OPINIONBy Yohannes Gebresellasie (Ph.d.)
The people of Gondar have lived with their Tigrian brothers and sisters in peace and harmony. The same happened with the intermarriage between them. They have known each other and considered each other as brothers and sisters and helped each other in good and in bad times since time immemorial. The people of Gondar just like other Ethiopians have protected and preserved Ethiopia's freedom, safety, security and territorial integrity fighting internal and external enemies of our nation with their brothers and sisters since time immemorial.
The people of Gondar are perhaps the closest people to the people of Tigray. They have the same culture, tradition, and way of living and physical and psychological make-up as the people of Tigray. One cannot differentiate a person from Gondar from that of Tigray. Most of the people in Gondar speak or understand Tigrigna and almost all people in Tigray speak or understand Amharic. An excellent testimony of that are Gondar students studying in different universities in Tigray. They live and study in Tigray speaking their birth language Amharic and even speak the local language Tigrigna. They live and study in Tigray with no problem, none what so ever. In fact, the local people give more respect and hospitality to them than their own residents.
That relationship between and among our people is what we inherited from our ancestors and that noble relationship is what we must pass to the next generation and not violence, conflicts and wars. Conflicts and war, illegal and violent activities as ways and means of achieving individual, group or institutional goals and objectives will always have detrimental consequences on peace and development of any nation because they cause damage, destruction and underdevelopment that are highly regrettable.
The nation was saddened by the recent regrettable incident that happened in Gondar. Few chauvinists guided by the rogue regime of Asmara burned public transport, killed people of Tigray origin, killed Federal and state police members deployed for public safety, destroyed hotels especially those owned by Tigrian business people. This became a major cause of loss of human lives and destruction of invaluable materials. As there are Tigrians in Gondar, there are and should be Gonderes in Tigray because that too is their country. There are millions of Gonderes everywhere in different places in Ethiopia and they have been living side by side with their Ethiopian brothers and sisters of different languages, religions, cultures and traditions for centuries. Few negative people want to deny them of these precious values and norms they shared together for centuries.
How can one separate these men from mercenaries?
It has been over twenty-five years now that the Ethiopian people began to enjoy peace, democracy and good governance and focus on sustainable development in order to get rid of another chronic envy: Poverty and under development. The country has been going on the right track since this government came to power and most importantly, the people lived in peace and harmony. Violence and anarchy has been an issue of the past and people focused on development, investment, education and training in order to put their nation forward. All these, they realized can only be achieved if there is peace. They also realize that all the achievements they achieved can only be sustainable in the absence of violence and in the presence of peace, democracy and good governance.
The Ethiopian people do very much want to maintain and safeguard their achievements over the years gained through hard fought struggle and immense sacrifice. They definitely do not want to give up and loose to some mercenaries who would like to take them back to the old and archaic mentality. Democratization, good governance and sustainable development are matters of survival and not or choice for the public at large; therefore, they are here to stay and never to be hijacked by some religious fundamentalists and extremists from within and the Diaspora. The important achievements of the Ethiopian people have been safeguarded by the Constitution of the land that explicitly recognizes equality of all religions.
The incidents in Gondar clearly show the presence of mercenaries readied to sell this country and its people for money. That is exactly what these mercenary men have done in Gondar. These mercenaries are guided by Shabia and its loyal mercenaries in the Diaspora from their sanctuary in North America living comfortably there and wanting Ethiopians who live in this country together sharing their values and norms for centuries to kill each other. What these mercenary men do not know or do not want to know however is that here in Ethiopia, there is a tradition where all people live understanding each other's' language, culture, religion and tradition. However, these mercenary men are full of hatred and are racists, bigots and ethno-centrists.
These mercenaries do not possess peace internally and consequently; they are dominated by fear, hate, mischief, sorrow and many other wrongful acts. Their negative deeds revolve around them and they become internally and mentally sick. Further, since they are not peaceful externally, they are less tolerant and they have developed aggressive behaviour and aggressive act such as violence both verbal and physical. As a result, they not only become major instigators for both human as well as material damages and destruction but they also become causes for instability, lawlessness and anarchy. Therefore, all Ethiopians must be very careful not to be associated with such sick people. Instead, they should focus and work hard in order to fight poverty, eliminate conflicts and wars, guarantee prosperity and most importantly preserve and retain peace in a country.
