Tsegay bashing the new trend - jump in the band wagonBy A.G. Tsegay I had thought the accusations and counter accusations Tigra.org readers had witnessed over the last week, triggered by my view against Dr. G. Bekele's article had been settled after I had made it abundantly clear that I stand by my view. Mr. Zeleke in his article" Speak Up, Expose... <http://www.tigrai.org/News/Articles2002/ZelekeOnBekele.html> " has unwittingly dug up a buried issue to spice up his article by demonising me. I have read Mr. Zeleke's article and I like his style of writing, at least his temper is not slipping out of gear or he is not spoiling for a fight with me to break my nose or even worst to kill me as that of the light weight champ, boxer extraordinaire Dr. Bekele.G. However, Mr. Zeleke has classified me as an anti-Ethiopian and in his mind my fate wouldn't be any different from the one charted by Dr. Bekele i.e. a fate worse than death. The crime, my hanging offence, is a quarter page article I posted at tigrai.org to express my view, the main tenet of which is that informative and verifiable articles deserve "must read" status and a subsequent reply to unwarranted distortion of my views. Again, in my second article I reiterated the fact that expression of emotion bordering on insanity can simply distort the good intension of an article and give it a wrong meaning. I have also emphatically refused to apologize to any one at the request of Dr Bekele in his article "In response to A.G. Tsegay's (16/06/02) attack on Tigrai Org. and My Article, "Beat the Evil Forces and the Future is yours". Mr. Zeleke's reason for categorizing me as anti-Ethiopian is because Mr. Getatchew Reda has said so. For God's sake, after having followed the exchange of views, as he has claimed, he is expected to analyse the arguments pro and against and come up with his own view. He can't just say, "Getachew Reda has won my trust as far as Ethiopia is concerned and I believe whatever he writes about the motives and political views of personalities such as Tsegay." Mr. Getachew Reda doesn't know me any more than Mr. Zeleke does. Both of them have claimed that they have read my two "offending" articles and that is the only knowledge they have about my views and me. I would like to advise Mr. Zeleke, to read and understand for himself, in spite of what others may tell him about political views of personalities, and not to slavishly follow others. The whole idea of education is to inculcate self-reliance and build inquisitive mind and in the process, remove the mindset of blindly following others. Jumping the gun at the first instance of hearing a word or phrase that they think favours the Meles regime is the hallmark of Dr. Bekele, Messrs. Reda and Zeleke. They don't have the patience to read on and find out in what context the word or phrase has been used. Watch this space, I wouldn't be surprised if they use this very sentence as evidence to show that I support Meles. These are the same people that some of us shower with praises and hope that they will bring about the perfect democracy that we aspire for our people. They are devious opportunists who claim to know more about the suffering of the Ethiopian people than the people themselves. These individuals are not devising any strategies that would enable the Ethiopian people to disentangle themselves from the abject poverty they find themselves in. They simply applaud each other for stating the obvious. I am not claiming to know the solution to the problems the Ethiopian people are facing at the moment either; all I believe in is that the Ethiopian people are best placed to know and find solutions to their own problems. We in the Diaspora may come up with grand ideas from time to time. However, as the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Mr. Zeleke wrote, "I would like to take this opportunity of expressing my view that speaking up about personalities who, directly or indirectly, can affect the lives of the Ethiopian people is very important. I strongly believe that bad people (I mean, people who are against the interests of the Ethiopian people) should be exposed and known by the Ethiopian people. This should be done as early as possible when information about them is available. Delay in exposing them would mean allowing more damage to be done by the enemies of the people, which may be difficult to be reversed later on. " I would take it that Mr. Zeleke's definition of "anti-Ethiopian" is included in the above paragraph as "personalities who, directly or indirectly, can affect the lives of the Ethiopian people ....... bad people (I mean, people who are against the interests of the Ethiopian people)". Let's be serious here, how does my view in my quarter page article entitled "Meles Bashing 'must read article' " on its own describe me as "a person who, directly or indirectly, can affect the lives of the Ethiopian people, bad person who is against the interest of the Ethiopian people etc." I wonder where these people, who like to read what is not written instead of what is written, come from. Can any one, who is not really biased and overacting re-read my article and point out the view that amounts to treason and deserves an "anti-Ethiopian" label. Which interest of the Ethiopian people have I violated? Mr. Zeleke further writes, " This measure should not be
taken as a personal attack or character assassination as some supporters of the
antiEthiopia regime want to confuse us with their usual but old treacherous and
deceptive acts. It should be considered as a measure taken simply to save
Ethiopia and protect the interests of the Ethiopian people. This effort can
ultimately have a cumulative effect on the whole system of government and
political conditions of the country. We see this kind of revelation happening
every day in Western democratic societies such as in the US. Then, why not in
Ethiopia where the process is badly needed? Thanks to the Internet; at least we
have one important means for doing this." Mr. Zeleke needs to get out of his cocoon at least once in a while to see for himself the reality in Ethiopia before he compares people in Ethiopia to the people in the west with regard to the mode of information transmission. The Internet is almost non-existent in Ethiopia today, and to believe that one can use it as a medium to expose "anti-Ethiopians" and hope that this effort would "ultimately have a cumulative effect on the whole system of government and political conditions of the country" is a wishful thinking on a grand scale and an illusion. If Mr. Zeleke and his friends' - those, who won his trust, can call me anti-Ethiopian for expressing my view, a very mild one at that, and threaten to rouse the Ethiopian public to rise up against me; Does Mr. Zeleke think the Ethiopian people will take him seriously? Is this the type of democracy that we would like to see flourish in our country? Even worst, is Mr. Zeleke's and his friends' outlook the alternative we have to that of the Mele's regime? I sincerely hope not. Could Mr. Zeleke elaborate on the treason I have committed to be labelled as anti-Ethiopian? N.B. Mr. Reda says so wouldn't suffice. During the Derg era, thousands of innocent Ethiopians who lost their lives were not killed by Mengistu per se, they were killed by thugs whose trust Mengistu has won and were authorized to do whatever they like. May be if Mr. Zeleke assumes Mengistu's power and Mr. Reda is his trusted general, he wouldn't hesitate to approve of whatever his general does, God forbid! You may rest assured that I will not be intimidated into suppressing my views by your inflammatory plea to the Ethiopian people and the anti-Ethiopian label will not stick. I know the Ethiopian public wouldn't accept your anti-Ethiopian labelling to any one who challenges your views because you said so. I hope we will not need to revisit this issue again barring a wild accusation very different to the ones we have dealt with. Tsegay Gebriye Back to main page! |