Things are kind of heating up. With Election Day approaching the politicos (not all) are gearing up to win the hearts and minds of the electorate. You can’t help being impressed when seeing the posters all over the place. Seeing at all the posters you can’t help but be impressed by the number of candidates, with appealing academic credentials.
Sections of society which usually crouched behind the curtains when it came to politics have experienced some sort of a revelation. ‘Leave the spectator’s seat and go join the players! The country needs you.’ yes, more than ever the country needs its best minds to manage the steering wheels in various sectors. Of course we well know the dangers of being duped by appearances. So many we trusted were the best and the brightest fed us to the wolves.
So, we’re well aware glittering academic credentials seldom have much to do with human behavior. The conventional wisdom among the innocent is that if you have the brains, you have the character. But the presence of so many highly educated citizens gives the whole process strong public appeal and lifts expectations to heights never attained. Yes, we brains, brains that will allow us to reclaim our stolen sleep.
To our dear patricians, guys what we need this time around is real debates; debates where real issues are raised, and not the tired, old strategy of pinning the horns and the tails on the other sides. We don’t need to know whose mud ball hits harder. If mud balls are your weapons of ‘defeating’ your rivals go and get a long Rip Van Winkle sleep. You need it. Fewer mud balls mean we’ll preserve fertile soil.
What we want to hear is your policies on issues. tell us how you plan to do away with the bread and edible oil queues; tell us how you plan to bring order back to parts of the country where lawlessness is rampant and bring those responsible to justice; tell us of your foreign relations polices and how you are going to play it out on the international diplomatic arena. Trying to walk some fine line between not offending those on one side while keeping the smiles on the faces of those on the opposite side is not about the richness but the poverty of content and substance. It won’t work, especially in politics.
Tell us of ideas packed with substance and let’s see you put the squeeze on your opponents. Convince us by laying out your polices for all to see and not by knocking down those of others. The other guy’s wife nit pretty wouldn’t make yours some Cleopatra.
Excuse my jumpy genes, but watching some TV ‘debates’ I ask myself where the meat is. Except for a few notable presentations I feel I’m not getting enough for a…“Bravo! You’re the ones we’ve been waiting for!” So, slug it out with ideas and not diatribes. Show us on which issues you have built up real muscles. Then, and this is important, leave the jury task to us. If you play all the prosecutor, jury and judge roles where do we fit in? Be nice and give us a break!
Look, when politicians talk a lot and still say nothing the pictures we paint of them wouldn’t be nice on the yes. So don’t force us to look at you as cardboard cutouts and then blame us for failing to grasp what you have failed to deliver. You’re ready for sensible, progressive, high-caliber political life? Three cheers for you; now convince us why we should be on your train! Persuade us on the strength of your ideas not the abuses and name-callings aimed at your other opponents.
Do I sound like I’m letting out steam that’s been building up for some time! Don’t blame me, if we have no idea of what in the world you’re talking about how can you expect us to care? Do yourself a favor, go take a long hike and leave the podium for those with ideas. You need nothing short of a miracle to have any notion of what you should be doing if elected when you don’t even know what you’re saying as candidates?
You might not believe in the ‘black cat’ story. You know, the story goes that if a black cat crosses in front of your path the world isn’t to get any nicer for you. Please, by barking up the wrong trees don’t force us to think of you as the black cat crossing in front of our path.
Ours is a country in bruising dire straits and needs the tough and only the tough to get things done. So, are you the type to rise to the challenge when the going gets tough, which it often does these days? Or are you the type to bury your tails and run for the hills? When the bad goes to worse are you tough enough to keep your head above the water or are you to pull us all down with you? It’s important we know what you’re made of. And while we’re at it tough talk seldom means with policies to match. You know, when you talk like the capo of some drug cartel you’re not convincing us. We’re tired of politicians threatening to give us a whipping if we don’t fall in line, while there is no line to fall in.
All politicians expect us to honor them with the medals…“And the winner is…” That won’t happen; at least not until we see you cross the finishing line ahead of the crowd. (Sad, but we learn about the existence of some political groups not when they publicize their road map up to deal with our pressing problems but when they issue condemnations over one thing or another. Imagine some political entity dubbed as ‘the party of condemnations!’ A sobering thought, wouldn’t you say? And you thought creativity was dead!)
