Returnees Vs. The Diaspora

Does Yahoo have an emoticon for “Oh my God! Is there anyone advising Prime Minister Meles about public relations?”

In what must be the most hypnotically dumb move ever committed by a bunch of bungling warlords in cufflinks, the Ethiopian government kicked out an AP reporter for “tarnishing the image” of Ethiopia. In case you were wondering, federal police who kill unarmed citizens don’t tarnish images. Foreign reporters who write about it do.

Seriously. I know as an Imperial-Derg revanchist/chauvinist/cyber warrior in the Diaspora I am in no position to be giving advice to the EPRDF’s unlettered apprentices, but… what the fuck! Which EPRDF apparatchik thought it was a stroke of brilliance to kick out Anthony? Now whenever the over-fraught, half-wit EPRDF schlemiels are paraded out to defend the government (or beg for food), they will be confronted by indignant ferenjie reporters who are outraged, I tell you, outraged.

Seriously.

Okay, pay attention EPRDF-ffers: the next journalist you decide to kick out shouldn’t be a member of an internationally revered media organization. See if there is someone from… Field and Stream, or… Dictator’s Monthly. Also, come up with something more substantial to justify the kicking out. “Mr. So-and-So was found to be trying to incite genocide and treason.” Hm. No. You tried that already.

Now journalists are going to think that there is a real story in Ethiopia. And does anything add to a journalist’s cache than being expelled by a government? Especially a government loved and adored by the west? Remember the NYT reporter whose stock rose when then Governor Bush called him a “major league asshole” on a live microphone? (Mitchell has apparently lived in Ethiopia for three years and has family there. I can’t imagine his personal pain.)

But I have another unstructured rant.

We were at a little party this weekend and perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, perhaps it was one too many glass of wine, but an elderly man with unsteady hands pointed at me and barked, “You! Weichegud! I don’t like you.”

Ouch?

I did what every self-respecting blogger would do in a similar situation: I pretended there was hair in my lasagna and proceeded to have an ardent conversation with my plate. I couldn’t get myself to confront a man my father’s age, and believe me I am no wallflower Ethiopian who shies from confrontation.

Later at home my husband noticed I was perplexed. Well, more confused than perplexed. Why hadn’t I at least asked the gentleman his beef? I’ve defended myself against more worthy opponents. “You know why?” my husband asked with that infuriating tone I have not yet convinced him is condescending. “You know why? Because however much assimilated you think you are, you are still restrained by that singularly thorny trait all us Ethiopians have trouble shaking off: yiluNta. It’s not in our DNA to cross certain lines because we are encumbered by yiluNta.”

I guess the best way to explain yiluNta to non-Amharic speakers is … that certain “what will people think” voice that ought to not be so loud in those of us who think we are more American than apple pie. For the life of me, I could not have an argument with a kindly, older gentleman because of a grossly inadequate reason: he was older, and I didn’t want him to think I was insolent. Yeah.

So all of this reminded me of an article I read in Addis Fortune a while ago, Ethiopian Returnees in Defense of Foreign Aid to Ethiopia. When the Brits recently decided to ‘withhold’ direct aid to the Ethiopian government, I figured the most unhappy people in Ethiopia would be that same group of Ethiopian returnees (can we find a better word for them?).

I have been fascinated by the article ever since I read it.

While a huge part of the Ethiopian Diaspora is known to have an uncompromising animosity towards the EPRDF-led government, their friends at home say they would rather take an objective view of the current political situation and agree on what is fundamental to Ethiopia.

Woo hoo! a) We have friends b) we have friends who want to take an objective view, and c) we have “uncompromising animosity towards the EPRDF.” I hope you are taking notes.

Close to 35 returnees from the Diaspora gathered at the Sheraton Addis' Semien Hall, on Thursday, December 1, 2005, to make their voice heard against what they called a campaign waged by Ethiopians in the Diaspora who have appealed to the European Union, the U.S. and other donor countries to stop aid, loans, debt relief and lobby to stop people from traveling to Ethiopia.

I personally want to appeal to our friends to find a new venue for their meetings. Seriously, it makes us all look bad when we can’t seem to extricate ourselves from our “let’s meet at Sheraton” trademark.

They have created a committee of eight to advance their cause, comprising Mulugeta Tesfakiros, Mimi Sebehatu, Genenew Assefa, Biruk Buzuayehu, Biruk Fekade, Solomon Tadesse, Anteneh Tirusew and Daniel Tedesse; the last three will function as a caucus in North America.

Hello. There is such a caucus in North America? How come our friends don’t tell us these things?

