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mind entropy of the ethiofricanArchive for history
Ethiopians Celebrating with the World -Ust DC
Thank you Nyalasmokes for this historic footage! 
Ust NW and 13th St NW Washington DC, USA in front of Dukem Restaurant
On t’Brink Again: Hungry Horn
the looping setting on the horn of africa. BAM!
2008 ~9.6 million hungry people (hi food prices), 3.25 million affected by drought.
2001 ~over 12 million people in Ethio, Eritrea needing urgent aid within drought.
1984 ~ 5-7 million affected with very high death rate: drought/delayed response/war.
read more.
it’s worse than the last time…they say…
i did something last time.
i wonder if i will again.
having experienced being at one of the sites they always show on news clips of people collecting food, i am intrigued by how news stories depict the scene…
here’s a pre-commentary, pre-news-edit video, part of the world food programme press release on the drought…
the bareness of the video was chilling to watch. but specifically, watching it in detached mode, i could think of a million ways someone could cut and paste this to make it ‘news worthy’. now, take that little snip with naked emaciated kids with bloated bellies, children collecting grains from the dust.
this piece of material could make a bang…yes, it is indeed as bad as 1984. yes, indeed this is the condition of the horn. sad reality that it is…
at the risk of viewers dismissing the news piece scoffing ‘ahhh…yea…didn’t they have that show on last nite? that infomercial about giving money to feed starving babies?’ the ‘pity-worthy-ness’ to a lesser degree, and the creative spin to a greater degree. these could be the uumph that can compete with other news pieces for the front page, the headline, the breaking news…and prove the point this is indeed comparable to 1984. the always-ness of africa. take a look!
i wonder.
what could be going through the camera person’s mind while they’re recording it? or the producers’ in thinking about what appeals to his audience? what kinda agenda/bias do they bring by editing?
relaying the urgency of the situation, the need for response…a successful news story that reaches the front page…tv superstandome?? i guess good news, is no news…
but really… what of the things that fall through the cracks. that wouldn’t bolster stereotypes…
a cultural value system and context lost in translation? like…respect and reverence of food in that it shouldn’t be wasted. Proverb: “migib kibur new”/”food is to be revered.” This presumes all food is not to be wasted unless it has been contaminated irreversibly…
Also, there may be different conceptions of contamination and germs…and an integrated perception of food-and nature…along with different ideas on ‘wastefulness’ ‘food’ ‘materialism’….’cleanliness’…
an understanding of these things make the scene with kids scrambling for grains on the sandy ground less dramatic.
Edit. Edit. Edit.
the construction of recent history
…versus a recording of the past…
Tata Mandiba Mandela
if there is any political world figure I feel I need to pay tribute to, it is this man. A man who stands for peace! and what better time than his birth day when the world celebrates him – a world which he has recolored, recharged and graced.
“How blessed we have been. He has become the most admired statesman in the world, an icon of forgiveness and reconciliation, a moral colossus.” – Desmond Tutu
His many names:
Tata – This isiXhosa word means “father” and is a term of endearment that many South Africans use for Mr Mandela. Since he is a father figure to many, they call him Tata regardless of their own age.
Madiba – This is the name of the clan of which Mr Mandela is a member. This name is much more important than a surname as it refers to the ancestor from which a person is descended. Madiba was the name of a Thembu chief who ruled in the Transkei in the 18th century. It is considered very polite to use someone’s clan name.
Tribute to Mandiba, the man through his quotations:
~ I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.
~ Whatever the sentence Your Worship sees fit to impose upon me for the crime for which I have been convicted before this court may it rest assured that when my sentence has been completed, I will still be moved as men are always moved, by their conscience. I will still be moved by my dislike of the race discrimination against my people. When I come out from serving my sentence, I will take up again, as best I can, the struggle for the removal of those injustices until they are finally abolished.
~ No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
~ True reconciliation does not consist in merely forgetting the past.
~ If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.
~ Extremists on all sides thrive, fed by the blood lust of centuries gone by.
