December 21, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
By FRANK RICH
AS we say farewell to a dreadful year and decade, this much we can agree upon: The person of the year is not Ben Bernanke, no matter how insistently Time magazine tries to hype him into its pantheon. The Fed chairman was just as big a schnook as every other magical thinker in Washington and on Wall Street who believed that housing prices would go up in perpetuity to support an economy leveraged past the hilt. Unlike most of the others, it was Bernanke’s job to be ahead of the curve. Yet as recently as June of last year he could be found minimizing the possibility of a substantial economic downturn. And now we’re supposed to applaud him for putting his finger in the dike after disaster struck? This is defining American leadership down.
If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).
As of Friday, the Tiger saga had appeared on 20 consecutive New York Post covers. For The Post, his calamity has become as big a story as 9/11. And the paper may well have it right. We’ve rarely questioned our assumption that 9/11, “the day that changed everything,” was the decade’s defining event. But in retrospect it may not have been. A con like Tiger’s may be more typical of our time than a one-off domestic terrorist attack, however devastating.
Indeed, if we go back to late 2001, the most revealing news story may have been unfolding not in New York but Houston — the site of the Enron scandal. That energy company convinced financial titans, the press and countless investors that it was a business deity. It did so even though very few of its worshipers knew what its business was. Enron is the template for the decade of successful ruses that followed, Tiger’s included.
What makes the golfing superstar’s tale compelling, after all, is not that he’s another celebrity in trouble or another fallen athletic “role model” in a decade lousy with them. His scandal has nothing to tell us about race, and nothing new to say about hypocrisy. The conflict between Tiger’s picture-perfect family life and his marathon womanizing is the oldest of morality tales.
What’s striking instead is the exceptional, Enron-sized gap between this golfer’s public image as a paragon of businesslike discipline and focus and the maniacally reckless life we now know he led. What’s equally striking, if not shocking, is that the American establishment and news media — all of it, not just golf writers or celebrity tabloids — fell for the Woods myth as hard as any fan and actively helped sustain and enhance it.
People wanted to believe what they wanted to believe. Tiger’s off-the-links elusiveness was no more questioned than Enron’s impenetrable balance sheets, with their “special-purpose entities” named after “Star Wars” characters. Fortune magazine named Enron as America’s “most innovative company” six years in a row. In the January issue of Golf Digest, still on the stands, some of the best and most hardheaded writers in America offer “tips Obama can take from Tiger,” who is typically characterized as so without human frailties that he “never does anything that would make him look ridiculous.”
Perhaps the most conspicuous player in the Tiger hagiography business has been a company called Accenture, one of his lustrous stable of corporate sponsors. In a hilarious Times article, Brian Stelter described the extreme efforts this outfit is now making to erase its six-year association with its prized spokesman. Alas, the many billboards with slogans like “Go On. Be a Tiger” are not so easily dismantled, and collectors’ items like “Accenture Match Play Tiger Woods Caddy Bib” are a growth commodity on eBay.
From what I can tell, Accenture is a solid company. But the Daily News columnist Mike Lupica raised a good point when I spoke with him last week: “If Tiger Woods was so important to Accenture, how come I didn’t know what Accenture did when they fired him?” According to its Web site, Accenture is “a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company,” but who cared about any fine print? It was Tiger, and Tiger was it, and no one was to worry about the details behind the mutually advantageous image-mongering. One would like to assume that Accenture’s failure to see or heed any warning signs about a man appearing in 83 percent of its advertising is an anomalous lapse. One would like to believe that business and government clients didn’t hire Accenture just because it had Tiger’s imprimatur. But in a culture where so many smart people have been taken so often, we can’t assume anything.
As cons go, Woods’s fraudulent image as an immaculate exemplar of superhuman steeliness is benign. His fall will damage his family, closest friends, Accenture and the golf industry much more than the rest of us. But the syndrome it epitomizes is not harmless. We keep being fooled by leaders in all sectors of American life, over and over. A decade that began with the “reality” television craze exemplified by “American Idol” and “Survivor” — both blissfully devoid of any reality whatsoever — spiraled into a wholesale flight from truth.
The most lethal example, of course, were the two illusions marketed to us on the way to Iraq — that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and some link to Al Qaeda. That history has since been rewritten by Bush alumni, Democratic politicians who supported the Iraq invasion and some of the news media that purveyed the White House fictions (especially the television press, which rarely owned up to its failure as print journalists have). It was exclusively “bad intelligence,” we’re now told, that pushed us into the fiasco. But contradictions to that “bad intelligence” were in plain sight during the run-up to the war — even sometimes in the press. Yet we wanted to suspend disbelief. Much of the country, regardless of party, didn’t want to question its leaders, no matter how obviously they were hyping any misleading shred of intelligence that could fit their predetermined march to war. It’s the same impulse that kept many from questioning how Mark McGwire’s and Barry Bonds’s outlandishly cartoonish physiques could possibly be steroid-free.
In the political realm, our bipartisan credulousness has also been on steroids in this decade, even by our national standards. Many Democrats didn’t want to see the snake-oil salesman in John Edwards, blatant as his “Two America” self-contradictions were if you cared merely to look at him on YouTube. Republicans incessantly fell for family values preacher politicians like David Vitter, John Ensign and Larry Craig. Fred Thompson was seen by many, in the press as well as his party, as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Karl Rove was widely hailed as a mastermind who would assemble a permanent Republican majority. Bernie Kerik was considered a plausible secretary of homeland security. Eliot Spitzer was viewed as a crusader of uncompromising principle.
But these scam artists are pikers next to the financial hucksters. I’m not just talking about Bernie Madoff and Enron’s Ken Lay, but about those titans who legally created and sold the securities that gamed and then wrecked the system. You’d think after Enron’s collapse that financial leaders and government overseers would question the contents of “exotic” investments that could not be explained in plain English. But only a few years after Enron’s very public and extensively dissected crimes, the same bankers, federal regulatory agencies and securities-rating companies were giving toxic “assets” a pass. We were only too eager to go along for the lucrative ride until it crashed like Tiger’s Escalade.
After his “indefinite break” from golf, Woods will surely be back on the links once the next celebrity scandal drowns his out. But after a decade in which two true national catastrophes, a wasteful war and a near-ruinous financial collapse, were both in part byproducts of the ease with which our leaders bamboozled us, we can’t so easily move on.
This can be seen in the increasingly urgent political plight of Barack Obama. Though the American left and right don’t agree on much, they are both now coalescing around the suspicion that Obama’s brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger’s public image — a marketing scam designed to camouflage either his covert anti-American radicalism (as the right sees it) or spineless timidity (as the left sees it). The truth may well be neither, but after a decade of being spun silly, Americans can’t be blamed for being cynical about any leader trying to sell anything. As we say goodbye to the year of Tiger Woods, it is the country, sad to say, that is left mired in a sand trap with no obvious way out.
This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now.
December 17, 2009
Accenture, as if Tiger Woods Were Never There
By BRIAN STELTER
How do you Tiger-proof an entire corporation? At Accenture, you start by telling employees to tear down all the posters that say, now somewhat awkwardly, that “we know what it takes to be a Tiger.”
For six years, Tiger Woods was the advertising face for Accenture, the big consulting firm. But now that Mr. Woods has confessed to infidelities amid an assault of media coverage, Accenture wants him to disappear.
On Sunday, hours after Accenture ended its sponsorship deal, the golfer’s face was replaced by an anonymous skier on the company’s home page. His name was scrubbed almost completely from the rest of the Web site. The company’s advertising campaign is about “high performance,” and Mr. Woods “just wasn’t a metaphor for high performance anymore,” a spokesman for Accenture, Fred Hawrysh, said.
By Monday afternoon, Accenture staffers had swept through the company’s New York office and removed any visible Tiger posters. The next day, marketing and communications employees around the world were asked to turn in any remaining Tiger-emblazoned posters and other materials. Accenture marketing employees did not respond to requests for comment about the Tiger purge on Wednesday.
Accenture said it did not tell all of its 177,000 worldwide employees to toss their Tiger T-shirts, caps and tchotchkes away. But when asked about branded merchandise, Mr. Hawrysh said, “Our intention is to ensure we are no longer using it internally or externally.”
But it takes time to erase the golfer’s identity completely. Accenture spent $50 million on advertising in the United States last year, and Mr. Woods appeared in 83 percent of the company’s ads — far more than for any of his other major sponsors — according to TNS Media Intelligence.
The remaining billboards and ads, now outdated, inspire smirks and jokes. In ads at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, Tiger is seen crouching on the green, studying a golf ball’s trajectory and endorsing outsourcing. In Atlanta, he is posed as The Thinker, adorned with a Nike hat, promoting management consulting. At Dulles International outside Washington, he is peering into the distance, dark clouds on the horizon. That ad, forebodingly, says it is “tougher than ever to be a Tiger.”
“The Accenture ads with Tiger finally make sense,” Quentin George, the chief digital officer for Interpublic Mediabrands, an advertising holding company, remarked on Twitter Wednesday.
Mr. Woods provided a big boost to Accenture when he became the company’s worldwide public face in 2003. At the time, the Accenture name was less than three years old, and was still regularly called by its old name, Andersen Consulting. The campaign’s initial theme was “Go on. Be a Tiger.”
Mr. Woods “was a powerful device for our advertising, there’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Hawrysh said.
But as allegations of Mr. Woods’s extramarital affairs spread in recent weeks, the titan of golf was transformed into a distraction. In the early days of the media frenzy, Mr. Woods still greeted visitors to Accenture’s Web site next to the words, “It’s What You Do Next That Counts.” Then on Sunday, the company proclaimed that Mr. Woods was “no longer the right representative” for its advertising and began scrubbing his name and face away.
On Tuesday, that meant telling staff members in an e-mail message to review their sales pitches and slide shows to ensure that they “no longer include Tiger Woods.” In New York, employees were asked to bring posters and other physical assets to the company’s front desk for disposal. The company would not comment on exactly how they would be disposed of.
They may be trying to avoid having the materials recast as collectors’ items. Already, some Accenture magazine ads and memorabilia, including an Accenture Match Play Tiger Woods Caddy Bib, are on eBay (Asking price for the bib: $175.)
