April 26, 2008

Ethiopia is not a country short of great models. In every aspect of life, we have models of enormous contributions to humanity. The knowledge of the Ethiopian society (in agronomy, architecture, art, conservation, faith, law, medicine, music, philosophy, religion, etc) is far reaching. Many products of Ethiopian knowledge and ingenuity became and are becoming the sources of wealth in other societies.

As we meet someone who [we believe] does not know some facts about elementary Ethiopian history, we would quickly tell her/him that Ethiopia is the only independent Nation in Africa. This is absolutely true in a strict sense: if independence signifies being not colonized by an alien power, or being capable of deterring colonial powers from setting their feet on the Ethiopian soil. When we consider independence in a broader sense, where it signifies promoting ones attributes [in the sense of every day usage] (culture, history, value systems, knowledge and knowledge bases, philosophy, etc) and protecting them from being threatened, marginalized, and lost by alien attributes, Ethiopia becomes the first African sovereign land to have lost its independence. Arguably, this can only be false if we believe that Christianity, Islam, and Western attributes didn’t play any role in threatening, marginalizing and vanishing many attributes that ensured the survival of our mosaic communities since time of immemorial. Our history reveals that there was a progression between D’mt [Da’amat] and Aksumite Kingdom. Then, the down spiral of Aksumite Kingdom began three centuries after the introduction of Christianity. The introduction of Islam exacerbated the down spiral. The latest and resonating assault on Ethiopian attributes was from Western value and knowledge systems through religion, media, pop culture, and education. And the victims of the latest assault are none other than those who would be the agents of promoting and protecting our attributes.

The most serious concern to our country is that the supposedly well-informed citizens not only failed to make meaningful effort to solve Ethiopia’s problems on the basis of Ethiopian attributes but also are making futile attempts to adapt Western solutions. A misguided conviction that something better or good has to come from alien sources (usually Western) would ultimately leads us to a similar conviction that personalities of higher deeds and characters are usually from similar sources. This, in turn, leads us to seek for alien equivalence of our own extraordinaire. A case in point is Woyzero Abebech Gobena. A statement in her philanthropic organization’s website describes her as Africa’s Mother Theresa. Another writer names her Ethiopian Mother Theresa.

Here are two major problems. The first problem is the attitude that an Ethiopian of extraordinary deeds and character has to match or look like another person from Western societies. Such an attitude hinders us from searching our own communities, both in place and time, for models of great deeds and characters. It can also hinder us to believe that ours are the only great personalities, in deeds and character, in the whole world. Thus, we wander in search of models to our great personalities.

As indicated above, the great Ethiopian mother is being baptized as Ethiopian and/or African Mother Theresa. When we dig into the character and deeds of Mother Theresa, we found that Woyzero Abebech and the controversial Mother Theresa have little in common. Woyzero Abebech’s philanthropic deeds centered around one theme: to help vulnerable citizens (children, women) become independent though providing basic needs of life and education. This extraordinary woman started her philanthropic mission with no material capacity out of a typical Ethiopian fortitude. The only ironically fortunate incidence on her part was that she herself is a living example of how vulnerable children and women can get out of misfortune with little help.

There are numerous articles dealing with controversies around Mother Theresa. But, it would be helpful to pinpoint two characters that are in stark opposite to the deeds of Woyzero Abebech, leaving readers to dig about the nun [I would only suggest readers to read this link]. First, Mother Theresa of Calcutta was known to bring many vulnerable people together into halls not to be saved but to die with dignity, as she calls it: ‘to die a beautiful death’. On the contrary, our Abebech brings the needy together and supports them to survive and become self-sufficient citizens. Second, Mother Theresa with astronomical amount of money she received from donors all over the world every year did little compared to what she could have done. Our Abebech, however, has changed the lives of so many people with little material capacity and outside support. Mother Theresa did nothing worthy of being a model for Woyzero Abebech. Thus, it is insulting to baptize Woyzero Abebech Gobena as Mother Theresa. Woyzero Abebech is more than great by her own in the whole world.