(Tariku Abas Etenesh)
Do you like humor?
I do.
Oftentimes, I try to find the mirthful face of my social
encounters; and luckily, I usually get what I seek. It is not just the fun and
the laughter that delights me the most; it is the shade of wit they leave with
me to ponder about later. Well obviously, the one fine ingredient of humors is
their unpredictability; they often sprout out of moments that one could less
expect them to. Not all humorous moments would fall into such category; but
when they do, they last with me for long.
Sometime, one doesn’t have to actually experience the situations
to laugh; recalling humorous moments would suffice; they only need some
triggers.
I got one of these triggers recently from an unlikely corner: the
Arab revolt. These days one has to be totally isolated in the woods to not know
and hear about the youth in Tunisia who, driven by economic desperation and
political repressions, finally reclaimed their freedom; the youth in Egypt for
the same cause as Tunis, steadfastly stood for their freedom and ended tyranny;
the youth in Yemen, Libya and Bahrain all literally called their political
leaders to live out the values that brought them to palace or leave.
Well then, where is the humor in this? In fact, nothing funny
about the revolts; only that the manner with which the leaders challenged by
their own people reacted reminded me of some humorous moments.
Let me share you two of the humorous moments that left me
exploding in laughter the moment they happened and later left their witty side
to ponder about and especially now see them in line with the Arab revolt and
its implications to other countries with leaders of the same despotic
credentials.
The humor
Years ago, on an Easter midnight, everyone at home was breaking
the two months long fast gathered around the dinning table, sharing the holiday
feast in a festive mood. In the middle of all the eating, drinking and
chatting, the housemaid suddenly sounded struck by disbelief, stopped eating,
stood up and run out of the living room. As her abruptness caused me wonder, I
followed her outside. Out in the garden, at a wooden pole where the sheep
slaughtered for the holiday was tied to a day before, she seemed to be
searching for something.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
Without replying my question she simply walked towards the kitchen
and then to the garden seemed to be searching for something which I didn’t
know. I knew she had remembered something while on dinner, but what could that
be?
“I forgot!” she said at last.
“What did you forget?”
“I forgot to tie the sheep.”
Her reply was greeted by a sudden explosion of laughter from me,
those who followed me outside, and those around the dining table. This seemed
to confuse the housemaid even more.
“Why are you laughing?” she asked stern.
The laughter was because she was looking for the sheep she was
supposed to always tie at night. But what she had, for at least that moment,
forgotten was that she was enjoying it as dinner with us. Suddenly on the
blank about it, she had forgotten that it was slaughtered during the day and
that she had made it into all sort of traditional stew we were enjoying. Her
night time routine took the better of her.
I still laugh when I remember that moment.
The other one happened couple of weeks back when I met a six
months old child of my friend’s. When I stepped into my friend’s bedroom, the
angel like child looked at me and accompanied with his seraphic smile, he
stretched his small hands indicating his need to be hugged. I picked him up
happily.
Once hugged though, the child still kept smiling and seemed to be
looking at something towards the door; my attempt to kiss his beautiful baby
face was greeted by his sincere desire towards something at the door I didn’t
realize.
I had to ask his mom to learn that the child was searching for me
at the door even when he was in my hands. I had to put him back in his cradle
to play with him. Well, the child’s spatial abilities were not yet well
developed that was why he didn’t realize he was in the hands of the person he
was looking for at the door.
The two moments although humorous had also given me a reason to
ponder about and see their witty side. Especially when I see someone who walked
out of his marriage, job, or friendship, or team or, or even himself or
his personality and pay a lot, go up and down and fruitlessly toil
to finally learn that he was searching for the very thing he had already left
behind or already have.
“Where is the sheep?” in Africa
African history has countless examples of such realities both at
individual and national levels. Leaders of nations, who practically played ‘the
child in the cradle’ showing
their seraphic looks and giving luring promises, to get the acceptance and
embrace of their people are too many to count and everywhere to see. We have
seen myriads of them pledging better leadership, respect of people’s rights,
and the celebration of the greatness of man. Some even fought for decades to
forge their respective nations into the ‘new nations’ they thought better according to
their own creeds; some have staged coups to topple governments accusing their
predecessors of failing to provide justice to their fellow men. These power
enthusiasts, underdog politicians, freedom fighters, or revolutionaries, before
firmly holding the scepter of absolute rule, were often known for their
loudness and craze about justice and freedoms for all people.
In a sense, most of these leaders, in their heydays of ascending
to power had won the hearts and minds of millions in their respective
countries. Like the child in
the cradle, however, the moment they got embraced by the resources and
power of their respective nations to the services of their fellow country men,
they turned away from respecting their own people. Some, like Mubarak and
Ben Ali, immediately surround themselves with state of emergencies and
anti-terrorist laws like barbed wires to fend off any potential opposition.
The more they remained on the helm; the more their loyalty and
accountability shifted to foreign forces than to the source of their real
power: their country men. They often go to the point where they feel terrified
by a report of a foreign agency than an out cry of millions of their citizens.
Such leaders feel, regardless of their control of power for decades or even
scores, still believe they need more time to respect their people’s rights and
make justice a reality. In a sense, they claim where is the sheep of opportunity to do the right thing
when they already had it for long.
Distracting the public
from demanding its rights, these despots would do everything with damaging
potentials to their nation’s sovereignty; even the most divisive of
techniques such as appealing to religious affiliation and tribal allegiances.
One common even comfortable cave used by despots around Africa as shield to evade accountability is tribalism.
