By Mezemir Girma
Saturday, December 18, 2021
Do you see it this way? The poorest country against the richest
one? Ethiopia with America? Ethiopians would call it David against Goliath. Who
would emerge victorious? It seems crystal clear to you now.
You know how battles were held in those olden days. Be it held
like that and let us talk about the outcome. am I clear to begin with? All the
Ethiopian fighters will march led by their leader. And all American able men, and women for the sake of equality, would
face them. The Ethiopian side would demand the leaders fight first and that
determines who wins. You get me? It would be an old man facing an adversary
thirty years younger. A slap would suffice. It would be like the Adwa Victory,
when more than half the Ethiopian army came home without fighting as the
battle ended shortly. What else would I wish their sinister acts - a slap in the face.
I would add a third or fourth scenario for that matter. An Ethiopian would ever imagine defeat. You know it in your history, not us. Uh, a great time to brag and satisfy my quench for it.
When we were children there were scenes of fighting in the vast
open meadows. Equals would fight. Big men don’t fight if it were not for real
reasons. But children wrestle. How would the day of keeping cattle and sheep pass without fighting and playing? There are some big boys who do rude things though.
These big boys know nobody defeats them. They invite their little
brothers to slap one of the big boys. That little one comes and slaps you. You
bear it, you tolerate until he lashes you in the eye with a little stick. You pinch the little creepy creature. Then the real war starts. That big boy prances and
starts the real fight. You wrestle, wrestle, wrestle and he emerges victorious. You lie down on your back and he sits on your belly. Punch, punch, punch, he makes his day. Why does this come to my mind at this time? I will tell
you. Await.
“You tasted it once,” my conscience challenges me.
“No, that was just a battle we lost due to unforeseen
circumstances. We emerged victorious in five years. How do you become such a
traitor,” I scold it.
“Have you ever thought about your future postwar life? What do you think
you take along? Do you know where you would be? Do you understand?”
“Don’t ask me if I understand! I may be underground!”
“What do you mean?”
“You know it. Just for the sake of this reader let me say
it. You know your friend in those university days. He used to say underground
to refer to death. He was thinking of the landed gentry when he thought death.”
“Some think it is in the sky that the dead are. Wherever they are, you would be one of them in the postwar era.”
“I take the challenge. But this night seems the longest one
in my life except for a few exceptional ones. What do you mean? It is! Be it Stephen
Hawking or Albert Einstein, whomsoever you mention, you never convince me about
the state of time here,” I say out loud.
“Calm down. What is all this gibberish about! Do you know
what time it is now after all?!” responds my conscience.
It fears that the neighbors hear what I say at this time
past midnight. As you might know Debre Sina has all the types of local liqor,
Arake, in store. Last Ethiopian summer I was there. Yes, the summer when
Ethiopia held the sixth national election. It was just a coincidence for that
matter. I had experienced what some call writer’s block. I was really blocked and I
couldn’t produce anything at home, at the hotel I frequented or at the Debre
Birhan University lounge for that matter. How could they betray me when I
trusted them the most? Ethiopians would not read books if it is not for their
July and August breaks. Nothing could come out when I squeezed my mind. The
only viable option seemed Debre Sina. What place in Ethiopia would be safe for
me to edit my two books that would be published in July and August
consecutively? Nowhere else. The reason is ethnic politics. If anything erupts,
it would mean death. I fear because people may know me for the previous book.
“Who are you writing all this to?” asks my conscience.
“Anyone among those people from Ethiopia, Europe and America
who may enjoy reading a late night scribbling. Anyone that the Google
statistics on the map showed me last night”
“Do they care for a glass of liqor?”
“Not sure! If they just don’t opt for an imported whisky
which is more or less like Arake. I’d treat them if they came. They could not
be like some eccentric locals here who say they don’t drink Arake but keep it
at home to booze when no one sees them. Whites are your Gods – read that
Amharic poem of Mengistu Lemma’s. The reader, yes you, you will get it down
below if these people are at all better than the local population. What do you
think yourself before you read my take?”
It is me who is asking and answering myself. Are you
confused? Confusion is good at times. We hold meetings and discussions at this place
which is the right one for inner talk. It is not meditation. You know, you
don’t meditate when you drink liqor.
“But why do you booze?”
