The Story Makes the Man
or …
By Tariku
Abas Etenesh
We live not only by bread but by story too.
What
is created by man and in turn created man?
May you guess?
May you guess?
Don’t you worry; I give
you the answer. Well, not necessarily should you agree, though. I say it is story.
Story is often created by man and in turn through time, emboldened and
pronounced through misapprehension or comprehension induced repetitions and embellishments, ultimately becomes the creator of man. This article intends to reflect
on this reality citing some randomly selected stories.
All that man owns and
envisions has to be translated into a story of some sort before it actually becomes
a dictate in life. The greater purpose for which man is put on this planet; it seems,
to perpetuate streams of stories as if the universe is sequencing each head of
humanity like the zeros and ones of computer codes or the genetic alphabets in
the double helices.
As man is a story
munching and story worshiping creature, everyone’s life can’t escape from
being a factor of the stories it has encountered. This is true for all men, of
all ages, of all colors, of all religions, and of all sexual orientations. Same
can be said of all man made systems that are in various ways crafted to feed on stories that feed on other smaller stories that in turn feed on other smaller
stories.
From family to
organizations, from offices to parliaments, from constitutions to Holy-books,
all systems try to represent themselves in stories with a delicate attempt to
freeze time; and in doing so, try to punctuate the stream of time into a defined
permanence. You could find the shade of this wish in the way most of the
fantastical stories that we cherish as knowledge are introduced to the world
conscious. Most of these stories are shrouded with phrases like: the only correct religion, the only correct political
system, the new Africa, the new Ethiopia,
the new constitution, the new age, the new revelation from god etc.
Man is man not only
because he knows he is conscious but also because he is conscious of making
stories. Think of the torture, one person would find himself to be if deprived of
contact with fellow human beings? The deprivation is not only of contact but of
the possibility of stories shared or created. But even then, he lingers on
rewinding the stories from the great vault of his memory and re-run them as the
path to survival. Man lives not only by
bread but by story too.
We as stories
in Flesh; liberated and enslaved by stories
Let us take some
examples. All countries attribute their commencement as nation to one story or another of
men trying the impossible or the possible in a fashion that creates some
fascination to the storyteller of today who call themselves citizens of countries created by those ‘first men or ‘super men’. So stories of grand
revolutionaries, religious or philosophical leaders whose exploits in their
venture at creating their nation is held with reverence. Like the Queen of Sheba story that served as a
carpet for the Ethiopian state and political legitimacy for thousands years, like the story of Romulus and Remus of Rome that furnished same for the foundation of
the Roman state, or the story of the Long March for the foundation of the
modern day China, the Declaration of Independence for the USA.
Same is claimed by religions.
Religions are never shy of attributing their establishment to some stories,
oftentimes, fantastical ones, involving celestial beings and men designing yet another
new revelation on ‘how to live or not to
live’ on this planet. Notwithstanding the fact that most of those
stories that support the body of many religious revelations have with them the
mark of workmanship that sounds more mundane than celestial as they claim they
are, their grip on modern man and their insistence to determine his fate seems
definite.
As seen in darker ages of
the past, now, of all times, the mythologies and stories ancient men created to
help them comprehend the mysterious world, often full of misapprehensions, have
not only become unavoidable permanence insisting to not only define the character
of man in modern age but also to define his fate in spite of the advances in science
offering the alternative views. For instance, as I am writing this line, there
are at least ten major conflicts claiming the lives of hundreds of innocent
people every day, both as a perpetrators and victims, (In Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Somalis, Bangladesh
etc) because some religious stories that man created, are now insistently creating man’s
fate too.
The reluctance with which
the stories were first told laced with love and message of togetherness to make
converts of innocent hearts are once again revealing their true colors and determining
‘if humanity will have a peaceful world or not’. All such religious stories , especially those evangelical ones, who claim to be the only ways to heaven, start to stammer in front of 'the idea of individual freedom'. The fanatics,
on every side, played to the tunes of politicians with different religious
stripes, fall in that category where stories created in the image and dreams of
man now dominating man and creating him in their images.
The created creating the creator.
We -as a stories in flesh- also believe our own lies.
Man is so in love with
stories that the more he stays with a lie he created he believes in it. Let me use a popular old funny story to make my point
here.
An angry resident
created a witty way to chase children who often disturb him playing in front of
his home. The wise way he wanted to chase them was to tell them a story that
will, at the same time send them away from his lawn and also vent his anger. So
he called the children and said:
“Do you see the cart out
there?”
