Refutation of Addis Voice Dictatorial and Barbaric Ethos – Part III

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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[ Posted On: 2007-09-03 ]

A Call for Oromo Sponsorship of two Oromo teenagers

Before you read this article, especially if you are Oromo national, you are reminded to read A Call of Help: Save Two Young Tormented Oromo refugees () and come to their help, by presenting yourself as sponsor for the young boys who face deportation after September 23, 2007. Any person willing to help should contact the President and/or the Secretary General of the Oromo Refugee Community in Cairo (website: http://oromocairo.jeeran.com/ / email: orococa@yahoo.com / mobile: + 2012 2917839) as soon as possible. Do not let the two Oromo teenagers of Cairo end up in the Hell of the Abyssinian jails!

Mr. Eliab Tarkghen's letter

After Mr. Abebe Gelaw's first mail, and the AmChron management reply, it became clear that specific excerpts had to be found and presented in support of the accusations expressed against me delivering 'hate speech' specimens through my articles. Then, an Amhara Abyssinian from America came to support Mr. Abebe Gelaw, providing him with a small number of specific excerpts that would supposedly demonstrate that I did breach the Editorial Board Contributor Policy. I will first publish the integral text of Mr. Tarkghen's mail, and then refute its contents.

Dear Editor,

I have provided specific examples how Dr. Megalommatis has violated your Editor policy. Please read my previous e-mail attached.

Thank you.

Eliab

Dear Editor,

I would like to direct your attention to the author named Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis. He has been publishing many article in your website. But the last several articles he has submitted directly violate the "Editorial Board Contributor Policy" that your website upholds. In your editorial guideline you state "Hate Speech Will Not Be Tolerated." Furthermore you define "Hate Speech" as a "hostility and aversion usually deriving from ignorance, fear, anger, or a sense of injury. It involves extreme dislike or antipathy. Hate speech is intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence, discrimination, or prejudicial action against people based on ethnicity, etc."

After reading many of Dr. Megalommatis "editorial" articles about Ethiopia, I have come to the conclusion that the author has violated your "Editorial Policy" many times. The following is a compilation of just a few of his many disparaging statements against Amharas/Tigrans on your website for your reference:

"..is the revelation of the parastatal character of the lawless Amhara society where all can be involved in racial crimes.."

"Certainly the impoverished, starving, and analphabetic Amharas never had an opportunity to learn and understand what Renaissance, Enlightenment, Freedom, Equality, Fraternity, Democracy, and Human Rights are; they live in eras antedating the Dark Ages, with an unprecedented record of illiteracy that encompasses their odious Debteras the analphabetic monks." Aug 21, 2007

"Except that Amhara nature is at the antipodes of Democracy, Freedom and Respect of the Other."

As you can see from the above compilation one can clearly see the disparaging hateful writings by Dr. Megalommatis. The Dr.'s intent is to create and extend the rivalry and civil war in Ethiopia by selectively targeting Amahra/Tigrians vs what he calls "Kush" ethnic groups. In light of what we have witnessed in the past, especially in Rwanda, and Bosnia where medias were used to propagate hate and demonize selected ethnic groups, it is sad to see your website being used in the same manner. I hope you will consider your association with such an individual and keep your website truly a place where people come to learn and not to be demonized.

Thank you,

Eliab.

Refutation of Mr. Eliab Tarkghen's letter

Point 1.

As preamble, I would like to say that I am glad Mr. Tarkghen finds that only my last articles can be considered as possibly violating the AmChron rules and policy ("But the last several articles he has submitted directly violate"). This is in straight opposition to Mr. Gelaw's claims that all my articles are involved in this regard, and he calls me as a "preacher of hate who has been churning out racist, hateful and divisive articles on Ethiopia via the American Chronicle".

Quite comically, Mr. Tarkghen contradicts himself in the second paragraph of his mail, saying that "after reading many of Dr. Megalommatis "editorial" articles about Ethiopia, I have come to the conclusion that the author has violated your "Editorial Policy" many times". Only this is enough for anyone to understand that Mr. Tarkghen had been asked to carry out an impossible task!

Point 2.

However, he has to deliver, and comes therefore with a first excerpt – proof of my 'disparaging statements against the Amharas / Tigrays', which is the following: "..is the revelation of the parastatal character of the lawless Amhara society where all can be involved in racial crimes..". Malignantly enough, Mr. Tarkghen does not offer any reference about the selected excerpt.

This is pathetic! Actually, this excerpt is selected from an article entitled "US, 'Ethiopia', Sidamas, Kinijit Amharas, and the Mathewos Korsisa Tragedy" that was not written by me but by a Sidama intellectual, Mr. Side Goodo. The selected sentence belongs to the introduction that I wrote, commenting on the unbelievable story of Mathewos Korsisa. Any civilized reader of the story would be appalled; this event is not a unique story in Abyssinia. Quite contrarily, it is a very typical episode of the daily life of Abyssinia's oppressed masses.

