their abusive and angry e-mail to my web site, if they had even 10 percent of the power that Prime Minister Meles has, they would probably have ordered for my arrest or thrown a grenade at my house.

You are late for an appointment or for some reason you can’t make it, and your Ethiopian friend gets so, so angry for a whole day. That is a dangerous national streak and character! A girl who was staying at the National Hotel asked me to lend her a camera for a trip with some Ethiopian and American friends to Bahr Dar. I told her that I was using mine, but I would ask around for one from my friends. Two days later, after I failed to find one, she said impatiently, “I am going to stop talking to you because you didn’t get me a camera!” One girl in Kampala invited me to visit her at a time I was so busy I kept trying to make it to her place but couldn’t somehow find the time. One day when I think her patience was exhausted, she rang me at home and blasted me with the words, “What’s wrong with you!” I tried to explain why I had failed to turn up, but by then, her temper was already in flames. Yet when I met her that evening, she was calm, and her usual nice self. There are too many examples of this, but I begin to feel frightened by people who’s emotions can so suddenly switch on and off, from cool, sweet, warm, to angry and uncompromising! (Some of the people I am writing about will read this article and probably laugh, knowing what I am talking about!)

Ethiopians are nice people, really sincere and in my opinion, wonderful people. But there is a demon that flies from nowhere once in a while and plunges them into a state of mind that can only lead to conflict and self-destruction. I have been telling my Ethiopian friends both in Kampala and Addis that they should not think that what happened to Somalia was different and it can’t happen to them. Most think Ethiopia can’t go to that extreme. But, you never know. That fiery, volatile temperament I see in Ethiopians gets me worried somet. A teenage Ethiopian girl in Kampala put it well to me one day in late May: “Ethiopians are like that. Once they like you, they will like you to death. But once they turn against you, it is finished.” Frightening words! It is as if stubbornness and intransigence is written into most peoples’ minds people who find it difficult to think with flexibility, people who struggle to detach themselves from their emotions and think clearly and objectively about Ethiopia. But then, where did this trait come from? A trait that has kept Ethiopia more or less in a state of war or near war for more than 200 consecutive years or even more? Ethiopians have fought the people who tried to enslave or colonize them. But so too have they, with equal ferocity, fought amongst themselves, and still do to this day. There is this liberation front, that liberation front, this fighting group, that fighting group. Where does this tendency come from, which it seems will keep the Horn of Africa, from Somalia, to Eritrea, to Ethiopia, to Sudan, a virtual war zone for the next 30 or more years? How can people whom I find so sweet, beautiful, loving, modest, sincere, and loyal, at the same time have this other side to them that is like a volcano --- dormant most of the time, but once it erupts, it throws destructive fire for several kilometers in its path?

Did the Ethiopian Orthodox Church shape national character?

When I returned to Uganda the first time in February, I was having lunch with an Ethiopian in Kampala. I asked him a question, which popped up in my mind from out of the blue. I asked him: Why is it that, wherever in the world you find countries where the Orthodox Church is the dominant Christian denomination, there is either full-scale war (Yugoslavia, Serbia), or recent war and tensions (Ethiopia, Eritrea), or serious civil war and trouble with provinces that want to break away (Russia), or have had to have United Nations intervention to prevent war between them (Greece, Cyprus), or some stubbornness that could make war possible at any time (Ukraine)? Then why is it that, wherever in the world Islam is the dominant religion, there are either suicide bombers (Lebanon), militant militiamen (Algeria, Egypt, Somalia, Iran, Bosnia, Albania, Sudan) or they are generally a trouble spot? Then worst of all, in the places in the world where Islam and Orthodox Christianity sit side by side in equal percentages among the population, conflict, war, factional fighting, or extreme political tensions are alive and dominant (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, Chechnya). Why, in other words, does the Orthodox branch of Christianity influence its followers to become so ultra-nationalistic, and hence so militant that almost every disagreement has to be settled on the battlefront? Where does this militancy in the Horn of Africa come from?

