I had a granny, my her soul rest in peace, who hated spaghetti so much that she didn’t want to see others having it as their meal. So every time we had spaghetti for lunch or dinner we made sure she was engaged in something else far from the dinner table. Her hatred wasn’t about taste; it was about other things like images of other not-so-nice realities filling her mind. Now was good old granny uncivilized for thinking as such? That’s the million dollar question isn’t it? Who’s any one to tell her, “Look granny, in the civilize world spaghetti is common food with lots of vitamins…?”
Many meek souls around would say “Oh you can’t blame her for being uncivilized. After all she’s a balager.” that’s where everything starts. Being a balager is being uncivilized and being a metropolitan is being civilized. Eating spaghetti is being civilized, eating injera is being uncivilized. I must have told you about one fellow who was seen using knife and fork to eat injera and wot at certain foreign body reception. It must have been his way of showing the ferenjis he was civilized. “See how civilized I am! I’m using knife and fork!” Of course the silent of many prominent Ethiopians present would have sent him all the way to some monastery to hide for a couple of years until his story becomes forgotten story.
Really, is there a clear demarcation between the civilized and the uncivilized? I mean who is anyone to tell me I’m uncivilized just because I don’t know there isn’t a real dog behind the hotdog!
“Dog! You mean you cook dogs and eat them!”
“No stupid; it isn’t like that. I never thought you were uncivilized.” Uncivilized my whatever! After all there are places in this world where they relish in dog meat! Aha!
So how can thinking that the ‘dog’ in hotdog meant what the dictionary says it means! “An animal kept as a pet, for guarding buildings, or for hunting.” How can knowing or not knowing be the measuring rod for being civilized or not! I had this very interesting human being for a friend. He grew up in the countryside and came to Addis to join college. After college he was employed in some gov’t organization in Addis.
Now despite spending his college years in Addis and despite having made himself familiar with much of the city he never let go most of his countryside ways. One big factor was he remained as humble as most of countryside people were. Despite the temptations and the young age he never gave in to cajoling trying to make him a ‘city boy’ chewing tons of khat and losing himself in nightlife which had claimed many promising minds. And for these the almost unanimous verdict was that he was “uncivilized!” he laughed about it.
Now we used to go out for lunch and many would have been uncomfortable dine with him since he didn’t care for conventional wisdom. His order might be steak and if you wait for him to pick up the spoon and the fork you’d be disappointed. He never did that as he dug into his steak and whatever other food is on the plate with his bare hands! Who cares about the ferenjis and the pseudo-civilized country folk? The guy is having his meal the way most appropriate to him. He might be accused of not respecting table etiquette. Of course this table etiquette thing is could be somewhat controversial. You know since most of the so-called table etiquettes are charted out in line with the lifestyles of foreigners and who have copied their ways it is difficult to stick to every bit of those listed as others have also their own table etiquette.
Let’s say you have sat for dinner with some foreigners. What, oh what, are you going to do about one of the most interesting and unique table etiquette, the gursha! I’m not sure in how many other societies you’d find a lovely and most humane thing as the gursha! And, while dinning with the foreigners, you stand up to offer a gursha to someone, believe me the air would burst with 911 calls.
“What the hell is he doing?”
“Call 911, he must have gone crazy!”
Now are you going to be described as uncivilized because you stuck to your own way of dining with others!
“Oh forget him; those people are still uncivilized.”
“But he might accidentally put the food in someone’s eyes!” Ha! What do you mean that’s a legitimate worry? As long as the one for whom the gursha is intended stays put the gursha goes nowhere but directly into the mouth. In case no one ever told you we’ve been doing it for generations and the gursha in the eyes scenario has yet to happen! If ever did no one yet has come out with such info.
Just to mention something we raised sometime back. Some foreigners berate us for eating with our bare hands. Quite a while back I was watching this documentary about culinary issues in Africa. In the part dealing with our country they show striking pictures of doro wot and kitfo and among the accompanying narrative what stood out was, “They eat with their bare hands!” And when they came to the part of raw meat you could see them running out of words.
“Raw meat!” Then perhaps the kick in the shin comes when they go back in what they call history and talk about long lost societies eating raw meat. Of course you can’t miss the arrogance and the blatant of belittling of a culture. And whenever this issue is raised what comes to me is the pictures of ‘the civilized’ eating raw fish in movies or licking their finger in the kitchens. Come on, if people are so aghast at seeing others using their bare hands for eating they should lose their nerves for seeing an entire finger being sent all the way the throat to ‘taste’ some food.
Civilized or uncivilized– the jury is still out.
The Ethiopian herald April 30/2023