::Blog Dammit::

For those unfamiliar with the political situation in Ethiopia, following is a grossly incomplete and admittedly biased commentary on the last year's political highlights. For the rest of you with a more in-depth knowledge than mine, indulge me.

On May 15, 2005, the Democratic Republic of Ethiopia held its third national elections after the end of a 17-year-long military dictatorship. In the months leading up to the election, the opposition had gained tremendous momentum. A week before the election, a rally drew unprecedented numbers of supporters. Estimates set the crowd at anywhere between 200,000 and two million—give or take 1.8 million. To many hopefuls, this latest election represented the yet unrealized promises of a truly free and democratic election process. That chimera was definitively shattered three weeks later on June 8, when news wires worldwide crackled furiously with reports of federal police firing live ammunition on unarmed civilians protesting what they believed was a rigged election.

Within a few days of the election, the opposition (indiscriminately referred to as one entity but comprising several parties) declared victory, and the preliminary numbers supported their assertion. Shortly thereafter, the incumbent (EPRDF) followed suit, making people scratch their head in wonder and awe at the bizarre and audacious denial of reality.

This marked the beginning of a political tug-of-war that was to claim several scores of innocent lives in two incidents of violent clashes between federal police and civilian protestors—one in June and another in November—and, more recently, a series of bombs exploding in typically crowded areas of the city.

Currently, over 100 individuals, including several opposition leaders, are being tried on serious charges, such as treason. But don't think this is such a novel legal charge. Last year, several African nations had their politics marred by what some say is an effective means of silencing political opponents.

Earlier this month during a press conference to which the private press was invited for the second time in his 14 years as Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi had this to say about the election: "The issue of legitimacy is not even to be questioned.... [T]he Etiopian public has accepted the [election] result and moved on.... [T]he Ethiopian public has accepted it." Much like the American public accepted the results of the 2000 election as determined by a 5-4 vote in the U.S. Supreme Court, with five of the nine justices being Republican nominees?

In his article "The Permanent Election," Robert B. Reich, Professor of Public Policy at UC-Berkeley, explains unapologetically that

"One of the things that distinguishes advanced democracies
from banana republics is that winners and losers accept the
results of elections. Losing candidates and parties don't initiate
coups. Winners don't kill off the losers and their supporters. The
winning party has an pportunity to govern. Both sides go back to
their respective corners — winners take office, losers take other
jobs — and wait until the next election to do battle again."

Although you would think Reich wrote this with Ethiopia in mind, he is making a universally true and basic point that politics is a contact sport, and you must be able to take punches as well as you throw them. This is the simple, undiluted tenet of Democracy and exactly what failed to happen in the Ethiopian political arena.

In response to what they perceived as inherently unjust, Ethiopians around the world—many of whom were born middle-finger first—joined their vocal, socially aware compatriots and took the turn onto the Cyber Highway, blog-bound. As of May 19, one year and a few days after the third national election, blogs generally critical of the EPRDF have been inaccessible from Ethiopia. To the members of the indefinitely suspended private press (excepting a few), this is yet another round of tranquilizer darts being fired off. First, if you are going to hunt, use the real thing. Next, remember what the hunter knows instinctually: Take 'em out in one shot or don't take the shot. What the censors have on their hands now is a waking lion.

The following poem is dedicated to all those who have been silenced, either temporarily or forever.





With a raised admonishing finger,
you speak in bullets and blasts.
Your fire and ferocity linger
in a space that will not pass.

When I rise and retort in stinging truths,
you call me "uncouth,"
"misguided youth".

You say you want to mother me,
but all you do is smother me.

What's that you say, you don't like my blog?
Sorry, but my conscience won't let me be your lap-dog.
Do I really need to invoke the D-word,
because what's happening now is just too absurd.

My armor may be imperceptible,
but your little tantrumed spectacle
cannot make me
unthink,
unsee,
unbelieve,

for I drink from the bottomless cup
from which the pulpy juice of freedom flows.

"You reap what you sow"—
so, go ahead and silence my voice,
take my life if you must,
for then I will grow a thousand-fold.