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Viva Africa — They Need Us!

There are quite a few people, not necessarily white, who have concluded that we Africans, if only we did not have minerals and oil, rich and fertile lands up for grabbing, (we) would be quite useless and irrelevant in the march of History. France’s embattled president even said we are just at the door of civilization and the past century and not yet in though he did not say whether it is because we did not knock, or were too lazy to bother or were kept out. Read More

THE FARCE CALLED KONY (2012)

To avoid any possible misunderstanding, let me start out by stating that Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) , the relative of the equally infamous self declared witch Alice Lakwena ( frequented by many top Kenyan officials in Nairobi) is no joke at all. He is one who should not be taken lightly. For twenty years, he had led a rebellion against Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni, committed atrocities. Kidnapped children, chopped off ears, noses and lips, and, notwithstanding those foreigners who say he has no program at all, he did plan to set up different system in Uganda with, perhaps, himself as the top prophet. Read More

THE AFRICAN PARADOX CONTINUES

President Museveni of Uganda justified his clinging to power by illegally amending the Ugandan Constitution with the argument: I have stayed long in government and I am now an expert on governance and thus the better placed to rule Uganda. It is a kind of a vicious circle argument more in the line of lawyers defending the indefensible. And the AU built on the ruins of the most notorious Ethiopian prison, the Kerchielle, where thousands have perished and suffered, its new HQ. It is very appropriate in my view as the thieves and embezzlers and killers who are gathered within this useless body should sit on chairs on top of a former dungeon and hanging ground. Read More

OF LIES AND DESPOTS

The African despots are thus part of the big lie and working against the continent and its peoples. The lie is huge. The stakes are high as Africa’s future is on balance. Meles Zenawi sells bonds to gullible people promising that they will get their money back once the huge dam get finished on the Nile. Ivory Coast is said to be fine with Ouattara and Kabila is said to be a panacea for the Congo while Tsvangirai is expected to be an improvement on Mugabe, and so on and on. All lies. Read More

HAPPY GENOCIDE!

This time around Amnesty International has got the spirit right by calling for the arrest of George Bush during his tour of Africa. Alas, Ethiopia, Zambia and Tanzania do not have independent and truly African regimes and the man accused of violating the international convention against torture (and possibly against mutilating English grammar) will be feted and honored and not arrested. Bush will surely say “they misunderstimated me”. And Meles Zenawi, whose police and security forces torture and brutalize all prisoners, would give him a hug. Read More

SHOULD PERENNIAL FOOLS BE HANGED?

In the beginning there was the Word but overtime the cost of living has risen beyond tolerance while words have become cheap. Meles Zenawi vowed to assure Ethiopians three decent meals per day but deprived them of even one and ended up preaching dieting to a people that has been starving for centuries. Clinton’s speech in Addis Abeba weaved cheap words and sanctimonious preaching often associated with a sinful and decadent priest. Read More

BIN LADEN IS DEAD BUT OR OUR DEPRESSED LIFE IS STILL AROUND

The much trumpeted death of Osama Bin Laden brings many questions to the fore: where is the body? How come he got buried in the sea? Was he a seaman or a pirate? What is burying people in the sea in accordance with Islamic rituals? Who killed him? Americans or Pakistanis? Did he die in the firefight or was he captured and riddled with bullets making a presentable photo of his corpse impossible? And so and on. Read More

THE TRAGEDY OF REMAINING A SLAVE

Africans who live in Paris know a particular African species, black of course, often bald and muscular, sometimes puffed up but still looking less menacing and more pathetic, dressed in a cheap standard issue black suit, sometimes wearing dark sunglasses, often found at the doors of super markets and department stores. Maybe the species exists elsewhere. This is no African to be categorized as a paperless émigré, a street cleaner, a frightened unemployed soul, the majority, as it were, in the increasingly unwelcoming capital that Paris has become. . . . Read More

GYPSY POLITICS--AFRICANS LOSE AGAIN

Ever since he was elected to power, French president Sarkozy has not disappointed those who were itching to ridicule and chastise him. A small man with a sharp tongue that has, alas, seceded a longtime ago from his big ears and common sense (if any), Sarkozy, of Hungarian descent, has proved from the outset that he would be more condescending and insulting towards Africans than his predecessor Chirac . Jacques Chirac was liked by many people but he was the very person who condemned Africans in France for their noise and smell and refused to apologize to former French colonies who suffered French brutalities and massacres or to properly acknowledge the role of African soldiers who fought for France in the world wars. Read More

OF COLONEL GADAFI AND ARAB RACISM

"We don't know what will happen, what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans,"( Col Gaddafi said in Rome, August 30/ 2010.  