~ As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others… For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
~ The curious beauty of African music is that it uplifts even as it tells a sad tale. You may be poor, you may have only a ramshackle house, you may have lost your job, but that song gives you hope. African music is often about the aspirations of the African people, and it can ignite the political resolve of those who might otherwise be indifferent to politics.
~ As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself… Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.
~ I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
~ If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
~ It always seems impossible until its done… There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.
~ There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
On History, Theatre & other bollocks
I watched the play ‘the history boys‘ recently. This is what I kept thinking:
“theatre, history…tarik, teret…art, historic records.. history, literature…facts, stories”
hmmm….you hear the sound of the beats, the clashes? contradictions? cymbals? or trombones sounding in the history books?:)
Ah Well…Let me go off on a tangent!
Indeed there are…clashes between the vagaries within theater houses in addis ababa & the district of columbia! Though, one Thursday night these two geographic dimensions merged in my head as history echoed in the dupont theater halls resounding truth about Ethiopia. The remnant echoes: “history is always according to somebody’s perspective.”
…but wouldn’t that mean: history is based on some perspective and context, making fact arguable according to other perspectives and contexts …and History, Bollocks? (according to Posner in the play: History could be explained AWAY!)
Interruption from main bollocks (skip if uninterested): My renditions of Theatric settings: Dupont and Piassa
Act 1 setting: In the somewhat uppidy and trendy neighborhood of dupont, home of the most expensive real estate in dc (aka white, gay males) there is a theater house with (raunchy?) zigzag red neon lights and montages of b&w portraits of white actors surrounded by beige wooden walls and frosted doors.
That is where i spent two hours on a Thursday evening with Abesha friends and droves of mostly white, seemingly liberal, artsy-fartsy types of various ages. At the end of the evening we left heads swimming with British boyish silliness, homosexual romance in a boys’ school, theorizing about history, poetry…and other such ‘bollocks’ spoken in rapid cockney english by “The History Boys” as we Abeshoch pleaded for subtitles.
Act 2 setting: An ocean away, the theatre houses of ‘Hager FiQir’ and ‘BehErawi Tiaytir’ serve their largely male crowds (most presumably homophobic) with long queues and ‘unofficial’ ticket sales (aka blackmarkettery, haggling, hustling…). Insistent vendors rummage up and down hallways of fading colors and outdated designs, hallways full of loud chatter. The vendors’ chest-kiosks stuffed with chewing gum and candy get push up under noses of oblivious passers-by; and colorful plastic bags swish by holding candle-sealed packs of oily home fried chips.
No matter. Moving onward: the two clashing worlds of theatre; the trendy posh of dupont and the liveliness of a middle-lower class past-time in piassa cannot escape a conclusion that historic truth is in the eye of the beholder. If ‘The History Boys’ was shown, even in Amharic, to a piassa audience the response could be acutly different, as would the response be of someone watching the same play next to me in dupont. It is a matter of perspective.
So, to say that one perspective of history is right, we would have to assert that some perspectives are ‘better than others’, more objective or rational and scientific according to a specific context. Rendering history according to other perspectives, bollocks….!
ok enough yadi-yada-ing from me…I’m simply highlighting the thin ‘arguable’ line between perspective and truth… Ethiopian tales and Ethiopian tarik, history and stories…
This is my take: Accounts of history should not be the main caveats for arguments about entitlement, political order, war… History should surely be within the discussion, but not take over as a basis for endless bickering, violence, the loss of many lives and livelihoods, especially given history’s fluidity!
I believe in a starting premise of a common goal – COEXISTENCE and common ground through individual understanding. For that, we need to start paying much closer attention to the personal stories that tie many across conflict lines in common humanity and stop the bickering about bollocks historic anecdotes!
Quotes from the play:
“history is based on perspective, so there are countless histories of one occurance…
1~But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.
Defining history: nonsense and men (oh my, these two words fit together so nicely! 
)
~How do I define history? Well it’s just one fucking thing after another.
~History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket. Can you, for a moment, imagine how depressing it is to teach five centuries of masculine ineptitude?
The connection through written accounts…
~The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.”