“Yes,” said the chorus
of children.
“If I were you, I would
be immediately running to the cart right now.”
“Why?” the children
asked.
“Because,” he said, “free oranges are being distributed at the cart; and that is, of
course if you reach on time before all the oranges are given away.”
Sooner than he finished his
last words, the children were off, dashing towards the cart; eager to get their
share of the free distributed orange. This was a delight to celebrate for the
resident as he not only fooled the children but also avenged his anger in a non
threatening manner possible.
He looked at them as
they dashed and gathered around the cart and unlike his expectation -that the
cart man would chase them away- the children stayed at the cart. He waited. And
the children stayed. And now curiosity set in. What were these children doing
there? He waited they stayed.
The resident finally
reflected to himself, “could it be possible that orange is being given out for
real?” and he run towards the cart.
The more one system
tells stories and those stories become the governing stories of the system they
become the truth of the system. When the stories from the beginning are stories
based on misapprehension, then misapprehension becomes the truth of the system;
which in turn goes back to believing its own lies.
How many times have you
noticed lies being told and realized they were not right and later on fell into
the famed saying: Lies repeatedly told
take the pretense of truth and settled for it?
We are fascinated by the 'fear' of the past and the new
‘Ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can
have,” said the renowned American writer James Baldwin. Such mix of
unfortunate reality sometimes comes to
life when some stories that have greater consequences for a country or a
continent, are met and harbored with ignorance, (by ignorance to mean holding on to un-examined beliefs- both by the so
called educated and otherwise). In the realm of ignorance, imposed or
perpetuated, the more a story is told, the more it becomes part of the culture and
the psyche of the person and the community. That in turn becomes a reason for
one to defend it.
Let’s take the so called
‘my country right or wrong ‘assertion
that millions maintain towards supporting what their nations regardless. We
have seen wars being waged, lives being destroyed, humanity yet again being left
into a cycle of violence, only because citizens failed to ask ‘why should I take
side with the view -my country right or
wrong” before they became part of the heinous. This mantra seems to be the
most common of all stories by which men are lured into doing the wrong in the
name of their country. This is the way of the mass. This is the way of
collective assurances of indulging in the heinous for the sake of the mass.
This is the easy path, the less difficult alternative to take. Only a few would
take the painful road of saying ‘NO’; only a few would refuse to stand with the
assertion “my country right or wrong”
when the country stands ideals against the right of people to life and liberty.
The greatest Boxing champion
of all times, Muhammad Ali was one of those few people, who after realizing the
path his country was taking in Vietnam, at the time, as wrong, said NO to
drafting for the army. But he has to pay the great price for his stance in
terms of losing his championship titles and being barred from taking part in
any boxing event.
Who is the Muhammad Ali
of today? When we look at the tunes of our time, it is evident that the nation
states of today have collectively failed their constituents in most of the
promises of any modern nation; which is granting decency that humanity
deserves. This holds true for most of the nations in the world, from USA to
France from Ethiopian to Israel, from Palestine to Syria, from the DRC to South
Africa. That the story in the
marketplace of the nations is glowingly becoming corrupt has not prevented millions and millions from standing by it
and allowing the ruling elites decide on their fate, not in the interest of the
mass but in the interest of the few against the mass.
For instance, currently,
what the world witnesses in North Korea, where the sad fate of fellow human
beings, who are helplessly left- for more than a century -to the story of the ruling
elite projecting itself as having celestial origins in a ritualized and intentionally
sugar laced stories, is one fact of our time. But what is happening to the defenseless
North Koreans is not, as we might assume, an exception to that unfortunate land.
When allowed, this gruesomeness could happen, and is happening everywhere in
the world. And the one sure way of allowing this to happen is the “my country right or wrong story”. The
sound bite that the North Koreans are fed through the rhetoric of the new
nation where milk flow in the rivers, was ushered in, to grace a ‘victory’ that
was won over ‘an enemy’ (read ‘brothers
and sisters in civil war’) and has laid the foundations for a new great new
nation of ‘no parallels on the face of the earth’. Many countries fall in this category in
different shades and shapes including the so called democratic nations.
The only difference could
be in North Korea people are under the physical repression of being forced to
live in gulags; put under constant surveillance through military and spying agents.