Since I am a Protestant Christian, I will not comment on Islam, where I am no expert. But I will hope that my brothers and sisters of the Ethiopian and other Orthodox Churches in Africa and Europe search their souls over this matter. I am not saying the Orthodox faith promotes war and war-like tendencies. We too have crazy, uncompromising Protestants and Roman Catholics shooting away at each other in Northern Ireland. In Indonesia and the Philippines, street battles have become the main way of life between Christians and Muslims. But the dominant pattern of war and internal civil conflict in Orthodox-dominated countries in Africa and Europe is inescapable. I hope I don’t appear to be blaming the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for the country’s political tensions and many past wars. I am only trying to study a pattern and see if it offers explanations. From the little I know, I can say this: the Orthodox churches have, at the center of their belief system, the idea that they are national churches. They are not simply part of the general body of Christ, but they often take on a national character. Thus, you have the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the Russian Orthodox Church.) They bear the names of the nations in which their roots are planted. They also seem to instill in their followers an extreme loyalty, a spiritual and emotional connection to their country. To an Orthodox, his country is his father-mother, his very being and reason for existence. People are willing to sacrifice their lives for Ethiopia. Olympic champions give their medals to a church, out of gratitude for their victories. That is the patriotism that is so striking in Ethiopia. People revolve their lives around service to their country. It is the same in Russia, Greece, Eritrea, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Macedonia, and Cyprus. Even military dictators like Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union and Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, although they were Communist and had no time for religion, were raised in this atmosphere of extreme patriotism and so reflected the influence of the Orthodox Church. All this patriotism is fine and admirable. As I mentioned in my very first article in February, if only Ugandans had the national spirit that the Ethiopians have, we would be so far ahead of where we are today in economic development. But....it gets to a point where this patriotism can become self-destructive, if it is not controlled. And this is the danger I see facing Ethiopia. If you can’t stop and shout, “Hey, let sanity prevail!”, before you know it, your country could be in flames, such as what we are witnessing in Yugoslavia and what we saw in 1974 between Greece and Cyprus, when the United Nations had to intervene.

We need to understand our history. Ethiopians might be putting all their blame on governments as the cause of their national problems, yet the same problems existed even before Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was born. He himself blamed Ethiopia’s problems on the dictator Colonel Mengistu and so went to the bush to start a student guerrilla uprising only to come to power and I am sure by now, 10 years on, has realized that the problems are so deep, anyone in power in Addis Ababa will be tempted to react exactly as Mengistu did. Pope John Paul II visited Greece and Ukraine within the past two years. For several days before he arrived in Athens, priests and nuns of the Greek Orthodox Church staged demonstrations in the streets, denouncing him and threatening him if he set foot on Greek soil. The same thing happened in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. What these hard-line priests and nuns forgot was that as head of the Vatican, the Pope is a Head of State, not just the head of the Roman Catholic Church. At least in his capacity as a Head of State, he deserves the minimum of a formal diplomatic welcome. When he visited Syria, a predominantly Muslim country, he was warmly received, even though the differences between Islam and Christianity are greater than the divisions between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. When your very being, your whole personality is tied with your country and state, when the question of your nationality and ethnicity is the main reason for your existence, it can land you into trouble, because by their nature, governments and states are not always sincere, not always rational, and peaceful. How can a whole nation tie its deepest emotions with those of the state, ruled as it is by politicians, who are often the most unreliable people of all? How can you want to die for your country, when the people who lead it are mere mortal humans, with their own political agendas, who use your sentiments to their advantage, even as you suffer? How can people not see these things?

This extreme loyalty to one’s country lives in nearly every Ethiopian, particularly those of the Orthodox faith. It might perhaps be one of the explanations for the tendency to be volatile that is so easy to observe in the Ethiopian character. The illusions of national greatness In May, the South African pay TV network M-Net held the finals of the M-Net Face of Africa modeling competition. The title for 2001 was won in style ---- and really deservingly so --- by a dashing and charming girl from Senegal. Two days later, when I met an Ethiopian girl in Kampala, she was angry. She wanted to write a letter to M-Net in Johannesburg and ask why they did not have an Ethiopian girl among the 24 African finalists. First, I had to cool her down. As a typical Ethiopian, she first heated up to 300 degrees centigrade before she had time to think. I had to try and bring her temperature down to the normal human 37 degrees, before we could talk.

