| News Page | Tourism | Mekelle | Ethio-Links |
|
In Defense of Our Ethiopian heritage!
Dear Ethiopians and Friends of Ethiopia, It is distressing to observe that recently the editorial articles of the Addis Tribune have been directed to disparage and demean Ethiopian heritage, values, culture history and religious institutions. The person/s responsible for these shameless actions seem to have been emboldened by the absence of action to stop this despicable act and continue posting the denigrating articles week after week. Since the advent of the New Ethiopian year the focus of their attack has become our national calendar. According to L. E. Doggett “A calendar is a system of organizing units of time for the purpose of reckoning time over extended periods. ….The common theme of calendar making is the desire to organize units of time to satisfy the needs and preoccupations of society. In addition to serving practical purposes, the process of organization provides a sense, however illusory, of understanding and controlling time itself. Thus calendars serve as a link between mankind and the cosmos. It is little wonder that calendars have held a sacred status and have served as a source of social order and cultural identity. Calendars have provided the basis for planning agricultural, hunting, and migration cycles, for divination and prognostication, and for maintaining cycles of religious and civil events. Whatever their scientific sophistication, calendars must ultimately be judged as social contracts, not as scientific treatises. ”1 None of the over 40 calendars in use in the world can claim to be 100% accurate. For example the Gregorian calendar advocated by the Addis Tribune introduces an error of 1 day approximately every 3300 years. Our national calendar is part of our identity. It is one of the heritages that make us unique and feel proud about our Ethiopia - the land of "Thirteen months of Sunshine". However, the editors of Addis Tribune are stating that our calendar is un-scientific, archaic, and non Ethiopian. Opposing their position is "crass stupidity" an act of the "unlettered". We can not grasp why an Ethiopian web site is relentlessly attacking one of our national prides. We cannot understand why we have to give up our distinct calendar and thereby lose countless things that make us unique and special. We believe that the editors of Addis Tribune should not only be challenged, but also be exposed for what they are. Whether they know it or not they are using the web-site as the Trojan Horse of those bent to destroy our country. We believe that we are duty bound to inform the Ethiopian people what the editors of the Addis Tribune are doing. That is why we wrote the following article. It is written in Amharic and will be sent to news papers and magazines in Ethiopia. We are hoping that you will help us by posting the article on your esteemed web site and provide a platform to voice our concern to our fellow compatriots. For your understanding read 2 For the assault on our calendar read the links on 3 Or the attached call of action letter. Thank you! Ethiopia shall prevail! Committed Ethiopians http://charon.nmsu.edu/%7Elhuber/leaphist.html http://www.ethiopic.com/calendar/ethiopic.htm http://www.ethiopic.com/calendar/assault.htm www.tigrai.net |