When gangsters like the criminal Tefera Endalew can use parastatal structures to organize a repugnant act and revengeful crime like this, the entire society is called lawless. Instead of considering my excerpt as "disparaging statement", the inquisitive Mr. Tarkghen should apologize for the tragic event, stigmatize the behaviour of the criminal Tefera Endalew, and suggest that Abyssinia demands from Kenya the extradition of Tefera Endalew, and applies a most severe and paradigmatic punishment in a Public Tribunal at Awasa.

But Mr. Tarkghen, instead of demanding Justice, attacks those who do so. How do you call this attitude? I call it "Amhara lawlessness". I do stigmatize it as a bestializing effort to disseminate unfairness among human beings in view of a society - jungle; in terms of History of Religion, it is "Satanic".

If we stick to simple textual analysis, we can draw the conclusion that I was speaking of what the story written by Mr. Side Goodo reveals; it was my interpretation of Mr. Goodo's story, not a direct interpretation and characterization of the Amhara society. It is up to anybody to interpret that story and draw any possible conclusion; the (hidden by Mr. Tarkghen) beginning of the sentence is: "what makes the horrendous story even more appalling is the revelation ...".

I do not believe that Mr. Tarkghen can accuse anyone of hate speech on the basis of this excerpt; to do so, he should refute the veracity of the event, and come up with his own version of the story. As long as he does not, he generates serious doubts about his impartiality, objectivity and fairness.

Point 3.

Mr. Tarkghen proceeds then through another excerpt that supposedly testifies to my tendency to hate speech. The excerpt "Certainly the impoverished, starving, and analphabetic Amharas never had an opportunity to learn and understand what Renaissance, Enlightenment, Freedom, Equality, Fraternity, Democracy, and Human Rights are; they live in eras antedating the Dark Ages, with an unprecedented record of illiteracy that encompasses their odious Debteras the analphabetic monks." is selected from my article "Kinijit: the 'Ethiopian' Name of the Lie".

I am sure that brief study of the CIA World Factbook would convince anyone about my ability to stay close to facts and data throughout this text; in the CIA World Factbook, the country's economy is characterized as "poverty-stricken". According to the same source, literacy does not exceed 42.7%, so the prevailing situation is analphabetism. Starvation is endemic in Abyssinia, as simple web based research would convince anyone. The text insists on the absolute absence of an alternative political speech among the Amharas; if I were wrong, Mr. Tarkghen would have an easy task.

Where was the Abyssinian Renaissance, Enlightenment, Freedom, Equality, Fraternity, Democracy, and Respect for Human Rights? In the multifaceted and varied practices of oppression at the times of the monarchy? In the Genocide period of the communist regime of Mengistu? When did a single Amhara and Tigray show a sign of sensitivity by denouncing the unbearable and unspeakable methods of tyranny implemented by the Amhara elite on all the invaded peoples and nations, on all the occupied lands of the Oromos, the Afars, the Sidamas, the Ogadenis, the Shekachos, the Gambellas and the others? The answer is simple: never!

The formative ages of the Amhara nature

The reason for this strange situation may be unknown to unaware Western people, but it is well known throughout Eastern Africa. Amharas have always been an isolated mountainous people; they lived on limited resources and they were organized in a hierarchical society that had to struggle hard to survive within their tiny, arid and sterile territory.

For many long centuries, they existed as a simple negation of the Islamic Caliphate and as a persistent denial of the Ottoman Empire. The colonial expansion in the Kushitic peoples' territories was presented by the Amhara elite as socio-economic panacea; the monarchical propaganda used terms of corroboration of the traditional anti-Islamic and anti-Ottoman stance that finally paid some dividends.

Despite the expansion, due to the clashes with Italy, the country remained stagnant, and even more xenophobic. In the middle of the 20th century, Haile Selassie's Abyssinia was looking as a poor miniature of the Eastern Roman Empire of Manuel I Comnenos; the only difference was in the firearms that Haile Selassie got from the French and the British in order to fight against the Italians.

Ignorance was worsened through Anglo-French colonial manipulations, and the few Amhara students abroad were given degrees in Humanities that were just 'bon pour l' Orient'. In fact, self-criticism never took place among them; we are able to see the ominous result today: when we speak of "their odious Debteras the analphabetic monk", the average Amhara thinks we insult them.

The Amhara nature unchanged and unchallenged

They are absolutely unable to reject their History's bleak moments and submit apologies to martyred Catholics who have been mercilessly executed in Abyssinia. We quote here from the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01075e.htm): "In 1632, the Negus Basilides mounted the throne. Addicted as he was to polygamy and to every vice, he showed himself the relentless enemy of Catholicism, and of its moral law. The Jesuits were handed over to the axe of the executioner, and Abyssinia remained closed to the missionaries until 1702". Quite frustratingly, 300 years later the same anti-Italian hatred prevailed among the Amharas who were easily manipulated by the British against Italy. In the light of this information, I find the accusations of 'hate speech' at least irrelevant.

Point 4.