As usual, she could not help the typical suspicious Ethiopian way of viewing the world. They are against us, they are out to get us, there is a hidden agenda by the Whites against Ethiopia. Classic Ethiopian mentality. First, my friend couldn’t think that there was also no Ugandan girl in the Face of Africa finals and yet I wasn’t complaining. Secondly, if these Whites in South Africa are so discriminating against some Black Africans, how come all the winners of this 200,000-dollar prize have been Black Africans, and not White South Africans? Then I asked this girl: surely, you know the shyness and reserve of your fellow Ethiopian girls. Can you realistically expect shy, modest, soft-spoken, self-conscious Ethiopians to win international competitions as fierce as these, where the stakes are so high? Finally, only after I reasoned calmly with my friend and with her temper back to normal, did she admit that, yes, the beautiful and electrifying girl from Senegal had won the title outright. No more argument. 

I did not watch the finals that Saturday night, but when I eventually watched parts of it on CNN television the next week, not only did I confirm that the Senegalese girl was indeed the deserving winner, but that this charming girl is going to become one of the most successful models on the world stage very soon. That Senegalese is even better than some of these international models like Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, or Cyndi Crawford! I wondered: did my Ethiopian friend first have to get into a heated mood, threaten M-Net, before I could calmly made her see that, if she had thought in a balanced way before getting all heated up, she would have come to the same conclusion as me, that the girl from Senegal deserved to win? Just multiply this Ethiopian girl’s explode-fi rst-then-think-later typical reaction by 64 million people, and you begin to understand the difficulty involved in governing Ethiopia, even if you were St. Gabriel himself!

However, this Ethiopian attitude did not just come from nowhere. Apparently, Ethiopians are raised under what seems to outsiders to be brainwashing. They are raised as children to believe that their country is the greatest on earth. Most Ethiopians genuinely believe that their land is the most fertile, their country is the greenest, their food the ideal and best, their women the most beautiful in the world, their history is richer than that of any other nation, their climate gives them “13 months of sunshine”, their country is mentioned countless t in the Bible, their music is the best on earth, their traditional clothing the finest, and of course, they are the only Black people on earth who successfully beat off colonial rule. About the general greatness of Ethiopia, there can be no doubt. I have written and agreed many t that this is true. Ethiopia, to me, ranks or should rank among Africa’s top five countries by virtue of its cultural heritage. There is no question about that. But Ethiopians might also need to take a close, objective look at the rest of the world, and their eyes will be opened to the fact that as great as Ethiopia certainly is, there are many other countries that as just as great or even greater.

As I asked in my recent long article in June, Ethiopia and the fate of Africa , if the country is all that great, it should have been somewhere in the top 10 of the economic table of the world. But even in comparison with the rest of Africa, Ethiopia is among the bottom 10. A painful fact, I know, but better to be bravely faced than pretend the evidence is not there. If the girls are all that beautiful and elegant, why have we never heard of a Miss World from Ethiopia? If the country has produced so many well-educated, talented people, so many scientists, who now live in the “Diaspora” in America, Britain, or Sweden, how come we never hear of an Ethiopian Grammy music award winner, an Ethiopian Pulitzer Prize winner, a Nobel Prize winner, an Academy film award winner? You can’t just say the reason is because the whole world hates Ethiopia. If the whole world hates Ethiopia, how come that same world, especially the White western world, has given so many Olympic and world championship gold, silver, and bronze medals to Bekila Abebe, Miruts Yifter, Derartu Tulu, Haile Gebreselassie? How come this same “biased” world has not stood in the way of these Ethiopian world-class athletes becoming famous and quite rich? In other words, it is time for Ethiopia to start seeing things in a broad, balanced way, for its own good. When you are truly great, even the biased, racist White world still takes note of you. If Ethiopia is lagging behind even most of Africa, the answer could simply be that we might not be as great as we imagine we are.

When I came to Addis Ababa last month, I made a point of carrying photographs of parts of Uganda and Tanzania’s island of Zanzibar, as well as Zimbabwe. Many Ethiopians I showed the photos were very surprised by what they saw the dazzling beauty of Zanzibar, with its coconut trees, white sand, and blue ocean; the breathtaking beauty of the Victoria Falls of Zimbabwe at sunset, and Uganda where the country is green all year round. It opened a few eyes to the illusions of greatness that most Ethiopians are raised to believe. Yes, Ethiopia is beautiful. But so are dozens of other countries like Uganda, the Bahamas, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and the Seychelles. God’s handiwork is spread all over the earth, not just over Ethiopia. I also quietly told some of my Ethiopian friends to revise their illusion that only Ethiopian girls are beautiful on the face of this earth. This is because one day they will travel abroad and, surprise, surprise, they will see other girls who will leave them breathless.

