BY MENGESHA AMARE
We, Ethiopians, are well known for our hospitality, fraternity and sympathetically treating one another and/or each other. However, these days, the values we have had for long and other core essences of Ethiopians’ entrenched in the minds of everybody, though the degree varies, are highly eroded.
In principle, without ethics, everyone has no impending for mankind without these values cannot be itself, determine choices and actions as well as suggest difficult priorities.
The priceless values of all Ethiopians, irrespective of the language and location difference, which are predominantly associated with the concept of value, attitude, character, norm and culture, have to be well nurtured and helped beef up. We are really bedecked with knowledge, norms, ethical value, attitudes and behaviors, language, belief, art, law, custom, among others, as members of society.
However, where are all these assets and what is their manifestation? Let me take a spoonful case out of the ocean.
One Thursday morning, I planned to happen to Saris to live up to the promise I made with a friend of mine a day earlier.
Prior to going to the plot where I was appointed, I took bus number 56 (city bus I mean) pleading the driver to take me there though the bus extraordinarily sandwiched people, as I was in a hurry indeed.
He finally made the door open and allowed me on board. Luckily, the suffocated scenario gradually became relaxed and people were provided with vacant spaces, and I took a seat, fortunately.
A young boy sat by my side and I were talking about the man, 70 plus perhaps, who was standing by the window and looked exhausted.
When we were discussing who should leave a seat for that man, the boy uttered a word in a mollify mode, calculatingly or unintentionally, I don’t know, ‘who cares about the old, they have lived and played their part, but have made our time cumbersome.”
“What does it mean,” I asked him with an intermingled feeling.
“To your surprise, all my friends and I have never invited the old like him to take our seats in such circumstances,’ he continued talking.
Would you please tell me about this in detail? I civilly requested him.
“Since we were 5th graders, we haven’t given due respect to the elderly or the old like this as we followed suit of our seniors.”
“Who are your seniors” I again requested him.
“Especially, my family members to whom I was born, simply, my mother and father. They are always talking about the greatness of the tribe or clan from whom they have come and the pricelessness and graciousness of their religion.
Not only do I develop what they thought but I also consider they are right. That has a serious repercussion on my personality,” he replied.
“Is there any pure or great nation/tribe,” I asked.
“I heard so. If there is a tribe or clan surpasses others in number, why is it impossible to regard people as great?
“This is the wrong narrative that is deliberately thrown to posterity to block their mind not to widely think globally or nationally,” I said.
Besides, I came up with a number of convincing justifications to persuade him. He was told in black and white as there is no great nation (clan or tribe in this case), no superior religion at all as all are equal in all circumstances.
It is not a matter of being great, but a homework done in the mindset citing the case of a number of addicted people everywhere. “There are young people, who have spent too much time mocking at others, insulting passerby for no reason and especially harassing women and girls taking their physical belongings as agenda,” I added.
“Are they coming out of a rich or poor family? I asked him crossly. “From both,” he himself attested this fact.
“Analyze things in such away. The issue we raised earlier does have a concretized bearing with this concept,” I told him in a commanding tone, but with an appealing gesture.
“Now is it clear for me. As of today, I will not repeat what I did earlier and start to sieve what my family utter time and again,” he confirmed.
“The people you raised earlier have always flattered at the old like this man. As they have thought that the country does benefit nothing out of the elderly, I started comprehending ideas in such away,” he solidified my idea.
Yes, he was really eager and overt one to listen to me while I was telling him the reality on the ground. In clear terms, our collective values play a central role on our density as a nation though what is good to someone is not good to another could hardly be purely put; we do have a common unalienable value that ties us together—respecting each other/one another especially the elderly.
Principally, the young posterity has to develop love and fraternity for others as a country is built especially by sidestepping hatred, discrimination, sense of jealousy and self-centeredness, among others.
The Ethiopian Herald January 27/2021
