YE HABESHA KETERO

Not necessarily as an expression of allegiance to the learned way of starting discussions rather to assert the whole truth, we HABESHAS have appreciable ethical values that we need to nurture. And also not to stir wanton controversy on marginal issues on what and what nots that the list may include, I shall leave up to the readers to have their own take on those ethical values that we consider akin to us. But understanding ethics as a measure of both personal and social behaviour is worth examining. 

Poverty to dependency or the other way round?

Poverty as a socio-economic condition and dependency syndrome expressed through shameless acts like begging need to be examined in broader scale in our community. While reading one blog postings in two parts (EZEGA PART I, and EZEGA PART II), titled ‘why is begging and economic dependency normal in Ethiopia’, I couldn’t stop being bothered by the issue. As the second part winds up by a question as to the cause-effect linkage between poverty and dependency, I wanted to reflect on that.

Just to reiterate, even if the level differs it exists in many countries as well. However, Ethiopia’s condition appears chronically high and usually fills our tourists’ story bags, supported by camera memory cards, on their way back to their respective countries. Everyone I meet who has been in Ethiopia couldn’t pass by without expressing his/her concern about the level of the ‘begging industry’ in our country.

What is quite perplexing and troubling is not how we ended up producing beggars and dependants at home and on the street with such alarming rate, rather the comfort one enjoys in being in that state of affairs, and ‘we’ not doing anything about it. By ‘we’ I am referring to the much wider subjects, the community and the government. I remember the late Dr. Abdulmejid Hussien’s story that he spoke about in public media long time ago about the ills of poverty that we need to fight. He narrated a story of two nomads in our pastoralist communities who were taking leave for the night in their temporary tents. They took refuge in their tents that only enabled them to keep their heads inside and their legs out. Amidst his sleep, one of them continually heard a disturbing noise that sounded like scratching on one’s body and he was not able to sleep. Then he could not help asking his friend who was resting in the other tent with silence whether he too was listening to the same noise. His friend replied ‘It’s OK my friend, the Hyena is eating my leg.’ Dr. Abdulmejid then related this story to our conditions of being comfortable with our appalling poverty and degrading lives like begging. So what troubled the other man was not the fact that the hyena was eating his friend's leg, rather the fact that his friend had accepted it, comforted himself and would not mind about it.

Societal wealth is primarily its people. It is also a scientific truism that no one is born rich, though s/he could be born to a rich family. Even in the latter case, wealth will have to continue to generate wealth and for that, people will have to play a critical role. Otherwise, even being born to a rich family may not ipso facto lead one to richness, rather gives him/her an opportunity that, if seized, may make things easier for him than someone born to a poor family.

In both instances, however, being comfortable with the status quo is the serious social evil that would make one descend into the state of poverty. The point I want to make is, therefore, it is the dependency, the state of mind that provides comfort and resignation to the conditions we find ourselves in that leads to poverty, and not the other way round. Many factors play a role in all these. Childhood and child development is a fundamental part of generation building that family, society and the state must take responsibility for. Social capital should be directed to this continuous generational project. It is by no accident that primary education is given this much prominence that it need to be compulsory, unlike secondary and tertiary education which are rights than duties.   

Apart from that our social values and cultures at times contribute negatively when it comes to hard work and creativity. I have to repeat this; regrettably we have not got our conscientious and start to celebrate the virtues of hard work. Our society is so ‘decent’ that we do not even want to use the term ‘beggar’, rather prefer to employ the more comforting name-tag ‘yene bite.’ That I should say is the way we too comfort ourselves so that the person on the receiving end remains comfortable in his state of affairs. I treasure throughout my life Be’alu Girma’s book ‘HADIS’ from which I remember a sentence like I do my birthday: ‘YE ETHIOPIA FEWUS YEMISERU EJOCH NACHEW’; ‘only working hands shall redeem Ethiopia’ or so it goes by the foreign language. That was something that Be’alu must have felt deeply back in the early 70s and I would still believe that is what we dearly need today.