The officials recently gave stern warning to some international news organizations reporting from Ethiopia to clean up their act or else! There have been calls for something to be done about these media actors who are using their pens as replacements for guns. “Kick them out!” that was what many have been demanding for some time. If, as an active media guy, you ask me how I feel… “Kick them out!” There you know now how I feel!
Yes, I know it sounds bizarre; I mean a media guy calling for others in the same business to be given the boot might not sound the smartest thing to do. “You must be losing your mind! What do you think the media elsewhere would think?” Who cares? Who the hell cares! Do you think this has anything to do with the profession? No it doesn’t!
No, it is not about professional envy or something as crude. No, it’s not about being scared of some new kids on the block. It’s not about being impatient about individuals too green behind the ears making judgment errors. It would have been nice if things had been that simple, wouldn’t it? It is about protecting the sovereignty of a historic nation with the hungry wolves circling to jump on it at the slightest sign of weakness. It is about securing the national security of a nation of a hundred plus million proud people. It is about neutralizing the existential threat they’re trying to lay at our doors.
While we’re at it, there is this other thing about the western media which has become so brazen you wonder how the minds of those people work. What is it that gives them nightmares about the Nobel Peace Prize of PM Abiy? At least try to be creative in your mission-driven bias. Almost two in three headlines, as if some ‘general consensus’ has been agreed upon, start their headlines with something like, “The Nobel Prize winner…” And you know what? They’re talking about taking away the prize because the PM is determined to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of his country. Some dude of a journalist in West Africa even asked the American foreign secretary about taking away the Nobel Peace prize. Yes, you got it right, she is CNN-positive.
After all, for the first time in the nation’s history Ethiopians have a leader elected in a democratic process seldom seen in most parts of the world that stunned the naysayers so much so they were left speechless. Speechless at a time when they should have loudly cheered a democratic process in a country where it wasn’t expected anything close to a democratic process would happen soon, not in our lifetime, anyway. Remember how they tried to bulldoze the elections from Brussels to Washington!
About the prize, none of us had the faintest idea it was sort of a down payment for being a yes-man! Is it? That’s how the ‘bash- Ethiopia’ western media unofficial coalition seems to be treating it. In that case thank you very much and take it. Not a single eyebrow would be raised.
Look, frankly speaking no country endured so much media onslaught like ours. It is not only with their unending ‘fake news’ narratives they are coming after us by staying mute when they should be reporting the truth. They didn’t even have the professional courtesy of reporting last Sunday’s massive rallies in many cities across the world. Why should they? It’d have been one big and painful slap on their faces! It’d be so unCNN-ish! But then, maybe the protesters forgot something. Yes, it should have been that. Maybe they didn’t know the playbook was re-written so thoroughly.
They should have provided the action for the cameras, like rolling on the sidewalks. Aha! But these were rallies of people who wouldn’t embarrass themselves by rolling on the ground like kittens overwhelmed by ferocious ants. Of course, this time the ants weren’t looking for the darker, shallower parts of the body. They are comfortably camped in the brains of certain individuals. Come on you guys, you don’t expect is to roll all over the sidewalks for your cameramen to earn their bread! Disgusting! Yes, Ethiopia-bashing loudly or silently has become ‘business as usual.’
And a few days back four Irish diplomats have been kicked out! That is one country which seems to be one of the most active groups in the anti-Ethiopia block in the UN Security Council. The names of some countries would have popped up within a fraction of a second if we thought about possible enemies of this country. But Ireland! Come on, even the weirdest of nightmares wouldn’t have taken us that far. So the question that was making the rounds was, “Why, of all the countries in the world, is Ireland working to hurt this nation?” It’s with good reason so many eyebrows were raised! “Are you sure it’s the same Ireland!”
Then some comments on the social media speculated on the reasons as to that country’s actions, and some of them make sense! Many of us never thought of that! Of course, when it comes to the general populace not many know such a country exists. Now that four of its diplomats have been given the marching orders we know they must have been deep into criminal activity against a country which did nothing to them.
Then there are these terror warnings coming from somewhere in northern Addis. First it was warnings for their citizens to get the hell out of here as Addis was under siege and would fall in matter of days. Then it was recently upped to narratives of possible terror attacks. Now, I for one wouldn’t throw these warnings out of the window. But we’d like some answers; shouldn’t the Ethiopian authorities be informed in detail first? Did the people who scripted the warnings do that? Ethiopia having remained a loyal partner in their ‘war on terror’ the least they can do was notifying authorities in case they see any terror threats. There is nothing that makes us believe they did that. But I can’t help wandering “do they know more than they are letting out! All said, what we can deduce is this was one more way of terrifying Ethiopians!
A prominent Ethiopian has this to say; “A man saw in his dreams his neighbor’s house burning. He claims his dreams were accurate. He waited three days & nothing happened. At last he burned his neighbor’s house so people won’t say his dreams are false. Is U.S. Embassy’s fear-mongering similar to the man’s story?”
And then there is this video of some Ethiopians and retired and active western diplomats covertly discussing about a transitional government in Arat Kilo! (We’re losing count how many transitional governments are being set up all over the place. It seems putting a football team together is harder than sewing together a ‘transitional government’. Of course, much of the surprise was about the involvement of a certain lady who was supposed to be on a higher moral pedestal but who has finally come out of her shell. Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised about her or the others. We’re talking about people who have been leading the high life, for whom every door is open, and who are showered the VIP treatment suddenly finding themselves in a no man’s land sort of situation. Transitional what! One thing needing real transition is their twisted brains of the participants. You know too much of the wrong bacteria must be camping over there!
Then there is this video clip of UN workers undergoing ‘training on escape tactics’ when chaos comes a calling to Addis. I mean we’re in an age where you could vow a thousand times not to ever again be dumbfounded and you fail. What the hell were those people thinking?
Here is what a government official twitted, “We are recently witnessing a dumbfounding orchestra. Some of our partners are busy trumping up an ‘Evacuate soon’ mantra feigning they really are panicked. When we ask them to even partially leave, they begin to hastily lament that it’s too soon and unfortunate.”
Look, to the media, diplomats or whoever those of you trying to disintegrating this ancient country of thousands of years with all due respect, whether you deserved that or not, the fate of Ethiopia is in the hands of Ethiopians! It is so, it’ll remain so!
As for those diplomats, media representatives or members of international organizations acting in a way that puts the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation and the well-being of its proud people at risk the call is clear, “KICK THEM OUT!”
Ephrem Endale Contributer
The Ethiopian Herald 28 November 2021