The last excerpt Mr. Tarkghen presents as evidence of a supposed hate speech from my part is an isolated excerpt that can be properly understood only within the entire context. An isolated sentence as "Amhara nature is at the antipodes of Democracy, Freedom and Respect of the Other" could eventually be the expression of anti-Amhara hatred. However, Hatred is mostly expressed through aberrations of sentimental explosion; this is not the case with the aforementioned sentence, if we place it correctly within its context, namely the first part of the article "Kinijit: the Abyssinian Racism Re-instated". I republish here the sentence Mr. Tarkghen has selected, plus the previous and the subsequent paragraphs to prove that there has been a vast argumentation and extensive reasoning on the issue:

"- Where and when did all the Amharas learn Democracy? In Abyssinia, at the days of the obscurantist and anachronistic monarchy of the Haile Selassie fossil? Or in the Afro-Communist, dysfunctional dictatorship of the .... Amhara proletariat that cynically planned and scrupulously executed the extermination of numerous peoples in the Horn of Africa Gulags of Mengistu Haile Mariam?

Amharas need first Renaissance and then Democracy

There is no answer to this question, except that Amhara nature is at the antipodes of Democracy, Freedom and Respect of the Other. This is not strange, as no development took place in that country to help introduce the indigenous, secluded and introverted masses to the post-Renaissance world. There was never an Amhara Simon de Bolivar, Miguel de Unamuno, let alone Montesquieu or Alexander von Humboldt. Centuries of inaccessibility spent with the Hatred of Islam as the only daily concern, and centuries of seclusion decorated with anti-Catholic Odium have fossilized the analphabetic masses and their execrably filthy leaders, the notorious Debteras, into what may be the bottom of Dante's Hell".

Mr. Tarkghen should be able to make the difference between a historical text that helps make a depreciatory evaluation of the Amharas' Modern History and a sentimental explosion that would be characterized by heinous predisposition. What he does not understand is that through several articles I tried not to please the Oromos, the Ogadenis and the other oppressed peoples but truly to help the Amharas understand that they cannot continue that way.

Something rotten in the State of Denmark.

Is this sentence (Hamlet, I, iv) part of a hate speech? Certainly not.

When an author describes a negative situation, he hopes that by means of juxtaposition he offers to another person (or group, people) the possibility to see his negative reflection in the eyes of many, and therefore triggers a reassessment process.

It is my turn now to ask Mssrs Tarkghen and Gelaw where are the Amhara Simon de Bolivar, Miguel de Unamuno, let alone Montesquieu or Alexander von Humboldt, whom I did not notice, did not read, and did not encounter. If they existed, one would be justified to consider my historical analysis as an anti-Amhara hate speech. If they want to convince many that I am wrong, why don't they provide some names in their answers?

In reality, by expressing anger and supplying no information, they corroborate what I specified for the case of the Amhara 'intellectuals'; none of them had the guts to attack useless, age old traditions and misconceptions that engulfed the Amhara nation in an impossible retrograde path ending in an impasse.

Menelik's invasion triggered the Ceaseless Civil War that will end with the Expulsion of the Amharas from Finfinne (Addis Ababa)

Mr. Tarkghen's last paragraph is truly laughable; having failed to deliver real evidence, he accuses me of intending to cause "rivalry and civil war"; where does this person live? In the Moon?

He has not heard of the millions of butchered Oromos, Ogadenis, Sidamas and so many other tyrannized peoples of Abyssinia? Do I intend to cause civil war?

But this started immediately after the Amhara colonial invasions, which have never been accepted by the invaded Kushitic peoples. What Mr. Tarkghen reproaches to me is something he has to reproach to the previous Amhara elites who triggered it.

Point 5.

"What he calls "Kush" ethnic groups"? Is Mr. Tarkghen illiterate? Did he never hear about Africa's greatest linguistic family? Simple readings from wikipedia would be a good introduction in this regard.

Yet, I am sure that he knows very well the term 'Kush' and Africa's historical and linguistic reality. Simply, here we have for one more time the proof of the Amhara inability to name the oppressed peoples whose lands they have illegally invaded and occupied for more than a century.

To say the least, his references to Rwanda and Bosnia are shameful; long before these terrible events, genocides, and civil wars, worse genocide and far crueler oppression had taken place in Oromia, in Ogaden, in Sidama Land, and in all the Amhara occupied territories of the Kushitic peoples.

He must apologize first and then conclude that no one in the world can demonize the Amharas in a more convincing way than the Amharas themselves.

It is the Amharas who committed acts of tyranny and genocide against the peoples they invaded, and it is the Amhara elites who demonstrated very well that the Amharas cannot be left anymore to rule the oppressed peoples of Abyssinia, cannot govern themselves fairly and justly, and need to be put under Oromo tutelage for a certain period of time in the same way the Germans had been put under Allied tutelage in the aftermath of WW II.

I will terminate the refutation series with a last, fourth, article in which I will refute Mr. Gelaw's second mail.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 49, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

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