The Ethiopian Millennium Celebration, The Farce of the MillenniumThat Must be Boycotted by all Self-respecting Ethiopians
Fekade Shewakena
The Ethiopian Millennium to be marked in September 2007 has more of metaphorical meaning than the farce the Ethiopian government is planning to make off of it. What a coincidence that we trail most of the countries of the world by seven years into the celebration of the millennium and still also trail behind almost all of them in nearly every index of societal development. I have a friend who seriously asks if this has to do with our socioeconomic and political backwardness.
Just as the woyane regime drumbeats its statistics to create a delusional and none existing economic leap in the country, I just read a World Economic Forum report which declares that Ethiopia has slid to the rank of 120th out of 125 countries in 2006 in Global Competitive Index, from the 116th that it stood at a year ago. The UNICEF also reports that another false promise of development, the so called Millennium Development Goal (MDG), is far off for Ethiopia to approach let alone achieve. I know these are top secrets in Ethiopia where the entire media is ordered to tell the people only the good news that, very soon, bread will be raining from the sky. Ethiopians are not allowed to know that the number of their absolute poor, defined by the World Bank as those earning les than a dollar a day, have nearly tripled since the EPRDF came to power fifteen years ago and the rank of the unemployed is continuously swelling to limits of explosion.
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Visitors to BU would have recognized our interest in the continent of Africa. We find it to be a country so rich in potential, natural and people resources that it becomes blasphemous how many of the black home grown leaders continue to down press the spirit of a people and in the process their respective economies. The political and economic backwardness of most of the African counties come against the background of the sacrifice which Nelson Mandela suffered for 20+ years in a South African prison. It was pleasing this week to witness the great honor which the white majority governed country of United Kingdom paid to Mandela.
It was with horror that we read the above story in the local news this weekend and decided to research it to find that it was indeed true! We found comforting the fact that a fellow blogger in Ethiopia agreed what the Ethiopian government is planning to do is indescribable.
So did you read the story?
The Nation newspaper in Barbados elaborated on this article posted a few months ago by confirming that one of the poorest countries in the world in Ethiopia intends to spend BDS$3.2 million to celebrate Ethiopian Millennium in September 2007. The big joke must be that the government intends to rake the estimated 90, 000 beggars who live on the streets of the capital, Addis, Ababa and deposit them into the country side.
Oh boy- can we have a comment from the Pan African Commission please!
This is a story that should tell Barbadians alot, we take so much for granted. We hope that our leaders can continue the rich legacy of good management to protect our people from some of the foolishness we read about in the Mother Country.
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The title of the story is a bit strange as you cannot have a black non African country. All black people (some say all people) have their origins in Africa. As to unemployment being a reliable indicator of a countries progress, this can be very misleading. Before the introduction of Western standards of employment, Africa would have had 100% unemployment or 100% employment. Everyone had something to do to maintain their health, families and societies. Some jokers came up with this thing called a job and if you didn’t have one you were suddenly useless. Widespread urbanisation (rushing to the cities and towns to look for a job) compounded the problem, hence beggars in the streets. If these people were in the customary rural environment, they would have no choice but to work using their traditional skills and knowledge. Jobs are another term for poorly paid servants or slaves as the compensation for most workers is barely enough t0 make ends meet from month to month.
I wish I could survive on 1 US a day. Who is the better person; he who can survive on a dollar a day or he that needs 40 or 50 a day to make it through?
All that stuff about the millennium farce in Ethiopia is almost exactly the same as a lot of people in the West were saying about the whole Year 2000 (millennium celebrations) garbage.
Do you recall that Europe was still getting over the massacres in Yugoslavia and ethnic cleansing exercises in Bosnia and Serbia. Yet we spent tens of millions to fix non existent computer bugs and hold elaborate celebrations.
As to our governments careful management. Is that what you call debt? Debt that is coming back to bite the behind of the Global agenda with the belly falling out of the US Housing market and the cost of living rising throughout the industrialised, democratic world.
Peace