Help me if you can. Take me to a school to learn and understand; I must have missed out a lot by sticking to the old schools of thought. Time is moving fast, perhaps the Amhara elites have something to offer in a new direction, maybe or maybe not.
What does one nation, one people mean, which the Amharas keep telling us to stick to?
If we all are part of the one nation, one people, why do the Amharas want the Tigrians, Benshaguls, Kemant, Agews, Oromos, Shenashins and many more to be chased out by force from their birth places and settle somewhere else or be killed? If we are all Ethiopians don’t we have the birth right to stay put wherever we chose to live?
Or does it mean the Amharas have a different understanding of what it means to be part and parcel of the same nation? They keep telling us they are faithful believers and guardians of the notion of one nation, one people; instead, they are chasing and evicting people in the name of the nation and flag. Do they think they are chasing after rodents and vermin and not people like them, walking and talking?
Let us say they don’t like people, in this case ‘Ethiopians’ ruled and governed under a federal system from corner to corner; that they prefer a unitary state, all meshed moulded as one entity. But if that is what they aspire to, albeit by coercive measures, why do they call themselves, Amharas and want Amhara identity? They wanted their culture, language, albeit borrowed, and psychological make up preserved and stretched but wouldn’t tolerate others to maintain theirs. This is Amharination and undermines a national Ethiopian identity, which they purport to promote.
Doesn’t this mean they want to have their cake and eat it? Or to state it differently: they can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs! This is anathema to the very cause they pretend and profess to the whole world to know that they stand for one nation, one people. They can’t have their two legs spread, one foot standing/resting on fire and the other in ice, hoping to equilibrate and achieve a balanced body temperature, star-gazers that they are. Or to say this differently: it is like endeavouring to make an omelette without breaking eggs! Amhara style!
Or is it that they wish others to vanish into thin air and that they wish to have the country only and only for themselves alone and the whole world accept this draconian vision of their fait-accompli? Only those who sacrifice their national identity and history, who Amharise, are allowed to exist?
What do they want- everything and nothing? It does not make any sense unless they are living in the past, very very past buried and sealed in the vault of sepulchre with the ‘God Emperor’!
Temesgn Kebede