Arab racism to wards Africans has for long been taboo subject--it is politically incorrect to even say that Arabs who are Moslems are racists to boot and consider Africans--Moslem or Christian it does not matter- as inferior.

Reference is made to the Genesis and thethree sons of Noah – Ham, Japheth and Shem with Arabs claiming that “the accursed Ham was the progenitor of the black race; that Japheth begat the full-faced, small eyed Europeans, and that Shem fathered the handsome Arabs with beautiful face and hair.” Arab philosophers also laid the ground for the racism of their kin towards Africans and all blacks. Ibn Sina (Avicenna 980–1037), Arab’s most famous and influential philosopher/ scientist in Islam, described blacks as “people who are by their very nature slaves.” He wrote: “All African women are prostitutes, and the whole race of African men is abeed (slave) stock.” He equated black people with “rats plaguing the earth.”
Ibn Khaldum, revered especially by Algerians, an Arab historian stated that “Blacks are characterized by levity and excitability and great emotionalism,” adding that “they are every where described as stupid.” Al-Dimashqi, often described as an Arab pseudo scientist wrote, “the Equator is inhabited by communities of blacks who may be numbered among the savage beasts. Their complexion and hair are burnt and they are physically and morally abnormal. Their brains almost boil from the sun’s heat…..”Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani said of black people: “…..the zanj (the blacks) are overdone until they are burned, so that the child comes out between black, murky, malodorous, stinking, and crinkly-haired, with uneven limbs, deficient minds, and depraved passions…..” Read More

COULD THIS BE THE WAY OUT?

Some people accuse us old guards of not adopting new ways and new solutions even to old and persistent problems and I think it is perhaps time we consider novel approaches and solutions to deal with our serious problems that have refused to leave us. Read More

ARE DESPOTS INTELLIGENT?
Or (Forgive Me for Asking)
IS MELES ZENAWI INTELLIGENT?

This is really a joke, a pastime actually as dictator and intelligent are oxymoron. Sort of an idiot Savant, a fine mess, a little pregnant, accurate rumors. An Amhara Weyane and abundant poverty. Of late some quarters have insisted on calling the tyrant in Addis Abeba intelligent at a time when he is blatantly rigging an election while at the same time insisting on calling Robert Mugabe a blundering fool. When Idi Amin of Uganda was engineered by Britain and Israel to stage his coup against "Socialist" Milton Obote the British media was quick to mention and even praise his "native" intelligence. Native was the code word used for covering up "almost illiterate brute soldier of British colonialism". Toe the line and you will be called intelligent. Read more

Poem By Hama Tuma

 

To read click here
To listen click here

 

HAMA TUMA’S MUCH HAILED FIRST BOOK REPUBLISHED:

SECOND EDITION OF “THE CASE OF THE SOCIALIST WITCHDOCTOR AND OTHER STORIES” PUBLISHED
March 14, 2010

Hama Tuma’s book was first published by Heinemann (London), African Writers Series, back in 1993 and it immediately received rare ahttp://amnewsupdate.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/thae-case-of-the-socilaist-witchdoctor.jpg?w=97&h=150nd positive reviews. Famous Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiongo wrote the preface for first edition and stated: “Hama Tuma brilliantly captures the contradictions that make up the real Ethiopia of the twentieth century”. Robert P. Smith of Rutgers University also wrote a long review from which the one below is excerpted:

Hama Tuma’s tales admirably illustrate the spirit that prevails widely under oppressive regimes in Africa today. Dreadful though they may be in content, these excellently written stories combine the satire and imagination of a Montesquieu and the inventiveness, humor, and oral tradition of a Bernard Dadie, a Birago Diop, and others”.