From the perspective of human dignity, decency
and rights the case of North Korea could sound unbearable. However, it only takes asking a few questions to
avoid the mist from our eyes to realize that many ‘so called’ democratic
nations are not far from the gulag mentality of the North Koreans.
Ask yourself, what percentages
of the young generation in your ‘democratic country’ are off illegal drugs? Ask
yourself how many percentages of the young people in your ‘democratic country’ are
off prescribed Psychotic drugs? Ask yourself how many percentages of the young
people in your ‘democratic country’ are in prison? Ask yourself how many percentages of the young
people in your ‘democratic country’ are off reading? Ask yourself how many percentages of the young people in your ‘democratic country’ are free to speaking their mind and not be tortured or imprisoned or told to stay on the official line? If the answers for these questions indicate
to the highest percentage, you are in democratic gulags while believing to be
in different reality due to the story you are being fed by the system.
One example: the story of the ‘new Ethiopia’
The ‘new Ethiopia’ is
another of this many instances in human history that has proved itself to the
assertion that once a people is fed with a story, no matter what the
inclination (positive or negative) tuned against ‘others’, it is easy to make
story make men.
When following the
popular revolution of 1966 E.C, Ethiopia found its fate in the hands of the military;
out of a mist of incomprehension and following the vogue of the time, a ‘new socialist
Ethiopia’ was arbitrarily forged. And a story-line was born that said: Revolutionary Ethiopia or death. The
problem with the ‘….or death’ assertion
was that it had no room for reflection, dissent or self examination. It claimed
to be the best and only story for the
‘new’ Ethiopia. All competing voices of
the time parroted exactly the same: I am the best and only story the other should not have the right to life. When
corruption, decadence and incompetence stood in its way as monumental flows,
the story accommodated them as the only right ways to reach to the only ‘new’
country and as promised provided death and blood to those who opposed. As a
result of this, for seventeen years the “new Ethiopia” that was spewing the
story of ‘Revolution or death’ turned
out to be one of the gruesome chapters in modern African History. This went on till
a new story replaced the military in 1983 E.C.
The new story was
declared victorious with yet another declaration of a ‘new’ Ethiopia with a new
story filled with promises to unravel in the form of ethnic federalism under revolutionary
democracy. As is the cases with all victors, a claim was to tie the essence
of the new story; and that essence was an assertion that the country has
finally been blessed with the elixir for her political ailments: Revolutionary Democracy or Nothing.
The assertion has to ring this claim on the story that the country would disintegrate
if they were not on the helm.
And like its predecessor,
this new story has the mark of stiffness, single mindedness and lack of self
examination written all over it. The same mark of religious-definitive of claiming
to be ‘the final and only solution’
for the country has been the hallmark of the ‘new’ story for twenty two years
now. While the previous socialist story said ‘Revolutionary Ethiopia or death’
and threatened with death and blood if the revolutionary Ethiopia is not
created; the current ‘new’ story threatens that if the revolutionary democratic country is not created, there will altogether
be no country at all. And like its predecessors, the current “new” story befriends
itself with corruption, favoritism, decadence and incompetence, in a mammoth scale;
it keeps postulating them as the only right ways to reach to the only ‘new’
country. Such is an argument that smells of the many thousand failures in human
history that have articulated so when running out of novelty in the story that
brought them to the scepter of power.
To bring James Baldwin’s
assertion again, ‘Ignorance allied with
power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have’. It is to be suspected
that fanaticism to one story and one story only, might also be defined as ignorance
about the opposing notion. Thus, the fate of justice that tries to thrive in
the form of the opposing notion is also fated to be doomed. Such seems the fate
of justice as viewed by the ‘new story’ proponents in Ethiopia under the ‘revolutionary democracy or no country’
emblem.
Element of the ‘new’
story that would otherwise have been rejected in a civilized community like
hate speech, singling one ethnic group as the enemy of others, (still being done by the storytellers ‘of the new
story’), silencing critical voices and media, and reducing the inherent
needs of human being to life and all that life offers with all its obligations
to only bread; selling repression and fear as the way of proving its points. Such
negligence will fester only the wounds of the past and creates new ones as a
way of life.
When a system is not
honest enough to its own story in the face of corruption, favoritism, decadence
and incompetence, the only way it could sustain is through installing conflict
among its parts as the only way to linger long without allowing compromise for
the inherent desire born out of being human to set in.
Does the Story Make the
Man or ….
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