Ethiopian Reporter - Amharic Version

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22| www.ethiopianreporter.com The Reporter | Saturday |April 30, 2011
The Reporter | Saturday |April 30, 2011 dinaw Mengestu... that it’s an immigrant novel is ridiculous; America has a history of immigration. I think it’s because the novel sort of happens from an African ethnic experience. Do you think this borders on racism? I wouldn’t call it racist, but perhaps unfamiliarity with these histories and these stories, because they are not really part of a national American conversation of what American identity is. The novel is an African experience inside of America. I couldn’t be more American if I tried. I was born in Ethiopia, but I was raised and educated as an American. I write out of the American literary tradition; the writers I have grown up with and the writers I’m aware of when I’m thinking about my own writing are European or American. The characters I’m writing about are Americans, even though they may be immigrants. So for critics to bring in part of my own identity, to say this is part of the novel as well, I find very problematic. The scenes of poverty in Africa are particularly striking in the novel; did you draw them from your own experiences of working as a journalist in Africa? Definitely, the scenes charting the father’s journey from Sudan in these burnt-out villages, that bit was taken from things I had seen out in Darfur, Sudan and Chad, working as a journalist for Rolling Stone. I never expected to find these extra images and these extra memories that wanted to find their way into the novel. The fact that they are so true ethiopian women... ConT`d frontiers as a revenge and still many children are raped every day. There are also household abuses which makes you feel sad. Problems are relative and we the city women have to face treats, live under men’s perception that we are all prostitutes for being independent and acting as we want. I can say there is no freedom at all,” explains Kidist. Born and raised in Addis Ababa she still feels like she is a stranger to the city and sometimes she feels insecure walking on the street and is scared to walk by herself especially since mentally challenged people also pick on women. “This is a feeling where you don’t want to feel, you know the saying when I grew up I can protect myself doesn’t work for women,” she says. She adds “The cafés, the streets, the clubs, workplaces remind you every minute that you are a woman who is subordinate to a man and in a way they tells you there is a hierarchy that should be respected everywhere.” The street incident, taxi comments have become usual ordeals for Helina Teshome 26, an NGO employee but she could not get used to the treatment at the clubs in Addis Ababa, which she describes is full of male ‘chauvinism’. Showing her bruises, she tells what happened to her a couple of days back when a guy who seems drunk asked her to dance with him and she refused. Despite her refusing to dance with him, the guy pushed himself over and kissed her anyway. To which her friend (the guy she came with) got offended and got into a fight which led to her wrist bruising. The young woman explains that what made her mad was his comment: “set ayidelesh” (Aren’t you a woman?) “Oh! Where should I start, you might just ignore the comments of strangers by the road side, but the unwelcome physical contacts and extreme sexual abuses of both people you know and don’t know. It’s so sad,” she was always kind of troubling, because I was taking images from 2006 and placing them in 1977. But whatever the year, it still sort of takes place in the same way. What is the obsession that American writers have about nationhood? America doesn’t have a fixed concept of itself. There is no collective meaning of what it is to be American. Anybody can sort of become American, and that’s the joy of the country. If you compare it with, say, the French or the British, there is an identity of history and culture that has been going on for centuries. America doesn’t have that; it’s much younger and it’s constantly shifting and will continue to shift. That’s part of its greatness, but it’s also part of its great frustration. I think there is an emptiness in that, which writers want to explore. Do you think that immigrants struggle with identity their whole lives, particularly in America? I find people to be terribly lonely all the time. I think we have great relationships—we have our loves—but we don’t have people that we are close to and we don’t have a sense of our history, of our culture, of the particular country we live in. The thing about immigrants is that they can be in a country 30 years, they can have their family, and yet they still feel that there is a part missing from them because they’ve left their own country. (More Intelligent Life -The Economist) says in frustration. ConT`d from page 20 America doesn’t have a fixed concept of itself. There is no collective meaning of what it is to be American. Anybody can sort of become American, and that’s the joy of the country. If you compare it with, say, the French or the British, there is an identity of history and culture that has been going on for centuries. With the coming of many tourists to Addis Ababa the different hotels also have incidents which seems unfavorable to Ethiopian women. The Reporter also witnessed in one of the high-class hotels of Addis Ababa located around Meskel Flower, where the doorman asks for some identification cards when Ethiopian young girls come. The manager of the hotel explains that they ask for ID, to protect their guest from prostitutes. Tigist Kebede, 26, a social worker, also expressed her frustration from similar discrimination in another hotel around Kazanchis, which also asks ID for Ethiopian young girls when they go in. The managers of the hotels did not explain how showing the ID could prevent prostitutes from going in. Apart from the hotels, there are also other clubs which has a rule which are a bit discriminating for young women. Sara Alemayehu tells one of the incidents in another night clubs near Meskel Square. Contrary to the Hotel on Meskel Flower road and Kazanchis, the doormen here did