You don't know me from Adam.
Dear Ato Fekade
You don't know me from Adam, but I do read your sometimes interesting articles on Ethio Media. Though I don't agree with your line of thinking, I do repect you democratic right to air your views. It has been my policy not to respond to blatant personal attacks, precisely because of my intention not to sink to the moral and intellectual morass that has nowadays become an abode to my critics.
However, your "Cooking the Bombs and the Terrorists TPLF Style" (Ethio Media 3rd March) has compelled me to break my self-imposed embargo on responding to my critics. My reasons are two-fold. First, I know that I am responding to a bona-fide Ato Fekade Shewakena and not some ficticious person hiding behind a nome de plume. Secondly, because I want to save you from being a laughing stock of those who "know me" by nipping in the bud one of your cheap jibes directed against my pedigree.
Let me first take issue with the general tenor of your article. It is incomprehensible to me, and I am sure to any dispassionate reader of your article, why you have attacked me with a fussilade of innuendoes while restricting your attact on the very originator of the news concerning Kassa Kebede (not Ambassador because Ambassador is not a title, but a post like prime minister) and Andargatchew Tsiege to the issue under discussion and not personality. Is it because Ato Amare is a Tigrean and, therefore, entitled to criticise CUDP while I - a through-and through Amhara -should regard CUDP as my natural habitatt and, therefore, critisism of it is saccrilgious? Let me make one thing clear at this juncture. I am proud, and continue to be proud to remain an Amhara, but never will I muzzle my mouth when I see people doing harm to the concept of peaceful coexistence under a secular, pluralistic Ethiopia where differences are celebrated rather than suffocated. The day I allow myself to do that would be the day I cease living and start vegitating.
I stand firm with what I have written about Kassa and Andargacthew's pilgrimage to Asmara. Whilst I do agree with your argument that it is natural - in an ideal world - for the opposition to maintain cordial relations with all of Ethiopia's neighbours, I totally reject that the present enviroment warrants any form of contact with Asmara. As you would agree such a grave accusation is more than a slur on the reputation of your friends with "stellar charachters" whom you believe have what it takes to be our political masters one day. You would, therefore, be remiss of your duty as their loyal friend if you were not to advise these supposedly whiter-than white Ethiopians to sue me for defaming their good name in a British court-room. Surely, "Falasha money" can easily foot the legal bill for both plaintiffs.
I am sorry to realise that my critisisms of Professor Mesfin Wolde-Mariam's involvement in Ethiopian politics has irritated you so much that it made you make such silly remark as he can make "Mulugeta's kind of head from pure mud." I stand to be corrected, but I believe man - according to the Book of Genesis - was created from mud in the first place. But if you are refering to brains, I beg to differ most profoundly. A Professor - who has advised Mengistu Hailemariam to kill those awaiting trial (one of them my dear father), a Professor who didn't utter a word when close to half a million Ethiopians perished under the Derg, and yet, had the cheek to be the founding father of The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission after the dawn of democracy in Ethiopia and a "christian" who kept his mouth shut when the Holy Father of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was strangled to death by order of Mengistu and yet unashamedly calls today's dis-established Ethiopian Orthodox Church "a desert" - hasn't got the cerebral capacity to even attempt to make the brains not of me, but the brains of your good-self. Besides, unlike you, I worship Jesus Christ and not some nutty professor.
Intelligent people discuss issues, but the mentally-handicapped and the dunce always opt for personalities. It is sad and laughable, then, to see such savant like you good-self indulging in personal attack which simply goes to show that my writings are working. You may not know this, but I liken myself to Ethiopia's euccalyptus tree; the more I am axed and chopped the more I grow and fortify. I have never claimed infallibity, nor have I portrayed myself as righteous. Like you and everyone else I have my strengths and weaknesses, inferiority complex, I assure you, has never ever been my weakness. Your cheap jibe about my maternal mother is, therefore, below the belt. Contrary to your diatribe about "being raised without knowing that the house servant that raised and breast-fed me is actually my real mother," I would like you to spend some time and find out for yourself that unlike your idol Professor I know who my maternal mother is. Now you have raised it yourself - and not because of superiority complex - my mother is Princess Zuriash-worq Gebre-Egziabher and she happens to be the grand-daughter of Empress Menen Asfaw.
In conclusion, it is this kind of arrogance and intellectual snobberry that has contributed its due share to nudging the leadership of CUDP to dispute the undisputed election result in the first place and to then advise them to boycott the Ethiopian Parliament. It is your kind of snobberry that has blind-folded the Ethiopian Diaspora from seeing the Ethiopian obtaining situation objectively rather than being misled by wishfull thinking.
If you are the sort of man who welcomes constructive critisms, I have a fraternal message to transmit to you with all sincerity. No one doubts that you have the capacity to contribute most positively towards Ethiopia's democratic and economic progress, and this applies to the many in the CUDP camp as well. But to place your bet that you and your likes only possess the panacea for all the ills of Ethiopia is wrong. Wrong and an excercise in hallucination too, is also the belief that without you and your likes at the helm of Ethiopia, the Motherland would wither away.
Therefore, for your own good and no one else's please come down from your ivory tower and show humility. It wouldn't cost you a dime, but it will do you a world of good.
With kind regards
Mulugeta Aserate Kassa
Mar 04, 2006