Ethiopia, an Embarrassment to Africa

Daily Trust (Abuja)

EDITORIAL
November 28, 2002
Posted to the web November 30, 2002

Idang Alibi
 

Ethiopia is once again grabbing the headlines. And it is doing so not because it has achieved any political, economic or technological feat. That country of the famous Queen of Sheba is being heard of once again because there is hunger in the land.

In fact, Ethiopia usually comes into consciousness for two main reasons: war and hunger. Once again, it has not disappointed. This time around, the country is not at war with itself or with its neighbour, Eritrea. The trouble this time is that Ethiopia needs food for its over 50 million hungry souls.

The country cannot feed itself. As always, it blames its plight on the vagaries of the weather. There have been no rains. Heaven's dew has not fallen on Ethiopian fields. The parched earth is therefore not yielding any richness - an abundance of grain and new wine - to the people of Ethiopia.

Someone out there may accuse me of insensitivity but I want to put it very bluntly that what we are seeing in Ethiopia is a clear case of irresponsible and visionless leadership.

It is known that there is a cycle to the famine in Ethiopia. There is a wise saying that what you know about should not harm you. You ought to adopt a wise measure against a potential affliction that has a cycle.

But it is clear that the leadership in Ethiopia have no regard for this principle. No one knows whether the Coptic Christians who run Ethiopia are familiar with the Biblical account of how Egypt under Joseph and Pharaoh handled the seven good years and the seven lean years (Genesis 41).

Is there no discerning and wise man like Joseph in Ethiopia? Is there no man who has the good sense to reason that in the years of abundance there is need to build cities for food wherein surplus grains are held in reserve for the years of famine?

In the Biblical account of the Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 9) we are told that Her Majesty arrived with a great caravan - with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold and precious stones.

This indicates that Ethiopia is not as barren as its modern rulers want the world to believe. Have the leaders of modern Ethiopia sought to find out the gold mines from which the Queen of Sheba got those large quantities of gold? I ask this question because it was reported that modern Israel has found those gold mines from which King Solomon got much of the gold which he used in building the magnificent temple and that there is still some gold in those pits!

Have Ethiopian leaders investigated to find out the fields from which the spices Her Majesty carried to Jerusalem were cultivated? Even if the passage of time has rendered the Ethiopian fields unproductive, modern Israelis have shown very clearly that with iron will and determination, barren deserts can be turned into productive fields.

The point I am trying to make here is that Ethiopian leaders and people are not thinking hard enough about how to solve their problems. And this is typical of us Africans, especially those of us in the homeland.

We live our lives too casually as if someone else owes us a living. We do not seem to think that there is need for us to sit down and carefully plan our lives. When we neglect to do the things that we ought to do and problems arise therefrom, our first impulse is to shamelessly cry out, with a begging bowl in hand, looking for charity.

Little wonder, people of other races look down on us. God in his infinite wisdom has put some of the most expensive precious stones in our soil. There is hardly any African country in which you cannot find gold, copper, uranium, platinum, diamond, lead, baryte and many others.

People of other continents come here and get as much of our wealth, take them to their industries, refine them and sell them back to us at a thousand times more than they paid for those raw materials.

It is as if the god of this world has blinded us to the bounties which the benevolent God has surrounded us with. The truth of the matter is that no African country has any business being poor. We have all it takes to be rich. The fault of our poverty and underdevelopment lies not in our stars but in ourselves.

We love to fight meaningless wars and consume products that are harmful to our health and intellect. In a land where the majority of the people are poor and malnourished, you will behold magnificent palaces in which the dining tables are weighed down by exotic and expensive foods and fruits.

Our priorities are often misplaced: instead of tilling the land, we prefer to import; instead of building schools, we prefer to buy guns; instead of living soberly, we live riotously; instead of living frugally, we behave like the prodigal son.

When others show contempt for us we wonder why. When they despise us, we accuse them of racism. When they ignore our cry for help we accuse them of being unfeeling and stingy.

This is not a time for woolly compassion. It is not a time for high-minded newspaper editorialists, columnists and commentators to write appealing to the world to come to the aid of Ethiopia.

This is a time that hard and unpleasant truth will help Ethiopia more than appeal to people's sense of generosity. The world will do Ethiopia a greater good if it shows that blessed but unhappy country how it can fish for itself rather than depend on miserable fish offerings for blackmailed hearts.

Why do I appear so hard on Ethiopia? Do I bear that ancient land a patriotic grudge? Yes. As an African, I feel embarrassed each time the likes of Ethiopia portray us as no-thinkers.

I believe that God has not been unkind to us. The trouble with us is that we have refused to think. We have refused to be forward-looking. Ethiopia is a country with a rich history. In times of trouble its leaders ought to go into the archives to find out how people of earlier times did it in order to secure prosperity.

If I sound unsympathetic to the plight of Ethiopia it is because I am very angry with Ethiopian leaders' incompetence. Our leaders, as exemplified by their counterparts in the Horn of Africa, tend to think that they have no serious responsibility to do something dramatic to change the circumstances of the people they lead. They do not seem to know that it is their responsibility to sit down and plan polices, projects and programmes and with great discipline and sacrifice implement them for the good of their people.

We must not cover up this truth in an attempt to appear socially correct. I know that all religions teach about charity or the need to be our brothers' keeper. I am also aware that kindness does not only consist in giving money and food. In some circumstances such as the one we have been discussing, the best gift may be ideas. And this is what I am offering to Ethiopians: wear your thinking cap, think hard and you will find a solution to your perennial hunger. Your plight has become a source of great shame and reproach to the rest of us.

Dear reader, are you sending food, clothes or money to Ethiopia? As for me, my widow's mite is that the Ethiopian ambassador here should send a copy of this column to President Menas Zenawi.