Mr. Woods’s private life remains a daily topic on TV talk shows and Web sites, but some of his sponsors, including Nike, have stayed by his side. Nike’s chairman, Phil Knight, told The Sports Business Journal last week that when Mr. Woods’s career “is over, you’ll look back on these indiscretions as a minor blip.”
Accenture, however, is already preparing a new ad campaign. Jon Swallen, a senior vice president for research for TNS Media Intelligence, said it seemed notable that the consulting firm chose not to hide under a no-comment cloak or hire a new celebrity spokesman; instead, it separated from Mr. Woods publicly and swiftly.
“It struck me that they were taking him to the woodshed,” Mr. Swallen said.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Adis Neger and the New Thing About Their War on Freedom of Expression in Ethiopia.
December 14, 2009
I don't write these days. I find all kinds of excuses not to do it. I am productively engaged in contributing my two penny's worth during meetings with a bunch of dedicated Ethiopians in the Washington, D.C. area. I gain an ounce of satisfaction when I get a chance to grab the microphone in the Civility or Geza Tegaru Pal talk rooms and give a passionate semi-sermon about the state of affairs in Ethiopia, or vent out my frustrations about a bunch of losers that show up in Alula Aba Nega room, an abode for TPLF defectors.
I do browse the net, Aiga Forum, EthiopiaFirst, Reporter, Ethiomedia, Abugida, Nazreth.com and a couple more, in that order. This, on top of trying to do a job that pays the bills.
You would think this should fill a gentleman's day and leave very little time for scribbling a few more words to articulate one point of view or another. But, once in a while, I come across articles that completely distort the real situation in Ethiopia or Ethiopian politics and force me to pick up my pen. I am used to the deceptions, legal meanderings and verbal diarrhea by the likes of Al Mariam. I have long desisted from responding to his lies. But, a new crop of press freedom fighters are showing up on the radar, starting with the likes of Abiy Teklemariam Megenta of the now defunct newspaper, Adis Neger.
Let me share a recent brief e-mail encounter I had with this gentleman, following his article on Bertukan Mideksa. Here is a man who closed down his newspaper business; because the circulation was hurting bad and run away to what he thinks are greener pastures, with an excuse of an alleged political harassment.
Dear Abiye,
I enjoyed reading your piece, enjoyed it painfully! What a waste of talent. What a sad commentary on the state of opposition papers in Ethiopia. You did not have the nerve to follow the path of your Heroine. You would rather go hiding, of all places in the UK, to spill your conspiracy theory and your doom and gloom for our emerging democracy.
Good luck in your new life that is fading away very fast.
Washera
Dear Washera,
Thank you for the comments. If people couldn't understand the darker pages of Hegel, nobody can say it is for the lack of freedom.
Very best,
Abiye Teklemariam Megenta
Research Scholar
Department of Politics and International Relations
University of Oxford
Dear Abiye,
Thank you for responding. May be a little bit of research and re-education at Oxford U will do you a little bit of good. May be you will improve your acuity and develop a more refined view of how to advance a burgeoning democracy in Ethiopia. I will follow your writings and progress at Oxford.
If you happen to pass by Washington, D.C., do look me up. I will be glad to buy you dinner and help you out with your thesis.
Good luck
Washera
That is the spirit. At least you admit that even a fastly fading life has a chance to get new perspectives. Sadly, you can't help me because my work is highly empirical. There isn't enough soil here to nourish the roots of brothers.
Respectfully,
Abiye
And here is another one, word for word with grammatical errors and all , from some old timer whose hate fangs mix logic, religion and politics. He was responding to my couple of paragraphs on Tiger Woods.
Tiger Wood 's recent failure was not a surprise to me as such incidents are the problem of American society. This is not the problem of one person. We have seen it on politicians, business people, Hollywood stars and famous athletes. I don't understand why you took it as an extraordinary event. Mind you, I am not supporting in fidelity. I don't care for Golf, but that doesn't mean what Tiger did is good. Five years ago, Bryant did it, I got mad 'cause he was my ideal and my son liked him. But, I forgave him and Bryant is a different person now.
My main point is not actually Tiger. Did u follow the Geneva meeting and what the US government said this week? If you did, where is your pen? Why do u spend time with a golfer where no one cares in Ethiopia? If you stand for the right and freedom of Ethiopians, then the world has spoken that those two things are not respected in Ethiopia. You need to open your mouth whenever you see evil. Otherwise, you are just a trumpet of Meles Zenawi....Actually, u are!
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in
Christ God forgave you Ephesians 4:32
The freedom of all is, the freedom to worship the Son of God
Eprem Madebo
Dear Ephrem,
I think I have heard about you, heard you and even read some stuff that you have written about that loser politician wannabe, Berhanu Nega. Yes, I just googled your name and proved my point.
I feel so sorry for you guys. You are coming to the end of your life and you may die complaining, without doing anything tangible for your country. In fact, I would like to do you a fever. Instead of trying to waste my time on e-mail, I would like to challenge you to a television or radio debate, not about Tiger Woods, but about the merits of Meles Zenawi and Ethiopian politics.
Forget your biblical quotes and come out to defend your allegations.
Can't wait to hear from you.
Washera
ps: While you are at it, remind the big fish that his days are numbered.
What a sad commentary about the modern day Ethiopian opposition camp politicians. A newspaper editor who blames his newspaper's bankruptcy on political persecution and a religious guy who quotes words from the Bible that he himself does not keep.
I invite all of these guys to come out from their dungeons and organize debates and dialogues among opposition groups, rather than confusing their own flock with allegations and innuendos.
Washera
I don't write these days. I find all kinds of excuses not to do it. I am productively engaged in contributing my two penny's worth during meetings with a bunch of dedicated Ethiopians in the Washington, D.C. area. I gain an ounce of satisfaction when I get a chance to grab the microphone in the Civility or Geza Tegaru Pal talk rooms and give a passionate semi-sermon about the state of affairs in Ethiopia, or vent out my frustrations about a bunch of losers that show up in Alula Aba Nega room, an abode for TPLF defectors.
I do browse the net, Aiga Forum, EthiopiaFirst, Reporter, Ethiomedia, Abugida, Nazreth.com and a couple more, in that order. This, on top of trying to do a job that pays the bills.
You would think this should fill a gentleman's day and leave very little time for scribbling a few more words to articulate one point of view or another. But, once in a while, I come across articles that completely distort the real situation in Ethiopia or Ethiopian politics and force me to pick up my pen. I am used to the deceptions, legal meanderings and verbal diarrhea by the likes of Al Mariam. I have long desisted from responding to his lies. But, a new crop of press freedom fighters are showing up on the radar, starting with the likes of Abiy Teklemariam Megenta of the now defunct newspaper, Adis Neger.
Let me share a recent brief e-mail encounter I had with this gentleman, following his article on Bertukan Mideksa. Here is a man who closed down his newspaper business; because the circulation was hurting bad and run away to what he thinks are greener pastures, with an excuse of an alleged political harassment.
Dear Abiye,
I enjoyed reading your piece, enjoyed it painfully! What a waste of talent. What a sad commentary on the state of opposition papers in Ethiopia. You did not have the nerve to follow the path of your Heroine. You would rather go hiding, of all places in the UK, to spill your conspiracy theory and your doom and gloom for our emerging democracy.
Good luck in your new life that is fading away very fast.
Washera
Dear Washera,
Thank you for the comments. If people couldn't understand the darker pages of Hegel, nobody can say it is for the lack of freedom.
Very best,
Abiye Teklemariam Megenta
Research Scholar
Department of Politics and International Relations
University of Oxford
Dear Abiye,
Thank you for responding. May be a little bit of research and re-education at Oxford U will do you a little bit of good. May be you will improve your acuity and develop a more refined view of how to advance a burgeoning democracy in Ethiopia. I will follow your writings and progress at Oxford.
If you happen to pass by Washington, D.C., do look me up. I will be glad to buy you dinner and help you out with your thesis.
Good luck
Washera
That is the spirit. At least you admit that even a fastly fading life has a chance to get new perspectives. Sadly, you can't help me because my work is highly empirical. There isn't enough soil here to nourish the roots of brothers.
Respectfully,
Abiye
And here is another one, word for word with grammatical errors and all , from some old timer whose hate fangs mix logic, religion and politics. He was responding to my couple of paragraphs on Tiger Woods.
Tiger Wood 's recent failure was not a surprise to me as such incidents are the problem of American society. This is not the problem of one person. We have seen it on politicians, business people, Hollywood stars and famous athletes. I don't understand why you took it as an extraordinary event. Mind you, I am not supporting in fidelity. I don't care for Golf, but that doesn't mean what Tiger did is good. Five years ago, Bryant did it, I got mad 'cause he was my ideal and my son liked him. But, I forgave him and Bryant is a different person now.
My main point is not actually Tiger. Did u follow the Geneva meeting and what the US government said this week? If you did, where is your pen? Why do u spend time with a golfer where no one cares in Ethiopia? If you stand for the right and freedom of Ethiopians, then the world has spoken that those two things are not respected in Ethiopia. You need to open your mouth whenever you see evil. Otherwise, you are just a trumpet of Meles Zenawi....Actually, u are!
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in
Christ God forgave you Ephesians 4:32
The freedom of all is, the freedom to worship the Son of God
Eprem Madebo
Dear Ephrem,
I think I have heard about you, heard you and even read some stuff that you have written about that loser politician wannabe, Berhanu Nega. Yes, I just googled your name and proved my point.
I feel so sorry for you guys. You are coming to the end of your life and you may die complaining, without doing anything tangible for your country. In fact, I would like to do you a fever. Instead of trying to waste my time on e-mail, I would like to challenge you to a television or radio debate, not about Tiger Woods, but about the merits of Meles Zenawi and Ethiopian politics.
Forget your biblical quotes and come out to defend your allegations.
Can't wait to hear from you.
Washera
ps: While you are at it, remind the big fish that his days are numbered.
What a sad commentary about the modern day Ethiopian opposition camp politicians. A newspaper editor who blames his newspaper's bankruptcy on political persecution and a religious guy who quotes words from the Bible that he himself does not keep.
I invite all of these guys to come out from their dungeons and organize debates and dialogues among opposition groups, rather than confusing their own flock with allegations and innuendos.
