Abiy Ahmed
October 16, 2019
Abiy Ahmed, prime minster of Ethiopia
KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT writes:
So the infamous, leftist Nobel Peace Prize goes to Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia! The “committee” chose him over that creepy girl (she’s actually not a “girl,” but a sixteen year old young woman). I believe this win is historic and significant. I am very excited about it.
Abiy is a maverick, an intelligent and thoughtful one. He brokered peace with the Eritrean leader, which got him the prize. Eritreans are intensely independent, and fiercely Christian (it is through them that northern region and its Axumite emperors that the Amhara of Ethiopia inherited the Christian tradition). Eritrea never recovered after the Eritrea-Ethiopia split in 1991. I lived in Asmara, its capital city, when I was a young girl.
Here is Abiy with the Eritrean leader, Isias (Isaiah) Afwerki. Abiy is the shorter man on the left.
As a memorial and a sign of reverence to Ethiopia’s historical legacy, Abiy has created a “Unity Park” in Addis Ababa in the palatial residence of Emperor Menelik, a predecessor to Haile Selassie.
“Unity” is actually a mistranslation. In Amharic andinet means togetherness, being together. The park is rather a place where the “different” cultures of Ethiopia, the different ethnic groups, can be together in the peace that Abiy envisions. Each culture/ethnicity joins together in this whole, without merging into one “union” or losing its particularities. This park, I believe, was the final factor to his Nobel win. “Unity Park symbolizes our ability to come together for a common goal and cross the finish line,” Abiy’s office announced.
The main hall of the palace, the museum hall, has a really good wax rendition of Haile Selassie on a throne. This again, with Abiy’s astute mind, suggests this “united Ethiopia” is under the helm of strong leaders.
About a year ago, he had installed a statue of Haile Selassie at Addis Ababa’s African Union headquarters. He is not idolizing these emperors, but upholding their names and reputations.
Abiy puts Ethiopia at the head of the “union” of Africa. He brokered peace in Sudan recently, and met with affable Sudanese and other African leaders at the inauguration of the statue. These leaders like him, and treat him perhaps as a younger brother (Abiy is only 47 years old).
He also got the whole of Addis Ababa to go on a “tree planting mission”! It was incredible. You too, Greta, can eat humble pie!
About Abiy’s concept of medemer:
There are two meanings of medemer in Amharic that are pronounced differently: one with a “soft” d, or in English medemer; the other with a strong emphasis on the d, in English meddemer. It is the context of how you use one or the other that matters.
The first means to add, as in 1 + 1 + 1=3, to come to a total.
The other means to be added onto something. The individual, or group, is added onto a unified concept of some kind of “whole” or unit, and becomes an independent presence, an independent addition, to that whole. In medemer, all individuality or “difference” is lost.In meddemer, this difference, this uniqueness, is part of the whole.
Ethiopian emperors always ruled by the second, meddemer, prior to that terrible time when the “Dergue,” the Communist committee that ruled Ethiopia headed by the murderous Mengistu Haile Mariam from 1977 to 1991, abolished all “difference,” murdering and imprisoning the “different” Amhara. I believe, once again, Abiy understands this and how to lead Ethiopia. He does not mean “inclusivity,” or even “unity” (or medemer) since he knows very well that is impossible. He recently thwarted a civil war by acknowledging the “meddemer” character of the Oromo and the Amhara, who were separately inciting rebellion.
Various “opinion” pieces on Abiy have appeared in the news in recent days. I found that most commenters don’t understand or know much about Ethiopia, other than what they have learned from their “googlings.”
Breitbart News wrote:
The 43-year-old prime minister has embraced the concept of “medemer,” a term in the Ethiopia’s Amharic language means unity and inclusivity, and has lived it. The son of a Muslim and an Orthodox Christian, and of mixed ethnic heritage, is a symbol of what he would like to achieve in a country of some 80 ethnicities and some 110 million people. That fractious mix is what could also bring him down.
Regarding the “80 ethnicities,” if you counted all the tiny, sub-ethnics, then maybe you might reach the “80.” But if you looked at the major ethnicities, the ones that have led or lead the country and make a significant contribution, the number is two: the northern Semitic Amhara and Tigre, and the southern, negroid/Semitic Oromo.
If it is regional rebellion this article is alluding to Abiy has made intelligent concessions to put together a “federation” of states. This is the model the emperors used to rule the large and at times unruly land. I doubt Abiy will use that magic number of 80, but will find ways to consolidate regions and similar groups.
Abiy’s allegiance to the Oromo is, I am convinced, to honor his Muslim father, with whom, it seems, he may have had a distant relationship. His father had four wives and Aiby was his thirteenth child from one of his wives, Abiy’s Orthodox Christian mother. Such inter-religious marriages were common in Muslim-dominant regions, and the Christian wives were left to lead their lives as they saw fit, without disrupting the household.
Abiy married an Orthodox Christian woman, accepted the historically dominant and still influential Orthodox Tewehedo church, out of which Ethiopia’s civilization evolved. He understands its significance.
This “symbol of what he’d like to achieve,” to quote the Breitbart article, is Abiy’s addition to a whole, not to undermine groups, but to ensure a leadership that guides a peaceful country of citizens. He has created a new term, a new concept, a new political language, out of an old Amharic word: meddemer.
These nihilistic, socialist journalists cannot understand this. And they throw out evil implications with comments such as, “That fractious mix is what could also bring him down.” Could ….
No one bothers to take interest in it rather that as a passing, surprise headline story. In a few weeks, they will forget it.
Actually they already have. The CBC and CTV, Canadian television stations, are now reporting on Greta Thunberg and her upcoming visit to Calgary in Alberta, after her tour around the U.S. Her shock at being denied the prize has waned, and she is back to business. She will be in Alberta to rally against the pipelines where they originate. Her loss probably actually gave her ammunition. (“How could she have been overlooked!”). But Abiy is after all from an oppressed country which will be ostensibly among the first affected by a global climate calamity. And Greta will save them!
It is unclear how exactly Abiy plans to translate meddemer into political terms, but he seems to be going for some kind of federal state, which was the strategy of the Ethiopian emperors (although “federation” wasn’t a concept then). In the meantime, Western mainstream writers, analysts and leaders have no interest in the subtlety of culture, history, or language. It is all an agenda for them.