Hama Tuma’s stories dealt with dark period of the Mengistu regime, the Red Terror that shed so much blood and tested the core and soul of Ethiopians. Hama chose satire to deal with grim reality and as many readers and reviewers have pointed out he succeeded to capture the reality “brilliantly”.  Hama Tuma has gone on to write more stories proving his talent at satire and irony but this his first book remains to be the best of them all. Here is what an Israeli reviewer wrote when the book was translated into Hebrew and published in Israel in 2009:

“Allow me to highly recommend an Ethiopian book that I have been reading very slowly for the past two weeks, very slowly so it won’t end. I didn’t translate it (Dori Parnes’ translation is exquisite) so my recommendation is pretty objective. I asked the quality-addicted publisher, Saray Gutman, to send me the press release and the cover …. so you’ll know what I’m talking about and so you won’t confuse this book with other Ethiopian books.
Rarely does a reader bump into a book he doesn’t want to finish reading so much that he is angry with the writer who didn’t “bother” writing another 100 pages. For me “The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor” is one of those priceless pieces of work. I normally read a lot but I don’t remember ever being sorry ending a book of such high standard. I might be a little bit exaggerating but subjectively this is how I feel. Add to this the fact that the writer is Ethiopian and anonymous but still – this is a masterpiece.

The book handles a terrifying period. Stalin had many students who were even “better” than him, improving the system up to a total madness. The reality in the book is insane, shocking and we can only grip it through humor, wittiness and logic giving the impression of a constant absurdity.
So this is the book and I have no intension of lending it to you so go out and buy yourself a copy.
Avital Inbar
For long out of print, Hama Tuma’s book has now been reprinted and is available for the public.

To order your copy e mail to Menberu.lemma2@gmail.com

price :US$ 12 plus US$ 3 for mail

paypal address: menberu.lemma2@gmail.com

 

"ZE FOLLIES" OF AFRICA

From the son of Zenawi to Zuma, the follies of Africa are indeed the presidents and prime ministers, the power mongers and corrupt officials staining the face of our beloved continent. Some are funny, most are not but they all add up to spell folly and destruction for Africa, It is evident I prefer Zuma to Meles Zenawi, the goat faced tyrant who runs an ethnic discriminatory politics making some 80 million Ethiopians suffer. Read more

 

THE DEVIL AND HAITI

Some of my Anglo -Saxon friends have for long suspected that the distance between an African and Satan is not that long at all. To begin with, it is common knowledge that Satan is black as are Africans. There are. of course, some Africans who imagine that they are not really black and belong to that category the French boldly call the "couleur sauvee" or the saved colors, that is saved from being black (God Forbid!), Métis, light skinned, brown, what have you. In any case this African affinity with Satan has been mentioned often to explain the African's alleged propensity to cause calamities and problems of all kinds. Read more

Netele Theatre Performs Hama Tuma Play at BGU Africa Centre

The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor, a play adapted from short stories by Ethiopian activist/writer Hama Tuma, will be performed Tuesday, December 8, as part of the inauguration ceremonies of the Africa Centre at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Directed by Yafa Schuster, the play will be performed by members of the Netele Theatre.

Based on court trials that took place in Ethiopia during Mengistu’s reign, the stories, written with Hama Tuma’s unique combination of satiric wit and warmth, reveal the realities of life under an oppressive regime in all its pain and absurdity. The current production was initiated by Doron Tavory at Hazira Performance Art festival in March 2008. The play is adapted from two stories: The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and the Case of the Illiterate Saboteur. The text of the play remains faithful to the stories, as translated by Dori Parnes. The complete collection of Hama Tuma’s stories, translated into Hebrew by Parnes, was published by Achuzat Bayit in 2009. Read more

Will Castrating Tyrants Help?

The rest of the world has not got it yet. Many still think that Africa 's major problems concern famine, AIDS, conflicts and wars, poverty, rigged elections, nepotism and corruption, fevers of all types that are said to originate from the continent and more. How wrong. No one knows Africa like its cruel tyrants and they have time and again told the world that Africa 's problems are elsewhere.