This idea of somehow being the most beautiful breed of people on earth seems to me to be a central theme in most Ethiopians’ minds, so I will comment at length on it. But ask those people who have been to Nairobi, Kenya. Or western Uganda. Or Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania. Go to Zanzibar. Somalia. Mali. The West Indies. The Bahamas and Barbados. Some of the Black Americans and Black British. Have you seen some of these girls from India who have won the Miss World beauty pageant? Can anyone argue that they did not deserve to win? Even these Whites. The Black beauty we have in Africa is not the only one on earth. Take a look at the 20 year-old American Pop singer, Britney Spears. She is White. But what a beauty she is! Remember the late Princess Diana? Who can argue about that? Or Marilyn Monroe? Cyndi Crawford? The American Country music singer Faith Hill? There is this American actress Cybil Shepherd. I think she really is a truly beautiful woman. Have you seen some of these White women who appear on the adverts of the brandy Remy? Or in the fashion magazines Vogue and Cosmopolitan. I think that too is pure beauty. I even see some of the many White girls, the tourists who walk aimlessly through the streets of Kampala, wearing dirty slippers and dirty T-shirts, with their funny blue eyes and blonde hair. Some of them should be models.

True, Ethiopian girls are beautiful. Very beautiful. But so are those from many other African and Caribbean countries. Because Ethiopia has a large population, the abundance of feminine beauty is more noticeable. That is why I think a visit to another large city like Nairobi would help people in Addis Ababa see things from a broader perspective. What you see might surprise you. Blacks, Whites, Asians, as far as I am concerned, all have among them very beautiful people. Let us not think that we Africans are the only people God chose to make beautiful! Then there is that other beauty that they call inner beauty, which at the end of the day is the only beauty that time does not erase. One of the problems with thinking of yourselves as the most beautiful on earth is that it breeds vanity and surely those who believe in God have some idea about what God thinks of pride. But more importantly, if you have this adamant idea that your girls are the world’s most beautiful, then it is obvious what it leads to SEGREGATION.

Not everyone in any society can be beautiful. If being beautiful is something Ethiopians hold as dear a part of their identity as having not been colonized, then obviously they will become ashamed or uneasy about those people in Ethiopia who are not beautiful. You then have to start living a lie or keeping up superficial appearances, when your identity is based on vanity, rather than better reasons to be proud, for example being proud that your country is a just society which treats all of its people equally. That is a more sensible thing to be proud of than perishable human beauty. While I was in Addis Ababa, I saw several Ethiopians who in terms of appearance look identical to the very dark-skinned, Black people of southern Sudan. They speak Amharic and are Ethiopians in every way. A British girl whom I sat next to on the flight to Addis Ababa in February, told me when she came back to Kampala that the general population in Ethiopia tends to look down upon these dark-skinned Ethiopians. I refused to believe her. But this second time in Addis Ababa, I noticed that these people seemed to be strangers in their own land. They walk through the streets of Addis Ababa as a group, with people staring at them. I did not see a single one of these Ethiopians doing business, owning a shop, or in a position that seemed one of advantage and prosperity. I wondered what they do for a living. What I saw quietly troubled me. But it did not surprise me. When you build a national identity that revolves around the myth of beauty and cultural superiority, rather than on justice and fairness, you inevitably have these uncomfortable situations of unstated discrimination.

When I returned to Kampala, I had photographs of the many places I visited in Ethiopia --- the nice ECA office buildings, the Sheraton Addis, inside Fasika restaurant with its attractive artwork, Debre Zeit, Nazareth, and the countryside. When an Ethiopian friend of mine saw some photographs of the simple, humble people riding on horse-drawn carts along muddy roads in Debre Zeit, she angrily exclaimed: “Why did you have to take photos of these?” I asked: “But I thought you Ethiopians love your country. Is this not Ethiopia too? Are those poor people in Debre Zeit not Ethiopians also?” To her, Ethiopia is the attractive images you see in Selemta , the in-flight magazine of Ethiopian Airlines beautiful women, the Hilton and Addis Sheraton hotels, the new ECA conference center, the great rock-hewn churches in Lalibela, the castles in Gondar, the Blue Nile waterfalls in Bahir Dar, the great Olympic champions.