Washera
TIGER WOODS DISAPPOINTS
12/10/09
Al Sharp ton Blasts Tiger Woods for Lack of Mistress Diversity
The Rev. Al Sharp ton held a press conference today to blast Tiger Woods for the lack of diversity among his mistresses. Sharp ton claims that the lack of African-American women among Woods’ harem will have a negative affect on the black community, specifically young black girls.
“Why is it that a man who calls himself black can’t bring himself to cheat on his wife with a black woman?” said Sharp ton, speaking to a group of supporters in Harlem. “What does it say to young black girls everywhere when you pass them over? Shame on you, Tiger Woods. What would your daddy say?”
Sharp ton, who has long championed taking black women as mistresses, said that today’s black athletes need to stop neglecting black women when it comes to extramarital affairs, and should follow the examples of positive black role models such as Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom cheated on their wives with black women. Sharp ton also stressed that cheating with African-American women would help the black community financially by giving black girls the chance to sell their stories to tabloids and gossip magazines.
Added Sharp ton, “I’m not asking you to not cheat on your wives, I’m just asking you to give back to your own community.”
I don't give a hoot for such remarks from Harlem or Harem. But on a serous note, I will have you know that I am very very mad with Tiger and I have expressed my feelings on the Golf Channel website. Millions of young people throughout the world looked up to this guy as a role model. Not you and me or our children, but millions that looked up to him as a hard working, successful, good man that they wanted to emulate. When they said, "I am Tiger", they were referring to his ethics, good manners and later a good family man. He let them down! All of them and all of us. He betrayed the honorable game of golf.
Our society needs role models and when you are in such a high position to make a difference, you are supposed to take your responsibility very very seriously. I was not enjoying his game as much as I used to, because he made it look very mechanical and muscular. He did not seem to smile and enjoy it. Golf is a game of feel and touch and he lacked that. I expected him to read more about the history of golf and become its ambassador. I wanted him to read about politics and be aware of what is going on around him and in the world. He only knew what to do to that white object to win millions. Even his mastery of the English language had a lot to be desired.
He also failed me in one other area. I believe that one way to narrow the Black-White divide in this world is through inter-racial marriages. He failed miserably on that count too.
So, here is what I suggest he do. He should go to Ethiopia, build a golf course and train young children to be golf champions. While he is at it, he should repent for his extra-marital affairs and make it up to his wife and children. I will give him ten years to do it successfully. After that, I may forgive him.
In the mean time, I am packing all my Tiger paraphernalia, and there is a lot of it, and put them in boxes and store them in the basement. I will have nothing to do with him or with his books and autographed pictures. I don't want to see him on TV selling products and I don't want to see him play golf on TV.
We all pay a price if we are caught cheating. The big ones pay bigger prices. There are many better role models in the world. Tiger is not one of them and his era is over.
So there!
Washera
Al Sharp ton Blasts Tiger Woods for Lack of Mistress Diversity
The Rev. Al Sharp ton held a press conference today to blast Tiger Woods for the lack of diversity among his mistresses. Sharp ton claims that the lack of African-American women among Woods’ harem will have a negative affect on the black community, specifically young black girls.
“Why is it that a man who calls himself black can’t bring himself to cheat on his wife with a black woman?” said Sharp ton, speaking to a group of supporters in Harlem. “What does it say to young black girls everywhere when you pass them over? Shame on you, Tiger Woods. What would your daddy say?”
Sharp ton, who has long championed taking black women as mistresses, said that today’s black athletes need to stop neglecting black women when it comes to extramarital affairs, and should follow the examples of positive black role models such as Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom cheated on their wives with black women. Sharp ton also stressed that cheating with African-American women would help the black community financially by giving black girls the chance to sell their stories to tabloids and gossip magazines.
Added Sharp ton, “I’m not asking you to not cheat on your wives, I’m just asking you to give back to your own community.”
I don't give a hoot for such remarks from Harlem or Harem. But on a serous note, I will have you know that I am very very mad with Tiger and I have expressed my feelings on the Golf Channel website. Millions of young people throughout the world looked up to this guy as a role model. Not you and me or our children, but millions that looked up to him as a hard working, successful, good man that they wanted to emulate. When they said, "I am Tiger", they were referring to his ethics, good manners and later a good family man. He let them down! All of them and all of us. He betrayed the honorable game of golf.
Our society needs role models and when you are in such a high position to make a difference, you are supposed to take your responsibility very very seriously. I was not enjoying his game as much as I used to, because he made it look very mechanical and muscular. He did not seem to smile and enjoy it. Golf is a game of feel and touch and he lacked that. I expected him to read more about the history of golf and become its ambassador. I wanted him to read about politics and be aware of what is going on around him and in the world. He only knew what to do to that white object to win millions. Even his mastery of the English language had a lot to be desired.
He also failed me in one other area. I believe that one way to narrow the Black-White divide in this world is through inter-racial marriages. He failed miserably on that count too.
So, here is what I suggest he do. He should go to Ethiopia, build a golf course and train young children to be golf champions. While he is at it, he should repent for his extra-marital affairs and make it up to his wife and children. I will give him ten years to do it successfully. After that, I may forgive him.
In the mean time, I am packing all my Tiger paraphernalia, and there is a lot of it, and put them in boxes and store them in the basement. I will have nothing to do with him or with his books and autographed pictures. I don't want to see him on TV selling products and I don't want to see him play golf on TV.
We all pay a price if we are caught cheating. The big ones pay bigger prices. There are many better role models in the world. Tiger is not one of them and his era is over.
So there!
Washera
Thursday, June 11, 2009
THANK YOU ABOY
Washera_2000
June 11, 2009
I am not sure if this was a vacation to visit with his family or an educational tour of duty. In the last two weeks, Aboy Sebhat Nega, the most senior member of the TPLF organization, has had an EPRDF public relations stunt like no other!
We first met him at that well-attended Ginbot 20 celebration at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C., where Ato Wondimu Asaminew gave a memorable speech about the occasion and introduced Aboy Sebhat as one of the key individuals who started and lead the heartrending armed struggle that lead to victory over the Derg regime. That night belonged to the young Wondimu, but Aboy took charge from that moment on and went on an educational tour of duty, appearing in nearly all of the Ethiopian Media outlets in America. He started out at a meeting of the Ethiopian community in the Washington D.C area and went on the talk show circuit, from Hagerfikir to VOA, from the famous Paltalk rooms like Civility with Aba Mela and Gezategaru to Ben's EthiopiaFirst internet radio and meetings with various EPRDF support organizations. I am not sure how the TV stations in our area lacked out.
Aboy Sebhat was born and raised in Adowa where he completed his elementary education and then moved on to Mekele for his High school education. After that, it was to college at Addis Ababa University followed by ten years of service as a teacher in various schools in "mehal ager" as he calls it or central Ethiopia. He was 39 years old when he joined the armed struggle, obviously much older than most other fighters and probably the wisest. During a mission near the town of Tsorona, a lady invited them for coffee and referred to him as "Aboy". That name stuck and has been called such ever since.
Most of the interviews had a relaxed atmosphere and he had plenty of time to respond to questions addressed to him. At the Ethiopian Embassy meeting, the questions ranged from constitutional concerns to the state of affairs with Moslems and Christians in Ethiopia and even problems with land allocation to Diaspora Ethiopians. He had that calm and collected tone of a wise elderly gentleman and responded to each question with confidence that could only come from years of experience and accumulated knowledge. He was the professor with a mission. Aba Mela provided the best opportunity for hundreds, may be thousands of participants throughout the world, listening to the interview and having the opportunity to ask questions. Ben of EthiopiaFirst needed to ask only two questions to get the most out of the professor.
Of all the interviews, I found the VOA portion very intriguing and interesting. Although it was done in three or so sessions, the interviewer appeared to have so many questions that he was throwing them at a fast pace, one after another. It did not phase Aboy and he responded without missing a beat!
Thank you for breaking the silence, but why are EPRDF officials prevented from accepting interviews with VOA Amharic? Not an EPRDF policy at all, although he has heard that the view at the station lacked balance, leaning more toward opposition politics. He will check on the facts on his return.
Why are you no more close to PM Meles, not a Politburo member and not a leader of EFFORT? I am no closer to the PM than others. I am not a Politburo member or a leader of EFFORT any more, because the party felt other more able individuals needed to be in a leadership position. Talk about empowering the next generation younger Ethiopian leaders.
He was grilled on the finances of EFFORT, press freedom, Election Board and the future of EPRDF. He did not back off on any of these issues. His explanation for the legal and democratic basis for resolving all the concerns raised was difficult to ignore and the interviewer was taken to task to articulate his questions.
Aboy enumerated some of EPRDF's achievements: Lasting solution for the Nations and Nationalities question; democratic basis of our constitution and the peace dividend we have had since liberation and our belief in unity with equality and bring about a capitalist economy. Believe it or not, the objective is to develop the country on the above basis and dissolve EPRDF. Through the freedom of the Nations and Nationalities and the development of an infrastructure throughout the country, our unity through equality is becoming a reality.
EPRDF believes in transfer of power through a multi-party democratic participation. He does not see any contradiction between the revolutionary democracy as articulated by the ruling party and the Ethiopian constitution. The growth of capitalism and a multi-party society will bring about the end of EPRDF as it exists now. An opposition group that tries to topple the government by force, like Ginbot 7, will be repulsed at any cost, whereas peaceful opposition forces will be encouraged and supported.
As usual, the Eritrean and sea port access issues were raised in many places. His response was unambiguous. Eritrea was liberated before the fall of Derg. Our participation in the succession of Eritrea was just a formality for a done deal. Ethiopia's legal right for access to the sea can be debated and possible solutions for this problem are open for discussion.
He was not shy to blame the ruling party for its weaknesses, for taking too much time to resolve its internal contradictions. But he sees a bright future, a road toward that ultimate democratic multi-party society economically empowered to deal with poverty and disease in our continent.
As he ends his tour, many of us will take stock of his achievements and our free education. He has addressed a variety of concerns and issues and has promised to take many more of the questions raised and address them to concerned officials back home. You cannot expect any more than that.
Thank you Aboy and may you have health and enjoyment in your twilight years.
The PR office of the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C. pulled off a well-deserved public relations stunt. Next stop the National Press Club for the Prime Minister of Ethiopia.