Tyrants in Africa are often considered as lazybones but this is also very wrong. Our tyrants are very busy souls, often burning the midnight oil to find ways and means of making our life more miserable. They are hardworking busy bees. Bringing famine to a country with fertile land and a hardworking peasantry requires not only talent but diligence. Organizing rigged elections is not child's play even if it has been done before and experience gained. Getting money out of the tight fisted World Bank requires finesse and persistence. Even if the West wants to go along, convincing it that a one party regime is basking in a multi party system requires not only shamelessness but also hard work. Siphoning off the revenues from oil and minerals to one's private bank accounts demands not only perfidy and greed but vigilance and diligent activity as it is a 24 hours undertaking, seven days a week and tolerates no slackening. Contrary to photos of overfed dictators dozing or napping at international meets, our tyrants are addicted workaholics as dictatorship and laziness do not go together. Oppression is no joke and exploitation demands indefatigable energy. Read more


BEGGING 101

I am sure there are a lot of people who think that begging needs no training, all you have to do is look miserly (which you will look if reduced to that state of starvation and stress or anxiety anyway), roll your eyes, and beg. How wrong they are! Begging is an art like all other such callings, it needs training and expertise and the recent report that in one Indian village such a beggars' school exists has highlighted the necessity of stopping the amateur beggars in Africa, a continent known for its ultra professional beggars.

In the good old days you could just beg (have pity on me oh passer by, I am starving!) and tug at he hearts of otherwise disinterested citizens. Modern times have hardened the ordinary human being; pity is a scarce commodity, giving help turned into a business unto itself. Consider the number of charity organizations and NGOs around the world (more than seventy in Addis Ababa dealing with the thriving business of child adoption) and the point becomes clear. Begging has become a competitive business, cut throat all the way, very capitalist. You can't have the millionaire without the beggar. One begs the other, the contrast is all. Beggars have to be professional, modern, savvy-- the times require this. In Egypt , India , Ethiopia and other places professionalism has reached the level where a beggar can rent a child for a day; organize an open bleeding wound to expose to appear pitiable and very wretched. The hard hearts need shocks, in the Indian school of begging children are taught how to sound and appear miserable while in places like Ethiopia there is really no need of training for this--we are very miserable. Read more


LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE


Africans may be miserable and subjected to poverty but they are on the whole nice people forever thinking of the welfare of others even in crazy times when they may be forced to indulge in a genocide or cut arms and legs with machetes. It is a dour and grim world we live in and so the Africans' untiring attempt to make us laugh now and then should be appreciated. Read more

To read the article click here

 

New Poem By Hama Tuma
Click here to listen to the audio read by Finote Democracy Voice of Ethiopian Unity

 

OBAMA AND AFRICA: MORE OF THE SAME

“An obliging fool is more dangerous than an enemy” says a Russian proverb. In Amharic we say “kemogn dejaf mofer yikoretal” or “mogn indenegerut, beklo indasegerut”. Those Ethiopians who hailed the Obama speech in Accra and rejoiced at the possibility of a new deal for Ethiopia and Africa thanks to Obama remind us of such obliging and dangerous fools. Read more

TIME TO BRAND THEM ALL


There is a time to die and a time to live (in Africa there is always more time to die) but there is also a time to brand. Cattle owners and slave drivers did it. The Nazis did it on Jews. Meles Zenawi's guerrillas used the scythe to singe and brand their innocent victims. Branding was in for long and may be due for a comeback if we are to heed the advice of a Swazi member of parliament. He demanded that people with AIDS be branded so that their potential victims get a forewarning as they are being prepared for a dangerous foreplay. An interesting idea, to say the least. Read more

 

MICHAEL JACKSON--A DIFFERENT ADIEU  


Michael Jackson (MJ) was world famous --in other words conspicuously miserable for the entire world to see. It is not the lack of a better thing to do or write that has pushed me to pen this brief and different adieu to the legend (Ethiopians say an idle mother would engineer her own son's divorce) but the need to thank this 50 years old child for the very many good gestures and good things that he did especially for ordinary Africans. He may not have known it but MJ did help us in many ways.Read more

BERLUSCONI--NO, NOT FUNNY! Like Uganda , Italy has had its political clowns.


