Tedla Asfaw
In early 1980s an Algerian female student I met in Belgium told me what she was told as a student in her native country about Ethiopians. " Ethiopians have been educated in school as the earth is flat" and she questioned me if it is true. I explained to her that on my study before elementary school, Yeneta/teacher indeed told us that earth is flat with no limit.
In 2000 there was a book written by Thomas Friedman titled the earth is flat. However, there is a big difference between Yeneta's and Thomas flat earth. Yeneta's flat earth is beyond human knowledge while Thomas flat earth celebrates human technological development in the last twenty years.
Since 2000 China has been the dominant manufacturing giant while India became the brain power of the world. This flat world however turns into valleys and mountain in the Middle East and Africa. For the last eighteen years Ethiopia under TPLF turns into the valley of disaster.
TPLF is boasting the expansion of education at the same time educated Ethiopians who can make a big difference in educating the next generation have been in exiled in large number. The "educated people" back home let alone compete in the flat world they have not improved the life of their own people and our country is still known as a beggar nation.
The diaspora educated Ethiopians young and old have competed with the Chinese, Indians and others, have a success story to be told. When China and India excel Ethiopia under TPLF is waging an ethnic warfare to tear apart the fabric of our people by ethnic cleansing our only university.
The educators who were chased two decades ago are now educating many scientists in foreign country including some who are now leading us in manufacturing and information technology. As Mao destroyed the educated class in his cultural revolution ours made their own cultural revolution.
The TPLF cultural revolution has also taken a lesson from South Africa's apartheid, bantustaization/kilil and building a valley and wall among people. The fruits of knowledge from the flatness of the earth is under the control of TPLF with the help of the Chinese technology. Internet is filtered and our people are not benefiting at all from the information technology.
TPLF has also the strategy of building the Silicon Valley and Bangalore in its own kilil for future dominance. Large numbers of students sent to foreign country are recruited based on ethnicity. Some can succeed and most however are not ready for competition in many institutions where people are judged by their research not by their political inclinations.
The brain potential of Ethiopians in higher institutions transcends ethnicity. We have first class students and teachers of various ethnic backgrounds if they had a chance to make Ethiopia the next China and India combined. We can not say however the same for our politicians. The diaspora politicians like their counter parts in Ethiopia are miserable and they are living in mountains and valleys.
They never see the earth as flat and always look up or down. Grab power or die fighting for it without thinking horizontally and learn from each other. The masses showed their wisdom in preparing a flat landscape for leaders to take charge. Ethiopian politicians have failed our people for the last four decades.
Year is changing but our politicians never change. Where is the potential of our leaders that we saw in science and technology in the diaspora and how comes we do not have tens or hundreds of politicians who think horizontally to charter our fate together ? Yes indeed the earth has been flattened in the last twenty years except Ethiopian politicians back home and here in diaspora who are still living in the vertical world.
