Letter from Addis, Re: "Dawn of Freedom"

I got a nice email from “Mebreq” in Addis about
Berhanu Nega’s book, “The Dawn of Freedom.”
Thought I would share the redacted version. My
uncle has sworn he has sent me a copy—although
I have yet to receive it. I understand that one
can now get it online from
www.Berhanunega.com. (Which is why,
Mebreq, I have not done what you asked me to.) 

Anyway… anyone who was at the discussion session in DC a few weekends ago, maybe you can update us? 

I have always kept trying to follow you even when your prose

sometimes takes a sudden turn to go through what I

find to be the foreign territory of esoteric

references and usage of American culture and idioms...

But it is fun. All the time. And that's extraordinary.

the main reason that led me to put

finger to keyboard and hammer out this note... is the

fact that I have recently been able to get hold of Dr.

Birhanu's new book "Yenetsanet Goh SiQed"  It is next

to impossible to buy it in the city at the moment. 

I no longer have any doubt that the reports

of 10,000 copies being sold out in 4 days are

accurate. I had some fear that the great expectations

would overwhelm the book's influence... but I have to

say, that man is something else! What with him being

in a filthy prison, I can't fathom just how in the

world he was able to put himself in that elusive state

of mind where one can even hope to write the kind of

book he did. The words seem to flow effortlessly...

and yet the book never loses its cohesiveness. Most

who align with [or] oppose the current regime fall to

address most points of Meles's ideology and fall back

to attacking on one narrow aspect of his range of

deeply flawed ideas. But Birhanu does a wonderful job

of showing just how thoroughly he understands the EPRDF

and its mentality and gives such strong counter points

and beautiful arguments, that countless times I ended

up having to put the book down and... ask myself just

what it all means when such a man is put behind bars,

charged with genocide... 

[Dr. Birhanu] has done so much, gone through much...and

yet is able to keep his book from falling into what it

could easily have become - a cheap bombastic diatribe.

I believe he has managed to put forth a work that

clearly, undeniably unequivocally gives him a complete

intellectual/ideological dominance over any of the

hogwash that Meles and his cronies keep spouting. It

is my firm belief that this should be a required

reading for any literate, thinking Ethiopian who has

ever lost a minute's thought on his/her country and

its future. In addition, I think this is a potent

medicine that will show the light to anyone hypnotized

and hoodwinked by the subterfuge of the EPRDF...  or

for anyone who only thought of CUD in context of the

EPRDF (as just "that party" opposing the EPRDF)... it

sheds so much light on their principles much more than

their campaign manifesto ever did.  Even though Dr.

Birhanu writes this book as an individual and puts a

clear disclaimer that it is not to be taken as a

statement of the CUD, I feel there isn't a better

insight into what the party had offered and what it

could have done. Even though he claims otherwise, and

although many of his actions seem to indicate to an

idealist (leaving his comfortable life to go into the

dangerous world of Ethiopian politics), Dr. Birhanu

surprises on many points by showing that he has given

much thought about all details of the things he

proposes...and by stating and effectively defending

his views, he inadvertently leads the reader to

daydream - painting an image of an Ethiopia that could

have been... and hopefully that will one day be. For

all those who argued (some maliciously others

unknowingly) that Birhanu and his colleagues were just

a ragtag team of ergue remnants, imperial

revanchists, amhara supremacists...etc, I truly

believe that this book will show them the right way,

at least for those who want to be on it.