If Uganda had Idi Amin Dada, witch doctor Alice Lakwenya and even the present death man Joseph Kony, Italy had Mussolini. The image of the Italian fascist, IL Duce, strutting atop a piazza Venetia balcony and shouting "l'etiopia e italiana!" ( Ethiopia is Italian), when his invading troops entered Addis Ababa . is unforgettable. The bald fascist had his own show much like the ideal western buffoon called Idi Amin. Mussolini was hanged upside down by his victims and Idi Amin died in comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia (whoever said these Arab monarchs and Sheikhs had good feelings towards Africans anytime?). Read more

MELES ZENAWI--DEFINITELY NOT FUNNY!


The diminutive tyrant called Meles Zenawi has a slick tongue which some people imagine expresses intelligently though out ideas. It is a busy forked tongue that can spew out a lie in at least three languages in at least four directions. Most Ethiopians, Eritreans and Somalis have learnt this belatedly much to their chagrin.

As much as Meles tries to be smart (street smart say many of his detractors) he also tries to be funny but, much to his chagrin, unknowingly. The thin lie between a lie and the truth had long ago been blurred by him and his attempt at humour usually ends up being grotesque lies trying to pass of as truth. When he sent his troops to invade Somalia for the first time he declared very seriously "we did cross the border but it was not an invasion" and was surprised that many did not believe him or laugh at his joke. For a man whose tyrannical regime holds more than 35,000 political prisoners in official and secret prisons and camps, he wants to be believed when he declares "we do not hold even one political prisoner". Back in 1993, he officially promised the Westerners that opposition parties leaders wanting to come to Addis Ababa for a Peace and Reconciliation conference will not face any repression ("it is their country," was what he said) and when they came he whisked most of them right from the airport to prison (one is still imprisoned on trumped up charges). He vowed to have a multi party system and immediately banned all independent groups and parties and flooded the country with his satellite groups, hastily made up the African way, with bribes and benefits laced with threats and blackmail. Yet, Meles appeared as an intelligent if not humorous leader to many Westerners, ranging from IMF and World Bank officials to Bush and his poodle dog Tony Blair.
Read more

Of Modern Slavery and Same Old Slaves


We all hear countless accusations and denunciations being hurled at what has come to be known as modern slavery. Talk of slavery and it is only on June 18/2009 that the US Senate issue a formal apology. One news report put it as follows:

"The Senate adopted a resolution Thursday (June 18) offering a formal apology for slavery and the era of "separate but equal" Jim Crow laws that followed. After the clerk finished reading the resolution (S Con Res 26) in full, Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, the measure's sponsor, noted that Congress has never before issued a formal apology for slavery".
Read More.....

Reading Hama Tuma in Hebrew

By Ayelet Dekel Sunday June 21, 2009

“Languages are not strangers to one another, but are, a priori and apart from all historical relationships, interrelated in what they want to express.”

Walter Benjamin in “The Task of the Translator”


To read more click here

 

“Languages are not strangers to one another, but are, a priori and apart from all historical relationships, interrelated in what they want to express.”
Walter Benjamin in “The Task of the Translator”

Western culture has a penchant for worshipping the exotic from a safe myopic distance, overlooking the human reality rubbing up against its elbows and knees, unintentionally creating cross-cultural connections comical, frustrating, and inspirational all at once. Israel, literally and figuratively, finds itself somewhere between Europe and Africa. The “people of the Book”, are currently celebrating “Book Week” with hundreds of new titles on display in all the major cities. Despite Israel’s considerable Ethiopian population, the only work of fiction (to the best of this writer’s knowledge) published by an Ethiopian writer this year is Hama Tuma’s The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and Other Stories, translated by Dori Parnes (Ahuzat Bayit 2009). Activist writer-in-exile Hama Tuma’s book is out of print and essentially unavailable in English, and has never been officially published in Ethiopia in either Amharic or English, so if you want to read this brilliantly funny, sensitive, intelligent portrayal of life under Mengistu’s reign of terror, start learning Hebrew.  To read more click here

 

Articles

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New Poem

በሀገሬ ልኩራ

To Read the poem click here

WHERE DID OUR DECENT MURDERS GO?

Ethiopians, who have had to endure brutal deaths over decades, have a common wish which asks God “to make my death decent” (amamuaten asamirew). I am one of those who wonder why Ethiopians pray since He hardly ever listens to them but then again Ethiopians are a hopeful lot who will die hoping and praying for better days that never seem to come. Read More.....