Dicing and slicing their people along tribal lines, trying to deepen the
divides of already existing tribal tensions, intentionally keeping tribes busy
watching each other and consider injustices perpetrated on other tribes as
nothing concerning them and make injustices being perpetrated on human beings a
factor of ones tribal background. These despots don’t even hesitate to
maintain dominance over the military, intelligence and key economic positions
of their nations by their tribesmen as the best tactic of clinging to power.
The most recent case of such arrogance against the people was exhibited in Tunis, Egypt,
Bahrain, Syria, and Libya. There are still many despots
in Africa who still are subjecting their
people to such grime reality of divide and rule.
What more makes the leaders challenged by the Arab Revolt the
same, than their succumbing to the lavish squandering of basic values at the expense
of their peoples rights and claiming more power for themselves while denying
their people the same?
This is what I find hilarious: the attempts of some of the despots
who are toppled by their own people, to pledge to make peoples lives better,
and allow democratic institutions function freely, and to still demand the
trust of their people after literally failing to do so from their table of
leadership for decades. This is nothing more like crying “where is the sheep?’
when they were actually eating it for decades and failed to realize it.
“Where is the sheep?” in Ethiopia”
Ethiopia is no less ‘lucky’ a nation to see such paradoxes of leadership
unfolding in various forms and textures where the “sheep” of political power
was suddenly searched by the very leaders who were enjoying it on the table
of historical opportunities they were provided with.
Any person concerned about sniffing such funny –cum- sad “where
is the sheep?” moments in Ethiopian politics could easily find a lot for
his ‘amusement’. Leaders who took their turns at the helm since the time of the
Emperor HAiesilassie had not missed their shares of such moments.
When the great Ethiopian revolution of the 1960’s was sprouting to
challenge the age old Feudal system, it was not, at any rate, the beginning of
people’s resentments; it was rather the tipping point for the oppression and
injustices felt by the people of Ethiopia. The monarchy in power for half a
century had failed the country by forgetting to recognize that its legitimacy
actually (though was
constitutionally claimed to come from God) came from the people. Thus, the
system’s readiness to recognize the brewing revolution was no where in sight
and this lack of sight actually led the system to crumble and slide into oblivion.
The funny yet sad manner of the end of the feudal system, as for
me, is better captured in a dramatic scene during the day of Emperor Hailesilassie’s
official forced abdication. That day, he was forced to ride in a blue
Volkswagen. It was reportedly claimed that the emperor hearing people outside
his palace crying “thief”, “thief” at him, misunderstood the subject of the
people’s name calling to be his captors and not him. Is this not like claiming
“where is the sheep?” for a person who led his country for half century
and not know what he and the people around him and the system they represented
were actually serving his country men with and that he was being served the fat sheep of injustice he had fattened?
What followed during the fierce struggle by left wing politicians,
who all wanted to be at the helm and loathed to see anyone but themselves, or
hear no one but themselves, didn’t leave any options untried to seize power
including bloodshed. The baby of such aura of the time, Dergue came to power
with a rather peaceful looking “Ethiopia
Forward without bloodshed” to actually became the seismic center of the
mayhem imposed on the whole the country for seventeen years.
The funny and tragic political “where is the sheep” moment
for Colonel Mengistu’s government, as for me, was captured in what happened during the last years of his regime. In his last televised
speech to the nation, the Colonel, had one of his usual long speeches. Among
the many things he said that day, the hilarious line, for me, was when he
asked” ……was Dergue really the oppressor?” Where was he during his own
seventeen years of power as a military dictator to ask that question? He must
have been too blind to believe that his government’s policies haven’t taxed the
country a lot in human and economic, social and moral terms.
EPRDF, with the countries scepter of power in its hand for the
last two decades, was by no means unlucky to have its own political “where
is the sheep’ moments.
One of, the many ‘where is the sheep’ moments for EPRDF, as for me, was
captured well when, one of its big officials came on the record in his book, Yehulet Mirchawoch Weg(the Tale of
Two Elections) after a land
slide defeat in Addis Ababa of EPRDF to KINIJET (Coalition), that the
opposition got such unexpected victory due to “sudden winds of the moment”
not due to winning the hearts and minds of the people. By claiming so through
one of its prominent figures, EPRDF, seems to be literally crying out loud a
political “where is the sheep” when
it was supposed to have known how the people it had led for more (during the
elections) seventeen years really felt about the party. Later, however
the, “it was a wind...” rhetoric
sees to have changed from within the party towards accepting the meaning of the
people’s vote in that election.
“Where is the sheep?” personally
I know I have been in one of that moment where like the house maid
was searching for the sheep when I was actually eating it. Have you even been
in one of such moments? Have you ever seen people who try to measure the level
of their values against anything of the vogue but their own? Have you ever seen
people searching for love or marriage of a kind they dream of and still be
blind to see what they already have was what they were looking for? Have you
ever seen friends suffering from the lack of risk taking to sell their
potentials and cry out loud for ways to secure the potential they already have?
What can a man has more than himself to seek what he wants to
secure in this world? Would going otherwise be any less than eating the stew
and searching or the sheep alive?
I know a couple of friendship, marriages and jobs that were
severed and resented only because the possessor of those entities failed to
recognize the fact that he owned what he was looking for in with or within
themselves.
Everyday comes with an opportunity to allow Not being able to have
the compass of experience that would tell one the spatial orientation of values
one cherishes in life, would finally make him lose what he possesses.
Let me end the article with a question:
If your mind suddenly asked you where
is the sheep of your job, or
your marriage, friendship, or your values, or your responsibilities, what would
you say?
Tarikutare@gmail.com