The severe poverty in the small towns like Debre Zeit, which touched my heart so deeply, is something that many urban Ethiopians would rather not talk about. They would rather that the visitor walked through the well-lit corridors of the Sheraton Addis Ababa, and return home with the Sheraton as the total image of Ethiopia. But then, what happens to some of us ugly people? Should we be sent to prison because we don’t meet beauty standards? (Come to think of it, maybe I should also launch an Ethiopian guerrilla group and call it the Ugly People’s Liberation Front (UPLF), to fight for the rights of the ugly people!) I think Ethiopians should start traveling and seeing other countries. Expand your view! See the broader world. Make friends! The days of a closed world called Ethiopia should come to an end. All across Africa, these are your brothers and sisters.

An Ethiopian told me of how he brought his relative by road from Ethiopia through Kenya to Uganda. When they entered Uganda, the young man asked, “Where are we?” His uncle replied that they were now in Uganda. The boy could not believe his eyes! “All along,” the young man said, “we are brought up to believe that Ethiopia was the greenest country around. What is this I am seeing!” What he was seeing was Uganda. Green from January to December. But you rarely hear Ugandans talk about it! Some Ethiopians have told me the same thing. They step outside Ethiopia, carrying all the legends and myths they have been fed on since childhood. Then they discover that there are other countries with advanced cities, beautiful women, green and fertile land, sophisticated people, and rich histories, and suddenly they are in a crisis. Many get into a denial mode, stubbornly arguing that Ethiopia is still number one, despite the evidence before their eyes.

When I appeared as a guest on Tefera Ghedamu’s Meet ETV show, I complained about the many Ethiopians who are struggling to leave the country. I feel that Ethiopians who were never colonized --- should set a better than the rest of us Africans, by not flooding America and Europe, as if we don’t have a home. We end up making the Whites believe even more that they are superior to us. Our floods of people fighting to enter their countries have made the Whites feel more confident that without them and their help, the Black people are nowhere. But on the other hand, I am somet tempted to welcome this new craze about going abroad, which I will address in a later part of this article. Let these young Ethiopians, who have been raised on a narrow, inward-looking menu of illusions, go abroad, open up to the world, see wider places, see the variety of countries and as a result, develop a more international outlook than the feeling that the world starts and ends with Ethiopia.

Discomfort with other nations

A Ugandan friend of mine in Kampala called Michael attended a workshop in July which several people from several African countries attended. Commenting about the Ethiopians he met at the workshop, he said: “They [Ethiopians] are painful people to be around!” He said they are tense, not free with other people, generally only free with fellow Ethiopians. I understood what he meant.

An Ethiopian journalist not long ago went to Washington and when she returned to Addis Ababa, she wrote an article on her experience of the Ethiopian community in the United States. Her conclusions were almost identical to those of other people who know Ethiopians elsewhere in the world. They keep to themselves, find it difficult to mingle with other people, and even if countries where freedom abounds, the Ethiopians still do not become outspoken or take part in the life of these countries. White South Africa Since apartheid ended in South Africa, the huge White South African businesses have began spreading all over Africa. I have been observing the White South Africans, who are already starting to dominate business in Uganda. I still can’t believe those people. These are people who were raised from childhood in a country where racial separation and the tendency to despise Blacks were not just a social norm, but official church and government policy. Yet if you see the White South Africans in Uganda today, they are among the friendliest people you can meet. They are so popular, they play Rugby and Cricket with Ugandans, they are always at Ugandan parties mixing and laughing with Ugandans, and even wearing Ugandan traditional dress. Many of these White South Africans date Ugandan men or Ugandan girls. I have wondered to myself, “Are these the racists that the world portrayed them to be?”. It is so hard to connect apartheid South Africa with the White South Africans living and working in Uganda.