June 11, 2009
I am not sure if this was a vacation to visit with his family or an educational tour of duty. In the last two weeks, Aboy Sebhat Nega, the most senior member of the TPLF organization, has had an EPRDF public relations stunt like no other!
We first met him at that well-attended Ginbot 20 celebration at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C., where Ato Wondimu Asaminew gave a memorable speech about the occasion and introduced Aboy Sebhat as one of the key individuals who started and lead the heartrending armed struggle that lead to victory over the Derg regime. That night belonged to the young Wondimu, but Aboy took charge from that moment on and went on an educational tour of duty, appearing in nearly all of the Ethiopian Media outlets in America. He started out at a meeting of the Ethiopian community in the Washington D.C area and went on the talk show circuit, from Hagerfikir to VOA, from the famous Paltalk rooms like Civility with Aba Mela and Gezategaru to Ben's EthiopiaFirst internet radio and meetings with various EPRDF support organizations. I am not sure how the TV stations in our area lacked out.
Aboy Sebhat was born and raised in Adowa where he completed his elementary education and then moved on to Mekele for his High school education. After that, it was to college at Addis Ababa University followed by ten years of service as a teacher in various schools in "mehal ager" as he calls it or central Ethiopia. He was 39 years old when he joined the armed struggle, obviously much older than most other fighters and probably the wisest. During a mission near the town of Tsorona, a lady invited them for coffee and referred to him as "Aboy". That name stuck and has been called such ever since.
Most of the interviews had a relaxed atmosphere and he had plenty of time to respond to questions addressed to him. At the Ethiopian Embassy meeting, the questions ranged from constitutional concerns to the state of affairs with Moslems and Christians in Ethiopia and even problems with land allocation to Diaspora Ethiopians. He had that calm and collected tone of a wise elderly gentleman and responded to each question with confidence that could only come from years of experience and accumulated knowledge. He was the professor with a mission. Aba Mela provided the best opportunity for hundreds, may be thousands of participants throughout the world, listening to the interview and having the opportunity to ask questions. Ben of EthiopiaFirst needed to ask only two questions to get the most out of the professor.
Of all the interviews, I found the VOA portion very intriguing and interesting. Although it was done in three or so sessions, the interviewer appeared to have so many questions that he was throwing them at a fast pace, one after another. It did not phase Aboy and he responded without missing a beat!
Thank you for breaking the silence, but why are EPRDF officials prevented from accepting interviews with VOA Amharic? Not an EPRDF policy at all, although he has heard that the view at the station lacked balance, leaning more toward opposition politics. He will check on the facts on his return.
Why are you no more close to PM Meles, not a Politburo member and not a leader of EFFORT? I am no closer to the PM than others. I am not a Politburo member or a leader of EFFORT any more, because the party felt other more able individuals needed to be in a leadership position. Talk about empowering the next generation younger Ethiopian leaders.
He was grilled on the finances of EFFORT, press freedom, Election Board and the future of EPRDF. He did not back off on any of these issues. His explanation for the legal and democratic basis for resolving all the concerns raised was difficult to ignore and the interviewer was taken to task to articulate his questions.
Aboy enumerated some of EPRDF's achievements: Lasting solution for the Nations and Nationalities question; democratic basis of our constitution and the peace dividend we have had since liberation and our belief in unity with equality and bring about a capitalist economy. Believe it or not, the objective is to develop the country on the above basis and dissolve EPRDF. Through the freedom of the Nations and Nationalities and the development of an infrastructure throughout the country, our unity through equality is becoming a reality.
EPRDF believes in transfer of power through a multi-party democratic participation. He does not see any contradiction between the revolutionary democracy as articulated by the ruling party and the Ethiopian constitution. The growth of capitalism and a multi-party society will bring about the end of EPRDF as it exists now. An opposition group that tries to topple the government by force, like Ginbot 7, will be repulsed at any cost, whereas peaceful opposition forces will be encouraged and supported.
As usual, the Eritrean and sea port access issues were raised in many places. His response was unambiguous. Eritrea was liberated before the fall of Derg. Our participation in the succession of Eritrea was just a formality for a done deal. Ethiopia's legal right for access to the sea can be debated and possible solutions for this problem are open for discussion.
He was not shy to blame the ruling party for its weaknesses, for taking too much time to resolve its internal contradictions. But he sees a bright future, a road toward that ultimate democratic multi-party society economically empowered to deal with poverty and disease in our continent.
As he ends his tour, many of us will take stock of his achievements and our free education. He has addressed a variety of concerns and issues and has promised to take many more of the questions raised and address them to concerned officials back home. You cannot expect any more than that.
Thank you Aboy and may you have health and enjoyment in your twilight years.