“Excuse me! Let me go to the source of it all first of all.
Ah! Am I using this local cliché of first of all? Pardon me”
I went to Debre Sina one morning. I rented a room which was
a recommendation of one author of an Ethiopian English novel. Zemarkos Hotel
was a real writers’ haven. Look how I entitle myself writer, author, poet …
Anyway! I stayed there for four days. When I was bored with writing and editing
at my room there I would go out to visit the town, libraries, schools, shops,
and hotels. It was a real writing retreat. The titles of the two books were found
written on the wall of the hotel while I meditated one rainy afternoon sitting in
that old sofa. Look at the English language! How do you say in a sofa, in a bed! When one says in a bed it comes to me that he is hiding in the bed - that four-legged table-like bed we had in the country. Be it
for whatever reason, I was wring in my language then. I didn’t worry or hold an
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary as I am doing now. I should not type all this all again. It
is there on my memoir. At least Amharic people can get it from that book – a
memoir of an aspiring library leader. Do you need it? Then, learn Amharic. I
learned yours. Pay back. That little pride I had that the American agent told me one
day when we disagreed. Yes, she said we Ethiopians have it in our hearts. For
her, it should be squeezed out. She would repeat it if she read this. Me
aspiring to teach or force learn others to learn my language. One singer
prophesied that President Obama would play the Diversifieid Visa Lottery to come to get an
Ethiopian citizenship and live in Ethiopia. It is then that you have to learn
Amharic. If you ask me about other Ethiopian languages, you are also permitted
to. You know your trap!
“Man! Why didn’t you state what you want me to know as a
thesis at the beginning so that I go to other activities!” you scream. Yes! You
the reader. “This is not an essay first of all,” I yell! Why don’t you go find
an essayist in Achebe! Oh this guy! He always holds my hand. All my examples
and lessons are about him. Be it Ethiopian Literature, African Literature or the Short Story – every course I gave. My student once wrote about him in the exam
and came to me afterwards. “Teacher, I wrote Chinua Abebe instead of Chinua
Achebe. Can I correct it now taking the exam sheet back? Does it matter?” Everyone misses African names. In this case
he confuses him with an Ethiopian name. I better say he mistook an African
novelist with the first African to win a gold medal at the Olympics running
barefoot. How could one confuse someone who was famous through his hands for one
who wrote history without shoes! Exam sheet. But how my student says it is exam
shit. We die with our funny accent. Incorrigible!
Before I finished my
four day’s stay at Debre Sina I had to kiss the town goodbye as Joel Osteen preaches.
Yes! One evening, I went to the little iron-made shop. It was next to the
Daniachew Worku square. You know Daniachew? Yes, the writer! He was really
famous for his Amharic and English fiction. (When I refer you, it could be you
or another you. You know it! Deixis' advantage.) One was of the Fascist Italian times and their
injustice at his birthplace of Debre Sina. I am famous at that town. Not
because I write, but because I teach. A teacher from the newly renamed Daniachew
Worku High School accompanies me everywhere I went. He was my former student at
the university in Debre Birhan. I taught him Communicative English Skills in
the summer program. We are like brothers for ten years now. On that evening I
told the liqor shop owner that I am heading back home to Debre Birhan. It was a
liter of water that I wanted to buy. The owner was unshakable. He said he would
treat me the water. But he brought out a glass of Arake and put it in a bag.
Arake in a whisky bottle. Look at how Ethiopia packs her liqors in Europe’s
bottle. How Debre Sina convinces you is unimaginable. The shop owner was really
friendly and I liked his approach because of the information he gave me about
the internally displaced people from Ataye, a fault line between the Oromia
Special Zone and North Shewa. How that town suffered six times due to the
terrorist attack! Now the seventh passed two weeks ago. They turned it to ashes! Aye, my people! Shopkeeper you
market it I murmured with the word I kept intact the longest – shopkeeper. I
don’t remember it which early grade I grasped it.
The agents made all this possible! If not all, half. I
thought they make me tremble because they did all the right thing for America
and everything wrong for Ethiopia. The agents who were staying there a few
years ago could be why my people are dying now. They had cover jobs, but they
were agents.
“Why do you say agent agent while you could be an agent for
your nation yourself even now,” says me.
