Tedla Asfaw
Axum Obelisk erected back in Axum, Ethiopia yesterday after seventy years of "exile" in Rome, Italy in front of the office of Food Agricultural Organization (FAO). Tourists who traveled to Italy including many Ethiopians had a chance to see it. However, the young Zeraye Deresse was no ordinary "tourist" who appreciates the obelisk to go back home and sleep.
Zeraye Deresse was angered by seeing the treasure of his beloved country erected on foreign soil and lashed out. We learned this patriot story in school and we heard also different "story" from the TPLF's boss Meles that downgrade the importance of Axum Obelisk for Ethiopia and Ethiopians eigtheen years ago.
Meles said, "What has Axum to do for non-Tigrayans ?" and we heard also from his short speech yesterday on the ceremony of erecting the obelisk in Axum that did not equate the glory of Axumite Kingdom with one ethnic group rather as a history of Ethiopia. However, by not celebrating this holiday as a national historical day for all Ethiopians he did not come clean for his past crime, declaring what Axum Obelisk has to do for non-Tigrayans.
This is Ethiopia's history and we the children of Ethiopia and the whole Africa should be proud of it for coming home. Adults should teach and educate the importance of this monument for their children. Had Zeraye Deresse the power it should not have taken us seventy years to bring it home.
We should also honor Zeraye Deresse by portraying him and his sword in the vicinity of the obelisk to educate future generations that someone paid his dear life to bring it back home.
I have no doubt that the day of the return of the obelisk and its erection after three years of hard work was possible by historians like that of of Richard Pankhurst who loved Ethiopia, the Italian government to come clean for its past crime and the hard work of our engineers and they are all our Zeraye Deresses.
Axum Obelisk erected back in Axum, Ethiopia yesterday after seventy years of "exile" in Rome, Italy in front of the office of Food Agricultural Organization (FAO). Tourists who traveled to Italy including many Ethiopians had a chance to see it. However, the young Zeraye Deresse was no ordinary "tourist" who appreciates the obelisk to go back home and sleep.
Zeraye Deresse was angered by seeing the treasure of his beloved country erected on foreign soil and lashed out. We learned this patriot story in school and we heard also different "story" from the TPLF's boss Meles that downgrade the importance of Axum Obelisk for Ethiopia and Ethiopians eigtheen years ago.
Meles said, "What has Axum to do for non-Tigrayans ?" and we heard also from his short speech yesterday on the ceremony of erecting the obelisk in Axum that did not equate the glory of Axumite Kingdom with one ethnic group rather as a history of Ethiopia. However, by not celebrating this holiday as a national historical day for all Ethiopians he did not come clean for his past crime, declaring what Axum Obelisk has to do for non-Tigrayans.
This is Ethiopia's history and we the children of Ethiopia and the whole Africa should be proud of it for coming home. Adults should teach and educate the importance of this monument for their children. Had Zeraye Deresse the power it should not have taken us seventy years to bring it home.
We should also honor Zeraye Deresse by portraying him and his sword in the vicinity of the obelisk to educate future generations that someone paid his dear life to bring it back home.
I have no doubt that the day of the return of the obelisk and its erection after three years of hard work was possible by historians like that of of Richard Pankhurst who loved Ethiopia, the Italian government to come clean for its past crime and the hard work of our engineers and they are all our Zeraye Deresses.
