Ethiopia’s Problem #1: Inflexible Leadership

Source: bottom of the image

Ethiopia is such a beautiful country. It's a rare contrast of people and nature. I don't say this just as a

proud Ethiopian, I would say this just as a logical loving global citizen.  That beauty has always been there, though from time to time disintegrating from within. We are one proud people, partly due to our ignorance; partly due to the remarkable legacy our forefathers left us. Unfortunately for over half a century, we have been in a very dark era. Now what is certain is that, we are at a crossroad once again. On one side there seems to be a tangible and economically strong foundation to jump over our deeply rooted economic problems. On the other, we seem to be disintegrating at an alarming rate.

Last year during my 18-month stay in Ethiopia, I had the chance to travel to as many parts of the country as I could. I was able to cover 6 out of the 9 regional states. What I learned the most is that, no blanket statements define the problems. The possible solutions for one area are not the solutions for the other. From South Omo Valley to Konso, from Raya to Illibabur, from Harar to Dire to Afar.  There are a lot of problems, all with their own root causes. As a country, Ethiopia has a very long journey to travel and I hope we will get there together. 

When you are on the ground in Ethiopia absorbing everything through your senses, you realize (at least this was my personal experience) people's priorities and concerns vary tremendously from place to place. It might be freedom and democracy in bigger cities, in others, it's about the basic human needs, water and food.  

The path to solving Ethiopia’s problems isn’t as simple as those of us in the Diaspora make it sound to be. Ask the Ethiopians who live and breath in its abyss. Ask a lot of the Ethiopian Diasporas who either travel to the motherland frequently or have completely relocated there. Many of them will tell you, the process of democratizing and developing will take time. We need steady and stable forward motion. The need for a policy that is inclusive of all Ethiopians home and abroad to get involved is a must. The fastest and safest route will be when enough Ethiopians have a stake in the stability and continuity of their country. Then, for their own self-interest they will fend of external forces that do not have their best interest at heart.

So What Are The Solutions and How Do We Get There?

The short answer is slowly but surely, one step at a time. The challenge is bringing millions to work together and develop a working relationship and eventually build a trust bond among very different groups including those in the Diaspora? Let us put everything on the table for discussion. The winner-take all mentality and sacrificing our own fellow citizens to negotiate from a position of strength is unacceptable.  

What Should Our Step #1 Be?

For starters, you look up to your leaders to set an agenda, to bring you together and lead their followers. Unfortunately right now, we don't have that. Almost every year we hear about Gimgema and how this one is different than the previous one. Yet, when it really comes down to it, it is a mere recycled previous memo of issues and priorities discussed, with almost no one to be held accountable for their shortcomings.

So, relieve many of the old guards from their duties and replace them with younger and dynamic technocrats. The old guards have been in power for so long there shouldn’t be much of new idea left that they haven’t shared by now. Stop reshuffling them from one ministerial or advisory post to the other. If that is meant to provide them with a source of income to support them and their families, just give them a great retirement benefits and bid them farewell with respect.   

The country needs leaders who are not only able to react quickly to current events, but are able to read the mood of the people they lead. The current leaders’ old school mindset of resistance to change is incompetent and stubbornly inflexible to address the problems people are continuing to raise. I will give one specific example. When so many university students were killed by security forces at the outset of the #OromoProtest against the Addis Ababa City expansion plan, almost a year a go, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn did not even speak about it for days. Such tragic events require just and assertive address from the proper authority timely. Unfortunately to our surprise, the course of action the Prime Minister followed seemed as though ignoring the problem would make it go away.    

What is your step #1 action point to address Ethiopia’s ongoing problems?

Soon I will share what I believe step #2 should be. Until then, I will leave you with the following two quotes from President Theodore Roosevelt and author Dean Koontz respectively.   

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care” 

“Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.” 

Having a stake in Ethiopia’s well being is taking ownership of its problems.

#DanielEthiopia

Do All Lives Matter?

Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer

Before attempting to answer the question, lets just agree that, as a society, there is absolutely something wrong with us. In 2016, for the first time, we have built a spacecraft that reached Jupiter’s orbit. That is 1.7 billion miles away. Our moon is only about 239K miles away from Earth if that gives you any helpful visual. The unbound human ingenuity is unfathomable to most of us. Yet, in a shamefully disheartening way, we continue to kills our fellow humans callously; as though, it carries no value. All the while we cheerfully invest our time, our labor of love and ultimately our life for decades on end to search the vast unknown universe in hopes of finding anything of a value.

