Ephrem Endale Contributer
The lows to which the social media could descend is astounding; more and more people are forced to ask questions of credibility. Seeing what is being posted, with the arrogance and politically based, even in some instances racist bias is astounding.
The fun part is this time around the fake news the fake pictures and all the real information is there all for the wise browsing. I mean when you see people who are supposed to be in highly civilized society acting like street bums changing identities! Come on! Even when you decide to play “I’m fooling you, you dummies!” game there a must be better ways of going about it.
No denying that whatever its downsides, however wide its cracks might be, no sensible person would discard the social media outright. Why? Well for those who use it smartly and who can separate the grain from the chaff it undoubtedly is a gold mine of credible news, important information and the like. Many of us back here browse social media pages of even our own mainstream media.
These fake and ill-designed social media postings might in the end add up to nothing. But still on the way they can sway a few minds towards the wrong direction. There is one big problem many of us seem to share; driven by our own individual goals or ambitions we have already passed the last judgment in various things.
For us, as they say the deal is done, a very annoying problem, indeed. Our inability to conduct smart and genuine discussions around here stems for the most part from the fact that we’ve passed our final ruling on any and all issues! No appeal! Here is where the social media delivers its knockout blows.
Say there is a posting which is full of holes for all to see; but if the message to whatever fits with our own stance on the issue, just forget those many holes! Who cares! It is speaking for us! In our own land and elsewhere there are politicians who post on their pages not what they really believe in, but what they think their supporters would applaud them for. In the process they prove to the world they are not real politicians with their own stands ion issues but entertainers who are in it for the applause! Ha!
A friend across the Atlantic called and asked if what he read on a certain social media page was true. The posting was so bizarre it sounded like the climax of a cheap thriller gone wrong. It’s as simple as adding two and two and to see the stupidity behind whoever posted it. I told him nothing of that sort
happened and there wasn’t even the slightest mention of t such thing across the rumor mill. I then asked him how in the world he could even think such a thing had happened and no one was talking about it. He simply said, “We’re confused.” with that I think he was speaking for many of us; we are confused; Confused about many things.
Confused as the behavior of some international bodies which, claiming to be human rights advocates ad what else, and yet are trying to trample on the very sovereignty of a nation which through its long history has paid the ultimate sacrifices to have its sovereignty respected.
They only have to try to understand what the Adwa victory, we recently celebrated was all about if they indeed have the will to find out the facts and the guts to accept the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Under no pretexts can anyone trying to peddle the very human rights of a hundred plus million people for their own biased and ill-willed ends be taken as ‘experts on Ethiopian affairs’ as every single one of them are claiming to be.
Confused about turncoats who just because their wishes are not fulfilled, just because whatever mission they were undertaking didn’t see the light of day, just because they want to play second fiddle to their puppet masters who are the sworn enemies of the country and its people!
Confused about the ‘mainstream’ media (especially the western ones) which despite their claims of professional excellence bow so low as to past anything ‘negative’ about our country their sources being the very pole suspected of mass murder the likes of which the modern world has seldom seen!
Confused of some international players who are telling us what we could do on our country! The arrogance is so low grade and sprinkled with the neocolonial mentality you wonder what then real issue behind those issues was.
Look, yes countries being concerned about what is happening in another land purely on humanitarian basis is, what else, the most humane of actions. But even then trying to deep their hands in the purely internal affairs of a sovereign nation which has done so much in the fight against colonialism and served as an example to hundreds of millions of subjugated people is not about concern; it is about interference; that’s why, while appreciating those with real concerns and those who are on the right path would like to caution the others to keep their hands away from our country’s internal affairs!
We say to them, “Keep your hands clean!”
The Ethiopian Herald March 7/2021