“I know my capacity”, responds my conscience.
Do you respond my conscience?
That Debre Sina Arake I hesitated to buy does its work at
times. Either when I get home early and do not have anything to do or when I
get angry at times, I sip and get tipsy. The kids from the neighborhood come by, see me sip and drop their jaws in
astonishment. They frown thinking of the taste. Instead of drink it in the
mornings and leave home, I found it impressive to do it at night. The cold
night.
Time to close. To close everything. If you wonder what that
is, please go back a few days and read the blogs I posted for your hungry
consideration. Everything has a phase. A starting or a closing phase for that
matter. When I was at Debre Sina, it was election time as I said. America was
really worried about it. A number of United Nations resolutions were presented on
Ethiopia. And my country survived from brinks of failure and the election was
held peacefully. Election was followed by the publication and selling of books.
When I did those, I had to contact television personnel and give interviews –
with all my social phobia, man! What could I do? Ethiopians are there watching
their TVs and I had to send the show hosts as middlemen and women to help me
get the books across. I have cool ideas both in the memoir and the book of fasting.
And this America is there every week and fortnight reminding
us that this Ethiopia project that Robert Skinner came to tell her about for
the first time as the envoy of President Theodore Roosevelt is not to last
long. They don’t say it in black and white though. Yes, they think we remain
enslaved by a minority dictatorship as we did for the last three decades. And
all this until this time of Hashtag No More. #NoMore that has been started by a
member of that ethnic group that ruled us with iron fists. She was their
activist first. She seems to know little about the national politics because
she left Ethiopia as a child. When she discovered the reality she really felt
pity for us Ethiopians. She empathizes with us and joined forces. A plight even
the member of the minority group understands, America fails to.
I publish my books, I sell, I reprint. And did all that
until the New Year which is on September 11 here.
I await class to begin at Debre Birhan University, but it
doesn’t. The reason? It is the war that is sponsored by the USA. Yes, the
Tigray People’s Liberation Front staged the attack on the Northern
Command a year ago and the nation has bled ever since.
I am getting you to the closure. The things at my home that
I kept for years have to be checked. I am checking everything. If I need
certain items, I keep them with me. If not, I find a solution. The books, handouts,
exercise books, diaries, … everything paper should be checked and I need as
little material as I could. I consider only paper things as my property. The softcopies in my old computer were damaged by a virus. The house if getting tidier and more orderly day by day. And this deafening silence. And the highland chills - the disadvantage of living in Africa's highest city. You taste highness with all the consequences.
You know, these U.S. backed terrorists almost made it to
where I am in their journey to the capital, Addis. They covered two thirds of
their march when the government opened counteroffensive and they started their
backward marathon. Poor Woyanay! So, if the worst comes, shouldn’t I prepare myself? Do I
know who else the U.S.A sponsors? I really don’t; you don’t; the U.S.A. doesn’t
seem to either. Their leadership is acting like a mad dog. They bite everyone. They lost their mind. Who trusts their social media bawl or the TPLF
spokesperson’s for that matter. They may agree to terrorize together or no to part.
It is said that that Debre Sina where I spent four sweet
days for my writing retreat has been turned to ashes by the pro-U.S.A. TPLF.
Would anything of that sort touch my town, the industrial hopeful, Debre
Birhan. Just ju….st in case, I must drink the Arake and finish it tonight. My home should get empty and await Doomsday. Little was left from the liqor I feared. I fear drinking it because I eat once
a day and that is in the mornings. To booze without food, could be like
swallowing a blade. Yes, at this time of war I talk in terms
of sharp items. Everyone is looking forward to using anything sharp if
America comes. Those who didn’t enlist for the civil war covet to kill a foreigner in the ensuing battles.
The radio drama I wrote, modules of literature and English
language teaching, Addis Ababa University undergraduate and graduate materials,
photo albums, electric and water bills, bank vouchers, different papers, similar
papers, government or university propaganda training materials, everything that
I gathered from my life, everything that reminds me of my life has been
reordered this week. I am organized by nature. This week seems to make me more organized. From every one of the times I arranged my things, the current one
seems organized. I did it! Japanese housekeeping or obsession? Or fear? Fear
overwhelms.
