Ephrem Endale Contributer
I never knew there were so many ‘experts’ on Ethiopia out there. On almost every other international network there is ‘an expert on Ethiopia.’ “So and so, an expert on Ethiopian matters said…” and that is taken a fact. Baloney!
“Did you hear the news about….?”
“No, I didn’t. Is there anything I should know?
“Well, what happened is….”
“You don’t say! You must be pranking me or something!”
“I’m serious.”
“Where did you get that news from?”
“I heard it on so and so TV…” an int’l TV channel heavyweight enough to send you flying off your chair with shock.
“Really!” (I told you!) No wonder the exclamation mark. If that channel said it, then it is the ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!’
Believe me the times we’re in are becoming scarier by the day. If they disseminated so much falsehood about us in only a few of weeks just imagine the volume of fairy tale we’re being fed about other places and events, too. Simple logic, if they are doing this to us, they must be doing it to many others.
In case they forgot, we’re in a very different age than we’ve been a few decades back. This time around everything is in the open. Everything happened under the very eyes of the world. Look at most of their ‘only’ sources they’re relying on…able-bodied ‘refugees’ who say the whole country is on the brink of total collapse.
(Many of those youngsters suspected of involvement in what some equate with a min-genocide!) Not that there is anything wrong in talking to refugees. In fact it is important to show their plight to the role.
But, what about the position of the other side? What about the voices of the millions who are going about their daily tasks in a country ‘that’s on the brink of collapse!’ What about that! How can any ‘journalist’ worth his paycheck miss these facts?
The truth isn’t what it is, but what they want it to be. Again baloney! Their words are final.
Whoever thought the global media especially in the West needs to go no farther than looking at what unfolded the past few weeks. Many things have happened that would have shaken societies to their roots have they taken place in other spots.
The problem with swimming with the global media is when the waves come you’re the one to be fresh meat for the sharks. They make sure that happens. Chaos sells, war sells, disturbances sells. So, no wonder at the start of the problem the biased media was expert opinion was, what else, another civil war!
The law enforcement operations were just starting when the global media warned Ethiopia of a battle-hardened armed group up there. (That coming from a ‘diplomat,’ of all people!) and the start of another civil war. Well, sorry but the millions of dollars supposed to come from unending coverage of ‘anther civil war’ is not going to happen, not in this part of the world, anyway.
The slave-master like arrogance of some int’l groups defies any rational explanation. It is always like giving you the spoon and denying you the food. Blackmail, that’s what it is. If someone says if you don’t do such and such a thing I’ll be throwing you under the biggest bus you could imagine is sheer blackmail. And from times immoral this country never succumbed to such blackmail which is like trading way the very honor of the country and the pride of its people.
They make you suspicious of the real motives of every other international organization. But while we don’t tell them what to do with their internal affairs who gave them the moral or whatever right to tell us how we deal without own problems!
What in the world happened to all those sternly-worded ‘rules’ about non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries? Or are there some deeply-buried amendments saying these rules works selectively and the rich and the powerful are exempt? Baloney!
Days back the headline grabbing issue was the disruption of power and telephone services in the trouble spots. But once both services were restored, as one tweet pointed out, why is that none of them have dealt with what should have been the follow up story! Yes, there is something they call the follow-up story.
Not that everything is dandy and we’re smelling the roses 24/7; no way. We have more than our share of problems which will continue to challenge us for years to come. But that’s a whole lot of a different story.
Just imagine a newsroom where the slogan written in the biggest of fonts … “Dig up all the dirt you can on that country. If you don’t find any, get of your lazy %$#es and create it!” The reporting of the biased media seems to be based on such a principle.
Look I’m not one to dismiss many of the things the int’l media writes as complete hogwash. Of course they can be just that, hogwash! But, jumping into conclusion without having the entire picture, yours wouldn’t be a safe landing. But this time we have the real picture. It is all over the Internet! can some of us please, please get of our backs!
The Ethiopia Herald December 20/2020