OF SWINE FLU AND MOTHER AFRICA

Thank you swine flu and Mexico ! For once Africa has not been blamed for being the source of a deadly virus. From Ebola to Lassa Fever, Rift Valley Fever, White Nile virus, the Marbrug Virus, the “Jealousy” malady and even AIDS and all so called haemorrhagic fevers have been attributed to poor old Africa . Africa is good for some blame at least.

The ongoing swine flu has been first detected in Mexico and the reports indicate that a small five year old Mexican boy was the first victim. Imagine just if his father or any other Sanchez or Mexican had been on safari in the Serengeti plains and the swine fever would have been called the African swine flu and Mother Africa would have been blamed for a mild yet deadly flu that you can avoid by wearing a face mask and washing your hands! Shame of shames, an African virus that does not kill millions would have been bad for Africa ’s reputation. This time around the Mexicans are to blame even though it could very well be gringo/American tourists who took the virus there and brought it back to their homes. Back in 1981, the first AIDS victim was an American but somehow the scientists argued that the deadly virus must have originated from the “dark” continent. By the way, the Israelis have reportedly protested against the present flu being called the swine flu. Not kosher at all. The virus is said to be a combination of swine, bird and human flu, a combination that poor Africa cannot really afford come to think of it. Now that this deadly flu is beginning to ravage the Western world a vaccine may be found for it fast as it is no malaria killing millions in over populated underdeveloped countries. Read More.....

 


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To listen ato the audio click here

 

OF A ROYAL PARDON AND FRENCH DENIALS

“…the African man has never really entered history”
Nicholas Sarkozy, the French President, in a speech on Africa made in Dakar, Senegal on July 26 th, 2007

To be fair, Nicolas Sarkozy did say Africa deserves to be happy just like other continents. But in the above quoted speech in Senegal he did say also: “The (Africans) have never really launched themselves into the future,” and Mr. Sarkozy did add “the African peasant, who for thousands of years has lived according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time … In this imaginary world, where everything starts over and over again, there is room neither for human endeavor, nor for the idea of progress. The problem of Africa … is to be found here. Africa’s challenge is to enter to a greater extent into history … It is to realize that the golden age that Africa is forever recalling will not return, because it has never existed.”

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HAMA TUMA’S FIRST BOOK NOW PUBLISHED IN HEBREW (IN ISRAELI)

 

The first Hama Tuma book in English, “The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and Other Stories” (Heinemann, African Writers Series, 1993), has been translated and published in Hebrew by the Achuzat Bayit Publishing House Ltd (Tel Aviv). The well known historian Professor Haggai Erlich has written the introduction to the Hebrew version while Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiongo had written the preface to the English one. Other Hama Tuma books have been translated into Italian and French.

The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor, By Hama Tuma

In the book the twelve stories of part I deal with courtroom scenes during the Mengistu regime while the eleven stories in part II recount life as it prevailed under the oppressive regime and in Ethiopia of the time. Reviewing the book, Ngugi wrote: Hama Tuma brilliantly captures the contradictions that make up the real Ethiopia of the twentieth century”. On his part, Robert P. Smith Jr. of Rutgers University wrote: “ Hama Tuma’s tales admirably illustrate the spirit that prevails widely under oppressive regime in Africa today. Dreadful though they may be in content, these excellently written stories combine the satire and imagination of a Montesquieu and the inventiveness, humour, and oral tradition of Bernard Dadie, a Birago Diop and others”.

For the Hebrew version of the book contact Office@Abayit-books.com

Hama Tuma can be contacted at hamatuma@gmail.com

www.hamatuma.com

Of DJs and Coups: Africa’s Unending Originality

The “dark” continent is in reality the most vibrant and original continent. Tam tams are still there, the drums of passion and of an undying spirit of hope rising against the reality of despair and death. Westerners have this annoying tendency of taking poverty as exotic (take the Oscar winning film Slumdog Millionaire as an example) while disliking the poor, of loving Africa’s wild and Serengeti type plains while detesting the Africans as a whole.
Read More.....