The PR office of the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C. pulled off a well-deserved public relations stunt. Next stop the National Press Club for the Prime Minister of Ethiopia.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
በዋሺንግተን ዲሲ የተከበረው የግንቦት 20 የድል በዓል።
ከዋሸራ_2
ግንቦት 22፣ 2001 ዓ.ም.
መታደል ሆነና በዕለቱ ዕረፍት ላይ ስለነበረኩኝ፣ በዓሉ ወደሚከበርበት ሥፍራ ወደ ኢትዮጵያ ኤንባሲ አመራሁ። እኔ እንኳን ከከተማ ራቅ ብዬ ስለነበር የምመጣው ትንሽ ዘግይቼ ነበር የደረስኩት። ሌሎች ተጋባዦችም ልምድ ሆነና ትንሽ ዘግየት (ብዙ ዘግየት!) ብለው ደረሱ። ይሄንን ዘግይቶ የመድረስ ጉዳይ አንድ ቀን ክነፉን ሰብረን መጣል ይኖርብናል። ለዛሬ ግን በዓሉ ላይ ላተኩር።
ታዲያ አዳራሹ እንደሞላ፣ እንግዶቹን በደመቀና በሚያኮራ ንግግር የከፈቱት ያንባሳደሩ ምክትል የሆኑት አቶ ወንድሙ አሳምነው ነበሩ። እውነትም እንኳን መጣሁ የሚያሰኝ፣ የበዓሉን ስብዕናና ተገቢ ትርጉም ያዘለ ንግግር ነበር ያደረጉት። የዕለቱን የክብር እንግዳ ክቡር አቶ ስብሃት ነጋን፣ "እያከበርን ያለውን ቀን እውን ለማድረግ በተኪያሄደው እልህ-አስጨራሽ የትጥቅ ትግል ከጀመሩትና ከመሩት ቁልፍ ሰዎች አንዱ" መሆናቸውን ካስገነዘቡን በሗላ ያደረጉት ንግግር፣ አንድም መሬት ጠብ የሚል አልነበረም።
"የግንቦት 20 በዓልን ስናከብር፣ ለዚች ቀን የተከፈለውን መስዋእትነት ማስታወሳችን አይቀርም። ይህችን ቀን ለማምጣት፣ ህይወትን ገና ያላጣጣሙ ለጋ ወጣቶች ተቀጥፈዋል። ወላጆች የሞቀ ቤታቸው ፈርሶ የወላድ መሃን ሆነዋል። በአሰርት ሺዎች የሚቆጠሩ ጀግኖች የድሎት ህይወትን ንቀው፣ የወጣትንት ዘመናቸውን በበረሀ አሳልፈዋል። በዚች ቀን እነዚህን ጀግኖች እናስታውሳቸዋልን። በዚች ቀን፣ በከባድ መስዋእትነትና ድካም የፈሰሰውን የጨለማ ዘመን በማንኛውም መልኩ እነዳያንሰራራ የበኩላችንን ለመስራት ቃላችንን እናድሳልን።"
የጀመርኩትን የዲር ፓረክ ውሃ ቁጭ አድርጌ የሞቀ ጭብጨባ የጀመርኩት ብቻዬን አልነበርም። አዳራሹ ውስጥ የተሰበሰቡት ከ250 በላይ የሚሆኑት እንግዶች በሙሉ ባነድነት አጀቡኝ።
አቶ ወንድሙ ቀጥለውም፤
"ግንቦት 20 ልዩ ትርጉም የሚሰጠን የደርገ ስርዓትን ማፍረሱ ተልዕኮ በድል የተጠናቀቀበት እለት በመሆኑ ብቻ አይደለም። ግንቦት 20 የምናከብረው ማንኛውም አይነት ያድልኦ ስርአት በአገራችን ዳግም እንዳይመለስ፣ ኢትዮጵያን በአዲስ የፖለቲካና የኢኮኖሚ ስርዓት ላይ መገንባት የጀመርንብት ቀን በመሆኑ ጭምር ነው።
በህብረተሰባዊ ስርዓት ለውጥ ሂደት የአዲስ ስርዓት ግንባታ ምዕራፍ አስቸጋሪው ምዕራፍ ነው። ብዙ አገሮች አሮጌውን ማፍረስ ቢችሉም፣ አዲሱን መገንባት ተስኗቸው፣ ወደ ሗላ ሲንሸራተቱ እያስተዋልን ነው።
በኤርትራ፣ በሶማሊያ፣ በኮነጎ፣ በኢራቅ፣ በአፍጋኒስታን፣ ወዘተ... የምናያቸው የድህረ-ስርዓት ማፍረስ ትርምሶች፣ የግንባታውን ሂደት አስቸጋሪነት የሚያሳዩ ናቸው። በድህረ ግንቦት 20 ቀን 1983 ዓ.ም. የኢትዮጵያ ሁኔታ ከዚሁ በመሰረቱ የተለየ ነው። ኢህአዴግ ማፍረስ ብቻ ሳይሆን መገንባትም ጭምር ችሎበታል። ለዚህም ነው አገራችን በተተረማመሰ አካባቢ የልማት፣ የዲሞከራሲና የሰላም ደሴት የሆነችው።"
እንዲህ ነው እንጂ ያገሬ ልጅ! አቶ ወንድሙ፣ ምናልባትም ወደ ሰላሳዎቹ መጨረሻ ወይንም ወደ አርባዎቹ መጀመሪያ ገደማ ዕድሜ ያላቸው ብሩህ ጎልማሳ ናቸው። ንግግራቸውን በሚያደርጉበት ጊዜ ፊታቸው ላይ የሚነበበው ገፅታ በስሜትና በወኔ የተሞላ ነበር። ከዛሬ ሃያ ዓመት በፊት የተሰዉትን ወጣቶች ሲጠቅሱ፣ በዛ ዕድሜ እሳቸው የት እንደነበሩ ሁሉ እያስታወሱ መሆኑ በግልጽ ይታይባቸው ነበር። ይህን እነባ-አነቅ ንግግራቸውንም በመቀጠል፤
"በአሁኑ ወቅት አገራችን በአጠቃላይ ለውጥ ላይ ነች። አንዳንድ ታዛቢዎች በ80ዎቹ መጀመሪያ የነበረችው ቻይና ትመስላለች ይላሉ። ለውጡ፣ በበርካታ ታዳጊ አገሮች እንደሚታየው የመቀባባት ለውጥ አይደለም። በተወሰኑ ከተሞች የሚታይ የብልጭልጭ ለውጥ አይደለም። በጠቅላላ የአገሪቱ 80 ሚሊዮን ህይወት ከመሰረቱ እየቀየረ ያለ ለውጥ ነው።
ሚሊዮኔር ገበሬዎች ማየት ጀምረናል። ለዘመናት በማያቋርጥ እንቅልፍ ውስጥ የነበሩት ገጠሮች ህይወት እየዘሩ ናቸው። መብራት፣ ስልክ፣ መንገድ በየዳር አገሩ እየገባ ነው። ከ95% በላይ የገጠር ልጆቻችን ት/ቤት ገብተዋል። እአንዳነዱ የገጠር ቀበሌ፣ በሚያዳርስ መልኩ ከ45,000 በላይ የእርሻ ባለሙያዎች ተሰማርተው፣ ዘመናዊ እርሻና ዘመናዊ ህይወት ገበሬአችንን እያስተማሩት ነው። በእያንዳነዱ የገጠር ቀበሌ የተሰራጩት፣ ከ30,000 በላይ የሚሆኑ የጤና ባለሙያዎች፣ ቁስሉን እያከሙለት ነው። በተወሰኑ የጤና ጥንቃቄና የመከላከያ ዘዴ፣ ለዘመናት የገጠሩን ህዝበ ሲፈጁ የነበሩ በሽታዎች እየጠፉ ናቸው።
ህዝባችን፣ በሰለጠነው ዓለም ከሚገኙ የፓልቶክ አርበኞች በተሻለ መልኩ፣ የዴሞከራሲ ባህሉን እየገነባ ይገኛል። በኢትዮጵያ በህዝበ-ይሁንታ ከተመረጠ መስተዳድር ውጭ ምንም አይነት በእናውቅልሃለን ሽፋን የሚመጣ የጭቆና ስርአት የማይታሰብባት ደረጃ ላይ ደርሰናል። በውስጥ ጥንካሬአችንም ምክንያት፣ በዓለም-አቀፍና በአህጉራዊ ፖለቲካ ያለን ቦታ፣ ከምንም ጊዜ በላይ እየደመቀ መጥቷል። በአጭሩ፣ የኢትዮጵያ ትንሳኤ ከመፈክር በላይ ሆኖአል። የኢትዮጵያ ትንሳኤ የሚጨበጥ እውነታ እየሆን መጥቷል።"
እነዲህ እያሉ ነበር እንግዲህ አኩሪአችን፣ አቶ ወንድሙ ንግግራቸውን ወደ መደምደሚያው ያሻገሩት። አዎን ከውሃውም ተጎንጭተናል፣ ከቁም-ነገሩም ትንሽ ቀስመናል። ታዲያ ፕሮገራሙ ገና መጀመሩ ነበር።
"እዚህ ልናስታውሰው የሚገባ ቁምነገር፣ የሂደታችን ስኬት በአጋጣሚ የመጣ አለመሆኑ ነው። ስኬቱ የመጣው ያገራችን ችግሮች ቀላሎች ስለሆኑ አይደልም። ለነገሩ፣ የተጀመረውን ለውጥ ለማጨናገፍ ከውስጥና ከውጭ የተወጠኑት ሴራዎች ብቻ ሳይሆኑ ፣ የወረስነው ውስብስብ የፖለቲካ ችግር፣ ለዴሞከራሲ ባዕድ የሆነው የፖለቲካ ባህላችንና የደቀቀውና የተራቆተው ኢኮኖሚ፣ ሂደቱን የበለጠ እንዲወሳሰብ ያደርጉ ነበሩ።
የስኬታችን ዋነኛ ሚስጥር፣ መንግስት የአገሪቱን ቁልፍ ችግር ለይቶ፣ እነዚህን ችግሮች በተስተካከለ ፖሊሲና ስትራቴጂ መፍታት በመቻሉና በየወቅትዩ እንደ እሸን የሚፈሉትን ችግሮች፣ ያስቀመጠውን የመጨረሻ ግብ፣ በማያዛባ መልኩ በማስተዋል መፍታት ስለቻለ ነው።
ይህ ሲባል፣ በዛሬዪቱ ኢትዮጵያ ችግር የለም ማለት አይደለም። ከጅምሩም የ3,000 ዘመን ችግር በሀያ ዓመት እንፈታልን ብልን አልጀመርንም። የክርክራችን ነጥብ፣ ችግሮች አሉ ወይስ የሉም የሚለው ሊሆን አይችልም። ውይይታችን ችግራችንን በሚፈለገውና በሚቻለው ፍጥነት እየፈታን ነው ወይ? እያንዳንዳችንስ ለመፍትሄው ምን አስተዋፅኦ አድርገናል? ወይስ እያደረግን ነው ወይ? የሚለው መሆን ይኖርበታል። ችግሮቻችንን በዚሁ መልኩ ከተጋፈጥናቸው፣ አለምንም ጥርጥር ወደ መፍትሄዎቻችን በቶሎ እንደርሳልን።
በኢትዮጵያ አሁን ያለው ለውጥ፣ እንደ ክረምት ጎረፍ መመሰል ይችላል። ማንም ሊያቆመው አይችልም። የዚህ ጎርፍ ፍጥነት እንዳይቀንስ፣ የየበኩላችንን እናድርግ።"
ሌሎች ተናጋሪዎችና ግብዣው ለሰዓታት ቀጠለ። የአቶ ወንድሙ ንግግር ግን፣ የነገዋ ኢትዮጵያ በጥሩ እጅ መሆኗን አስረግጦ አለፈ። እኔም ደስታ በተሞላው መንፈስ ወደ ቤቴ አመራሁ።
ግንቦት 22፣ 2001 ዓ.ም.
መታደል ሆነና በዕለቱ ዕረፍት ላይ ስለነበረኩኝ፣ በዓሉ ወደሚከበርበት ሥፍራ ወደ ኢትዮጵያ ኤንባሲ አመራሁ። እኔ እንኳን ከከተማ ራቅ ብዬ ስለነበር የምመጣው ትንሽ ዘግይቼ ነበር የደረስኩት። ሌሎች ተጋባዦችም ልምድ ሆነና ትንሽ ዘግየት (ብዙ ዘግየት!) ብለው ደረሱ። ይሄንን ዘግይቶ የመድረስ ጉዳይ አንድ ቀን ክነፉን ሰብረን መጣል ይኖርብናል። ለዛሬ ግን በዓሉ ላይ ላተኩር።
ታዲያ አዳራሹ እንደሞላ፣ እንግዶቹን በደመቀና በሚያኮራ ንግግር የከፈቱት ያንባሳደሩ ምክትል የሆኑት አቶ ወንድሙ አሳምነው ነበሩ። እውነትም እንኳን መጣሁ የሚያሰኝ፣ የበዓሉን ስብዕናና ተገቢ ትርጉም ያዘለ ንግግር ነበር ያደረጉት። የዕለቱን የክብር እንግዳ ክቡር አቶ ስብሃት ነጋን፣ "እያከበርን ያለውን ቀን እውን ለማድረግ በተኪያሄደው እልህ-አስጨራሽ የትጥቅ ትግል ከጀመሩትና ከመሩት ቁልፍ ሰዎች አንዱ" መሆናቸውን ካስገነዘቡን በሗላ ያደረጉት ንግግር፣ አንድም መሬት ጠብ የሚል አልነበረም።
"የግንቦት 20 በዓልን ስናከብር፣ ለዚች ቀን የተከፈለውን መስዋእትነት ማስታወሳችን አይቀርም። ይህችን ቀን ለማምጣት፣ ህይወትን ገና ያላጣጣሙ ለጋ ወጣቶች ተቀጥፈዋል። ወላጆች የሞቀ ቤታቸው ፈርሶ የወላድ መሃን ሆነዋል። በአሰርት ሺዎች የሚቆጠሩ ጀግኖች የድሎት ህይወትን ንቀው፣ የወጣትንት ዘመናቸውን በበረሀ አሳልፈዋል። በዚች ቀን እነዚህን ጀግኖች እናስታውሳቸዋልን። በዚች ቀን፣ በከባድ መስዋእትነትና ድካም የፈሰሰውን የጨለማ ዘመን በማንኛውም መልኩ እነዳያንሰራራ የበኩላችንን ለመስራት ቃላችንን እናድሳልን።"
የጀመርኩትን የዲር ፓረክ ውሃ ቁጭ አድርጌ የሞቀ ጭብጨባ የጀመርኩት ብቻዬን አልነበርም። አዳራሹ ውስጥ የተሰበሰቡት ከ250 በላይ የሚሆኑት እንግዶች በሙሉ ባነድነት አጀቡኝ።
አቶ ወንድሙ ቀጥለውም፤
"ግንቦት 20 ልዩ ትርጉም የሚሰጠን የደርገ ስርዓትን ማፍረሱ ተልዕኮ በድል የተጠናቀቀበት እለት በመሆኑ ብቻ አይደለም። ግንቦት 20 የምናከብረው ማንኛውም አይነት ያድልኦ ስርአት በአገራችን ዳግም እንዳይመለስ፣ ኢትዮጵያን በአዲስ የፖለቲካና የኢኮኖሚ ስርዓት ላይ መገንባት የጀመርንብት ቀን በመሆኑ ጭምር ነው።
በህብረተሰባዊ ስርዓት ለውጥ ሂደት የአዲስ ስርዓት ግንባታ ምዕራፍ አስቸጋሪው ምዕራፍ ነው። ብዙ አገሮች አሮጌውን ማፍረስ ቢችሉም፣ አዲሱን መገንባት ተስኗቸው፣ ወደ ሗላ ሲንሸራተቱ እያስተዋልን ነው።
በኤርትራ፣ በሶማሊያ፣ በኮነጎ፣ በኢራቅ፣ በአፍጋኒስታን፣ ወዘተ... የምናያቸው የድህረ-ስርዓት ማፍረስ ትርምሶች፣ የግንባታውን ሂደት አስቸጋሪነት የሚያሳዩ ናቸው። በድህረ ግንቦት 20 ቀን 1983 ዓ.ም. የኢትዮጵያ ሁኔታ ከዚሁ በመሰረቱ የተለየ ነው። ኢህአዴግ ማፍረስ ብቻ ሳይሆን መገንባትም ጭምር ችሎበታል። ለዚህም ነው አገራችን በተተረማመሰ አካባቢ የልማት፣ የዲሞከራሲና የሰላም ደሴት የሆነችው።"
እንዲህ ነው እንጂ ያገሬ ልጅ! አቶ ወንድሙ፣ ምናልባትም ወደ ሰላሳዎቹ መጨረሻ ወይንም ወደ አርባዎቹ መጀመሪያ ገደማ ዕድሜ ያላቸው ብሩህ ጎልማሳ ናቸው። ንግግራቸውን በሚያደርጉበት ጊዜ ፊታቸው ላይ የሚነበበው ገፅታ በስሜትና በወኔ የተሞላ ነበር። ከዛሬ ሃያ ዓመት በፊት የተሰዉትን ወጣቶች ሲጠቅሱ፣ በዛ ዕድሜ እሳቸው የት እንደነበሩ ሁሉ እያስታወሱ መሆኑ በግልጽ ይታይባቸው ነበር። ይህን እነባ-አነቅ ንግግራቸውንም በመቀጠል፤
"በአሁኑ ወቅት አገራችን በአጠቃላይ ለውጥ ላይ ነች። አንዳንድ ታዛቢዎች በ80ዎቹ መጀመሪያ የነበረችው ቻይና ትመስላለች ይላሉ። ለውጡ፣ በበርካታ ታዳጊ አገሮች እንደሚታየው የመቀባባት ለውጥ አይደለም። በተወሰኑ ከተሞች የሚታይ የብልጭልጭ ለውጥ አይደለም። በጠቅላላ የአገሪቱ 80 ሚሊዮን ህይወት ከመሰረቱ እየቀየረ ያለ ለውጥ ነው።