I told my friends in Addis Ababa that if you were to conduct an opinion poll over who they think are more racist, Ethiopians or White South Africans, 70 percent of people anywhere in the world would answer that they think Ethiopians are more racist or at least more socially discriminating. When the apartheid era in South Africa came to an end, the White South Africans displayed the character which, I think, explains why the are beginning to spread all over Africa and dominate it.

As I have mentioned, the White South Africans quickly threw off their racist policies and began to unite with the rest of Africa. That flexibility of mind still surprises me. At last week’s United Nations racism conference, a large number of White South Africans were part of the crowds on the streets of Durban, South Africa, to demonstrate their opposition to racism. Whether that gesture is hypocritical or not, at least it demonstrates a pragmatic attitude, considering that the White South Africans were raised to believe in racial separation. So if Ethiopians say that their isolation and closed country, their culture, and upbringing are largely responsible for their aloofness from the rest of Africa, they should take a look at the White South Africans and see the importance of flexibility, of recognizing the need to come out and mix, and be seen to mix with the rest of Africa. As noted before, the White South Africans are, today, some of the most popular Africans in Black Africa. Who would have thought that this would ever happen, as recent as just 10 years ago, considering the reputation of White South Africa! It would be a pity if as time goes on, many people begin to think that the White South Africans, with all their racist background, are actually more social than the Ethiopians.

Something has to be done about this reputation that Ethiopians have around the world. That impression of being unable to relate with other Africans is one that Ethiopians leave behind them everywhere they go. They give people the impression that they are uncomfortable with and cannot adjust to other people from other nationalities. Of course I who has taken the time to understand Ethiopia, know better than most Ugandans. I know the realness, the sincerity of Ethiopians, the hospitality that they are capable of. But most other people think of Ethiopians that way, as racists, as more racists than even the White people. This is something Ethiopians should at least be aware of. You don’t need to persuade me to see how warm Ethiopians are. I already know it well. But it is important to bear in mind the effect the social upbringing of reserve and distance from foreigners has had on Ethiopians. This reserved character is very easily misunderstood as pride, racism, and looking down on other people. I myself first misunderstood it in the Ethiopian women when I went to Addis Ababa. With time, I came to see how mistaken I had been. But not all people from other countries have the time or energy to patiently understand that this reserved attitude is not pride; it is just the upbringing.

Ethiopia’s true greatness

Despite this article’s discussion of some of the weaknesses in Ethiopian society, it cannot go forward without mentioning the single greatest strength of Ethiopia. For all the things that Ethiopians say to prove their greatness --- being mentioned in the Bible many t, never been colonized, historic buildings in the north of the country, unique alphabet, and so on --- I have never heard a single Ethiopian talk about what I think is perhaps the greatest thing about Ethiopia. It is so strange, because it is the most outstanding thing about Ethiopia. The things Ethiopians say make their country great are not so great or if they are great, are not exclusive to Ethiopia. Many European countries like England, Spain, France, Belgium, and Austria have very fine castles. They have their fine national costumes. Many African countries have very rich and colourful languages. I personally think the richly harmonized music of the Zulu music in South Africa, and the haunting, sad music of the Fulani people in Senegal and Mali (Mori Kante, Yussour N’Dor, Toure Kunda, Selif Keita) is the most beautiful in Africa. So Ethiopia’s heritage is as rich as that of many other countries.

In my opinion, the greatest thing about Ethiopia is its strong family ties. In this area, it beats almost all countries in the advanced West and many even in Africa. Let me explain. I wrote an article in one of the Ugandan newspapers last week comparing the mentality of Ethiopian girls with that of Ugandan girls. I was quite critical of our girls’ mentality. In Uganda, there is a strange twisted side to our girls’ thinking that I find annoying. It seems that girls in Uganda, especially urban Uganda, are attracted to men or boys who bring out the worst in them. The more “notorious” and “dangerous” a man is, the more the girls find him attractive! It sounds perverted, but it is true. In the social pages of our national newspapers, there is a constant stream of articles that portray “bad boys”, men who cheat on their wives, or who chase about women, as some sort of heroes. These sorts of men as very popular with most girls, even girls who are well educated.

