Ethiopia: The General, The Gun and The Caged Pen
April 29, 2014
April 29, 2014
Indeed you are reading it good: "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it." General Douglas MacArthur
When a general from Little Rock, Arkansas (1880-1964) deceived by the power of the day, call it: "the government", that (mis)used the mantra of sovereignty, "national unity" and so on, says something that should have been said by the artist (the musician, the journalist, the author, the poet, the filmmaker, the painter, the sculpture) and when the artist says that his/her goal is to:
"Building an open, harmonious, tolerant and free society where the rights of all citizens to access, share, and disseminate information; and freely debate issues and express their views is guaranteed. without violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ethiopia."
Then I cry to all sensible persons and to God: please help us! The artists I am referring have fled their country that is in siege for the last 24 years by one of the worst totalitarian system of our time: Ethiopia.
The same totalitarian system has been using those lofty terms as "sovereignty", "national unity", "peaceful coexistence", "moral" to crash the peaceful and vibrant existence of art, freedom of expression, freedom of information gathering, freedom of association, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion in Ethiopia.
Yet my friends are trying to create an organisation with such goals. The organisation that is being created is not in Ethiopia but in democratic countries. You will read in my coming posts what the objectives are and your bewilderment will increase, at least if you poses a critical mind. The main objective of an artist should be: creativity in freedom! The main objective of a journalist should be to report the truth but nothing than the truth even it if means endangering the sovereignty of any nation (actually it is the sovereignty of the government of the day, whether in the USA, NL, Ukraine or Ethiopia). Every government while lying and deceiving tells you: I am doing it for the sovereignty of the nation, the security of the people! The general, General Doglas MacArthur is telling them: all this is rubbish! while the artists, the journalists and authors who fled Ethiopia that has been oppressing the people under the pretext of sovereignty, security and so on are telling the General: "you are wrong", our regime are right. God forbid.