We need look no further than the adoption of Latin to write our beautiful Oromifa under the present dispensation in Ethiopia. Armenian scholars, in search of the most complete set of alphabet to write their own language found Hebrew, Arabic, Greek and Latin all wanting. Armenians took to G’eez as their preferred alphabet over a millennium and half ago.
That today, its rightful owners, (Ethiopians who are native speakers of Oromifa), have abandoned G’eez to adopt an inadequate alphabet in the form of Latin, is an object testimony for our national regression.
Latin is deficient to transliterate any of our Ethiopian languages. One cannot discern in Latin alphabet the Oromo words ‘mother’ from ‘rope’, for instance.
Oromifa, like Amharic, Tigringa, Afar, Sidama, Gurage, Harari, Arabic, Hebrew, Berber etc is an Afro-Asian language.
Writing any of our languages in any alphabet other than G’eez is sullying our heritage.
The sense of flagrant assault on one’s sensibilities is difficult to overcome when one witnesses the complete invasion of every aspect of urban Ethiopian lives. It is impossible not to feel ‘occupied’ when road signs and telephone booths are indicated exclusively in Latin alphabet and that in the heart of the Ethiopian capital.
The Amharic language is an object of studied neglect and derision. It served the nation as a lingua franca for nearly a millennium. It was the language of the masses even when the sovereigns were not native Amharic speakers. For example, Iyoas was an Oromo; Tekele Giorgis was an Agaw and Yohannes a Tigrean.
Amharic is overtly maligned and sullied whether in the printed media or in the airwaves. Foreign-owned businesses and offices insult the onlooker by the conspicuous absence of our sacred alphabet. Latin has supplanted G’eez to write their signposts. It seems that injuring Ethiopian sensibilities is a deliberate official pursuit.
Writing in European languages
It is commendable that budding Ethiopian literary figures in Diaspora for once are writing in foreign languages. It is indeed, laudable that the likes of Dinaw Mengistu, M’aaza Mengiste are making their marks at the world stage.
This is an enormous departure from the past. For, not long ago one would cringe at the thought of speaking in a ferenj language. In this context, the tale of a certain Aleqa Amde-Mariam comes to mind.
Aleqa, was a G’eez scholar. He was also an accomplished polyglot who mastered all the major Ethiopian languages including Oromifa, Afar and Somali with marvelled proficiency. It is widely recounted that he once lost his cool when an inquisitive youngster asked him in public if he could also speak Ingliz-af /English.
Amde-Mariam’s purported annoyance stemmed from his belief that the English tongue was ‘primitive’. He opined that it lacked words to distinguish the Almighty (God) from a deity (god). Aleqa, seemingly knew English very well. However, he refused to admit it. On that score , he felt the language of Shakespeare was unworthy of his tongue. To him, it did not have the facility to discern between God and god. Those were the days! Yes, today, success is spelt in the English language.
Our literature, like everything else is in a very sorry state today
This scribe however, has another issue with Ato Solomon. He wishes to challenge the parameters he used to assert the putative failure of Ethiopian literature.
Here are the reasons for emphatically refuting the premises the author reached at, to declare his verdict.
Ato Solomon has glossed over the characteristic features of Ethiopia’s distinct literary tradition, its insularity and its unwitting disregard for the world outside its literary turf, factors that could easily explain why it is at variance with the rest of the world.
Literary success, spelt in European languages
Either the many noted literary figures he alluded to, wrote in European languages or had their works translated into these languages, ostensibly to have a global audience.
Should the onus of translating Ethiopian literature into languages of former slave traders fall on Ethiopians?
The African literary figures the author referred to all hail from former colonies and their works invariably designed to suit Western literary sensibilities. This is not to question the legitimacy of the honours bestowed upon these men and women of literature from the colonised world.
That aside, the writer has also stunned this scribe at how poor Ayaan Hirsi has come to assume a giant literary stance she does not at all deserve.
Kebede Michael was worth more than one Nobel Prize
It is not the dearth of worthy literature that no work in G’eez or Amharic ever made it to the top of the literary league table.
In a fair world, the distinguished Ethiopian poet Kebede Michael and the versatile playwright, novelist poet and anthropologist Tsgaye Gebre Medhin, deserved any literary prize for that matter, not only for the universal themes their poetry and prose advanced but also for using the most refined and accomplished of all alphabets, G’eez/Ethiopic to do so.