Many girls in Kampala, when they meet men who treat them well, with respect and courtesy, come away complaining that these “nice guys” are boring! I tried to understand this twisted way of thinking in Ugandan women, until I gave up. And I think the Kenyan girls are like that too. Maybe it comes from watching too many American films showing “bad guys” as heroes. My most pleasant surprise about Ethiopian society is that this sort of nonsense that you find in Uganda is almost absent. The more affectionate, respectful, the more caring and loving you are to an Ethiopian girl, the more she will “fall for you”, the more she finds you attractive. That is the way it should be. I have seen this across the whole Ethiopian society. On that front, Ethiopia gets a gold medal and that is why I say this is Ethiopia’s true greatness, that a society can instill in its children a healthy emotional constitution. Ethiopian children are close to their parents, and Ethiopian girls, I notice, are close to their fathers.

The society in general stresses close family ties, where there is someone always there to care about you, to visit you or ring you up and ask how you are. In Uganda, even your best friend, someone you were in school since the age of seven, can go for three months without giving you a phone call to find out how you are. In Ethiopian society, hardly a week can go by without your friend in some way making contact with you. In Kampala, since the year began, most of the phone calls I have received at home, inviting me for a cup of coffee, or asking why I am “lost”, or simply calling to say hello, come from my Ethiopian friends. These are people I met only this year. Meanwhile, some of my very “best” friends are people who last rang me some eight months ago! That is why at the beginning of this article, I said I was so overwhelmed by the degree of Ethiopian warmth and sincerity while I was in Addis Ababa. I don’t know about the mental illness statistics in Ethiopia, but I don’t think you can find too many people who have had mental breakdowns and neurosis. Many Ugandans have asked me why I am so in love with Ethiopia and I explain to them this realness, this human warmth and companionship that stretches across Ethiopian society.

Ethiopians, I tell them, are capable of being crazy, irrational people especially over matters to do with their country. I am not surprised that the country has had so much political instability. You see it in the people. But at the same time, when you get close enough and see the people, you discover this realness, this true and heartfelt warmth that many of us in Uganda, and even those advanced western countries simply don’t have. I have never known why Ethiopians don’t talk enough about this national trait, rather than tell us so much about Emperor Menelik’s famous battles. This close, caring, affectionate side to Ethiopia is far greater than all those battles and wars that Ethiopians are so fond of talking about. I tried to understand why this is so. Could it be because in Ethiopia there are generally no boarding schools, unlike in most countries in Africa and Europe? And so children grow up living at home with their parents, maintaining that close bond and companionship well into their teenage years, to university.

But whatever the explanation, this is the undisputed greatest and most beautiful thing about Ethiopia. I wish the tourism brochures, Selemta magazine, and other publications would emphasize it more. The Ethiopian Airlines in-flight magazine Selemta talks in general, rather vague terms about Ethiopian hospitality. I think they manage to describe only 40 percent of this hospitality. They should ask me to write an article for their next issue. I have seen 80 percent of Ethiopian hospitality. It is impressive.

Actually, it is wrong to describe it as hospitality. It is more than hospitality. It is a realness in people. The word "hospitality" sounds a little commercial and artificial.

So, to the many Ethiopians who have been asking me why I have taken such a sudden liking for their country, THAT IS THE ANSWER! That, more than anything else, is the reason I love Ethiopia and why I am going to love the country more as time goes on. This is why, in the first place, I am engaged in this debate over Ethiopia's future and why I write these long articles. This realness, this sincerity of affection is what attracts me most about Ethiopia. I am not really interested in the battles of Emperor Menelik II, or the rock churches in Lalibela, or the idea that Ethiopia was never colonized.

It is great that this history was made. But that is hundreds of years ago. I am more impressed by these family values that persist to this day.

In a world where there is so much craziness and mental weirdness, I treasure the simplicity of the Ethiopians. The Tanzanians have it too.

Ethiopians should be proud of this realness and most of all, their girls should thank God that they were raised in such a way as to have straight, emotionally healthy minds, since it is they who pass on the societies' values to the children. Just ask the people who live in America, who see the twisted, perverted minds of those children. You will wonder why anyone would want to go to America and raise his or her children there.

It hurts me that people as nice and authentic as the Ethiopians should be facing such tough economic times, with most so poor, unhappy with life and not free, when lousy people like us in Uganda are enjoying an exciting and free life, full of laughter and fun all day long.

PART 2: Did colonialism help or harm Africa? A study of Ethiopia coming out soon.

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