not allow Ethiopian girls because they were neither with guests and nor had the right attire that could disguise them as prostitutes. The girls wearing jeans trousers and T-Shirts were considered in appropriate as it would make them look different from the working girls. The club supervisor explains. They did that to make all girls look like a working girl. According to him, the club has previously been targeted for running prostitution and wants to hide that by making every girl look the same. culture and ict The emergence of e-culture in Ethiopia By BiruK geBremedhin The Cambridge dictionary’s meaning of culture might be that it depicts a certain community’s way of life. However, that meaning differs from people to people as few agree that it is static while others say its dynamism makes more sense. Digital technology has paved a new way to promote people’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development in the 21st century. The fast rise of the information technology age is demanding that the term culture needs to be redefined. In this age, Ethiopia, being composed of diverse nations and nationalities, is showing a high sign of a socio-cultural evolution. Yet, it seems that the culture of Information Technology (IT) is in its infancy. With blossoming number of mobile and computer users in the cities, however, it looks like the culture of using IT is emerging. “The development of culture from the simple to the complex had existed for years, branching new arms for various norms and values,” said Daniel Wondossen, a social anthropologist based in Germany. The Digital Media Alliance (1999) Recommendations for Growth: UK Digital Media states that E-Culture is all about a new digital dimension; an unthinkable medium which exists in all corners of the world. The true relevance of cultural digitalization lies in the way new media and information technology are practically incorporated and utilized in society and culture. “The digitalization of society and culture is an ongoing process with which all artists and cultural organizations will be confronted, whether they want to or not,” states the Digital Media Alliance. to open the door, an Asian person came by and asked, ‘How much?’ For this young girl the words were excruciating to a stage which made her decide not to go to clubs any more. She explains that these were her reasons to set up a platform, a dialogue and V-monologue (a monologue about women, their body and sexuality). To her dismay however, the program was also banned for the issue was too sensitive to talk about in public. A university graduate, who requested anonymity, also explains how it is commonly believed that sexual harassment is considered as an incident of the rural part of the country. As she explains, it is a common occurrence at the institutional level as well. “Where I work, there is an ombudsman who was supposed to ‘take care’ of this kind of cases and also there is a very high level of punishment for those accused of sexual harassment. But the reality is that most, not all, from the male management to drivers feel like it is their right to say inappropriate things and assume that every girl is a prostitute and should be sleeping or going out with any guy who talks to her and actually say all these in front of a female colleagues.” She also goes on explaining how the remaining male colleagues in the office are reluctant to do anything and most of the times females do not cooperate despite them agreeing conventionally how bad it is for a guy to say inappropriate words, insult or assault which is taken as flirting. “In addition to the sexual discrimination, that female educated and qualified employees face Another incident which seems common for the city everyday harassment, which makes a work day girls who like to go out and relax at night, is being much more stressful. All in all, a life of a working confused for a prostitute. As few take it as a joke woman in the city, might not, after all, be, better many find the confusion offending. Tigist shares than that of a village girl,” she concludes. her encounter walking out from one of the clubs and heading to the car. When her friend was trying www.ethiopianreporter.com |23 Being a PhD candidate on culture and development studies, Daniel explains that, “In the first decade of the 21st century, digital domains have given rise to new forms of expression and reflection of cultures.” Despite the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) improving vast areas in everyday life, like enabling institutions to simplify and improve their primary activities, some Ethiopians have not welcomed it with open arms. Mekonnen Demmessa, a retired colonel and a father of two is one of them. “Cultural change is not my cup of tea.” Mr. Mekonnen asks how culture can be shared with people who are not a part of it. To which his daughter Faven, a student of Information Science answers, “Culture might not be practiced by all, but its disseminations onto others are possible,” “Information is knowledge, and knowledge is power,” says Faven. She adds, “The digitization of culture (museums, archives libraries, etc) and the presentation of it in a new format has enabled institutions of knowledge and technology to transform towards cultural development which is crucial for overall development of the country.” In the heritage sector, the digitization of collections of trance generational information can make it more accessible to the public at large. “Information and communication technology can also be used to link local library catalogues to a central web portal,” said Daniel. “The presentation of cultural music, poetry, and other forms of creative expression in cyber space has been instrumental in making cultural tourism and cultural education more appealing to the younger generation,” concluded Daniel. from page 14 “I am sometimes amazed to see how most of the guys think that they have the right to control the air we breathe and we should do so only at their permission. We have the right to live in this world as they do, but it seems like they are under the impression that, that only happens when they allow us,”
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