What we’re saying is if you are in it, go the distance. What matters to us isn’t whether you start the race but whether you have what it takes make it through to the finishing line. Many who initially appear nothing short of Hollywood’s ‘2012’ scenario would stop them fell by the wayside. It isn’t without reason our political superhighway is littered with the would-have-beens. If you’re one of them, if you’re good in the talking and not the walking, if you are in it only for the thrill of being in the public spotlight, most of all if hate and not love is behind you decision to take join the political arena don’t waste our time.
So, where is the news? You’re telling us the other sides are a collection of bad apples. What about you?
Yes, hell is a very crowded place; and that’s why there seems to be a lot of outsourcing on earth! Look, I admit some of us might be dead from the neck up. Yes, it’s that bad. But for some reason from the ‘some of us’ quite a bunch seems to have ‘defected’ to your side! That’s why there is so much stupidity around. Bitter, but true. However much it pains our hearts stupidity has become endemic.
Please, oh please, talk and act smarter and humane! Is that not much to ask? So, forget the bare bones and show us how much lean meat your ideas hold.
‘Cheaters Anonymous!’
We’re in the age of the cheaters.
“I’ve a confession to make.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I…I’ve been cheating on you.”
“Get to the point; you said you have a confession to make.”
“I just did!”
“That’s not a confession. That’s confirmation. How can you confess about something the whole town already knows?”
The fun is that cheating these days is not about dimly lit back alleys, or bedrooms in the extreme corners of town. Everything plays out in the open. Still, even while everyone knows it is easy to say,
“Who? Me cheating! You guys have gone completely nuts!”
“Who’s responsible for this mess?”
“Don’t ask me!”
When things blow over, it’s then the finger pointing will start.
One of those times when you feel you’re ‘enemy number one’ of almost everybody else.
Everybody scrambling to save their skins, no one willing to stand tall and say, “Sorry it was my mistake. I was the one who cheated…” So in a roundabout way cheating gets blessing and the question will be who is next in line to do the cheating. Unfortunately, these days, admitting to cheating is seen as a suicide of sorts even if one does the cheating with an entire town watching.
The childhood friend who borrows a couple of thousands from you under false pretext must be the vilest of vile human beings. How can a lifelong friend cheat you out of your hard-earned money knowing you find it hard to put three meals on the family’s dinner table? Yes, you might confront him… “How can you do this to me? What did I do to you to deserve this backstabbing?” But if you expect moist eyes from him you need some valium pill to nurse a headache that will strike any second. Such people are habitual cheaters. By the time you discover your friend is one, it’s too late. But then your friend might be thinking he did nothing wrong. It’s an unpredictable and mysterious world out there. “Never turn your back on anyone,” they say. You don’t know what will be coming your way.
You’re elegantly dressed. You should be; it is a date you’ve been dreaming about for some time. You know, one of those now-or-never scenarios. You wait for over an hour at the appointed place. And she still is nowhere. You call…
“Is everything alright?”
“Yes; why do you ask?”
“I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour.”
“Why should you be waiting for me? Anything special?”
Even when she deals you that heavy jab on the chin her voice is still as sweet as ever.
“But we had an appointment.” Now saying this is tricky. Try to sound as casual as you can, or else she’ll be hanging up for the last time. What you don’t know she is having her laugh of the day. “Oh; I was asking myself what I forgot.” She bursts out laughing. While you deserved an apology all she can do is laugh!
Some young people were telling me an interesting thing recently. A guy manages to get the consent of some pretty young lady for a dinner date. It’s going to be an evening to remember; Yes, for the gentleman it’d be just that. Giving appointments and failing to turn up is some young souls’ idea of having a laugh or two at the expense of an unsuspecting. No, it isn’t about holding grudges for what Adam did to Eve all those millennia back. It is just their way of having a laugh at a time when laughter doesn’t come as easy as it used to. And I thought I knew the nitty-gritty of this city!
What does the abandoned gentleman do? Drink himself unconscious, of course! That’s what he does. It wasn’t just another date that flopped. It was a dream which played out in his mind scores of time that ended up in rubble! Anyways, while the little things might pass without much collateral damage there are many who cheat their ways through life. And the destruction they cause along the way knocks on many doors of the unsuspecting. Maybe it’s time for some ‘Cheaters Anonymous!’ Am I serious? You bet, I am. Why shouldn’t I be! If we are so comfortable with all the cheating and if we’ve learned to live with it, institutionalize it and let the members pay hefty taxes. I beg your pardon? Am I stoned? Certainly not! But then when I reread the last lines I’d probably ask myself “Is that the sober me saying all that?”
Ephrem Endale Contributer
The Ethiopian Herald May 2/2021