When we prepared ourselves for the worst a week ago, I put
all my documents in an envelope. It was all. A few clothes and a few other
things in a little bag and …. I know what to pack for times of emergency, but I
am getting more careless these days.
“You know you don’t survive this time”
“Oh, no! I do. Who else would?”
“You die”
“I survive. The town survives. The nation survives. Our
civilization does.”
“Which civilization! Look at you! Only you are made in
Ethiopia. Everything you wear and use is from China.”
“What about Americans? Are they not all from elsewhere?”
“Yes, they came
together from everywhere, melted in the melting pot, and want us who are
together dispersed.”
“Another disaster for the world. But look at how we melt if
we have to cross the Sahara Desert.”
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be
fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Albert Einsten.
Einsten misses one point here as he did
with how he made way for his cats. By the way – this famous phrase. It is
really famous in Ethiopia. People start even their Amharic sentences with it.
By the way, I regret about Einsten. We read the s as SH in German or Deutsch.
Café Einstein they call it. I regret not drinking a cup of tea there. It was at
the Goethe Institut, Addis Abeba. Yes., mark the spelling. Institut without an
e and Abeba not Ababa. We students did not have the stamina to order and stay at such places as Goethe’s because we thought it would be a dollar price. Or
who would sit face to face with a German or a Swiss and….
The fourth World War? Let me come back to it. Be the third
as it may, the third is my issue anyway. Whites quarrel amongst themselves and
call it a World War. Now it is going to be a real World War. A World War in
which Africa is really engaged head to toe. Stones and sticks would be in use.
Soil and mud would too. Yes, you splash it on their stone faces. Eyes closed they scream,
you club their head. Real barbarians you would be. We would not spare clay jars
and stools. Ropes, Dung and pebbles, fists and nails, headers and slaps,
everything that doesn’t involve technology shall be employed. We won’t even
employ sharp materials.
“They think I am joking.”
“Yeah they do. If you don’t tell them”
Listen, oh, excuse me, read. I tell you. Oh, sorry I write
to you.
The university staff, all sorts of teachers, just eighty of
them, live in one compound. A few weeks ago we started our guarding duty.
Guarding our compound in turns. I better call it awaiting. Awaiting the war to
crawl our way. This clumsy war. Awaiting that little boy sent to slap you. Many
of the teachers left for other towns and places within the city. They feared reprisal
the terrorists said await us. Reprisal for nothing. A waste of golden words. Who
is left? I think a quarter of us.
“Do you dare to tell them that?”
“Why not, my dear!”
My dear? Look how my conscience takes care of me. How would
I be a dear without a weapon at this time? No weapon of any sort. It is not
only me. Every teacher had or has no weapon. I am sure. If they had they would
brandish it to show their superiority or state of guardianship for all of us.
My relatives called me at that time. I call it this time. It was just two
weeks ago.
In that little town, my relatives said everything stopped
because of the war. Every technology stopped. No power. No water. No businesses.
You know what happened? They decided to spare their lives for those two weeks. They
crushed cereals to make food using stone, the traditional hand held mill. We
are level one civilization. Would it be a little better than hunter-gatherer
life? And who are we fighting? The mighty the United States of America!
Wouldn’t it be a shame for her to fight with such a little creature? Would it be a victory to defeat the poorest
country as the richest country? Would it make her proud to! You know how I fail at their trap? Who is rich? Africa is! They eye our place only to rob us.
Professor Mesfin once said when he was a child that bigger
children would fight with smaller ones. When the big one’s hold the
small ones and start hitting them, the small ones would plea. "God would peer from the sky and see what you are
doing. Amerikish is not my accent. Just this way I
state my fear of what tomorrow has in store for me. Tonight when I came from the
library, I heard that some sort of resolution passed. Would this resolution,
which is being called the second Scramble for Africa, be a call for the Fourth World War? I wait.
“You finish the liqor.”
“I wish I didn’t”
“Schmeckt es gut?”
“No, I had more to say”
“Then say it!”
“The liqor says better. I have an empty bottle and I am
cleaning up everything including my mind.”
I write to the last drop of my liqor. This war time is
making me fearless. And you the reader wish you edited and sent me this story
back. Why don’t you write your own! Who has time to take your grammar
correction? Tell America to correct herself rather. Nebir ayegn bey!