ሚሊዮኔር ገበሬዎች ማየት ጀምረናል። ለዘመናት በማያቋርጥ እንቅልፍ ውስጥ የነበሩት ገጠሮች ህይወት እየዘሩ ናቸው። መብራት፣ ስልክ፣ መንገድ በየዳር አገሩ እየገባ ነው። ከ95% በላይ የገጠር ልጆቻችን ት/ቤት ገብተዋል። እአንዳነዱ የገጠር ቀበሌ፣ በሚያዳርስ መልኩ ከ45,000 በላይ የእርሻ ባለሙያዎች ተሰማርተው፣ ዘመናዊ እርሻና ዘመናዊ ህይወት ገበሬአችንን እያስተማሩት ነው። በእያንዳነዱ የገጠር ቀበሌ የተሰራጩት፣ ከ30,000 በላይ የሚሆኑ የጤና ባለሙያዎች፣ ቁስሉን እያከሙለት ነው። በተወሰኑ የጤና ጥንቃቄና የመከላከያ ዘዴ፣ ለዘመናት የገጠሩን ህዝበ ሲፈጁ የነበሩ በሽታዎች እየጠፉ ናቸው።
ህዝባችን፣ በሰለጠነው ዓለም ከሚገኙ የፓልቶክ አርበኞች በተሻለ መልኩ፣ የዴሞከራሲ ባህሉን እየገነባ ይገኛል። በኢትዮጵያ በህዝበ-ይሁንታ ከተመረጠ መስተዳድር ውጭ ምንም አይነት በእናውቅልሃለን ሽፋን የሚመጣ የጭቆና ስርአት የማይታሰብባት ደረጃ ላይ ደርሰናል። በውስጥ ጥንካሬአችንም ምክንያት፣ በዓለም-አቀፍና በአህጉራዊ ፖለቲካ ያለን ቦታ፣ ከምንም ጊዜ በላይ እየደመቀ መጥቷል። በአጭሩ፣ የኢትዮጵያ ትንሳኤ ከመፈክር በላይ ሆኖአል። የኢትዮጵያ ትንሳኤ የሚጨበጥ እውነታ እየሆን መጥቷል።"
እነዲህ እያሉ ነበር እንግዲህ አኩሪአችን፣ አቶ ወንድሙ ንግግራቸውን ወደ መደምደሚያው ያሻገሩት። አዎን ከውሃውም ተጎንጭተናል፣ ከቁም-ነገሩም ትንሽ ቀስመናል። ታዲያ ፕሮገራሙ ገና መጀመሩ ነበር።
"እዚህ ልናስታውሰው የሚገባ ቁምነገር፣ የሂደታችን ስኬት በአጋጣሚ የመጣ አለመሆኑ ነው። ስኬቱ የመጣው ያገራችን ችግሮች ቀላሎች ስለሆኑ አይደልም። ለነገሩ፣ የተጀመረውን ለውጥ ለማጨናገፍ ከውስጥና ከውጭ የተወጠኑት ሴራዎች ብቻ ሳይሆኑ ፣ የወረስነው ውስብስብ የፖለቲካ ችግር፣ ለዴሞከራሲ ባዕድ የሆነው የፖለቲካ ባህላችንና የደቀቀውና የተራቆተው ኢኮኖሚ፣ ሂደቱን የበለጠ እንዲወሳሰብ ያደርጉ ነበሩ።
የስኬታችን ዋነኛ ሚስጥር፣ መንግስት የአገሪቱን ቁልፍ ችግር ለይቶ፣ እነዚህን ችግሮች በተስተካከለ ፖሊሲና ስትራቴጂ መፍታት በመቻሉና በየወቅትዩ እንደ እሸን የሚፈሉትን ችግሮች፣ ያስቀመጠውን የመጨረሻ ግብ፣ በማያዛባ መልኩ በማስተዋል መፍታት ስለቻለ ነው።
ይህ ሲባል፣ በዛሬዪቱ ኢትዮጵያ ችግር የለም ማለት አይደለም። ከጅምሩም የ3,000 ዘመን ችግር በሀያ ዓመት እንፈታልን ብልን አልጀመርንም። የክርክራችን ነጥብ፣ ችግሮች አሉ ወይስ የሉም የሚለው ሊሆን አይችልም። ውይይታችን ችግራችንን በሚፈለገውና በሚቻለው ፍጥነት እየፈታን ነው ወይ? እያንዳንዳችንስ ለመፍትሄው ምን አስተዋፅኦ አድርገናል? ወይስ እያደረግን ነው ወይ? የሚለው መሆን ይኖርበታል። ችግሮቻችንን በዚሁ መልኩ ከተጋፈጥናቸው፣ አለምንም ጥርጥር ወደ መፍትሄዎቻችን በቶሎ እንደርሳልን።
በኢትዮጵያ አሁን ያለው ለውጥ፣ እንደ ክረምት ጎረፍ መመሰል ይችላል። ማንም ሊያቆመው አይችልም። የዚህ ጎርፍ ፍጥነት እንዳይቀንስ፣ የየበኩላችንን እናድርግ።"
ሌሎች ተናጋሪዎችና ግብዣው ለሰዓታት ቀጠለ። የአቶ ወንድሙ ንግግር ግን፣ የነገዋ ኢትዮጵያ በጥሩ እጅ መሆኗን አስረግጦ አለፈ። እኔም ደስታ በተሞላው መንፈስ ወደ ቤቴ አመራሁ።
Thursday, May 14, 2009
THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN SOMALIA
May 14, 2009
Washera_2
So, I was invited to a panel discussion held at George Mason University on the current state of affairs in Somalia. The discussion was chaired by Professor Wallace Warfield of ICAR (Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution). The participants were faculty members and invited guests: Professor James Price (research), Mr. Hussein Yusuf (PhD student), Professor Terrence Lyons (faculty) and Mr. Mahdi Abdi from East African Policy Institute.
Professor James Price expounded on the conflict between religion and politics and the sacrilization to overcome and the secularization to be resisted by religious fanatics. It took a long time to resolve these issues in the United States; he said and will take even longer in the case of Somalia. The example he used of Jean Piaget's description of the preoperational stage children go through, lead him to conclude that religious fanatics do not have the mental actions that obey logical rules. Instead, their thinking is rigid, limited to one aspect of a situation at a time and tied to their own religious beliefs, without regard to the feelings of others.
Professor Terrence Lyons described the horrific violence going on in Mogadishu that had appeared somewhat calmer after the Ethiopian intervention was over. He went on to describe the rise of Al Shabab and the significant assistance that it is receiving from Eritrea and other countries (Saudi Arabia?). He did not mince words to accurately point out that, if Al Shabab were to control Mogadishu, Ethiopia will be there the following morning!
The PhD student, Mr. Hussein Yusuf, gave us a clearer view of the situation in Somalia. He talked about the main militant and radical wing in Somalia, Al Itihad al Islami, a non-tribal Muslim organization, prying on the young to build its membership. As early as 2001, both the Washington Post and the Daily Telegraph had reported that between 3,000 and 5,000 members of the al Qa'eda and al-Itihad partnership were operating in Somalia, with 50,000 t0 60,000 supporters and reservist. At the time, there were clear indications that bin Laden was setting up a new base of operations in Somalia and hence, the reason for US military strikes at the time of Ethiopia's intervention in Somalia. It is not clear what the numbers are at this time, but this group is very prominent in the Kismayo area and they control the ports and have accumulated massive arms. During their fight with the Transitional Government of Somalia for control of Puntaland, they were known to have caused fathers and sons to fight on opposite sides. They lost and were chased out of Puntaland. Their harsh rules go beyond banning cigarettes and Chat. One young man had his hand cut off for allegedly stealing a fishing net worth $90 dollars. Al Itihad seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia that adheres to a strict reading of the Koran, similar to the Wahabi interpretation used by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mr. Hussein Yusuf moved on to enlighten us about another group with an alien ideology, Al Shabab. It was not clear where the funding for this group comes from (? Saudi Arabia). But its ties to Eritrea are clear and it has remained on the terrorist list of the US government. They have been winning concessions from the Federal Government of Somalia, including the leaving of foreign forces and the adoption of Sharia law before any negotiations could begin. Although Islamic faith is one of the horizontal identities that cuts across clan lines in Somalia, it is not clear that this Wahabi version of Islam has wide spread support and acceptance. President Sheik Sherif Ahmed, in his attempt to resolve issues through dialogue, has signed a bill enacting Islamic Sharia law, even as Al Shabab insurgents refused his call for dialogue and continued an assault on government forces in Mogadishu. President Sharif's government enjoys international backing, but has little control on the ground, beyond a few streets and key buildings in the capital.