CONTEMPT FOR AFRICA OR JUSTICE SERVED? (COMMENT ON THE ARREST WARAANT FOR BESHIR OF THE SUDAN)

The controversial International Criminal Court has finally come out with an arrest warrant for President Omar Beshir of the Sudan . The warrant is out for war crimes and/ or crimes against humanity but not for genocide—a point that would surely not matter that much for the accused

Let me say from the outset that I have little or no sympathy for the tyrant in the Sudan who, aside from causing the slaughter of so many in South Sudan and Darfur , has deported many Ethiopians to their deaths or disappearance and has sent his troops to occupy Ethiopian land. That said, the decision by the ICC and the clamour it has engendered from quarters that have proven contempt for Africa calls for some reflection. As I tried to point out in my previous article, “Of Courts and Hypocrisies”, the ICC seems to be in reality the ACC, the African Criminal Court, as it seems hell bent to deal ONLY with alleged African war criminals (up to now) from the Congo, Sudan, Central African Republic and Uganda. From Milosevic to Charles Taylor and the Congolese war lord, that court in The Hague has yet to deal with notorious war criminals from the West. To read the whole article click here

OF COURTS AND HYPOCRISIES

A loud hue and cry is being heard just because a Sierra Leonean Court found three former rebel leaders (of the Revolutionary United Front--RUF) guilty of war crimes. The accused were found guilty of what a CNN reporter termed creative torture (what is so creative about chopping hands and arms?). The foreign media cried joy in its usual paternalism, congratulating Africans for conducting a trial (that the UN was involved is a footnote) and delivering a verdict of guilty. For those of us Africans who know African judges and courts and their insatiable appetite for finding all and sundry guilty, there is of course no surprise at all. To read the whole article click here



To read the whole article click here

Africa’s Woes and Jokes

The time has come, the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things;
Of shoes and ships—and sealing wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”

Lewis Carroll ( Alice ’s Adventure Through the Looking Glass)

Somalia has done it again. For 18 years it showed the world that a country can exist without a State (which makes the Somali fundamentalists the first real Marxists) and still accomplish all the functions of a proud African State —kill, maim, destroy the country, displace millions, bring in famine, commit atrocities and more. And now, as the whole or at least half the world watches, Somalia has elected its latest president (no fake claim like Meles or other dictators who allege that 99.9% elected them)--, meaning some 500 MPs from various clans—themselves unelected-- elected Sheikh Ahmed as president and did the election not inside Somalia but in a neighboring country, Djibouti.

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Yetiwled Tiwstawoch

View Trailer

Man yehon Bewnet Sew?

lEMTENKER TSIDAT DEGMO QIDMIA KERAS
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I STILL DON'T WANT TO BE AN AMERICAN

The statement by Rama Yade, a young Senegal born woman who serves under the French president as a junior minister for human rights, provoked my foray into this mined field that often triggers wrath from the "we love America" camp. Yade was euphoric that Barack Obama got elected US president and said: "This is the fall of the Berlin Wall times ten. America is becoming the new World. On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes". To read this article click Here......

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IF THEY ARE YOUNG ENOUGH TO DIE, THEY ARE OLD ENOUGH TO KILL
OR
(WHY YOUNG CHILDREN FIGHT IN WARS?)

Cras enim. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Ut eu augue. Integer risus wisi, semper eu, congue quis, lobortis ut, massa. Vestibulum auctor vestibulum lectus. Vivamus neque. Cras lobortis. Aenean ut turpis eu libero volutpat euismod. eget lectus vitae ligula ornare tempor. Vivamus scelerisque lorem a elit. Sed id mauris. To read this article click here..

The Problem of Modernity

" Give a dog a bad name and hang it,” says the proverb. In AmariNa, too, there is a saying that comes to mind “ Libeluat yefeleguatn qoq jigra yiluatal.” The saying assumes that qoq is not edible or kosher. Be that as it may, when the Seleda Editors asked me to try my hand at writing something on modernism in the Ethiopian context, I was perplexed at various levels. Were they indirectly having a private laugh at my previous attempts to go modern by writing short stories and poems in English? yalTereTere temeneTere. And as a self-respecting Ethiopian, I had to look for evil (and hidden) motives first before coming to the easier conclusion. In any case, in the end I had to grapple with modernism itself.
To read this article click here.....

To read this article click here....

 

 

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