One morning last week, my coworker, looked at me and said, “Daniel, are you alright?” I replied, yeah why wouldn’t I? He responded, “You look sad…” Right away I turned around to say something, but I couldn’t formulate sentences to explain my thoughts and feelings. What I wanted to say was something along the lines of, yes I am sad, I am angry, I am disturbed, I am discouraged and so many other different feelings in between. Is it is not obvious, that we as a country are reaching a tipping point? Haven’t we reached a collective breaking point?

I feel insecure, like I am walking on a field of landmine forced to be cognizant of what lays on my periphery. I feel fearful like I am walking on a shaky ground that’s shifting beneath my feet, way faster than I am able to cope with. Don’t you feel that? Don’t you feel the same?

Before I uttered these words, I realized of course he doesn’t. He is not Black, he does not know what it is like to be a young black man. I contemplated for a bit, but realizing the time and the environment does not suit the kind of conversation I would like to have with him, I took the easy way out. I responded to him saying, hhmm nah I am doing just fine and walked away. For me, this was a sudden realization that the unsettling feeling inside has managed to manifest itself involuntarily into my body language and my daily interaction as a consequence.     

We all have different perspective on life, take the following for instance…

You are looking down at the street from a third floor window and see a police officer approach a young man. The officer says something to the young man and an altercation ensues...you can see everything, but you can't hear the exchange. Unfortunately things escalate and the young man is shot and falls to the ground. 

Now, without having any more information about this incident, it is not hard to imagine the conclusion the individual watching this from the third floor would reach. That conclusion is greatly influenced by the individual’s previous experience and existing internal biases. A Black person and a White person are most likely to differ in their interpretation of the reason for the escalation in this situation. Blames will be attributed ranging from disobedience to use of excessive force.  

No matter who you are, we all have built-in implicit biases to a varying degree. That degree depends on a lot of factors including our experience, upbringing and exposure to diversity (in a deep and indispensable connection to people who are different from us). For example, in the incident described above, you visualized the altercation between the young man and the police officer right? Was the officer wearing uniform? What did he look like? How about the young man? Where did you get these images? What is the information that led you to create these images? 

We have a huge trust gap in this country between races, especially between Blacks and White police officers that stems from decades of perpetual systemic injustice. As such it will take decades to understand, admit and solve the stigma and animosity. 

Reducing racism and other complex issues require long-term policy and intentional efforts on all sides to address the roots of the problem. White peoples' internal bias and perceptions of Black people and vice versa, need to be dissected and explained in a psychological and sociological way. 

So, do all lives matter? Well, we know for sure, White lives matter. As Jesse Williams put it, "We have been looking at the data and we know, somehow police manage to deescalate, disarm and not kill White people everyday!" Now can we say black people are treated the same way by the police? Or is it time to admit, "Some are more equal than others"? (Quote from Animal Farm, by George Orwell).

For those people who say all lives matter, I invite you to watch the video 23 Ways You Could be Killed While Being Black and then try to learn more in detail how each of them lost their lives. Then ask yourself, does this happen to White people at the same rate by police officers? You should find the answer to be unequivocally no. Hence why people have found the need to state and remind people, dark skin people’s lives matter too.    

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2016/07/these-celebrities-powerfully-described-23-ways-you-could-be-killed-while-black

Hopeful,

Daniel

Love

A woman carrying a heavy load in Konso, Ethiopia

LOVE at its core is strength, courage and sacrifice. 

 > Strength is not only the presence of unwavering loyalty, unflinching grip and steady pace at the crossroads, or impermeable and stubbornly sturdy physique, but of unconditional love against all odds.  

 > Courage is to be vulnerable at the hills of mountainous pride and at the trough waves of norms. 

 > Sacrifice is to be of service to others before self, the yearning to give, to please and nurture; the ultimate definition of a woman. 

Women, you are love.

I sat in front of a great woman last year, with a table full of food between us in a fairly remote place. Right next to us, a man in his 50s sitting in the next table with another man. Boastfully he started expressing his interest and waving hundred dollar bills at a young lady. He was trying to convince her to go with him for the night. The young gal seemed as though trapped between two hard rocks. For her, the distance between yes and no, seemed light years away.

In that moment, helpless shiver took over me, as the great woman in front of me, started to choke in her own words. Indignant at what was happening. Her solidarity in sisterhood, her love burning inside, her sympathy rolled up in tears, her courage to stay still and allow the young woman to decide for herself, while her empathy raced down her tender cheeks…its magnetic force so strong, impossible to resist it pulled me in.

Women, you are love everyday.

We celebrate you on this International Women Day and everyday.

Daniel: March 8th, 2016