When the time came to hear Mr. Mahdi Abdi, the gloves were off! He is an American citizen of Somali origin who has been out of Somalia for over 30 years. He talked about the US collaboration in the 'invasion' of Somalia by Ethiopian forces and demanded the removal of all foreign forces before any meaningful peace could come to Somalia. He was sentimental about the Somalia he left decades ago and lamented about 'mandel', the female camel in Somalia which is a symbol of freedom and unity like the Eagle in the US. He lost my support when he criticized the legitimate government of Sheik Sherif and added that the 'dictator' in Ethiopia had to be removed before peace comes to Somalia. He told us that the last time he was in Somalia, Somali forces were 40km outside Addis Ababa!. The 'invasion' of Ethiopia, he alleged, has caused more than 100 years worth of hatred toward Ethiopia. When my turn came for questioning, I had to correct all the allegations made by the gentleman from the East African Policy Institute and that opened up a very hot debate in the room.
At the end, it was clear that there was a lack of leadership in Somalia, but no consensus on the best approach to resolve the conflict other than to support the efforts of Sheik Sherif, the legitimate leader of the Federal Government of Somalia. It was also clear that Ethiopia was not going to watch a terrorist group take control of Mogadishu.
Washera_2
So, I was invited to a panel discussion held at George Mason University on the current state of affairs in Somalia. The discussion was chaired by Professor Wallace Warfield of ICAR (Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution). The participants were faculty members and invited guests: Professor James Price (research), Mr. Hussein Yusuf (PhD student), Professor Terrence Lyons (faculty) and Mr. Mahdi Abdi from East African Policy Institute.
Professor James Price expounded on the conflict between religion and politics and the sacrilization to overcome and the secularization to be resisted by religious fanatics. It took a long time to resolve these issues in the United States; he said and will take even longer in the case of Somalia. The example he used of Jean Piaget's description of the preoperational stage children go through, lead him to conclude that religious fanatics do not have the mental actions that obey logical rules. Instead, their thinking is rigid, limited to one aspect of a situation at a time and tied to their own religious beliefs, without regard to the feelings of others.
Professor Terrence Lyons described the horrific violence going on in Mogadishu that had appeared somewhat calmer after the Ethiopian intervention was over. He went on to describe the rise of Al Shabab and the significant assistance that it is receiving from Eritrea and other countries (Saudi Arabia?). He did not mince words to accurately point out that, if Al Shabab were to control Mogadishu, Ethiopia will be there the following morning!
The PhD student, Mr. Hussein Yusuf, gave us a clearer view of the situation in Somalia. He talked about the main militant and radical wing in Somalia, Al Itihad al Islami, a non-tribal Muslim organization, prying on the young to build its membership. As early as 2001, both the Washington Post and the Daily Telegraph had reported that between 3,000 and 5,000 members of the al Qa'eda and al-Itihad partnership were operating in Somalia, with 50,000 t0 60,000 supporters and reservist. At the time, there were clear indications that bin Laden was setting up a new base of operations in Somalia and hence, the reason for US military strikes at the time of Ethiopia's intervention in Somalia. It is not clear what the numbers are at this time, but this group is very prominent in the Kismayo area and they control the ports and have accumulated massive arms. During their fight with the Transitional Government of Somalia for control of Puntaland, they were known to have caused fathers and sons to fight on opposite sides. They lost and were chased out of Puntaland. Their harsh rules go beyond banning cigarettes and Chat. One young man had his hand cut off for allegedly stealing a fishing net worth $90 dollars. Al Itihad seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia that adheres to a strict reading of the Koran, similar to the Wahabi interpretation used by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mr. Hussein Yusuf moved on to enlighten us about another group with an alien ideology, Al Shabab. It was not clear where the funding for this group comes from (? Saudi Arabia). But its ties to Eritrea are clear and it has remained on the terrorist list of the US government. They have been winning concessions from the Federal Government of Somalia, including the leaving of foreign forces and the adoption of Sharia law before any negotiations could begin. Although Islamic faith is one of the horizontal identities that cuts across clan lines in Somalia, it is not clear that this Wahabi version of Islam has wide spread support and acceptance. President Sheik Sherif Ahmed, in his attempt to resolve issues through dialogue, has signed a bill enacting Islamic Sharia law, even as Al Shabab insurgents refused his call for dialogue and continued an assault on government forces in Mogadishu. President Sharif's government enjoys international backing, but has little control on the ground, beyond a few streets and key buildings in the capital.
When the time came to hear Mr. Mahdi Abdi, the gloves were off! He is an American citizen of Somali origin who has been out of Somalia for over 30 years. He talked about the US collaboration in the 'invasion' of Somalia by Ethiopian forces and demanded the removal of all foreign forces before any meaningful peace could come to Somalia. He was sentimental about the Somalia he left decades ago and lamented about 'mandel', the female camel in Somalia which is a symbol of freedom and unity like the Eagle in the US. He lost my support when he criticized the legitimate government of Sheik Sherif and added that the 'dictator' in Ethiopia had to be removed before peace comes to Somalia. He told us that the last time he was in Somalia, Somali forces were 40km outside Addis Ababa!. The 'invasion' of Ethiopia, he alleged, has caused more than 100 years worth of hatred toward Ethiopia. When my turn came for questioning, I had to correct all the allegations made by the gentleman from the East African Policy Institute and that opened up a very hot debate in the room.
At the end, it was clear that there was a lack of leadership in Somalia, but no consensus on the best approach to resolve the conflict other than to support the efforts of Sheik Sherif, the legitimate leader of the Federal Government of Somalia. It was also clear that Ethiopia was not going to watch a terrorist group take control of Mogadishu.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
THE LEADER OF THE TOXIC DIASPORA SCRIBES, THE DARTH VADER OF OUR TIMES, PROF AL MARIAM STRIKES, AGAIN!
Washera_2
April 2, 2009
Professor (sic) Al Mariam, the most notorious anti-Ethiopian, has now directed his aspersion against the British Prime Minister and the African continent. He spares the Queen of England, but begins his diatribe by condemning the efforts of Prime Minister Gordon Brown "to help cash-strapped African countries manage their balance of payment as their incomes from foreign investments and aid, remittances and commodities prices vanish in with the collapsing global economy." He refers to the British Prime Minister spitefully as "Golden" Brown to set him up for an attack on the PM's management abilities as Chancellor of the Exchequer, over a decade ago. You would think that Prof Al is running for an office in England! The simple message he sends for PM Golden Brown and the G-20 members: “Give Africans a strong hand in establishing democracy and getting rid of dictatorships, and you will never have to worry about giving them handouts!”
The G20 meeting in the homeland of Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meant to be an informal forum that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability. The good professor translates it to mean a "meeting to accept cash, check, credit card or gold to bailout Africa." I fail to see the joke in such contemptible remarks when the whole world and especially Africa, is tittering on the brink of disaster as a result of the global crisis. Millions of African lives will be affected by the decisions of the G20 nations. These lives are of no concern to Prof Al who lives in a spacious villa in California and has never visited Ethiopia for over 30 years and who does not seem to hide his elation over Africa's demise as he directs his bloody pen towards that continent.
The African leaders are attacked in one scoop with no less zeal or hostility that has now become the style of this number one enemy of Africa. Their explanations for the fall out of this unprecedented global crisis are scoffed at and blamed on the lack of democracy on the entire continent. He ridicules their efforts to bring their case to the world leaders as "a chorus of African Chicken Littles clucking: "The sky is falling! The sky is falling! We must go and tell the king!" I wholeheartedly agree that if African governments want aid and loans from the G-20, they must agree to be held accountable for their acts and omissions in upholding the rule of law, protecting the human rights of their people, institutionalizing democratic practices and processes, releasing all political prisoners, allowing the free functioning of civic institutions and the independent media and ensuring judicial independence. For the most part, I believe IMF is trying to do just that. But wait!
Because, his next attack is the IMF. He accuses the IMF for conspiring to sell its gold stash worth 50 billion dollars to distribute to the poor nations of the world. Professor Al Mariam does not put it in those kind words. His version: "Now they are talking about “mid-sized banks”, selling billions of dollars worth of IMF gold and sharing the loot among African dictators". He goes on to attack the IMF and the World Bank for their lack of transparency and failed accounting practices. He finds their practice of praising African leaders in public for their successful economic policies. If you are in the business of lending money, what is wrong with acknowledging those that are doing a good job and paying back their debt? The good professor counters by accusing the IMF officials of documenting in their confidential reports, about corruptions and mismanagements by the same African leaders that they praised.
His final dirty arrow is directed, you guessed it, at our won Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He starts with the sarcastic, but somewhat serious remarks of the Prime Minister regarding the regional administrations' "right to burn money." This out of context quotation was colored by alleged firing of the accountant and Ato Gebru Asrat, to add flavor to his corruption charges against the Prime Minister. This is the kind of corruption he was alluding to in the above paragraph. The IMF must have not known about this!
To be fair to the professor, he did mention about the gold bar fiasco in an Ethiopian bank while he was dreaming about the gold bars that the IMF is supposed to be selling to help Africa.
The other accusations against the Prime Minster were regarding his remarks as he was preparing to join the G20 meeting in London. He has quoted him verbatim and I would not do you justice if I did not include it all and live the judgment to you. Let me just warn you that the professor's conclusion is that the statements fall short of the Prime Minister's report about the double digit growth rate of the economy in the last several years.