Whereas it is very clear that peace is extremely momentous for everything positive, it can also slip away if people are not careful and if they become too much reluctant. Peace as precious as it is can easily be disturbed by peace-hating people like the ones we currently saw in Gondar and the result of this could be catastrophic and dangerous. It is important therefore, that people give their utmost value and significance for peace because without peace nothing can be achieved. Further, whatever time they might take, these fundamental phenomenon of a civilized society will help narrow differences, strengthen healthy relationships and cooperation amongst the public at large and most importantly help reduce and avoid damage and distraction and enhance mutual respect and unity in diversity.
It is very important to underscore the significant role that can be played by the Diaspora in promoting and advancing dialogue, tolerance and other peaceful ways and means of resolving differences be it individual, group or political parties. Since the Diaspora by and large reside in countries with rich experience in tolerance, dialogue and other similar peaceful conflict resolution mechanisms and since they live and experience those norms, they are best suited to contribute their experiences to their country of origin.
They can play a significant role in promoting those values and norms to the society with less experience in that regard. In other words, they must help in transferring those peaceful values that they take for granted in places where they reside and the achievements gained as a result; as opposed to advocating violence and other illegal activities in order to achieve personal, group or institutional goals. Diaspora's gift for their country of origin should therefore primarily focus on promoting peace, stability and sustainable development and certainly not violence, anarchy and lawlessness.
Safeguarding our values and the Constitution
We are living in the 21st century Ethiopia and Ethiopia has a constitution. The Constitution of the nation puts all Nations, Nationalities and Peoples on equal footings and safeguards their rights and responsibilities. Further, the Constitution creates unity in diversity and recognizes and respects the over eighty-five ethic groups in Ethiopia with the same status.
Ethnic extremism, terrorism and advancement of hate propaganda using race cover up and xenophobic agenda is a thing of the past, an obsolete, archaic, uncivilized and backward phenomenon that this dynamic and vibrant generation of the 21st century cannot and will not accept. However, few extremists and terrorists take advantage of the many different interpretations of ethnocentric xenophobic agenda in order to appropriate the function of xenophobic agenda.
This young generation is busy focusing on building and re-building this nation because young Ethiopians are recipients and future leaders of this nation; therefore, they cannot afford to be mislead by those individuals and groups who spread hate propaganda. Further, young Ethiopians cannot spend their precious time on divisive, unproductive and malevolence agenda: a manifestation of the enemy of their country and their people.
Tolerance as part and parcel of the Ethiopian culture has been instrumental to and a binding factor of the Ethiopian social and/or communal relationships. In other words, tolerance is a symbol of Ethiopianess. This binding factor has helped Ethiopians to share joy and jubilation together as a people during good times and console each other as a people during difficult times and that, despite their religious, linguistic or any other differences. It further helped Ethiopians fulfil their citizenship rights and responsibilities jointly and helped create a sense of belongingness and love and respect for fellow Ethiopians on the one hand and for the motherland on the other.
It can be argued that within the Ethiopian context, tolerance, love and respect for a fellow citizen takes precedence and is given a paramount importance despite religious, linguistic or any other differences. This cultural trait that has been transcended from generation to generation is a solid expression of the Ethiopian way of life. Anyone, individual or group that may try to bring to this country the real problem of extremism, terrorism and xenophobic agenda under the banner of fundamentalism to infiltrate this highly embedded culture and to create a division amongst the Ethiopian people simply to advance hidden agenda better read the history of the Ethiopian people. Those who tried failed time and again rather deficiently and those who have a propensity to try are doomed to fail.
In our era of globalization, nations are getting closer and closer for shared experience and for shared prosperity. Nations are also caring more and more for each other as they have realized that they all live in the same world and thus have to look after each other and not hate each other. Ethiopians must learn to appreciate each other's cultural, linguistic, ethnic and religious differences and maintain tolerance and respect to the rule of law. Further, the people both from within and the Diaspora must focus on development issues to improve the economic condition of the country. Generally, peace and tolerance are cornerstones to achieving developmental endeavour and therefore, they should not be taken for granted.
Source: AllAfrica.com
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