Other literary luminaries that are unknown outside Ethiopia that readily come to mind include the contemporary Getachew Haile, who is a prolific writer and G’eez scholar and the late Haddis Alemayehu, the grandest of Ethiopian novelists of yester years.
Enter Ethiopia’s glorious philosophical past –/the realm of Zara Yacob
The 17th century Ethiopian rationalist philosopher Zara Yacob, is likened to the greatest of Europe’s philosophers of that era. His immense contribution to epistemology (theory of knowledge), ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics (the study of reality) and logic is universally acknowledged. That is why non-traditional scholars compare Zara Yacob, the authentic Ethiopian philosopher to Rene Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.
He stands head and shoulder above the rest in another realm – on the issue of gender. For instance, he challenged the superiority of monastic life over marriage, which the Christian Church propounded. He also rejected polygamy because he thought the law of creation orders one man to marry one woman.
His devout student, Wolde Hiwot was no different either. Like the master himself, the disciple also achieved the epitome of his genre through independent thinking bereft of any foreign influences. Wolde Hiwot not only believed in the complete equality of the sexes but also advocated the conjugal right of a woman to achieve orgasm. For the record, women in Europe until not long ago, used to be violently ‘exorcised of evil spirit’ they were supposed to have been possessed with for seeking even the semblance of that right.
How noble is the Nobel Peace prize?
As a student of history, this writer has difficulty reconciling the credentials of some of the recipients of the prize with the conduct of these mortals, some villains some pious.
One was none other than Cordell Hull, the American Secretary of State. This man had sent Italy’s Fascist leader Benito Mussolini a telegram to congratulate him when his army of over 100,000 men invaded Ethiopia to maim, kill and rape. The same League of Nations condoned Italy’s imperial project and maligned Ethiopia, one of its founding members. Italy thus committed the most grisly atrocities against the barely armed Ethiopians. At last, Italy managed to massacre over 750,000 Ethiopians with impunity.
The following were the prophetic words Emperor Haile Sillasie spoke at League of Nations on June 30 1936 when ‘civilized’ European members of the League patently ignored his plea for assistance despite Ethiopia’s membership. They did so contrary to the spirit of the League’s Charter that had clearly stipulated that an attack on a member of the League was an attack on all its members.
‘I Haile Sillasie 1 Emperor of Ethiopia am, here to claim that justice is due to my people. Apart from the kingdom of God, no nation on this earth is higher than any other. If a strong government can destroy a weak people, then the hour has struck for all weak peoples. I appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgement in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment….’’
Yet, it was not the heroic Ethiopian people or their Emperor who qualified for the Nobel Peace Prize. No, it was Hull. While Mussolini breathed his last on the gallows, his cheerleader earned the Nobel Peace Prize for ‘helping found the United Nations’.
Oliver Tambo, the brilliant South African scientist and lawyer was an exile most of his adult life. He led the ANC through thick and thin while Mandela and others in the struggle were languishing in dreary dungeons of Robin Island. He was not good enough for Nobel peace Prize.
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Instead, F.W.de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, an avowed segregationist, seemingly had loftier ideals in the eyes of the Nobel Committee. Astonishingly, he shared the Prize with Nelson Mandela.
Bestowing the highest honour on a man whom people with conscience across the world hold accountable for the death of thousands of black men and women during his apartheid tenure, is nothing but a cruel irony. De Klerk now runs a foundation that promotes ‘good governance’ worldwide.
Has the nearly decade-long incarceration of Prof. Asrat Woldeyes, the world-acclaimed Ethiopian surgeon and educator stirred the conscience of ‘peace mongers’ to nominate him for any award? . True, over a dozen Nobel laureates were spurred on to press for the unconditional release of the ailing surgeon in his 70s whose only crime was his valiant stand in the defence of the motherland. The man who served his nation for nearly half a century with distinction ironically died no better than his gallant forbears did.
As Solomon maintained Birtukan Mideksa would have indeed become ‘a runaway Nobel winner in a breeze’. That is in another world.
Long live the motherland!
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Debru Negash Afrasa, MD, is a physician-pilot as well as a student of history.
