Back from France and London

Reflection on the News items of the past week

By T, Blogger of De Birhan Media

14/11/2011

If you live in Europe, you will mainly enjoy two things. Growing taller and taller as you are showered by the nonstopingly irritating rain everyday and ability to freely travel through the continent. The distance from the capital cities of these cities is of hourly. For eg. If you are in Belgium, you can reach in Holland, Switzerland or France in couple of hours. Anyway, a friend of mine who just gotten his full European driving licence invited me to a tour over France and England. ‘Why not I said’ as I was not working for three days plus the weekend =  5 days. We drove through Paris. Paris a beautiful city but did not do much there as it was a bit hard for us to communicate since everyone was speaking French as a modus of comm. We drove further and went to London, the Capital of the United Kingdom. What a fabulous city. When I was at home, I travelled often to various places and continents including this one. But this time it looked fabulous as I was mainly in these two cities as a tourist. This is my last European tour before I move beyond the Atlantic.

Habesha (Ethiopian-Eriterian) bars (clubs) and recreational centres

Of all the historical places and spots that I visited, I went to Habesha bars, restaurants, and recreational places. We dined at Menelik, Red Sea and Marathon restaurants. I especially thanked the man at Menelik for his fabulous jobs. At Menelik we ate injera with Fim Tibs, a very very delicious one with fitfit. Then I went downstairs to the same club to dance with the Ethiopian tunes played by a young London based Ethiopian artist.

The next day, I wanted to visit a rectational place that Ethiopians go often. So we found one. This one has three compartments the first one is a cafeteria, the second for those who play snooker, I found few youngsters playing it. The third one is for chewing 

Khat ,a stimulant plant banned in many places. I came to learn from friends that this plant is legal in the UK. There I sat with the men who were chewing khat, smoking cigarettes and shisha. Normally, I do not do any of them but for the sake of memesasel, I did try some lol. First out, like my other experiences in European countries, when you bump in to any of their place as a stranger what they first do is find out your stand in home politics. Same was here, although not direct, they raised various political issues that could ignite our participation so that they judge our stand and be with us or oppose us. It is so unbelievable, how home politics decisively affects the Diaspora. They could not get anything from me except nods. The walls of the room are filled with hand written quotations that were written by those who get high from the plant and leave their scripture.

 one of the pics I took in the rec. center 

I learnt few things from my stay in this place. Most of these people in room looked so poor and addicts. Their way of life is chewing, talking and working few hours. That is all. The Ethiopian youth is being criticised for being so. How different are these men in London? Only a difference of location. They live the same life of hopelessness engulfed in khat chewing as those of our counterparts in Addis.  

I also came to see that there is a lot of potential being wasted and unused by Ethiopian politicians in the Diaspora. Khat houses are places of public sphere where issues of national interest, politics are discussed. This is where the opinions of some are set. I saw some guy in the middle of these people who was labelled to be a ‘spineless opposition supporter’, although the guy seemed to be honest and anti-Meles’ regime/dictatorship, his points of argument were weak. In outside khat house life as well, the man, I presumed is a bit of a bullied fool and such a person cannot work positively for the establishment of a democratic Ethiopia.

Let me finish this part, by quoting one of their arguments. This man starts arguing that Alamoudi and the Meles regime have been robbing Ethiopia’s natural resources mainly gold and leaving Ethiopians poor. “Alamoudi wasn’t a billionaire and even uknonw before the coming of the incumbents,” He argues. One of the listener’s aggreingly opposes his point saying, “Well you are right they stole our wealth and built their economic empire but it is not through the sale of our Gold that this man especially amassed his billions”. We all said “so how then?”. He replied “it is through the sale of our honey”. We all laughed out loud. But he argued strongly.

In this trip, as well I met a childhood friend of mine who was deported to Eritrea during the last Ethio-Eriterian war, because his parents were Eritreans although he was born in Ethiopia. He was alive and kicking

Finally yet importantly, I leant the charge of six journalists with terrorism including four exiled writers like me who I know some two personally. It really baffled me. I know that this guys did or cannot do anything that can terrorise anyone. They have always been writers and journalists. It is becoming evident that anyone who writes, journalises freely even in exile these days is a terrorist. This trend of naming anybody that is critical of the government, as a terrorist is a very bad and dangerous culture that has never been in our history. Ethiopians and Ethiopia had never used terrorism as a means of winning their opponents. In our history of war and struggle for thousands of years, we have never been offensive. As a non-offensive nation, Ethiopia cannot produce this generation of politicians and journalists who turn out to be terrorist within a flick of a second. What scares me most about this new mantra of opponent/critic extermination of the Meles Zenawi regime is not just the charge of these few journalists but the trend and the culture that we are developing.I am clear enough!!!

Victory to all those who fight for democracy and peace!!!

Downfall to dictators!!!