Lidetu Ayalew: A model Ethiopian Politician

 

By Doctor Teodros Kiros 02-08-21

 

At this time in the politics of bitterness and long-lasting traumas, there is a lone politician, a lode star, who is speaking Truth to Power embodied in courage, clarity and integrity that I have longed for.

 

He is satisfying my hunger, as I am looking for a genuine Ethiopian who is calling a spade a spade.

 

He speaks as an Amhara Ethiopian to the Ethiopian condition and is challenging all those Ethiopians who are either silent bystanders or provincial politicians who refuse to recognize that when any part of Ethiopia, and least of all the historic Tigray hurts, that it us all Ethiopians who hurt, when the existing leader brings in the sovereign non- Ethiopian nation of Eritrea to annihilate Tigreans who are being portrayed as non-Ethiopians. Lidetu rightly argues that this suicidal move will one day embitter Tigreans and that it will be impossible to renew Ethiopia with Tigrai as the core of the Ethiopian nation.  He argues further that Ethiopians must voice their opposition to the intervention of Eritrea before it is too late and Tigreans are permanently alienated from Ethiopia, a nation that their ancestors forged.  Some Tigreans are already contemplating that Tigrai should be an independent nation, given the ongoing mistreatment of Tigreans in their own territories.  Lidetu is keenly aware of this possibility and appealing to the existing regime to mend its ways and come to the negotiating table before it is too late.

 

He is courageously attempting to infuse reason into the battered contemporary Ethiopia, which is being ruled by narrow minded, narcissistic politicians who cannot see beyond their noses, and cannot imagine beyond their darkened eye sights.

 

This brilliant thinker is speaking to us all, and most specifically to Amharas and to all those Ethiopians who are drunk with hate and enveloped by the self-narrowing imaginary of negative ethnicity and hate.

 

We Ethiopians would do well to speak on behalf of the Tigreans who are being starved, raped and being prepared for annihilation, which is another name for genocide.  He speaks to the indiscriminate killing of Tigrean civilians, the raping of underage Tigrean women along with their mothers in the hands of Eritrean soldiers, the closing of banks, the transportation of Tigrean manufacturing industries to Eritrea, the interruption of electric services, so that genocide could be conducted in the occupied Tigrean territories and much much more, that we know nothing about.  He is telling Ethiopians to wake up and speak and march on behalf of their Tigrean Ethiopians and alerting Ethiopians to one day to begin the inevitable but exceedingly difficult period of reconciliation.

 

In the person of Ato Lidetu, we have an Ethiopian who thinks, an Ethiopian who does not reduce 9 Million Tigreans to their leaders whom other power-hungry politicians cannot withstand.

 

He speaks as an Ethiopian on the behalf of his Tigrean brothers and sisters and is setting an example for other Ethiopians to do the same.