“Africa was beginning to stand up and now it is being knocked down again by this crisis, which is not of Africa’s making. That is one of the biggest tragedies. They [G-20] should care about Africa because it is in their interests. Some African countries could go under and that would mean total chaos and violence. In the end the cost of violence is going to be much higher than the cost of supporting Africa… We are talking about the range of money that is being spent on the mid-sized banks [in the U.S.]. Consider Africa as one of those banks… Any stimulus money spent in developed countries is going to have less global impact than if the same amount of money were to be spent in Africa… One of the problems at the moment is that the situation is so volatile… It keeps changing every week. It destabilizes everything, including one’s thinking. If we knew where the bottom was we could start thinking as to how to get out of it….”
I am very proud of being an African and specially an Ethiopian. I am also proud that one of our own sons is chosen to be the voice of Africa and other developing nations. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has the knowledge, determination and support of all his African counterparts and the African people to represent them in this important economic summit. But I am ashamed of being related to such a hateful person who is running around, like a mad dog, on a smear campaign to undo the little good that was done for the poor people of Africa.
Professor Al Mariam's last remark may go against his faith so salivatingly expressed for the competency of President Barrack Obama. He puts his closing arguments as follows:
"The basic argument African dictators are making for a G-20 bailout package is a moral one: Unless G-20 taxpayers assume the responsibility for Africa’s economic problems by selling IMF gold and increasing aid, Africans will die by the millions and violence will consume African societies. This is a manifestly false and self-serving moral dilemma manufactured by African dictators to save their own skins. They know that economic problems often trigger social upheavals which result in the sweeping away of corrupt dictatorships.
The G-20 have a superior moral counter-argument to make: The proposed quick sale of IMF gold as a magic elixir to fix Africa’s current economic troubles is snake oil gimmickry. Any such sale requires approval of 85 percent of the 185 IMF member countries. The U.S. alone has 17 percent of these voting rights (enough to veto any decision), and there is no realistic chance that President Obama or Congress will."
Well, I have news for you, Professor Al Mariam the sick and "toxic" Diaspora mouthpiece! As I was finishing the last paragraph of this note, an unprecedented and comprehensive collective actions decision of the G20 nations was being announced by none other than your nemesis, Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whom you referred to sarcastically as the "Golden" boy, has been true to that name. The rules and regulations that will reshape the global financial system that he has been fighting for 10 years have finally come to fruition. He announced that unlike 20 years ago, the G20 nations have come around a table and come to a unanimous agreement.
They have pledged to remain firmly committed to meeting their Millennium Development Goals. They will provide 50 billion more for the developing nations. He said they will triple the resources to IMF, 500 to 700 billion dollars into IMF reserves, and a total of five trillion dollars going for a worldwide stimulus program. They also agreed to boost the money available for financial markets worldwide with a sort of financial stability board to be established in Switzerland to oversee world financial situations.
We are truly in a new world order. We see the beginning of collective actions of people working together to manage globalization. We may see a shift away from the old Washington Consensus that puts everything on the market with a possible worldwide nationalization of banks.
Eat your heart out Al Mariam! The joke is on you. Gordon Brown and Barrack Obama are laughing at you. Meles Zenawi was rewarded for his hard work and will go home to even more challenges. Your toxic views will come to haunt you. As you contemplate another conspiracy theory, the world will move on as it should.
Thank you Meles Zenawi. Thank you G20.
April 2, 2009
Professor (sic) Al Mariam, the most notorious anti-Ethiopian, has now directed his aspersion against the British Prime Minister and the African continent. He spares the Queen of England, but begins his diatribe by condemning the efforts of Prime Minister Gordon Brown "to help cash-strapped African countries manage their balance of payment as their incomes from foreign investments and aid, remittances and commodities prices vanish in with the collapsing global economy." He refers to the British Prime Minister spitefully as "Golden" Brown to set him up for an attack on the PM's management abilities as Chancellor of the Exchequer, over a decade ago. You would think that Prof Al is running for an office in England! The simple message he sends for PM Golden Brown and the G-20 members: “Give Africans a strong hand in establishing democracy and getting rid of dictatorships, and you will never have to worry about giving them handouts!”
The G20 meeting in the homeland of Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meant to be an informal forum that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability. The good professor translates it to mean a "meeting to accept cash, check, credit card or gold to bailout Africa." I fail to see the joke in such contemptible remarks when the whole world and especially Africa, is tittering on the brink of disaster as a result of the global crisis. Millions of African lives will be affected by the decisions of the G20 nations. These lives are of no concern to Prof Al who lives in a spacious villa in California and has never visited Ethiopia for over 30 years and who does not seem to hide his elation over Africa's demise as he directs his bloody pen towards that continent.
The African leaders are attacked in one scoop with no less zeal or hostility that has now become the style of this number one enemy of Africa. Their explanations for the fall out of this unprecedented global crisis are scoffed at and blamed on the lack of democracy on the entire continent. He ridicules their efforts to bring their case to the world leaders as "a chorus of African Chicken Littles clucking: "The sky is falling! The sky is falling! We must go and tell the king!" I wholeheartedly agree that if African governments want aid and loans from the G-20, they must agree to be held accountable for their acts and omissions in upholding the rule of law, protecting the human rights of their people, institutionalizing democratic practices and processes, releasing all political prisoners, allowing the free functioning of civic institutions and the independent media and ensuring judicial independence. For the most part, I believe IMF is trying to do just that. But wait!
Because, his next attack is the IMF. He accuses the IMF for conspiring to sell its gold stash worth 50 billion dollars to distribute to the poor nations of the world. Professor Al Mariam does not put it in those kind words. His version: "Now they are talking about “mid-sized banks”, selling billions of dollars worth of IMF gold and sharing the loot among African dictators". He goes on to attack the IMF and the World Bank for their lack of transparency and failed accounting practices. He finds their practice of praising African leaders in public for their successful economic policies. If you are in the business of lending money, what is wrong with acknowledging those that are doing a good job and paying back their debt? The good professor counters by accusing the IMF officials of documenting in their confidential reports, about corruptions and mismanagements by the same African leaders that they praised.
His final dirty arrow is directed, you guessed it, at our won Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He starts with the sarcastic, but somewhat serious remarks of the Prime Minister regarding the regional administrations' "right to burn money." This out of context quotation was colored by alleged firing of the accountant and Ato Gebru Asrat, to add flavor to his corruption charges against the Prime Minister. This is the kind of corruption he was alluding to in the above paragraph. The IMF must have not known about this!
To be fair to the professor, he did mention about the gold bar fiasco in an Ethiopian bank while he was dreaming about the gold bars that the IMF is supposed to be selling to help Africa.
The other accusations against the Prime Minster were regarding his remarks as he was preparing to join the G20 meeting in London. He has quoted him verbatim and I would not do you justice if I did not include it all and live the judgment to you. Let me just warn you that the professor's conclusion is that the statements fall short of the Prime Minister's report about the double digit growth rate of the economy in the last several years.
“Africa was beginning to stand up and now it is being knocked down again by this crisis, which is not of Africa’s making. That is one of the biggest tragedies. They [G-20] should care about Africa because it is in their interests. Some African countries could go under and that would mean total chaos and violence. In the end the cost of violence is going to be much higher than the cost of supporting Africa… We are talking about the range of money that is being spent on the mid-sized banks [in the U.S.]. Consider Africa as one of those banks… Any stimulus money spent in developed countries is going to have less global impact than if the same amount of money were to be spent in Africa… One of the problems at the moment is that the situation is so volatile… It keeps changing every week. It destabilizes everything, including one’s thinking. If we knew where the bottom was we could start thinking as to how to get out of it….”
I am very proud of being an African and specially an Ethiopian. I am also proud that one of our own sons is chosen to be the voice of Africa and other developing nations. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has the knowledge, determination and support of all his African counterparts and the African people to represent them in this important economic summit. But I am ashamed of being related to such a hateful person who is running around, like a mad dog, on a smear campaign to undo the little good that was done for the poor people of Africa.
Professor Al Mariam's last remark may go against his faith so salivatingly expressed for the competency of President Barrack Obama. He puts his closing arguments as follows:
"The basic argument African dictators are making for a G-20 bailout package is a moral one: Unless G-20 taxpayers assume the responsibility for Africa’s economic problems by selling IMF gold and increasing aid, Africans will die by the millions and violence will consume African societies. This is a manifestly false and self-serving moral dilemma manufactured by African dictators to save their own skins. They know that economic problems often trigger social upheavals which result in the sweeping away of corrupt dictatorships.
The G-20 have a superior moral counter-argument to make: The proposed quick sale of IMF gold as a magic elixir to fix Africa’s current economic troubles is snake oil gimmickry. Any such sale requires approval of 85 percent of the 185 IMF member countries. The U.S. alone has 17 percent of these voting rights (enough to veto any decision), and there is no realistic chance that President Obama or Congress will."
Well, I have news for you, Professor Al Mariam the sick and "toxic" Diaspora mouthpiece! As I was finishing the last paragraph of this note, an unprecedented and comprehensive collective actions decision of the G20 nations was being announced by none other than your nemesis, Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whom you referred to sarcastically as the "Golden" boy, has been true to that name. The rules and regulations that will reshape the global financial system that he has been fighting for 10 years have finally come to fruition. He announced that unlike 20 years ago, the G20 nations have come around a table and come to a unanimous agreement.
They have pledged to remain firmly committed to meeting their Millennium Development Goals. They will provide 50 billion more for the developing nations. He said they will triple the resources to IMF, 500 to 700 billion dollars into IMF reserves, and a total of five trillion dollars going for a worldwide stimulus program. They also agreed to boost the money available for financial markets worldwide with a sort of financial stability board to be established in Switzerland to oversee world financial situations.
We are truly in a new world order. We see the beginning of collective actions of people working together to manage globalization. We may see a shift away from the old Washington Consensus that puts everything on the market with a possible worldwide nationalization of banks.
Eat your heart out Al Mariam! The joke is on you. Gordon Brown and Barrack Obama are laughing at you. Meles Zenawi was rewarded for his hard work and will go home to even more challenges. Your toxic views will come to haunt you. As you contemplate another conspiracy theory, the world will move on as it should.
Thank you Meles Zenawi. Thank you G20.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)