“This has negatively contributed to other Ethiopians who wish to come to and invest in their home country," said Solomon Tadesse, a resident of Seattle for 35 years and honorary consulate general of Ethiopia in the United States.

Seattle? Oh, well. (Just what does it take to be an “honorary consulate general of Ethiopia” because I have a feeling it comes with fabulous perks, and I want to be one. A consulate, that is. Not a perk.)

Solomon is one of the two organizers and co-chair of the meeting, together with Mulugeta Tesfakiros. They say they were compelled to organize such a meeting at the Sheraton to hammer out issues that despite differences along political lines, Ethiopians should not fight over what is best for the country.

I guess this is an admirable gesture of “let’s find common ground other than politics”, and normally I would be all for it except I can hardly think of one good reason why the EU or the US should directly fund a government that has a juvenile disposition about roaming cities in Humvees and sharp shooting human targets. I’m picky like that. So, does that make me ineligible to be part of a group who is searching for “what is best for Ethiopia”? I don’t know.

…

Those campaigning in the Diaspora against the current government allege that the U.S. and other European governments should not give aid, loans and debt relief to Ethiopia on the grounds that it does not represent the majority of the Ethiopian people and has committed "a series of human rights violations of its citizens".

Quotation marks around “a series of human rights violations” duly noted. I guess it’s different from plain old violating human rights of citizens.

The unfortunate situation Ethiopia is in, or better yet Ethiopia was put in by the EPRDF’s magnificent incompetence is that the country cannot survive without foreign aid. No one I know wants aid cut indiscriminately, but… shouldn’t we be cautious about directly funding a government that can use the money to pay its trigger happy army? Is this a government that can be trusted not to siphon off aid money for its many pet projects? Does the EPRDF inspire trust and good governance? In other words, are our friends telling us that we should we attach NO conditions to aid? I’m thinking not.

"Urging donors to cut aid to Ethiopia can only hurt the average Ethiopian," said one of the returnee participants, who lived in the United States for over 10 years. "And we want to show the world that there is peace in this country where people can come and invest."

Note that this was in December. In June and November the government went a little Gin-and-Juice and shot and killed unarmed people. That don’t inspire a sense of peace in me, but then again I am known to be very picky about not investing my money where armed goons roam about willy nilly.

In fact, what our friends don’t understand is that we have been investing in Ethiopia thinking that better days will come. Some of us bought houses there. A lot of us have business partnerships there. And countless of us send money back home to sustain our relatives. But at a certain point we have asked ourselves if our business interests always come first. How long are we supposed to not rock the boat? As people who have lived in a free market world, do our friends forget that capitalism needs security and stability? But I am sure since our friends have had the wherewithal to pick up and move to Ethiopia they will find a way to tell a wary world that there is “peace in the country where people can come and invest” even as regularly scheduled government malfeasance storms the headlines. Me? I’m kinda not thinking that it’s peaceful. Let me ask Anthony Mitchell and get back to you.

Most of the participants in the returnees' meeting were businesspeople who run their own companies in Addis, although a few of them are due to return. They returned to invest in the country and claim that the campaign to stop aid and loans to Ethiopia could affect their businesses in general and the majority of poor Ethiopians in particular. Many of the returnees deal with companies abroad, and fear that crises fuelled by sanctions could affect the way they do business.

Hm. Now I know the cynic among us are going to be disorderly and scream “You see? They only care about their own business”, but let’s all back off and breathe. In… out…in… out. It is inherently human to want to protect what you’ve worked for. In pre-election times we ignored the EPRDF and forged on ahead with business ventures in Ethiopia. But it has becoame hard for some of us to keep ignoring the EPRDF post-election. All the compromising we did didn’t change the entrenched brutality of the EPRDF. So yes, we don’t want our tax money to go to the government. We hope our friends understand that.

The meeting has unanimously passed a resolution that states that the campaign against aid to Ethiopia is harmful to the country, the people and to the returnees themselves. They also opposed and expressed their concern against the effort to discourage travel to Ethiopia and called upon Ethiopians in the Diaspora to refrain from disseminating a distorted picture of peace and stability of the country.

Now I would think that our friends back in Ethiopia would sympathize with the reticence we feel and come up with a way to guide us on where to channel our money. I was in DC a few weeks back and I fell in love with a sign outside an Ethiopian store. It politely informs its customers that it understands if people do not want to send remittances through Wegagen Bank, one of the countless EPRDF-owned/affiliated businesses. The store, the sign said, can accommodate customers who want to use other banks, and it lists the banks. It ends by thanking patrons for continuing to send money back home. Now that is capitalism. And that’s the kind of guidance we need from home. Telling us there is peace in Ethiopia… not so much. (A group of my mother’s friends printed out a list of EPRDF-owned businesses and distributed them to their children who went home for Christmas vacation. The list comes with a stern warning to boycott the companies. Hmm. Ladies who lunch as political activists… is there a more wondrous sight?)

