Tariku's Droplets

Ending an eternal pulse of being, we cut the rose; and simulating affection, we force it into a vase; The bee was an afterthought, Nuisance was its  flight; So  was the odor implied romance: A  ruined universe. ………………………………..   By TAE

Ethiopian Politics: No happy ending (Tariku Abas Etenesh) “There are no happy ending in history, only crisis points that pass,” says the famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. History furnishes ample evidence to support his statement especially in the Ethiopian political sphere. This national crisis regurgitation is attributed to not learning from history: much like a fool that does the same thing expecting different results. One such example of a crisis attributed to lessons not heeded from history is currently unfolding in Ethiopian politics: the Ethiopia government’s handling of democracy as synonymous to repression. Conflating state power with the right to stifle people’s rights and expecting people to not react and strengthening the repression. In a country whose leading party controls 100% of parliament seats meeting the demands of the very people with military deployment that morphed into martial law to protect the ruling party from its own people is just a perfe...

Absurdistan' aka Ethiopia  IV W ell, the time has come that I have to say it out loud. I don’t agree with most opposition leaders and political pundits or key detractors, (including myself) of the government of Ethiopia as being democratic .Who are we to blame the government of being Democratic; when time and again it has insisted to be called Demon-cratic i.e. democracy of demonizing others, and that the government deserves our fair share of respect in being referred to as it wants to be called: The Federal Demon-cratic Republic of Ethiopia or in short Absurdistan . Who are we to deny the government to be called as it wanted to be called? Who are we to deny the government a thank you for the great gifts it has offered the people of  Ethiopia:                                     ...

'Absurdistan' aka -Ethiopia III I am still trying to understand how the current declaration of State of Emergency by the dictatorial regime in Ethiopia vis-a-vis the legitimate quest of that Ethiopian people that the declaration intends to suppress.  So far, I could -comprehend it well only in an alternative reality where absurdity is a norm. Imagining a situation where I was robbed by a ‘serial thief’ in broad daylight. And I caught him red-handed and cried ‘thief’. But then, the thief did something absurd- he became angry at me for calling him a  thief when I actually should have thanked him for offering me his 'robbery service'. He then declared to the world that he is dismayed at my ‘egregious manners of calling him thief” and that I was insulting his parents by doing so, and that I was being instrument for ‘people’ who hate him and who want to tarnish his name. And finally he demands compensation and threatens to strip me naked because I was guilty of not ...

Ethiopia at a crossroads: apartheid, civil war or reconciliation? ( First appeared on This is Africa  online magazine) http://thisisafrica.me/ethiopia-crossroads-apartheid-civil-war-reconciliation ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By  Tariku Abas Etenesh  on September 27, 2016 —  Ethiopia is seeing an increasing number of civilian protests, which are brutally suppressed by the government. It seems that the elite in power needs to heed the lessons taught by the Rwandan genocide: Do not play with ethnic hatred. The year-long, nationwide and unceasing popular anti-government revolt in Ethiopia has brought the country’s ‘ethno-linguistic federalism ’ experiment to a dead end. Despite the country’s constitution professing the equality of ‘all the peoples of Ethiopia’, for the past 25 years ‘equality’ has been a factor of who ha s  the most firepower among the rebel grou...

Ethiopia: Set the People Free! It is a dangerous psychological problem when one knows that one is lying but yet believing one's own lies as truth fights to impose them on others despite others knowing the truth. Right now, as was the case for two decades, the government of Ethiopia is doing exactly that. Imposing the lie it told itself on the people of the country. The lie of just recently winning 100% of the parliament seats when it was an evidently rigged election through coercion, and intimidation. The lie of standing for universal justice when the justice it cares about is measured justice for the few and connected elites not for the masses. The lie that it accepts all people of all ethnicities as equals before the law when time an again it has demonstrated that some ethnic groups are less equal. The lie that its military stands for the constitution when in reality the military itself has declared its allegiance to the ruling party, its ideology and the few con...

Words of a Sage In my proud African village; I have the honor of hearing words of a sage, Saying: Remember this if the air ever smells of war;     Only a stupid cow rejoices at a prospect of a beautiful abattoir ; But examine the spear that landed at your gate before the wound it tore, For on their ways you might find many more; Says the sage:  If a neighbor’s spear lands at your door, Spear you could throw but that is a weak way to go; Swallow this: You have lost his respect and you are to blame; For neighbor's act is a measure of lost love and unison at your own home; Says the sage: question instead your own grand chiefs for their laxity and callus visage; Who, in times of windfall harvest shunned deliberation and seized rancor; Vesting none for the spirits of love of the living and the departed; Who in times of peace shunned to plant seeds of honor; Vesting less sacrifice of unison at the altar of nationhood;   Lacking the wr...

My countrymen, When we spoke with puritanical take: About others', ‘their’ history and ‘their’ dreadful trend, Saying: how could ‘they’ do that? ‘How could ‘they’ be blind?' We failed to look into our own mirrors' scornful allusion, How the shy hatred we chewed,  Silting up in our hearts for decades is now smirking bold; And how love for fellow men was dimming politics shrouded, How brothers and sisters loving, sets us offended, How we stood fooled; Fooled with denial nurtured assurance; That ‘we’ constitute matchless feats in the annals of nations; That 'we' are immune to the paths ‘others’ threaded; That ‘we' stand on a unique -sublime' morality-rock-solid' How we stand fooled; We lived for decades swamped in naked politics of vengeful trance, That insists to distill enmity among brothers and sisters; We stood fed each day with a suitable mix, Of brewing language difference into enemy front lines, Of...