Ethiopian Reporter - Amharic Version

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
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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,”