But the last two paragraphs of the Fortune article are what I found most fascinating.

Not every one of them was on the same wavelength in spite of the unanimous decision in passing the resolution. It differed from those who challenged, in the meeting, the administration they said violates the constitution while breaching it itself, to those who told Fortune that they were not fully aware of the nature of the meeting when invited.

A-ha. So there were dissenters. Well, I guess there were dissenters even though the resolution passed, um, unanimously. Here’s the money quote:

"We were literally coaxed into agreeing on the resolution," said a participant who said he had thought the meeting was called to discuss the problems the returnee community is facing during this time of crises. "If this is what they wanted, we were not in a position to go against it."

Whaaaa? People who have lived in the United States for 30 plus years can be coaxed into voting for a resolution they don’t believe in? What happened to staunch individualism? Open discussion? Honest disagreement? What happened to standing your ground? I am less intrigued by people who want to coax people into voting for a bullshit resolution as am I with people who are willing to be coaxed into voting for a bullshit resolution. What the hell was that all about?

Was that a mutated form of yiluNta? Did the dissenters think it would be insolent to go against the grain? "If this is what they wanted, we were not in a position to go against it." I am dying to know why.

It might be that I have stayed in the good old USA too long, but I get personally offended and appalled by an Ethiopian government that shoots mothers and children. Maybe I am not enlightened enough or maybe I am naïve, but there is something about the sanctity of human life that humbles me. I am not sure what it is about going back to live in Ethiopia that makes it okay to not be immune to “human right violations” in quotation marks. And I certainly do not understand people who can’t find the moral standing to vote against a lousy resolution they disagree with.

Over Christmas holidays some friends of ours were hosting a returnee. Once a successful corporate cog, the returnee went back to Ethiopia to be an even greater cog. It’s only been a few years since he went back. We asked him if he voted in the elections. He hadn’t. He’d look at us with pity and superciliousness when we talked about politics. When we knew him, he was one of those enlightened men- progressive and open-minded almost to a fault. Now he borders on being an apathetic misogynist. He annoyed the shit out of our friends’ housekeeper by ordering her to do his laundry and wait on him hand and foot. Exsqueeze me very much?? Finally bitter, we asked what the hell was wrong with him. (I did get permission to write about this from him, by the way.) “You people,” he said. “You have no idea what it takes to survive in Ethiopia.”

It’s true. Most of us don’t, but a surprising number of us do. And I can understand if an unemployed youth with no prospect said that. But for one of “us” to say it? What makes a virtual millionaire returnee so blasé? From where we see it, returnees have every advantage in the society. So what went so wrong? I guess that’s why I am grateful to people like Berhanu Nega. He represents the best of former Diasporans.

Since I am axe grinding I have been simmering about something: I’ve asked several people who are returnees who write passionate emails to me from Ethiopia to start blogging. They obviously have the time, computer access and grasp of the English language. Yet none of them has taken on the challenge. What does it say about us that there is just one Ethiopian blogger who writes from Ethiopia? As always we leave the work to ferenjies, and then we beat up on them when we think they are not on our side. It is abominable. What’s the use of going back to Ethiopia if all we are doing is acclimating to the status quo? How much of ourselves do we have to give back in order to go back?

Prime Minister Meles’s lumbering government is bewilderingly incompetent. 14 years after it took power, we are still begging the world to feed our brothers and sisters. The EPRDF is morally bankrupt and marginalized beyond repair. It survives on fustian charades and seismic brutality. Telling us to keep investing in Ethiopia and instructing us to quit urging our respective governments to stop funding Ato Meles is a no-starter. It is up to the EPRDF to compromise just a wee bit, but it is unable to do so because it is led my myopia and unquenchable powerlust.

That said, I still think we need to dialogue with some of our returnee friends on what is truly best for “the average Ethiopian.” Maybe one of them can start , I dunno, a blog.

It is perhaps some kind of cosmic joke that returnees lose their voices just as those in the Diaspora finds their's.

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I found out why the elderly gentleman was unimpressed by me (as if he needs an excuse). He told someone that I use too many curse words. Oh shit.)

p.s. I will be on winter vacation from February 12-22. Guest bloggers can send me articles/vents . I'll be happy to put up.